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Covid cases dip for 6th day in a row as 24,950 new infections and 14 deaths

Watch: A further 24,950 Covid-19 cases reported in UK

Covid daily cases have dropped for a sixth day in a row to 24,950 and 14 deaths.

Monday’s update was initially delayed because of technical difficulties in processing England deaths data.

As many as 46,589,211 people have now received the first dose of a vaccine and 37,287,384 have received a second dose.

It followed on from the drop in daily cases recorded on Sunday.

The consistent six-day drop in daily Covid cases comes shortly after Freedom Day saw the end of many restrictions including social distancing and the legal requirement to wear a mask.

Many shops, supermarkets and transport bosses have continued to ask people to wear their face masks while going about their day-to-day activities.

Coronavirus cases in the UK have dropped by nearly 40 per cent in a week, falling below 30,000 on Sunday and again on Monday.

People wearing face masks in central London, after the final coronavirus legal restrictions were lifted in England (Dominic Lipinski/PA) (PA Wire)
People wearing face masks in central London, after the final coronavirus legal restrictions were lifted in England (Dominic Lipinski/PA) (PA Wire)

Schools closing for summer could be one of the reasons why coronavirus cases have fallen in the UK, it has been claimed.

Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M) advising ministers, said he is “cautiously optimistic” about dropping cases but only time will tell if the third Covid wave is “turning round”.

The expert in infectious diseases, from the University of Warwick, shared “any situation where cases are falling clearly is good news”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think what we need to think about, though, is that there has been a change recently and I think the big one is that, in a lot of parts of the country, schools have now closed for the summer.

“Now, of course, because of that, what that means is… secondary school children have been doing lateral flow tests twice a week for quite a long period of time and we know at the moment cases are slightly higher in younger people, (and) because schools have now broken up, it may be that part of the reason cases have dropped somewhat is that we’re not detecting as many cases in younger people now.

“The other thing we do need to look at before we really draw confidence in whether we are seeing everything turning round is what’s happening with hospital admissions and, of course, what’s happening with deaths.”

Watch: Have we passed the peak of the third wave?

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