As data shows that infection rates are rising more than in January, the Delta Covid variant is now dominant in over 200 areas of England - up from just 102 the week before. This Covid variant was dominant in 201 local authorities across England, which was equivalent to two-thirds of the country, and the cases were spotted over the two weeks to May 29. This double mutant strain was also spotted in more than 80 per cent of England, after reaching 272 of 317 council areas.
Figures released by the Leicester city council showed Clarendon Park had the highest seven-day incidence rate of coronavirus at 203.5 cases per 100,000 people in the week up to June 1. This was five times higher than the UK national average on that day which was 38.8 cases per 100,000 people.
The number of people infected with coronavirus in the UK has risen by as much as two-thirds, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
It estimates that around 100,000 people tested positive in the week to 29 May, or one in 660 people - up from 60,000 the previous week. A further 6,278 confirmed cases in the UK were announced by the government in official figures last Friday, with 954 people in hospital with Covid and 11 deaths recorded.
The latest Public Health England figures show Covid outbreaks in schools surged 78 per cent week-on-week in the final week of term, with 91 reported between 24 and 30 May.
Deepti Gurdasani, a senior lecturer in epidemiology at the Queen Mary University of London, said the PHE data painted a “grim picture”. She said on Twitter schools seemed to be a “key area of spread” for the Delta variant and noted a higher risk of transmission and hospitalisation.
Meanwhile, a story published in Leicester Mercury stated that health bosses have been accused of keeping the public in the dark about £450 million plans to transform Leicester’s hospitals. “Radical overhauls of health services are being planned at Leicester Royal Infirmary and Glenfield and General Hospitals but campaigners and politicians say NHS officials have not been open and transparent about the changes after carrying out a two-month public consultation held at the end of last year,” it read.
The Guardian reported, “Work from Public Health England (PHE) suggests that after a single dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccines, there was a 17 percentage point reduction in effectiveness against the Delta variant compared with the Alpha one – though only a modest reduction after two doses.” In the meantime, concern over the Delta variant means the decision on ending restrictions on 21 June hangs in balance. Surge testing in Reading and Wokingham has been stepped up. More than 370,000 Covid survivors still have symptoms more than a year after they first became infected, the ONS said. The research also found a number of long Covid clinics around the country were still not up and running months after they were promised by the government.
GPs in one of the UK’s Covid hotspots are offering all adults their second dose of Covid vaccination four weeks after their first, in a rush to administer vaccines within their shelf life. Some GPs in Bolton have been sent so many doses of the Pfizer vaccine that they are offering second jabs a month earlier than government rules allow, concerned that otherwise they may be wasted. Blackburn, which has an infection rate of 439 cases per 100,000 people, 13 times the UK average, asked for thousands of more doses in order to continue surge vaccination for all adults for another fortnight but was knocked back this week.
In other major Covid related news, an NHS trust has become the first in the country to individually contact every family of patients who caught coronavirus while they were in hospital in a large-scale bid to be transparent over the scale of infections. Bosses at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn NHS Trust have set up a team to work through hundreds of cases where patients caught coronavirus in the hospital.
