London’s public health chief has stressed that Covid infection levels remain “very, very high” in the capital even though they may have peaked over the New Year and warned that “we are not yet out of this critical phase of the pandemic”.
Professor Kevin Fenton told Sky News yesterday that “we’re seeing reductions in overall case rates across the city and the prevalence of infection across the city” but that figures from the Office for National Statistics “suggest that nearly one in ten Londoners are still infected with the disease”.
Fenton’s comments came in the wake of 200 Armed Forces personnel being deployed to NHS hospitals in London to make up for thousands of staff being off sick or isolating
At last Tuesday’s Downing Street briefing the government’s chief medical officer Patrick Vallance advised Londoners not to be complacent, saying that at that time there was “no evidence it’s clearly reached a peak” and that while it might have been “flattening off” or better among younger Londoners it was still “going up” among older people, who continue to be those most at risk of hospitalisation or “severe complications”.
According to government daily figures 16,493 people in London tested positive for Covid on 9 January and 16 people in London died following an earlier positive Covid test. Just over two million cases have been reported in London since the beginning of the pandemic accounting for 16.3 per cent of the total for England.
Close to six million of Greater London’s estimated 7.5 million population over the age of 12 have received two doses of anti-Covid vaccine and nearly four million have had a third of booster. The highest booster rates so far are in the boroughs of Bromley and Richmond.
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