Coronavirus infections across England are in strong decline due to lockdown, a major study found on Thursday.
Imperial College London’s React study found that Covid-19 infections across the country had dropped by more than two-thirds since the third lockdown began, with an 80 per cent fall in London.
The study - which involved the testing of 85,000 volunteers - found that 1 in 200 people were carrying the virus between February 4 and February 13. In January, scientists reported that 1 in 63 people were infected.
The study comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised a staged exit from lockdown, stressing that measures would be eased “cautiously and prudently”.
Schools are expected to be first to reopen on March 8 alongside a mass testing regime.
Ministers are drawing up plans for the parents of secondary school pupils to administer lateral flow tests on their children twice a week to allow them to return to the classroom, The Telegraph reported.
It is understood ministers are looking at proposals to reopen non-essential shops in mid-April, with hospitality to open later that month.
Prof Paul Elliott, director of the React study, cautioned that coronavirus levels were still high despite the declining case numbers.
"Clearly no one wants to be in lockdown any longer than they need to be, but just a note of warning: the prevalence rates are still very high," he told BBC's Radio 4 Today programme.
“They are as high as they were back in September last year when they were on the increase. The number of people in hosp currently are at the level they were in the first wave. We really have to be cautious.”
The study found that the highest levels of infection were among young people, particularly the 5 to 12 and 18 to 24 age groups, who have a lower risk of succumbing to serious illness or death from Covid-19.
Prof Elliott said it was still too early to tell whether the vaccination programme was having an effect on case rates.
“At the moment we’re seeing the effects of lockdown,” he said.
Care Minister Helen Whately said the government was yet to decide on any firm dates for the end of lockdown.
Mr Johnson will announce England’s lockdown exit strategy on February 22.
“The reason why we’ve put off saying what the road map will be until next week is to make sure we had time to look at the data,” she told Sky News on Thursday.
“We’re going to come out of the lockdown step by step because we still have over 20,000 people in hospital with Covid.”
Scientists have urged the government to decide on an “acceptable” number of infections, suggesting that Covid will be a permanent respiratory illness alongside the flu.
Prof Dame Angela McLean, chief scientific advisor to the Ministry of Defence, said experts wanted to know when the crisis would be considered over.
“It’s one of the things we’ve cried out for again and again – could somebody in a position of political power tell us what is an acceptable number of infections?” she told the science and technology committee.
