Britain’s coronavirus R rate has dropped for the third time in a month and may now be as low as one, which would mean the outbreak has stopped growing, SAGE said today.
The Government scientists acknowledged this afternoon that ‘there is some evidence that the rate of growth in some parts of the country may be slowing’ but warned there are still huge numbers of infections in some areas.
It put the possible range of R – the number of people who catch coronavirus from each infected person – between 1.0 and 1.2, down from 1.1 to 1.3 last week. It is slightly higher in England at 1.1 to 1.2.
Today’s update came as a weekly report from the Office for National Statistics found that England’s outbreak had stayed relatively flat in the first week of November, with only a four per cent rise in daily infections.
The ONS estimates that 47,700 people caught the virus each day in the week ending November, up from the 45,700 per day estimated during half term the week before. Although it rose, experts at the ONS said in the report: ‘The incidence rate has increased in recent weeks, and remains at about 50,000 new cases per day.’
The daily infections figure breached the 50,000 mark for the first time in the week ending October 23 and have hovered at a similar level ever since then, suggesting that the outbreak has levelled off in England and Wales.
Because of the sustained level of transmission the total number of people infected at any one time – now thought to be 654,000 up from 618,700 a week earlier – has continued to increase.
But, the ONS added ‘the rate of increase is slower than previous weeks’. Today’s update adds to a raft of statistics showing that the outbreak in England had already started to come under control before the second lockdown began.
The Government-commissioned REACT-1 mass testing study yesterday published its most recent results for November and admitted the outbreak had not grown as fast as expected and there was ‘maybe a plateau’, but it claimed there were still 100,000 people getting infected each day.
Scientists on the Covid Symptom Study yesterday estimated the R rate for the entire UK to be at an average of 0.9, meaning every 10 people with coronavirus now only infect nine others and the outbreak is gradually shrinking.
And NHS data shows that the number of people in hospital in Liverpool – one of the worst hit parts of the country for much of the second wave – fell 15 per cent in the week leading up to the second lockdown.
SAGE’s official estimate of the R rate has declined this week and could now be as low at 1.0 for a whole and down to 0.9 in the North West of England. It remains higher than one in all other regions and England, however
SAGE, which is led by the UK’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, said today: ‘SAGE is confident that the epidemic has continued to grow in England over recent weeks.
‘Although there is some evidence that the rate of growth in some parts of the country may be slowing, levels of disease are very high in these areas; significant levels of healthcare demand and mortality will persist until R is reduced to and remains well below 1 for an extended period of time.’
SAGE said the R rate is highest in the South West, where it is likely between 1.2 and 1.4 and in the East, at between 1.1 and 1.4. And it is lowest in the North West at between 0.9 and 1.1 and in London and the North East and Yorkshire, at between 1.0 and 1.2.
The’s ONS report showed that approximately 1.2 per cent of the population in England had coronavirus during the week that ended November 6, equating to one in every 85 people.
This was a jump from the 1.13 per cent that was recorded in the last week of October, which was half term for large parts of England.
North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber remain the regions with the highest infection rate, with 2.2 per cent of the population there carrying the coronavirus – one in every 45 people.
This was followed by 1.5 per cent in the North East, 1.4 per cent in the East Midlands and 1.3 per cent in the West Midlands.
London and the South West (0.8 per cent), the South East (0.7 per cent) and East of England (0.5 per cent) all had rates lower than the national average.
Tougher restrictions in the North, however, mean infection rates actually appeared to be levelling off there while they were still rising in the less badly affected South, the ONS acknowledged.
Professor James Naismith, a biologist at the University of Oxford, commented on the raft of data published this week that seemed to suggest a plateau in England’s outbreak.
He said: ‘Taken together, we can conclude that the local lockdowns have slowed the spread to around 50,000 new cases per day at the start of this week.
‘[But] stabilisation is not deliverance, 50,000 cases per day will result in hundreds of deaths every day. These deaths will be heart-breaking.’
He did not, however, think the evidence was strong enough at the time to argue against the second national lockdown, and added: ‘Asserting the local lockdowns were clearly working well enough two weeks ago is also not grounded in data.
