Here are the key coronavirus updates from the last 24-hours. 

  • The Government said a further 189 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19, as of Thursday. This brings the UK total to 44,347. Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been 59,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

 

  • Rates for new Covid-19 cases in England remain highest in the 10-19 and 20-29 age groups, according to the latest weekly surveillance report from Public Health England – though the numbers for both groups have started to decline. Among 20 to 29-year-olds, the rate was 274.3 cases per 100,000 people in the week to October 18, down from 300.9 in the previous week. The rate among 10 to 19-year-olds was 207.7 per 100,000, down from 294.4. By contrast, the rate for the 70-79 age group was 77.9, up from 64.8, while for people aged 80 and over it was 114.4, up from 88.7.
  • A further 152 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 31,427, NHS England said on Thursday. Patients were aged between 36 and 97. All except seven, aged between 61 and 95, had known underlying health conditions. The deaths were between September 3 and October 21. Six other deaths were reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.

 

  • Of the 96,521 people transferred to the Test and Trace system in the week to October 14, 80.7 per cent were reached and asked to provide details of recent close contacts, the latest figures show. This is up slightly on 79.9 per cent in the previous week. Some 17.8 per cent of people transferred to Test and Trace in the week to October 14 were not reached, while a further 1.5 per cent did not provide any communication details.

 

  • Only 2.9 per cent of people in England who used a home test kit for Covid-19 received their result within 24 hours in the week to October 14. This is up slightly from 1.9 per cent in the previous week. Some 14.8 per cent of people received the result of a home test within 48 hours, down from 16.0 per cent in the previous week.

 

  • A total of 101,494 people tested positive for Covid-19 in England at least once in the week to October 14, according to the latest Test and Trace figures. This is an increase of 12% in positive cases on the previous week and is the highest weekly number since Test and Trace was launched at the end of May.

 

  • Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said his latest coronavirus support package announced in the Commons on Thursday would provide assistance to people throughout the country. “Our plan for jobs will support British people and businesses wherever they live and whatever their situation,” he told a No 10 press conference. “Just as we have throughout this crisis, we will listen and respond to people’s concerns as the circumstances evolve.” He said the scheme was designed to be more generous to those areas which had been under stricter measures for longer.
  • Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance stressed the need to reduce coronavirus infections to avoid placing pressure on the NHS and in turn affecting treatment for other conditions such as cancer. He told a Downing Street press conference: “One of the reasons that care for other conditions like cardiovascular disease and oncology, cancer care, gets affected is not the measures taken to stop Covid, it’s the patients with Covid who start to occupy beds. The more patients there are with Covid, the more the pressure on the healthcare system overall, and the more the other conditions get affected because people don’t have the capacity to deal with it. So it is very important to keep the numbers of infections down if we are to reduce the number of hospitalisations.”

The Northern Echo: