The spread of the coronavirus is accelerating across all parts of England with one study suggesting cases were doubling each week, fuelling concerns further public restrictions could be needed just days before a ban on gatherings comes into effect.
On Friday, the government brought in new limits on households meeting up in Birmingham, England’s second-biggest city, and some surrounding areas, where the number of COVID-19 infections has been increasing significantly.
It is the latest area of England to introduce stricter lockdown measures, with the rising number of cases prompting Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce earlier this week there would be new restrictions on social gatherings, saying there was a clear need to act.
From next Monday, gatherings of more than six people will be banned in England, after the number of new coronavirus infections across the United Kingdom edged up to around 3,000 a day, from less than a third of that number a month ago.
According to a government-backed surveillance project, the infection rate is rising across all age groups, apart from those over 65, and cases are no longer clustering in hospitals or care homes as they were a few months ago.
The researchers at Imperial College calculated the reproduction “R” number of COVID-19 infections in England, which measures how many people an infected person will pass the disease to, is at 1.7, indicating the epidemic is growing.
The government’s official R estimate for the whole of the United Kingdom released on Friday is between 1 and 1.2.
The United Kingdom reported 3,539 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, up by one-fifth from Thursday’s figure, and the highest level since mid-May. Reuters
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