Four charts show Britain is beating coronavirus as deaths and infections drop

Today's rise in deaths confirmed by the Department of Health is 338 – and it is the lowest number of deaths recorded on a Thursday in the UK for the last eight weeks.

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The number of daily deaths is steadily falling and statisticians have estimated the UK could be recording zero daily Covid-19 deaths by late June.

The declining number of cases and deaths is one of the five tests the UK needs to pass before lockdown is lifted.

These charts show how the figures are steadily declining in the UK and illustrating how Britain is on the other side of this pandemic.

NEW LOW IN COVID-19 CASES

The number of new coronavirus cases has been declining.

In the two weeks since May 6, the average number of new infections over the past seven days dropped by about 53 per cent.

Today there were 2,615 new cases recorded – which is a 24 per cent decrease compared to the same day the previous week when the number of new cases was 3,446.

The number of cases are falling across the country, despite more people being tested for the killer bug.

Today, the number of positive tests for coronavirus went up by 2,615 after 67,681 people were tested.

During the peak of the crisis, there was a single-day rise of 4,618 cases after 13,839 people were tested.

PAST THE PEAK

Coronavirus-related deaths in hospitals across England and Wales peaked on April 8, according to data released by the Office of National Statistics.

A spike in care home deaths occurred a little more than a week later.

The figures revealed showed at least 6,686 deaths of care home residents in England and Wales between April 10 and May 1 involving coronavirus.

English care homes reported just 95 coronavirus deaths up to April 10 – but from April 10 to May 1, the number had soared to 6,391.

The Government has faced criticism over its handling of the pandemic within care homes.

It isn't clear what caused the slight delay in the coronavirus peak in care homes, but deaths are falling in all settings.

ONS figures released on Tuesday showed weekly coronavirus-related deaths in care homes have fallen for the second week running to 1,666 in the week ending May 8, from 2,423 deaths in the previous seven days – a decrease of 31 per cent.

The number of coronavirus deaths today went up by 338 – compared to 428 on the same day last week.

ONS data has shown that on average deaths are falling at about a rate of 30 each day.

COVID DROPS IN HOSPITALS

Some 167 trusts of the 218 that contributed to daily NHS England data have seen drops in the number of coronavirus deaths between the periods of April 8 to 14 and May 8 to 15.

Furthermore, some of the smallest NHS England hospitals are seeing consecutive days without coronavirus deaths.

Six major London hospitals have also seen some victory after they reported no coronavirus deaths in 48 hours.

BBC Radio 4 this morning Professor Heneghan said at least six hospitals in the city have recorded no deaths in the past 48 hours.

The University of Oxford epidemiologist said: "What [the numbers] have shown in the capital is highly reassuring – the numbers are coming down.

"At least six trusts are reporting no deaths in hospitals in the last 48 hours. Across the country it's about 30 per cent of all trusts have had no deaths in the last 48 hours.

"And, actually, if you look at information like 111 calls and 999 calls you're seeing a trend here that's showing – all of the data's showing – it's disappearing at a rate that's speeding up, which is highly reassuring."

KEEPING 'R' RATE DOWN

Last week, experts estimated the reproduction number has gone up from between 0.5 and 0.9 to between 0.7 and 1.

But the government's top scientists cautioned that the small increase in the R value isn't thought to be linked due to a lag of about two to three weeks in data.

Instead, they believe that as the total number of cases in the community is falling, the number in care homes and hospitals is accounting for a greater proportion of the total.

On May 11 the 'R' rate had fallen to 0.4 in the London, according to analysis by PHE and Cambridge University.

The 'R' rate needs to stay below one before the Government can consider lifting lockdown.

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