Covid cases jumped by 31% in a week as virus rockets in UK
The number of people infected with coronavirus in England soared by almost a third last week, new data has revealed.
A total of 568,100 people had Covid-19 in the week up to October 23, a 31 per cent rise on the figure of 433,300 reported in the previous week, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The figures suggest more than one in every hundred people in England are now infected – and may be even higher as they only count private households, not hospitals and care homes.
The ONS said cases have risen in all age groups over the past two weeks, although older teenagers and young adults still have the highest rates.
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Infection rates also ‘appear to be steeply increasing among secondary school children’, they added.
The North West and Yorkshire and the Humber remain England’s main hotspots. Rates in the North East, while still high, have now levelled off.
Around 51,900 new cases were being recorded every day from October 17 to 23, the ONS added, another increase on the previous week.
Meanwhile, the proportion of people testing positive was found to have increased in both Wales and Northern Ireland, although it remained lower in each.
Some 26,100 people in Wales had Covid-19, or one in 120 people, while 24,300 people in Northern Ireland were infected, equivalent to one in 80 people.
ONS polling found that people under local restrictions in England were socialising less indoors, although the opposite was true in Scotland and Wales.
It also suggested the three-tier system was not having its intended effect on work patterns, with fewer people in tier 3 areas working from home than in tier 2 areas (42 per cent versus 46 per cent).
Those figures were only slightly higher than the proportion of people working from home in tier 1 areas, which stood at 37 per cent.
Around one-tenth of people in England are believed to be under tier 3 restrictions, with almost four in 10 under second-tier rules and half under first-tier measures.
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