Covid infections soared by two-thirds in England last week with 211,100 new cases

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England’s Covid outbreak soared by two-thirds last week, but there were ten times fewer patients in hospital than the last time infections spiralled to this level.

Office for National Statistics random swabbing of a tenth of a million people predicted there were now 211,100 cases in the country, up 72 per cent on the previous week and the highest number since late February.

But statistics showed there are now far fewer patients in hospital in a sure sign vaccines are working. There were 11,400 Covid patients on wards the last time England hit 200,000 cases, compared to 1,300 last week.

No10’s top scientists estimated the R rate dropped slightly to between 1.1 and 1.3 this week. The figure — which measures the spread of the virus — is usually a couple of weeks out of date.

Oxford University’s Professor James Naismith said it was thanks to vaccines that surging cases were not fuelling a spike in deaths, adding the UK’s ‘point of maximum danger has probably passed’.

The director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute said: ‘The Prime Minister’s decision to delay unlocking for a month has been validated; more people have been vaccinated and Delta (Indian variant) has been slowed.’

The disparity between rising infection numbers and flatlining deaths and hospitalisations bolstered Boris Johnson‘s comment yesterday that the inoculation drive has ‘broken the link’.

The Prime Minister is doubling down on his re-scheduled lockdown lifting date July 19, amid a growing sense of optimism from No10 that vaccines have beaten the virus.

It comes after at top scientist said yesterday Covid is now just a ‘bad cold’ among people who have got the vaccine. Professor Tim Spector added cases were likely to continue to rise because of Euro 2020 and a boom in staycations. 

The Office for National Statistics study asked more than 100,000 Britons to take a PCR test and post it to a laboratory, to find out whether they had the virus.

It is considered to be the gold-standard for Covid surveillance by ministers because the tests are carried out randomly, meaning it can reach those who are less likely to get swabbed for the virus and pick up asymptomatic cases — which trigger no warning signs — thought to represent about a third of cases.

But the study does not provide figures on hospitalisations, which show whether the NHS is at risk of being overwhelmed as it tackles through a record-breaking backlog of patients. 

Across England, Covid infections were highest among 17 to 24-year-olds after their positivity rate — the proportion of tests carried out in this age group that detect the virus — rose to 1.73 per cent.

They were followed by 12 to 16-year-olds (0.83 per cent positivity rate), and those aged 2 to 11-years-old (0.7 per cent) and 25 to 34-years-old (0.65 per cent). The lowest Covid rates were among over-70s (0.1 per cent).

The North West — the first area to suffer an outbreak of the Indian variant — was still the country’s hotspot, with a positivity rate at 0.88 per cent, followed by the North East (0.66 per cent) and Yorkshire and the Humber (0.43 per cent).

The South East had England’s lowest positivity rate (0.13 per cent), followed by the South West (0.19 per cent) and the West Midlands and East of England (0.22 per cent).

Professor Naismith heralded the success of the vaccines roll-out for stopping people from developing serious disease and being hospitalised or dying, but he said the surge in cases was ‘unsettling’.  

‘Without vaccines, even these numbers and this trajectory would spell disaster.  

‘The delta variant is still growing despite track and trace, despite testing, despite restriction and despite masking. The Government commitment to release restrictions on July 19, means the rate of growth of infections will accelerate. 

‘It seems now unavoidable that delta will sweep through the unvaccinated (mainly young). Although young people are at much less risk, it’s not zero. A wave on the scale of what now seems likely will result in lives being blighted.’

He warned that Britons who catch the virus face the risk of suffering ‘long Covid’, where they struggle against debilitating symptoms including fatigue and muscle pains for weeks after their body has fought off Covid.

‘Although (if) we focus on the UK our point of maximum danger has probably passed, I remain very concerned about the harm for younger people,’ he said.

‘I would urge all those who are not fully vaccinated, to get doubly vaccinated as soon as they can, especially those who are in the most vulnerable groups.

‘For those who have had very weak immune responses to the vaccine; I would suggest they shield themselves if possible even more carefully than before. If you are interacting with the vulnerable, then your wearing of a mask will protect them to some level. Unless you are lucky or extremely careful we are all going to be exposed to delta.’

More than 44.8million Britons — 85.2 per cent of adults — have received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine and 33million — or 62.7 per cent — have got both doses.

Britain has so far dished out more than 45million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and 29million Pfizer jabs.

PHE estimates based on real-world data released yesterday found two doses of the AstraZeneca jab were more than 92 per cent effective at blocking severe illness from the Indian variant among over-65s. For the Pfizer jab, it was 98 per cent. 

Amid the successful roll-out, the Prime Minister is doubling-down on his July 19 Freedom Day as hospitalisations and deaths remain flat while cases rise.

Speaking while visiting a Nissan car factory in Sunderland yesterday, Mr Johnson said: ‘It looks ever clearer that we have broken, the vaccination programme, the speed of that vaccine rollout, has broken that link between infection and mortality and that is an amazing thing.

‘That gives us the scope we think on the 19th to go ahead, cautiously, irreversibly, to go ahead.’ 

It comes after a SAGE scientist admitted the Covid modelling that spooked No10 into delaying ‘Freedom Day’ last month was wrong and underestimated the power of vaccines.

Dr Mike Tildesley was behind one of the more optimistic models which predicted there could be 72,000 deaths from the virus before next winter due to the rapidly rising Indian variant.

But the Warwick University expert has now confessed Britain is ‘in a much better situation than we thought’ when the models were published last month.

Asked whether the original terminus date on June 21 could have gone ahead safely, he said: ‘In hindsight, possibly.’

The Government and its scientists have come under criticism about the modes, some of which forecast up to 200,000 deaths in a worst-case scenario, because they used out of date data on the vaccines.

The forecasts were based on the assumption that the AstraZeneca vaccine only cut the risk of hospitalisation from the Indian ‘Delta’ variant by a maximum of 77 per cent, and Pfizer‘s by 84 per cent. 

The calculations were published on Monday, June 14, and it later emerged that Public Health England was sitting on real-world data showing they were much more effective than that from at least Friday, June 11.  

Warwick scientists also predicted there would be 500 to 600 hospitalisations a day now because of the Indian variant. But the country is in fact seeing around 250.   

Dr Tildesley, who is a member of the Government’s SPI-M (Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling), admitted in an interview with Unherd: ‘We’re in a position that the vaccine efficacy is a lot more effective, but this is the caveat here, the delay also enabled us to vaccinate a lot more people with a slightly higher level of restrictions in place.

‘These models are only as good as the data that goes in.

‘I work as an infectious disease modeller and I’ve always said that models should only form part of the decision-making process — you need health experts, economists, social scientists and a huge range of expertise.’

Imperial College London said there could be 203,824 deaths by next summer in a ‘worst case’ scenario, falling to 26,854 in a ‘best case’. Warwick’s said their estimate of 72,400 fatalities could fall to 17,100. And scientists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine warned there could be 33,200 deaths in an optimistic scenario.

Dr Tildesley said it now looked as though a ‘shallow’ third wave was more likely because of the successful roll-out, and called on ministers to stick to July 19 easings.

‘It is very much not going to be the situation we saw in October or January because of the fantastic progress with the vaccines,’ he said.

‘I’m cautiously optimistic given where we are. If you look at cases, they are going up in a really concerning way — however, we haven’t yet seen that translate into a significant rise in hospital admissions and deaths.

‘I am pretty hopeful that July 19 should proceed as planned and we won’t see a big rise in hospitalisations beyond that. We may see something of a rise. I think there will be a wave, but nothing like the same scale we saw in January.’