- Title: UK's rapid COVID case drop could be explained by Euro 2020
- Date: 27th July 2021
- Summary: EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JULY 27, 2021) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) EPIDEMIOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, PROFESSOR ROWLAND KAO, SAYING: "There are some indications as well that case numbers are changing possibly not so much through the result of declining numbers of infections but because fewer people are being detected. So remember that most of the cases we get are from the PCR testing, so this is people going out and seeking to get a test because they have symptoms. Now the Delta variant may have some influence on this, again human behaviour on others, but if you compare those results to the surveillance data, where the office for national statistics goes out and seeks data, there is a discrepancy with which suggests that maybe not so many people are getting tested and getting positive as was occurring so one or two months ago."
- Embargoed: 10th August 2021 15:58
- Keywords: COVID Euro 2020 cases peaks testing
- Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, AND EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
- City: LONDON, ENGLAND, AND EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Europe,Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA004ENMA2BR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The UK's continuing drop in case numbers could be explained in part by gatherings around the Euro 2020 soccer championships, an epidemiologist said.
Britain on Tuesday (July 27) recorded 23,511 COVID-19 cases, the seventh consecutive day with a lower total than the previous day, but 131 deaths were registered within 28 days of a positive test, the highest figure since March, according to official data.
The closure of schools for summer, the end of the Euros and warmer weather are among factors epidemiologists say might have reduced social mixing indoors and therefore cases, even as England's economy has fully reopened.
Case numbers have been falling for longer in Scotland, where the recent peak in cases was on July 1, than in England, corresponding to an earlier elimination from the Euros, Rowland Kao, epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Kao added that changes in testing patterns might mean that the sharpness of the drop is overstated in daily testing figures.
Johnson has lifted restrictions in England and is betting he can get one of Europe's largest economies firing again because so many people are now vaccinated, a decision which marks a new chapter in the response to the novel coronavirus.
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