Scientists say England has reached a “critical stage” of the second Covid-19 wave with cases doubling around every nine days, and new infections reaching around 96,000 per day.

Scientists say England has reached a “critical stage” of the second Covid-19 wave with cases doubling around every nine days, and new infections reaching around 96,000 per day.
The spread of the virus is continuing to increase across all parts of the country, according to a new study by Imperial College London.
The infection rate is rising in all age groups with the highest spread of the disease in the northwest of England and Yorkshire and the Humber region, the research found.
The study, which involved testing more than 85,000 volunteers, found 128 per 10,000 people were infected in England in the two weeks ending 25 October, compared to 60 per 10,000 in the same period ending 5 October.
Meanwhile, it is reported the UK government is considering the rapid unrolling of saliva-based coronavirus kits in a bid to test up to 10% of England’s population every week.
According to the Guardian newspaper, NHS Test and Trace is stepping up its efforts to meet the targets set out in the government’s Operation Moonshot plans announced last month.
In a leaked letter seen by the paper, Alex Cooper, director of rapid testing at NHS Test and Trace, said the body was embarking on an “important new front in our fight against coronavirus”.
“Each director of public health will be eligible to receive on a weekly basis the number of tests equivalent to 10% of their population,” he wrote.
The testing programme would focus on regions under the highest level of restrictions, and would mark a significant increase on current capacity of 2.1 million conventional nose and throat swabs a week.
The leaked letter comes as the latest test and trace figures are due to be released today, a source of criticism for the Government in recent weeks.
Last week’s figures revealed just 59.6% of the proportion of close contacts of people who tested positive were reached – the lowest weekly percentage since the programme began.
Critics also worry that expansion of saliva-based testing could lead to many thousands of false positives, and Test and Trace boss Dido Harding has expressed her scepticism of them.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are already piloting new testing technologies in north west, north east and Yorkshire with repeat testing for priority groups to identify those most at risk of spreading the virus.
“We continue to work tirelessly to make sure everyone who needs a test can get one and this includes introducing new, highly reliable technology to allow us to test more people and deliver rapid results at scale.”
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Nottinghamshire will enter Tier 3 restrictions from midnight tomorrow, meaning a further 1.1 million people will be living under England’s toughest virus measures.
UK Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has warned the country is likely to remain in the grip of the second wave throughout the winter.
He also dashed hopes of an easing of shutdown restrictions by Christmas, telling ITV’s Peston programme: “Christmas in its perhaps fullest sense won’t be achievable for any of us this year.
“And perhaps coming to terms with that now is probably the right approach that we need to take”.
Additional reporting PA