Wales remains the UK nation with the highest Covid-19 infection rate despite a fall in cases for the second week in a row, latest figures show. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that 172,300 people in Wales had the virus in the week ending April 23, equating to 5.67% of the population or around one in 18 people.
That's a drop from the 198,400 people (6.53%) with the disease in Wales during the previous week, or around one in 15 people. The rate of positive cases appears to be highest in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, followed by the region covering Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil, though differences between the regions are "small". Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Powys all have lower rates of positivity.
It was a similar picture in England and Scotland, with each seeing a fall in their Covid levels one again. In England, around one in 25 (4.42%) had Covid in the week ending April 23, while it was also one in 25 in Scotland (4.14%). However, Northern Ireland has seen a slight increase in infections, with 74,700 people likely to have had Covid-19 last week, or one in 25, up from 65,300 people, or one in 30. The ONS described the trend in Northern Ireland as "uncertain".
The data suggests that the recent surge of coronavirus, driven in the main by the Omicron BA.2 variant, has peaked. However, the virus is still circulating at high levels in much of the country. You can get more health news and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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Across the UK, some 2.9 million million people in private households were estimated to have had Covid-19 in the week to April 23, down from 3.8 million the previous week. Total infections in the UK hit a weekly record of 4.9 million in late March.
The ONS infection survey is now the most reliable measure of the prevalence of Covid-19 in the UK. It uses a sample of swab tests collected regularly from tens of thousands of households, and is therefore able to estimate the percentage of people likely to test positive for coronavirus at any point in time, regardless of when they caught the virus, how many times they have had it and whether they have symptoms.
Meanwhile, the latest data from lateral flow tests taken in Wales shows there have been fewer positive tests in the last week, down from 16,043 in the previous week to 12,194 for the week of April 18 to 24. However, changes to testing requirements, as tests are only available to people with symptoms, mean it is no longer a reliable guide to the pandemic.
Figures from hospitals show that the number of people in acute hospitals being treated for Covid, as opposed to being in hospital for another reason and testing positive for Covid, has remained relatively static in the last week. On April 28, 455 'confirmed' Covid patients were in hospital but only 86 of them were being actively treated for the virus. A week earlier those figures were 572 and 89 respectively.
The number of patients in ICU beds with Covid has increased in the last week from 18 on April 22 to 25 on April 28. Cardiff and Vale UHB has by far the most of any health board with 12, followed by Hywel Dda UHB with six, Swansea Bay UHB with three and Cwm Taf Morgannwg UHB and Betsi Cadwaladr UHB both with two.
