'No evidence of decline' in COVID-19 rates in England's third lockdown - Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - A third pandemic lockdown appears to be having little impact on rates of COVID-19 in England, researchers warned on Thursday, with prevalence of the disease “very high” and “no evidence of decline” in the first 10 days of renewed restrictions.

Until rates of COVID-19 are reduced substantially, health services “will remain under extreme pressure” and the number of deaths will continue to rise rapidly, researchers leading Imperial College London’s REACT-1 prevalence study said.

“The number of COVID-19 in-patients (in hospital) is extremely high at the moment, and we can’t expect that to drop unless we can achieve lower levels of prevalence,” said Steven Riley, a professor of infectious disease dynamics who co-led the work.

15 - Riley said prevalence rates were at 1.58%, the highest recorded by the REACT-1 study since it started in May 2020.

“The vaccine is only going to have a very limited impact on prevalence in the short-term,” he told reporters.