UK’s Covid alert is downgraded to level two as hospital pressure and infections decline

The Covid alert level in the UK has been downgraded as the latest wave continues to fizzle out.

The country’s four chief medical officers have jointly recommended that the Covid alert level moves from level three to level two.

A level two alert means that ‘Covid-19 is in general circulation but direct Covid-19 healthcare pressures and transmission are declining or stable’.

The last time the alert level was at its highest level of four was in December, when the original Omicron variant was ripping through the country. 

It had also been at four the previous winter, pre-vaccines, when the Alpha strain pushed hospital rates to record levels.

The downgraded alert comes after weeks of falling infection and hospital admissions across the UK.

There had been a sharp rise in cases starting in June when the highly-infectious BA.5 subvariant took off, which sparked fears of a deadly resurgence of the virus.

But the sub-strain turned out to be equally as mild as its parent Omicron variant and a rise in hospital rates was short-lived.

Latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show around 1.2million people in England had Covid on any given day in the week ending August 16 – down 15 per cent in a week.

It means roughly one in 45 people were infected during the week — the lowest level since June 11, when 1.1million were infected (one in 50). 

Infections also fell in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, marking the fifth week in a row that cases had dropped in all four home nations.

Hospital admissions for Covid have also been in free-fall since mid-July. There are around 680 per day in England now compared to 1,900 a month-and-a-half ago.

Analysis suggests only a fraction of these people were primary sick with the disease, with most admitted for separate reasons and happening to test positive.