Coronavirus infecting 61,000 people per week in England, data show
About 137,000 individuals in England estimated to have been infected with Covid-19 between 4 and 17 May
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Your support makes all the difference.An average of 61,000 people in England are being infected with Covid-19 per week, new data suggest.
The results of a household survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in partnership with a number of universities and health bodies, indicate that the rate of transmission is “relatively stable” across the country.
Since 26 April, the incidence rate per week has been calculated at 0.11 new cases per 100 people. The ONS added that the coronavirus could be infecting as many as 111,000 individuals every seven days, or as low as 29,000.
Swab tests collected between 4-17 May from a sample of England’s “community population”, which excludes hospitals and care homes, showed that only 35 people out of 14,599 tested positive for Covid-19.
This equates to approximately 137,000 individuals nationwide, with a possible range of 85,000 to 208,000, and marks a drop from the 148,000 people who were infected with the virus between 27 April and 10 May.
The ONS noted that this change is “relatively small and it should be interpreted that the number of people in England that have Covid-19 is relatively stable”.
Its survey also revealed that there was no evidence of an increased level of infection in men compared with women, based on the proportion testing positive for the coronavirus.
Some 0.26 per cent of women and 0.21 per cent of men are estimated to have tested positive between May 4-17.
In addition to this, the research concluded that there was no evidence of increased infection from the coronavirus among frontline NHS and care staff compared with those not working in such roles between May 4-17.
An estimated 0.24 per cent of people working in patient or resident-facing roles in health and social care tested positive for the coronavirus during this period.
These include people such as NHS professionals, nurses, doctors, and social care, nursing home and home-care workers.
The estimated percentage of people who said they did not work in these types of roles and who tested positive for Covid-19 was also 0.24 per cent.
Because the ranges that the ONS believes the true percentage falls in for both categories are large and overlap, it said there is “no evidence of a difference between patient-facing healthcare or resident-facing social care roles and people not working in these roles”.
As of 17 May, 6,862 individuals who tested negative initially have had one or more follow-up tests, with a week between these on average.
The survey is being produced by the ONS, the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, Public Health England and the Wellcome Trust.
The ONS is also running a bigger, long-term study to track the spread of Covid-19 in the general population.
The wider study, which will include up to 300,000 people, includes antibody testing to help understand how many people have had Covid-19 in the past.
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