Britain's daily coronavirus cases have fallen for a fourth day in a row with a 41 per cent drop on last week, fuelling growing hopes of a sustained fall.
A total of 31,795 new cases were reported across the UK today, with 46,519,998 people now receiving the first dose of a vaccine and 6,953,691 receiving a second dose, according to Public Health England (PHE) data.
The deaths data for today not yet available, with PHE saying it is experiencing delays to its Covid dashboard.
In Northern Ireland, a further 1,520 cases and one death were reported. There were 163 Covid-positive patients in hospital on Saturday morning, with 16 in intensive care. In total, 2,200,125 vaccines have been administered.
It comes amid the growing 'Pingdemic' chaos, with frontline workers paralysed by the need to isolate being given access to 200 new testing sites from Monday - though confusion still remains over who will use them and why the government has taken so long to act.
Some police, firefighters, Border Force staff and transport workers were already eligible for a self-isolation exemption, but only if their employers specified their names and they were double-jabbed against Covid-19.
The Government on Saturday said in a statement that an expected initial extra 200 testing sites would be opened so that daily contact testing could be 'rolled out to further critical workplaces in England'.
But currently around 2.3million people from critical areas and jobs have been forced into isolation due to being pinged.
Meanwhile, Heathrow arrivals today queued for up to three hours after e-gates broke down and just one official checked hundreds of passports, according to frustrated passengers.
The delays meant some passengers arriving from 'amber list' countries missed their pre-booked taxi or coaches on the airport's busiest weekend of the year.
To make matters worse, London Underground trains from Heathrow terminals are closed over the weekend due to engineering works, meaning already delayed holidaymakers have to take a replacement bus service to Hammersmith.
Earlier this week, holidaymakers arriving at Terminal 5 were left queuing for more than 90 minutes after the Government's 'out-of-date' form resulted in 'confused' passengers filling them out wrong, which led to confusion at the e-gates - because these exemptions must be checked by Border Force officials.
It came as:
TfL closes Circle line and the Hammersmith and City line for the entire weekend as 300 staff self isolate Cornwall Airport Newquay said it was being 'very much affected' by staff shortages due to isolation orders UKHospitality chief Kate Nicholls said it was causing a summer of venue closures and reduced service England manager Gareth Southgate urges young people to get Covid vaccines so we can 'open up' Vaccines reduce tidal waves of Covid deaths to a ripple even as cases surge due to hospitalisations being younger, less sick and let out faster
Yesterday, another 36,389 positive coronavirus tests were posted – a fall of almost 30 per cent on the 51,870 figure recorded last week.
Government data shows that 14 per cent fewer tests were carried out compared to last week, which may be partly behind the fall. And experts warn it's still too soon for the effects of Freedom Day on July 19 – which top scientists warned would trigger an inevitable rise in cases – to appear in the data.
But in another glimmer of good news, separate data yesterday suggested outbreaks were already beginning to shrink in the North East and North West of England, the two areas that were hardest hit by Indian Delta variant.
Despite the third wave appearing to be in reverse, hospitalisations and deaths are still going up because of the lag between patients getting infected and becoming seriously ill – and they will continue to increase for some time.
Some 870 Covid admissions were recorded on July 19, the most recent day figures are available for. This was up by a fifth in a week and the highest daily figure since February. Meanwhile, 64 deaths were posted yesterday – up 30 per cent on last Friday.
Vaccines have drastically slashed the risk of people falling seriously ill but they are not perfect. A proportion of people who get infected will still die, although that fraction pales in comparison to what it was before the roll-out began.
It comes as a Government minister refused to commit to scrapping self-isolation for the double-jabbed from August 16 – despite fears the 'pingdemic' is already strangling the UK's recovery.
Environment Secretary George Eustice risked fuelling fury among businesses and MPs as he declined to give a categorical commitment that the exemption will take effect as planned for those who have been in contact with a positive case.
Separate figures revealed nearly 750,000 people in England were infected with Covid on any given day last week in the highest number since the second wave was still raging in January.
The Office for National Statistics' weekly surveillance report estimated that one in 75 people had the virus in the seven days to July 17, the equivalent of 741,700, as the epidemic grew by 28 per cent.
While cases are continuing to rise across England, the 28 per cent increase in the past week marks a slow down on the previous week, when the epidemic grew by 74 per cent.
The report was based on random testing of about 130,000 people in private homes across the country. It does not include tests in hospitals or care homes.
