UK coronavirus cases continue to decline with 28,680 more positive tests

Britain today confirmed another 28,680 cases of coronavirus in another week-on-week drop, with 24 per cent fewer than last Thursday.

The number, although slightly higher than yesterday, is another sign that the third national lockdown in England is working and infections are coming under control.

The Department of Health also announced another 1,239 people had died with the virus, taking the total to 103,126.

This was a small decline on this time last week – four per cent – and this figure will be the slowest to fall in the wake of infection numbers and hospital inpatients. 

It comes as separate Public Health England figures show that the rates of positive tests tumbled in 97 per cent of all the country’s local authorities last week.

Those rates also fell in every region of England and in all age groups. 

And NHS Test & Trace data saw a 17 per cent decline in the weekly total number of people testing positive, to 275,000 from 330,000 a week earlier.

MINISTERS ACCUSE NICOLA STURGEON OF TAKING THE EU’S SIDE AFTER SHE VOWS TO PUBLISH JAB CONTRACT 

Nicola Sturgeon was accused of taking the EU’s side in the bitter vaccine row today as she vowed to publish details of the UK’s supplies despite Boris Johnson ordering her to keep them secret.

In an extraordinary move, the First Minister risked undermining Britain’s position, with Brussels heaping pressure on firms to give the bloc a bigger share of the stocks.

Despite the PM warning that the information must be confidential to protect the rollout, Ms Sturgeon told Holyrood she will release it from next week ‘regardless of what they say’.

Tory MPs vented fury at Ms Sturgeon – who wants Scotland to go independent and rejoin the bloc – over the intervention, saying she is ‘obviously more inclined to help the EU than she is the UK’.

The row erupted as tensions between the EU and UK over vaccine supplies escalated again, with MEPs threatening ‘trade war’.

There are claims officials have been sent from the medicines agency to the AstraZeneca plant in Belgium to check it genuinely has problems producing doses.

It comes as the bloc tries to turn the screw on the UK-based pharma giant to bail out its shambolic vaccine rollout. European politicians warned the ‘consequences’ of refusing to divert stocks of the UK-made jabs to EU would be a ban on exports of the Pfizer version from Belgium – suggesting 3.5million doses due to arrive soon could be at risk.

EU chiefs want more of the Oxford jabs – made in Staffordshire and Oxfordshire – be handed over to make up for a 75million shortfall on the continent.

The European Commission said the Anglo-Swedish firm was obliged to meet its contractual obligations despite production issues at its Belgian site.

So far both AstraZeneca and Pfizer look to be holding firm against the sabre-rattling from Brussels.

It comes after MEPs warned that the UK would ‘suffer’ for denying the EU, and the bloc’s health commissioner insisted Britain should not receive priority – even though it signed a contract with AstraZeneca three months before Brussels did.

Stella Kyriakides said: ‘We reject the logic of first come, first served. That may work in a butcher’s shop but not in contracts and not in our advanced purchase agreements.’

Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the UK will discuss ‘how we can help’ the EU’s vaccination effort. But asked if the UK might lose out because the EU has not got enough doses, Mr Gove said: ‘No. The programme of vaccination has been agreed and assured and the supplies were fixed some time ago and we will make sure that the vaccine programme proceeds exactly as planned.’

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘Of course it is the case that we will want to talk with our friends in Europe to see how we can help, but the really important thing is making sure that our own vaccination programme proceeds precisely as planned.’

It comes as in another day of coronavirus news:

  • Boris Johnson and UK health chiefs insist Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine dose work after Germany says it should not be used for over-65s due to ‘insufficient data’;
  • Parents call for pupils to be allowed to repeat a whole year of schooling lost due to the pandemic;
  • Scientist warns a new ‘Disease X’ outbreak could be just ‘around the corner’ and the next pandemic is only a matter of ‘when’;
  • Prime Minister defends trip to Scotland to shore-up the union after he was reported to police by nationalists;
  • Number of people testing positive for the virus in England falls 17 per cent in a week with 275,000 cases in seven days to January 20 – the lowest number since before Christmas;
  • Covid-denying conspiracy theorist, 46, dies from the virus after refusing to wear a mask and follow social distancing rules;
  • Cases of Covid-19 caught in hospitals have fallen by a third since the start of January, data shows; 

 It comes after Boris Johnson, UK health chiefs and AstraZeneca all insisted their coronavirus vaccine does work in all age groups after German authorities said it should not be used in over-65s due to ‘insufficient data’.

The PM and Public Health England struck a bullish note after a Berlin commission said there was ‘insufficient data to assess the efficacy of the vaccine for persons aged 65 years and older’.

