Coronavirus infections have jumped by almost 30 per cent in the UK, but vaccines continue to limit the impact of the Delta variant, according to official government figures.
The Office of National Statistics’s infection survey estimated 153,200 people on positive tests for coronavirus in the UK in the week to June 19, an increase of 29 per cent in the previous week. In the previous seven days, the increase in weekly infections was only 7 percent, according to ONS.
But vaccines are still being supported against severe illness and the need for hospital treatment from the Delta version. Of the 1,320 people admitted to the Delta variant hospital by June 21, 1,108 – more than four-fifths – were unvaccinated or received only one dose, England’s public health announced on Friday.
Among those under the age of 50, who accounted for about 90 percent of Delta’s 92,000 cases, no fully vaccinated people died. Of the 109 people over the age of 50 who died after being infected with the Delta variant, just under half were stabbed twice, but this was due to high vaccine coverage of that age group, which distorted the data rather than the escape of the vaccine.
Devi Sridhar, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh and a member of the Scottish government’s Covid-19 advisory group, told the Financial Times that “everyone is holding their breath” to see if a wave of infection in younger people will leak through into older groups. “Optimistic”.
In Scotland, infection rates are higher than in any other part of the UK, because one in 220 people is infected, according to ONS. “Schools are closed here and we no longer have euros, which could stop the growth of cases,” Sridhar said. In recent days, about two-thirds of cases between people between the ages of 15 and 44 have been men, and experts blame the celebrations around the football tournament.
“Now the game is on hold to see what things look like after we double-hitting more older people and giving young adults the first dose,” Sridhar added.
In England, the virus reproduction rate, or R value, which lags behind the case data by about two weeks, remained stagnant for the second week in a row, between 1.2 and 1.4, meaning that every 10 infected people are likely to infect between 12 and more 14.
Kevin Fenton, London’s regional director of public health in England, said anxiety over the spread of the Delta variant had helped vaccinate among young people in the capital. “I was thrilled by the enthusiasm we see in young people, and the knowledge that there is a more portable variant certainly adds to that,” he said.
Fenton added that London was in a “final big effort” before July 19, planned by the government to stop the remaining restrictions, in order to increase the entrance to the city, which lagged behind the rest of the country. In London, about 1.8 million first doses and 1.2 million second doses will need to be administered to meet the government’s target of fully vaccinating two-thirds of adults and offering the first dose to anyone over the age of 18 by July 19th.
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