Coronavirus: There are signs COVID-19 epidemic is slowing but it's too early to be confident
Analysis by Public Health England suggests in every region COVID-19 rates are levelling off or, in some areas, starting to fall.
Thursday 22 October 2020 19:25, UK
There are early signs the measures to control the coronavirus may be starting to slow the epidemic.
The latest analysis by Public Health England (PHE) suggests that in every region COVID-19 rates are levelling off or, in the case of the North East and East Midlands, are even beginning to fall.
Cases remain highest in the 10 to 19 and 20 to 29 age groups, but these have started to level-off too, according to the report.
Among 20 to 29-year-olds, the rate was 274.3 cases per 100,000 people in the week to 18 October, down from 300.9 in the previous week.
The rate among 10 to 19-year-olds was 207.7 per 100,000, down from 294.4.
Although there is an important health warning with the PHE figures. They just count the people who developed symptoms and came forward for testing.
In a news conference on Thursday, chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said there were some positive signs.
He said the growth of the virus "wasn't what it was" in some areas and that the R number (the rate at which the virus replicates) was "half its natural rate", which he says shows masks and handwashing is working.
He said coronavirus hospitalisations are increasing in London - which is under Tier 2 measures - but at a lower than expected rate.
In the week that millions of people in the North have been placed under the tight restrictions of Tier 3, this will be welcome.
It gives some hope that the controls that have been progressively imposed since mid-September are working.
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Pub curfews, recommendations to work from home, and finally the three-tiered system of measures all followed. Each measure will have played a part in reducing social contacts and the spread of the virus.
By Saturday 25 October, 7.3 million people in the UK will be living in Tier 3 areas.
The Liverpool City Region, Lancashire, including Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen, Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire, including Sheffield and Doncaster, have all been placed under the toughest restrictions of Tier 3.
Rates in young people, who got the second wave going at the start of September, are also beginning to fall.
That may in part be because so many university students have been isolating after the explosion of cases at the start of term. Holed up in their halls of residence, the virus would have simply burned itself out.
But rates in older age groups are still increasing, which will be a concern to the NHS because they are more likely to need hospital treatment.
According to the PHE report, the rate for the 70-79 age group was 77.9, up from 64.8, while for people aged 80 and over it was 114.4, up from 88.7.
Mr Vallance said new coronavirus infections are still very high, somewhere between 50,000 and 93,000 infections every day, with this figure set to rise further.
He warned some coronavirus measures will be needed for some time to come.
"The numbers speak for themselves. They are increasing and they are not going to decrease quickly," he told a No 10 news conference.
"I think it is likely that some measures of restriction are going to need to be in place for a while to try and get those numbers down.
"The quicker you get the R below one, the quicker the numbers come down and things then give a bit of room. A lot depends now on what happens now over the next few weeks.
"At the moment, the numbers are heading in the wrong direction but there are some signs in some places of a potential flattening off of that.
"We need to wait and see and monitor the numbers very carefully."
It seems, despite some positive signs, it's far too early to say that with any confidence if the second wave is on the wane.