The number of new coronavirus infections per day in England has “continued to level off”, official figures published on Friday have suggested. 

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said there were around 2,000 new cases in the community per day from August 19 to August 25.

Last week’s survey, which covered August 14 to August 20 estimated there were 2,200 new cases per day.

Heather Bovill, from the joint Covid-19 infection survey, said today: “For another week, our evidence suggests that the level of infections and people who currently have Covid-19 in the community has continued to level off. 

“Through analysing blood samples from a section of our participants, we believe that around one in 17 people in England have Covid-19 antibodies and are therefore likely to have had the virus at some point.”

A separate study from the ONS released today revealed there has been an increase in people travelling to work in the last two months.

According to the data, 57% of working adults reported that they had travelled to work – either exclusively or in combination with working from home – in the past seven days, while 20% had worked solely from home.

The findings show an increase from the results of an ONS survey in the last week of June when 49% of working adults said they had travelled in to work, and 29% said they had worked exclusively at home.

Ministers fear huge job losses in town and city centre shops and cafes if workers do not return to their pre-lockdown commuter patterns.

It comes as Grant Shapps this morning admitted that varying advice for quarantining when arriving in different UK nations from abroad had caused “confusion”.

The transport secretary defended the UK government’s decision not to impose restrictions on people entering England from Greece and Portugal despite the Scotland and Wales ordering periods of isolation to slow the spread of coronavirus.