LONDON (Reuters) – England saw an average of 27,900 new cases per day and infections are 50% higher on the previous week, a weekly survey showed on Friday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson bids to contain a resurgent pandemic with local restrictions.
The Office for National Statistics’ weekly infection survey showed an estimated 336,500 people had COVID in the week to Oct 8, a 50% increase on the estimate of 224,400 infections in the previous week.
That implies that 1 in 160 people in England had the coronavirus that week, compared to 1 in 240 the previous week.
The ONS looks to estimate infection numbers in the community beyond those who have been tested, giving an estimate of prevalence that is unaffected by testing capacity.
It estimated that there were 27,900 new cases per day, well above the 7-day daily average of around 16,000 infections reported from test results, and up from the survey’s estimate of 17,200 cases per day in the previous week.
The modelled daily estimate from University of Oxford showed 30,800 new cases as of Oct. 8.
But the survey also suggested there had been a slowdown in the spread of the coronavirus, after it reported a doubling in COVID cases last week.
(Reporting by Andy Bruce and Alistair Smout; editing by Kate Holton)
