Covid - 19 Case Rises Again In UK

According to report, a total of 1,228 beds were occupied by people with Covid-19 as of October 5, a rise of 23 per cent in a week.

ONS deputy director of the Covid-19 infection survey Sarah Crofts,, said infections were rising in England but the picture was “uncertain” in the rest of the UK.

The number of Covid cases has jumped by 18 per cent in a single week to reach the highest level since mid-August, according to new figures.

Around 1.3 million people in private households across the UK are likely to have tested positive for the virus in the week to September 26, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This is up from 1.1 million in the previous week and marks the highest total since the seven days up to August 16, at the peak of the wave caused by the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants of the virus.

“Amongst the over-70s there has been a marked increase in infections in England this week, a trend which we will closely monitor as the winter months progress,” she added.

In England, the number of people testing positive for Covid in the latest survey was 1.1 million, or around one in 50 – up from 857,400, or one in 65, in the previous week.

Prof Mark Woolhouse, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, said of the figures: “These figures are not yet alarming but they are concerning. This is the third year in a row that we have seen a rise in cases during the autumn.

“There is a tendency to attribute this to the start of the school year, but schools have never been the main drivers of the epidemic and school-aged children currently have neither the highest nor fastest rising prevalence of infection. More likely, the driver is the end of the summer and a general return to more indoor activities across all age groups, coupled with a waning of vaccine immunity.”

Elsewhere, separate figures from NHS England showed the number of beds occupied by Covid-19 patients in London’s hospitals has risen to its highest figure in six weeks.