We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.
COVID has continued to spread across the UK, prompting the UK government to launch a nationwide lockdown in a bid to slow the spread of the virus. Just before the start of the lockdown, the virus had infected around 130 people per every 10,000 in England, according to a latest study.
The findings, which came from the REACT study, suggested that 1.3 percent of all people in England were infected with the virus between October 16 and November 2.
The previous two-week period found that 60 people per every 10,000 were infected with coronavirus.
The REACT study has been commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care, and is carried out by scientists and experts at Imperial College London and Ipsos MORI.
It uses volunteers from across England to assess the prevalence of the coronavirus in the community.
The scientists have now revealed that the prevalence of COVID-19 sharply rose during the following fortnight across all age groups.
More than 160,000 volunteers took part in the REACT study, in what is one of the UK’s largest COVID-19 research packages.
The North West had the highest prevalence of infection, with 2.4 percent of all volunteers testing positive for coronavirus.
Yorkshire and Humber had the largest leap of prevalence as it reported 2.3 percent, up from 0.84 percent two weeks previously.
DON’T MISS
UK coronavirus death toll surpasses 50,000 as second wave rages [STATS]
Coronavirus cases MAPPED: Covid hotspots – Is your area affected? [MAP]
Even with vaccine breakthrough UK will be ‘tackling’ COVID for 2 years [QUOTES]
Since the last REACT findings, the virus has been doubling roughly every 24 days, the scientists revealed.
The findings will provide a good baseline to see how well the nationwide lockdown has worked to quell the virus.
The scientists will now use the results as a baseline for monitoring the spread of COVID-19 during the lockdown.
“Our latest round of REACT testing offers robust data on England’s coronavirus situation up until just three days before the country entered its second nation-wide lockdown,” said the director of the program at Imperial, Professor Paul Elliott.
“We’ve shown that the prevalence of infection has remained high, reinforcing the need for people to act to help bring infections down and control the virus.
“These important data will be a critical baseline from which to determine if the new measures are effective at curbing the growth of the epidemic.”
More to follow…
Source: Read Full Article