The latest official Covid-19 data from our hospitals backs up hopes that the latest wave of the virus has subsided.
In the past fortnight each of the five hospital trusts in the North East have seen the number of Covid-19 positive patients on their wards fall sharply. Most obviously, at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and Freeman in Newcastle there are a third of the Covid-19 cases seen on July 24.
Throughout July, hospital execs warned that the prevalence of the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron were causing huge pressure on NHS services. In Newcastle they explicitly connected the latest rise in Covid to difficulties tackling ongoing elective backlogs.
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However, as of August 9, the picture was rosier. In Newcastle there were just 41 Covid-19 patients in hospital, with two requiring mechanical ventilation beds. This is a sharp fall from July 24 - when there were a total of 119 Covid-19 patients there.
Throughout the most recent waves of the virus, medics have warned that around half of the total number of Covid-19 cases were people who's primary medical issue was the virus. The other half are those who have tested positive while being treated for other conditions.
Meanwhile in Gateshead there were, again as of August 9, 60 Covid-19 patients in hospital, two of whom needed mechanical ventilation beds. That has fallen from a late July peak of 80.
It's a similar story at South Tyneside and Sunderland hospitals, where there are now 76 Covid-19 positive patients. That compares to 103 on July 25 and there are currently three in mechanical ventilation beds.
Across Northumbria Healthcare's hospitals across Northumberland and North Tyneside, there were 60 Covid-19 patients in hospital, and three in mechanical ventilation beds according to the latest data. They had seen a peak of 101 positive patients on July 17.
Though the latest Office for National Statistics Covid-19 survey only dates from the week ending July 25, even then experts were seeing the summer surge in cases wane - and expecting this to continue. Back then, one in 25 people in England were estimated to have had the virus - a sharp fall compared to one in 17 earlier in July.
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