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The number of Covid-19 cases in England rose by almost a quarter over Christmas, according to new figures, further highlighting the impact of social mixing throughout the holiday season.
According to the latest data from Test and Trace, a total of 311,372 people tested positive for the virus between December 24 and 30 – a 24% increase from the previous week, and the highest total since launch of the program in May.
The Department of Health and Social Affairs said the UK’s weekly workload was increasing over the past month, in part due to the highly contagious new variant of the coronavirus first detected in Kent.
The latest hike comes despite a significant decrease in the number of tests performed in the seven days to December 30. More than 1.8 million people have been tested – a drop of 29% from the previous week.
Although the government has scrapped plans to ease Covid rules at Christmas for London and much of south-east England, in other parts of the country – in levels one to three – social bubbles were authorized on December 25.
Scientists have warned that the full impact of this household mix has yet to be fully felt, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths expected to continue to rise until the end of January.
The new Test and Trace data also showed that of the 269,886 people transferred to the system in the week to December 30, 84.9% were contacted and asked to provide details of recent close contacts.
This is down from 86.4 percent the week before and is the lowest percentage since the week to October 28.
Some 13.9% of people transferred to Test and Trace in the week to December 30 were not contacted, while 1.3% did not provide details of communications.
Test and Trace, meanwhile, managed to reach 92.3% of the 493,573 people identified as close contacts of positive cases – a similar proportion to the previous week.
Only 33.0% of people who were tested for Covid-19 in England during the week at a regional site, local site or mobile test unit – a so-called ‘in-person’ test – received their result in 24 hours.
That figure is up from 16.9% the week before, but is lower than the recent high of 64.9% the week before December 2.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson had pledged that by the end of June 2020 the results of all in-person tests would be back within 24 hours.
He told the House of Commons on June 3 that he would get “all tests returned within 24 hours before the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insurmountable issues like that.”
Separate data has shown the UK has more new cases of Covid-19 per capita than any other major country in the world.
The number of new daily cases of coronavirus exceeded 60,000 for the first time this week, or more than 800 people in a million. This is almost four times the per capita rate of Italy, Spain and France.
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