British regulators, by contrast, have approved the jab for all age groups – with AstraZeneca pointing to data published in a medical journal showing that 100 per cent of older adults generated antibodies in trials.

Germany’s stance comes amid an angry row between the EU and AstraZeneca over vaccine supplies, with the bloc lagging far behind Britain in immunising its population against Covid-19.

Although it is possible the position could change with more evidence, it raises the prospect of splits between the UK and EU on what vaccines are regarded as effective – with speculation that in the future travel to some destinations could be contingent on having been inoculated.

On a visit to Scotland this afternoon, Mr Johnson said he was not worried about the news from Germany. ‘No, because the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) our own authorities have made it very clear that they think the Oxford-AstraZeneca is very good and efficacious and gives a high degree of protection after just one does and even more after two doses,’ he said.

The PM said the MHRA concluded the vaccine is ‘effective across all age groups’ and ‘provides a good immune response across all age groups’. He added on the German conclusions: ‘So I don’t agree with that.’

Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisations at PHE, said there had been ‘too few cases’ of coronavirus in older people in Phase 3 clinical trial to determine efficacy in this age group, but other data on immune response had been ‘reassuring’.

AstraZeneca said: ‘The latest analyses of clinical trial data for the AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine support efficacy in the over 65 years age group.’

The German panel did not endorse the sensational claim published by German media on Monday that the jab is only eight per cent effective among over-65s, a theory debunked by the manufacturers and the German health ministry.

Instead, it said there was not enough data to make a decision either way – after AstraZeneca’s boss said the ‘very ethical’ Oxford scientists had slowed down trials on older people until the vaccine was proved to be safe.

It remains to be seen whether the European Medicines Agency will make a similar determination on Friday, after EMA chief Emer Cooke said on Tuesday that the body could decide to split hairs between age groups.

Meanwhile, the brutal row over stocks is raging, with the EU demanding AstraZeneca make up for delays by supplying doses from its UK factories. Mr Johnson said he expects the British-Swedish firm to continue providing two million doses a week to the UK.

Dr Ramsay said: ‘Both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines are safe and provide high levels of protection against Covid-19, particularly against severe disease.

‘There were too few cases in older people in the AstraZeneca trials to observe precise levels of protection in this group, but data on immune responses were very reassuring.

‘The risk of severe disease and death increase exponentially with age – the priority is to vaccinate as many vulnerable people as possible with either vaccine, to protect more people and save more lives.’

Boris Johnson is shown the Lighthouse Laboratory, used for processing PCR samples for coronavirus, during a visit to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow today

Boris Johnson is shown the Lighthouse Laboratory, used for processing PCR samples for coronavirus, during a visit to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow today

Coronavirus cases in England have fallen 17 per cent in a week amid brutal lockdown restrictions, official figures reveal.

Test and Trace said 274,898 people tested positive for the virus in the week to January 20, the lowest number since before Christmas and the second week in a row a dip has been recorded.

It is another glimmer of hope that measures are turning the tide on the second wave after separate statistics from a Government-commissioned study also showed cases were dipping in England – although scientists insisted the drop was ‘shallow’.

And Department of Health figures are indicating the number of Britons testing positive for the virus every day is falling – with yesterday’s figures 88 per cent below the levels two weeks ago.

Experts say lockdown is reducing transmission of the virus, although some worry this isn’t happening fast enough to relieve pressure on over-stretched hospitals.

Test and Trace – run by the Department of Health and private contracters – has been dogged by allegations it is too slow to reach positive cases and had failed to plan ahead for spiking numbers of infections in September when schools returned.

The figures published today show almost 56,000 fewer Britons tested positive for the virus in the third week of January than the week before.

There were 330,871 positive swabs in this week, which was 57,000 people fewer than the seven-day spell before when 388,037 people tested positive – the peak of the second wave.

Test and Trace figures only pick up symptomatic cases – when someone gets a swab after suffering a high temperature, new continuous cough or loss of taste and smell.

But they leave out those that are infected but are not experiencing any symptoms of the virus.

The Health Minister Lord Bethell today warned one in three people who are infected with the virus do not suffer symptoms, ‘meaning you can infect others unknowingly’.

‘It is therefore crucial that we continue to follow public health guidance, and all play our part by following the rules and reducing our social contact to slow the spread of the virus,’ he said.

The above graph shows the number of people testing positive for the virus. The dark blue bar shows those who tested positive under pillar 2 - tests carried out in the community - and the light blue represents those who tested positive under pillar 1 - swabs in hospitals

The above graph shows the number of people testing positive for the virus. The dark blue bar shows those who tested positive under pillar 2 – tests carried out in the community – and the light blue represents those who tested positive under pillar 1 – swabs in hospitals