Estimates put over a million people in England infected with coronavirus

Over a million people in England, more than 2 per cent of the population, is infected with coronavirus, according to official estimates, as the daily number of positive tests for the virus rose above 60,000 for the first time.

Boris Johnson told a press conference in Downing Street that the figures left him with no choice but to introduce a national lockdown from early Wednesday morning.

However, he said that 1.3 million people in Britain, including almost one in four of those over age 80, have already received the first dose of either the Pfizer-BionTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines. By the end of this week more than 1,000 vaccination sites will be in operation, and seven large sites in sports stadiums and exhibition centres will open next week.

“I think obviously – everybody, you all – want to be sure that we in government are now using every second of this lockdown to put that invisible shield around the elderly and the vulnerable in the form of vaccination and so to begin to bring this crisis to an end,” he said.

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The Office for National Statistics’ latest coronavirus infection survey, which samples almost 40,000 households across Britain, estimates that 1.1 million people in England had the virus between December 27th and January 2nd. This incidence of one in 50 rises to 1 in 30 in London, where coronavirus cases and hospitalisations have surged in recent days.

A total of 60,916 new cases and 830 deaths were recorded across Britain on Tuesday as England and Scotland entered a lockdown similar to that imposed last March. MPs will return to Westminster on Wednesday to debate the new restrictions, which Labour leader Keir Starmer has endorsed.

At the Downing Street press conference on Tuesday, chief medical officer Chris Whitty said the prime minister's target of vaccinating more than 13 million of the most vulnerable by the middle of February was realistic but not easy. And he defended Britain's decision to delay the second dose of the vaccine for up to 12 weeks in an effort to reach as many people as possible with the first dose.

Real worry

He said the possibility that the gap would allow the virus to mutate was a real worry, but that it was small in comparison to the public health benefit.

“If over that period there is more than 50 per cent protection then you have actually won. More people will have been protected than would have been otherwise. Our quite strong view is that protection is likely to be lot more than 50 per cent.”

Prof Whitty said some restrictions might have to be reintroduced if the virus returns in strength next winter, but that vaccination would make coronavirus a problem to be managed like the winter flu.

“We’ll then get over time to a point where people say this level of risk is something society is prepared to tolerate, and lift right down to almost no restrictions at all,” he said. “We might have to bring a few in next winter for example, that’s possible, because winter will benefit the virus.”