Twelve million people are living in areas where Covid cases appear to be falling, MailOnline can reveal as evidence continues to mount that the worst of the pandemic may be over.
Yesterday England logged a 29 per cent fall in positive tests compared to the week before, marking the biggest dip of its kind since late September. Infection rates are dropping in every region except the North East and London yesterday posted just 12,309 cases — its fewest since December 13.
More precise data show outbreaks were already shrinking in 95 of the country's 315 councils. Five of ten areas recording the sharpest dips in infections were in the capital.
Experts are now hopeful that the UK's outbreak will follow a similar trajectory to South Africa's, which was the first country to fall victim to the extremely-transmissible variant. Its cases have almost completely fizzled out over the past month.
Even Professor Chris Whitty is now giving 'optimistic signals' to ministers, Whitehall insiders claim. England's chief medical officer has been cautious over easing restrictions throughout the pandemic.
But he still wants a 'few more days of patience' to be confident that the return of schools hasn't sparked any uptick and that the outbreak is still 'going in the right direction', The Times reports.
No10 is under mounting pressure to announce a blueprint for learning to live with Covid, with scientists predicting that Britain will be one of the first countries inn the world to tame the pandemic. Ministers are already pushing for the final Plan B restrictions to be lifted now there is such a big disconnect between infections and deaths.
Deaths have barely risen in England's most recent wave, and are currently tracking at about half the level of a bad flu year, analysis suggests. The number of critically ill patients in hospital is still flat, despite Omicron first starting to spiral out of control a month ago.
The above maps show the Covid infection rate changes in England over the weeks ending December 30 and January 6, the latest two available. They indicate that the rate of growth is slowing down across the country
UK Health Security Agency data showed London recorded 12,000 cases yesterday, the least in a month. It was comparable to the total cases on December 13
The above figures show Covid infection rates across all regions except the North East fell on January 5. It could suggest the worst of the wave is over
UKHSA bosses publish daily Covid statistics on a raft of measures across Britain, from testing to hospitalisations and deaths.
Its headline figures — such as cases — are based on data that have been newly logged into the system. England yesterday posted 104,833 positive tests, comprising of people who were found to have SARS-CoV-2 over the pst week. This was down 29.5 per cent on the previous figure (148,725).
Daily cases data is easily skewed by testing, making it hard to distinguish whether falls are genuine or not and making it especially difficult over the festive period when fewer people came forward to get swabbed.
But the number of PCR tests carried out in the week ending January 4 was 3.5million, similar to the levels seen before Christmas. No PCR swabbing data has been released since then for England, so it is impossible to tell whether or not the plunge was swayed by testing levels.
But London's positivity rate — which some experts say is a more accurate way of tracking outbreaks
