Britain's daily Covid cases and hospitalisations dropped today, official figures showed — but deaths rose by a fifth in a week.
Department of Health statistics showed another 32,651 infections were recorded in the past 24 hours, down 13 per cent from last Friday.
Today's figures included two days worth of data for Scotland, which did not report any cases yesterday because of a 'technical issue'. But despite the bumper reporting cases continued to trend downwards.
It marks the ninth day in a row that the UK's cases have fallen week-on-week, with the surge in infections expected once schools returned in England, Wales and Northern Ireland having failed to materialise.
Latest hospitalisations showed 909 people were admitted to wards suffering from the virus on September 13, the latest available. This was down 14 per cent from the same time the previous week. There were also 178 deaths, up on the 147 posted last Friday.
Hospitalisations and deaths lag behind infections because it takes time for an infection to trigger serious symptoms and lead to admission to hospital.
It came as separate figures showed Covid cases in England fell again last week despite fears of a fresh wave on the back of millions of children returning to school.
The Office for National Statistics' (ONS) surveillance report estimated there were 697,100 people infected on any given day across the country in the seven days to September 11, down 8 per cent on the previous week.
Most schools in England went back from the summer break on September 1, meaning today's data includes the first full week of the new school term.
There had been widespread concerns that England would see a meteoric rise in infections like Scotland did when classes north of the border resumed in mid-August. Covid cases there trebled to record highs in the following fortnight which put pressure on health officials to finally approve vaccines for 12 to 15-year-olds this week.
The latest estimates, based on random swabbing of 100,000 households in England, suggest one in 80 people were carrying the virus on any given day last week.
The Office for National Statistics' weekly surveillance report estimated there were 697,100 infections in England in the seven days to September 11, down 8 per cent on the previous week
Meanwhile, the Government's scientific advisory group said that England's R rate remained flat in the past week at around 1, but could be as low as 0.9 or as high as 1.1
The UK is currently recording 1,000 Covid hospitalisations per day, the bulk of which are occurring in England (shown). This is up from around 750 from 'Freedom Day' on July 19, when all legal curbs were lifted in England
Deaths have remained low despite high levels of transmission thanks to the rollout of the vaccines
Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia, said: 'It does look like those strongly expressed views that we would see a surge in infections after schools went back has not turned out to be the case.'
Meanwhile, the Government's top scientists said England's R rate remained flat in the past week at around 1, but could be as low as 0.9 or as high as 1.1.
The R, or reproduction, rate is the average number of people each Covid patient goes on to infect and it needs to be below 1 for there to be a consistent decline in the epidemic. However, it is a lagging indicator, and represents the situation the country found itself in three weeks ago.
Separate data from Public Health England yesterday found that more than nine in 10 of England's local authorities saw their outbreaks shrink in the first week of schools returning.
At the peak of the second wave in early January, around one in 50 people in England were estimated to have the coronavirus.
The percentage of people testing positive is estimated to have increased in the North West and decreased in the West Midlands and the East of England, the ONS said. The trend for all other regions is uncertain, with outbreaks believed to have flatlined in the most recent week.
North East England and Yorkshire and the Humber had the highest proportion of people of any region likely to test positive for coronavirus in the week to September 11 — around one in 60. The East had the lowest estimate, around one in 120.
Speaking about the anticipated school surge last night, Professor Hunter said: 'Today was the first day we would have expected to see any clear impact of schools opening on daily reports of Covid case numbers in England.
'We started seeing case reports below the same day in the previous week on September 9, about eight days after most pupils went back to school at the point when any impact may have been seen.'
He added: 'In an endemic infection, like Covid has now become, infections reach an equilibrium point where the proportion of the population becoming susceptible balances the likelihood of transmission and of course a lot of people have developed some degree of immunity in recent months as a result of either immunisation or infection.
'Also although case numbers seem to have started falling in all age groups, age specific data is always reported somewhat later and it will be later next week before we can know for
