Approximately one in 80 people had Covid-19 last week in England, which is down from one in 70 the week before.
One is 80 equates to around 697,100 people according to the latest survey from the Office of National Statistics.
For comparison, one in 50 people in England were thought to be testing positive at the height of the second wave in early January.
Daily cases are dropping in the UK but it’s still high
The rolling seven-day average in the UK is starting to slightly drop, as shown by the chart below.
There are 26,911 confirmed cases for England, Wales and Northern Ireland as of Thursday – figures for Scotland were not available due to a technical problem.
The increase in cases throughout August is driven by the highly infectious Delta variant.
Nearly 90% of people over 16 have had their first vaccine
Those aged 16 and over have been proactive with the vaccine uptake as almost 90% now have had their first dose – this equates to more than 48.5 million people.
Additionally, 81% have had their second – which is approximately 44 million.
More than 92 million vaccine doses have been given out across the UK, dating up to September 15.
However, the vaccine uptake is starting to slow particularly among the younger age groups, as seen in the chart below.
Nearly 30% of entire UK population are not vaccinated
ONS stats show in Northern Ireland, 31.3% of people have not been vaccinated at all while in England the number is slightly lower at 28.1%.
In Wales, 25.2% have not been vaccinated, while in Scotland its 24.1% – meaning on average in the UK, a total of 27.7% have not been jabbed.
However, this takes those aged under 16 into account. This age group has not yet had the go-ahead from the government to get vaccinated unless they fall into a vulnerable category.
Daily deaths are rising
As of September 16, a total of 134,805 people have died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid.
There were 158 deaths reported on Thursday.