Jamie Jenkins, the former head of health statistics at the Office for National Statistics, said England and Wales may now be 'over the hill now when it comes to deaths'
England could be 'over the edge' of the third Covid wave and deaths may peak by next week, experts have claimed.
Britain's daily case figures fell to a five-week low yesterday, with England's infections down to 21,952— it's lowest since June 29, when they stood at 20,479.
Hospitalisations in England and also appear to have peaked, 20 per cent in England on July 31, the most recent day NHS figures are available for. Some 593 infected patients were admitted for medical treatment. For comparison, 734 patients were hospitalised the previous Saturday.
And Jamie Jenkins, the former head of health statistics at the Office for National Statistics, said England and Wales may now be 'over the hill now when it comes to deaths'.
Speaking on LBC this morning, Mr Jenkins said: '[Cases] in England and Wales have been coming down since July 19.
'The cases have been falling for a couple of weeks there, then you get that time-lag effect when cases start coming down, around five or six days later you start seeing hospital admissions come down.
'And then you start seeing deaths come down.
'I think looking at the data, we normally see deaths peaking around 14 days after cases come down, I think we might start being over the hill now when it comes to deaths.'
Mr Jenkins added: 'We probably are over the edge of the wave at the moment but let's have a bit of caution as we go into the autumn period.'
His comments echo Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease expert at the University of East Anglia, who last night claimed it will take 'another week or so' for deaths across the UK to fall in line with hospitalisations and cases.
But he warned infections may now start to flatten out as people start to mix more and the effects of Freedom Day continue.
In a sign that fatalities may start to flatten out or even fall within the next week, Covid hospital admissions fell by nearly 20 per cent in England. Some 593 infected patients were admitted for medical treatment on July 31, the most recent day NHS figures are available for. For comparison, 734 patients were hospitalised the previous Saturday
Mr Jenkins said hospital admissions were around 80 per cent lower than what they would have been in the past and deaths were 90 per cent lower.
He added: 'The vaccine effect has kicked in as well — if you look at the same number of cases to what we had in the winter, it would have been 800 deaths rather than 65-70.'