It means Covid is more widespread now than it has been since the last week of January, when there were estimated to be about 850,000 people infected at any given time in England.
The figures reveal that Manchester is still the country's Covid capital, with a 3.7 per cent positivity rate in the last week, suggesting one in 27 Mancunians were carrying the disease.
Unlike previous waves, the epidemic is now largely being driven by infections in younger age groups thanks to the vaccination programme which targeted elderly Britons first.
The ONS report shows that secondary school-aged children and adults under 24 were 12 times more likely to have had Covid last week than over-70s, and six times more likely than over-50s.
In the North West and North East, two regions hit hardest by the Indian 'Delta' variant, cases fell slightly last week and in the East of England the crisis appears to have levelled off in a promising sign.
Separately, the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said England's R rate was between 1.2 and 1.4, unchanged from last week.
It means that on average, every 10 infected people are currently passing the virus to between 12 and 14 others. But the estimate lags several weeks behind the current situation because of the way the R is calculated.
Professor Kevin McConway, an expert in applied statistics at The Open University said: 'On the face of it, the bulletin seems not to tell us much that we didn’t already know from the daily figures for new confirmed cases on the dashboard at coronavirus.data.gov.uk.
'Infections are rising across nearly all the country. But the dashboard figures can be biased, because they depend on the number of people who decide to be tested, or have to be tested because their work requires it or they need a test result in order to get into a location or venue.
'The types and numbers of people who are tested for those purposes can change over time, and it’s possible that some changes in the numbers of cases on the dashboard come from those changes rather than truly reflecting the progress of the pandemic.'
Nearly 750,000 people in England were infected with Covid last week as the epidemic grew by 28 per cent. The Office for National Statistics' weekly surveillance report estimated that one in 75 people had the virus in the seven days to July 17
Separately, the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said England's R rate was between 1.2 and 1.4, unchanged from last week. It means that on average, every 10 infected people are currently passing the virus to between 12 and 14 others. But the estimate lags several weeks behind the current situation because of the way the R is calculated
It comes as SAGE hailed the fact cases appear to be falling in some areas despite lockdowns being lifted and the country in the midst of a third wave.
In papers published yesterday but dated July 14, the expert group said it was not clear what was causing cases to slow because herd immunity was not within reach yet.
People may be adjusting their behaviours in the face of rising case numbers and taking extra precautions, it was suggested.
'A variety of approaches are showing tentative signs of slowing or reduced growth in areas that have previously been concerning, such as the North West of England and Scotland,' SAGE said in its consensus statement.
'It is possible that these areas may begin to see plateauing or decreases in cases in the coming weeks... It is difficult to attribute reasons behind this potential turnover of curves and its interplay with immunity.
'There is no current clear indication from observed local antibody prevalence data that herd immunity is driving this.'
The average number of people dying from the virus each day now stands at 57, which is double the figure earlier this month but still 20 times fewer than at the peak of the second wave.
And hospitalisations appear to be doubling roughly every three weeks.
But, like deaths, they are being kept five times lower than the peak in January thanks to the vaccine rollout, which saw another nearly 220,000 doses administered yesterday.
It means that in total, 36.8million Britons — the equivalent of 69.5 per cent of adults — have been fully jabbed and 46.5m have had at least one dose, or 87.9 per cent.
Separately, a symptom-tracking study yesterday warned that Britain's Covid third wave has not peaked and cases will continue rising - U-turning on its findings the previous week.
King's College London scientists estimated 60,000 people were catching the virus every day in the week to July 17, the latest day data is available for — up 27 per cent in a week.
It predicted that 60 per cent of infections were still among unvaccinated Britons but the virus now appears to be more prevalent among the double-jabbed, compared to those who've only had one dose.
This does not mean vaccines do not work, and merely reflects the fact that most of the country has now received both doses, experts say.
Professor Tim Spector, the main researcher behind the app, last week claimed data showed the crisis had peaked. But yesterday he admitted that hopes the third wave may already be receding 'have faded', after the team recalibrated their data and found cases had spiked.
Separate data from Public Health England yesterdayshowed cases rose in 144 of 149 local authorities last week — or nearly 97 per cent. Adults in their twenties had the highest infection rate, with one in 86 testing positive for the virus in the latest seven-day period.
Other Covid-tracking scientists are still adamant that cases will start to fall this week, despite fears 'Freedom Day' will cause daily cases to spiral to over 100,000 within weeks.
Business and MPs fury as minister hints self-isolation rules WON'T be scrapped for vaccinated Brits on August 16 as