‘Two weeks ago there was evidence that the virus was still growing quite rapidly. There was some evidence which suggested the growth was slowing, perhaps in some high incidence areas declining. There was no evidence at the national level it was falling.’
When modelling the level of infection among different age groups, the ONS said secondary school children, older teenagers and young adults continue to have the highest rates of infection.
But rates are now decreasing in older teenagers and young adults, and appear to have levelled off among younger children, teenagers and those aged 25 to 34 years, it added.
Positivity rates continue to increase in people aged 35 years and over, and are now above 1 per cent among those aged 35 to 49 and 50 to 69 years, the ONS said.
These older age groups are the ones of greatest concern because over-40s are the ones most likely to get symptoms of Covid-19, to end up in hospital or, in some cases, to die.
Data from SAGE and the ONS come after the Government-run REACT study yesterday said it had seen that the growth of England’s outbreak had started to slow and even plateau at the end of October.
The REACT-1 project — which has been swabbing tens of thousands of people every week — found there had been a significant ‘slowdown’ in daily infections heading into November.
Imperial College London experts behind the research said the drop was observed ‘right across the country, both North and South, and was not being driven by any one region’ — suggesting the three-tiered system of curbs was just starting to take effect before ministers caved and hit the lockdown panic button.
However, the scientists estimated the virus was still infecting 100,000 people every day in England before lockdown and that a million people are carrying the disease at any given time.
They said the second economically-crippling shutdown was justified because transmission was still too high.
Professor Steve Riley and Professor Paul Elliott, the study leaders from Imperial, said that they had actually been expecting the level of infection to be much higher because of the rate of increase at the start of the month.
They suggested that the three-tier lockdown system may have been starting to kick in towards the end of October, and that worse weather and the half term break may have cut down how much people were going out to socialise.
Prevalence of infection in the second half of October and start of November was 1.3 per cent, meaning 130 people per 10,000 were infected, up from 60 people per 10,000 in the previous three week period.
Regional prevalence of infection was highest in the North West (2.4 per cent, up from 1.2 per cent), Yorkshire and The Humber (2.3 per cent up from 0.84 per cent) and lowest in South East (0.69 per cent up from 0.29 per cent) and East of England (0.69 per cent up from 0.30 per cent).
Although infection rates remain high, Professor Riley, an infectious disease expert at Imperial College, said the change in levels of infection in early November ‘could be interpreted as a plateau or a gradual decline’.
He and colleague Professor Paul Elliott, an epidemiologist, said it had been difficult to work out why cases appeared to fall and then rise again shortly before the national lockdown.
Half term or colder, wetter weather may have stopped people socialising as much and brought infections down, they said, while speculation about a major lockdown may later have caused people to throw caution to the wind and go out more around Halloween which then triggered a spike.
But they agreed that the rapid rate of increase they saw in the beginning and middle of October did not continue into November, when the most recent round of tests – Round 6 – ended.
Figures out of their interim report on October 29 sent the country spinning when it revealed some 96,000 people were thought to be catching Covid-19 every day and 1.3 per cent of the population was infected.
The figures were a surge from an estimated 0.6 per cent infection level in Round 5 in September, showing that the second wave had exploded. But the rate at which it was worsening tailed off in the most recent data.
Professor Riley said in a briefing today: ‘I think we can say that the level we reached at the end of Round 6 is lower than we would have expected if the trend at the start of Round 6 had continued.
‘If you average out the data it’s more of a plateau than we would have had.’
Professor Elliott added: ‘The prevalence [of coronavirus] is a little bit higher but not as high as it would have been had that very fast rise that we reported in our last interim report continued.
‘The report last week from the ONS also talked about, maybe, a plateau… Also if you look at the symptomatic reporting from pillar 1 and pillar 2 there hasn’t been that same increase. I think it’s still going up but it’s not going up at the same rate.’
The two agreed that the fact more areas were forced into Tier Three lockdowns in mid-October may have arrested the growth of the outbreak.
Professor Riley said: ‘It could certainly contribute to the downturn.’
But they stood by their calls for a second national lockdown, saying that 100,000 daily cases was still too high.