With the headlines dominated by Harry and Meghan’s interview, many of us have been distracted from the latest Covid news.
Here’s a quick look at where things stand with deaths, cases, hospitalisations and the other key statistics you should know.
Deaths down by 33%
According to the most recent data, published on March 9, Covid deaths are now down by 33.2% on the previous seven days (February 24 to March 7), a drop of 662 deaths.
On Tuesday, 231 deaths were reported across the UK, down from 343 on the previous week. That tally is for deaths within 28 days of positive test by the date they were reported.
On Monday, the UK recorded 65 deaths – its lowest total since October 12.
Cases at lowest level since September
The number of cases by date reported fell on Monday to its lowest total since late September.
The total of 4,712 new cases is the first time the number has dipped below 5,000 since September 28, when 4,044 confirmed cases were reported.
Across the UK as a whole, the number of new cases over the past week has dropped by 24.5% compared to the seven days that preceded it (February 24 to March 2). There have been 40,600 positive tests confirmed in that time, 13,161 fewer than the week before.
While most areas of England have seen infections drop, there are six local authority areas where they have risen.
This is most pronounced in Kingston upon Thames, where the total number of cases in the seven days to Sunday increased by 25%.
Torbay saw the next largest rise at 11%, with rates in Rotherham growing by 7%, 6% in Windsor and Maidenhead, 2% in Devon and 1% in North Lincolnshire.
Meanwhile, nine local authority areas saw cases drop by more than half. The area that saw the biggest fall was Herefordshire, where infections are down by 63% week-on-week.
Telford and Wrekin, Cumbria, Reading, Hammersmith and Fulham, Liverpool, West Berkshire, Shropshire and East Sussex also all saw drops of 50% or more.
Hospital admissions down by 30%
According to the latest government figures, updated on Friday, the number of patients with Covid admitted to hospital over the course of a week had dropped by 29.6% compared to the previous seven days.
While this represents an encouraging downward trend, consistent with a steep decline since mid-January, it still equates to 590 patients being admitted to hospital with coronavirus on Friday alone.
On Sunday there were 9,418 Covid patients in hospital, the lowest figure since October 24.
As of Monday, there were 1,356 Covid-19 patients in mechanical ventilation beds, the lowest number since December 16.
22.5m people have had at least one Covid jab
The latest vaccination figures for the UK show that 22,592,528 people have had their first dose of a vaccine, with almost 1.2m people having also had their second dose.
On Monday, 215,273 people were reported to have received their first dose.
The highest number of first doses recorded as being administered in a single day remains January 30, when 598,389 people had their jab, but the data consistently shows a drop in the number of vaccinations reported at the start of the week, building up towards the weekend.
Over the past week, the number of first doses reported peaked at 437,463 on Friday.
Covid mutations in the UK
The government, as of Monday, has identified eight mutated variations of Covid in the UK, including the Kent variant, the Brazil variant and the South Africa variant.
To date, there have been 115,558 cases of the Kent variant, which was first sequenced in September – 104,922 of which were found in England.
There have been 227 genomically confirmed cases of the South Africa variant, and 47 of the Brazil variant.
Five people in the UK have confirmed cases of the Manaus “variant of concern”, which is thought to be more contagious.
The variant found in Liverpool in December so far accounts for 59 cases, while a different mutation found in Bristol in December accounts for 35 confirmed cases.
There are also now 20 cases of the latest new variant, four more than when it was identified last week.
