On April 28, 2021, a doctor monitored a Covid-19 patient in the Covid-19 intensive care unit of the Citizens’ Hospital in Germany.
RONNY HARTMANN | AFP | Getty Images
LONDON – The UK has the unenviable title of having one of the worst Covid-19 rates in the world, with cases skyrocketing in recent months.
But his fate seems to be changing.
Less than a month ago, the UK was seeing between 40,000 and 50,000 new cases a day, prompting serious warnings from experts and officials about mounting pressure on hospitals and excessive deaths.
On October 20, UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid warned that Covid cases could rise to 100,000 a day over the winter, and doctors said the National Health Service was headed for a crisis that left staff exhausted and overwhelmed .
What potentially made matters much worse, public health experts warned they are monitoring a mutation in the already highly infectious Delta variant that could make Covid even more virulent.
However, the latest data from the UK shows that the country may be recovering from its recent wave of cases. Experts say the UK just saw the biggest weekly drop in new Covid cases in 2021.
Biggest weekly drop this year
Government data shows that while the UK’s Covid case rate remains high – and worryingly high for many people – the data appears to be improving.
On Wednesday, the UK recorded 39,329 new Covid cases and in the past seven days a total of just over 237,000 Covid cases have been reported. While it’s a large number, the latter seven-day number is a nearly 15% decrease from the previous seven-day period from October 28th to November 3rd.
According to average incidence numbers from the ZOE COVID study, which collects and analyzes Covid test data in the UK, there are currently 72,546 new symptomatic Covid cases daily.
That’s an 18% decrease from 88,592 new daily cases in the last week, the study said, adding that cases have decreased sharply in most age groups.
“The number of new cases every day continues to show a sharp drop in cases among 0-18 year olds, who are the driving group for both the initial increase and the recent decrease in the total number of cases. The number of cases in the age group of 35 up to 55 year olds has risen, but the number of cases has started.
The lead scientist of the ZOE-COVID study, Professor Tim Spector, said the data is positive but needs to be watched. He also urged eligible citizens to take up the offer of booster vaccinations, which experts believe will also help reduce the number of cases in the UK.
“This drop in cases is the largest weekly drop we’ve seen all year and is being driven by a sustained drop in child cases over the past two weeks. However, cases are still high and, worryingly, we are still seeing “high death rates as Covid takes up to 8% of hospital beds,” he said on Thursday.
Spector said that as we move into the colder months, “we see a lot of illnesses in the population with widespread cold outbreaks and still high levels of Covid” and that it is difficult to tell the difference between the two as both of them have similar symptoms (cases in vaccinated people are usually milder and include symptoms such as sneezing, headache, and a runny nose similar to a cold).
Europe’s bright spot?
For much of the pandemic, the UK was a dark spot in the European pandemic and has the eighth highest death toll from Covid in the world, having recorded 142,533 deaths to date, government data shows.
The UK has also had over 9.4 million Covid cases to date, having carried the brunt of two strong waves of the pandemic on the backs of the Alpha and Delta variants.
The bold approval and launch of Covid vaccines in the UK met with applause (it was one of the first countries in the world to introduce vaccines in December 2020), but its vaccination campaign slowed this summer and has lagged behind a number of its neighbors Continent. To date, 79.8% of the UK population over 12 is fully vaccinated.
In the neighboring Netherlands, a pandemic advisory body recommended the first partial lockdown in Western Europe since the summer, putting pressure on the Dutch government to take measures to contain the rising Covid cases. The government under Acting Prime Minister Mark Rutte is expected to decide on Friday which measures should be implemented.
Read more: WHO warns that Europe is again at the epicenter of the Covid pandemic
In the warmer climes of Italy and Spain, cases are also starting to rise, but at a lower level, with officials in both countries keen to stave off another wave of infections as winter approaches.
