UK vaccine rollout 'breaking link' between infections and death

Increasingly strong evidence shows that the UK's vaccination programme is breaking the link between COVID-19 cases and deaths, scientists tracking the epidemic have said.

A study found infections had fallen by roughly two-thirds since February, before beginning to level off. 

This is probably because people are beginning to mix more - but deaths have not followed the same pattern.

This was not the case before January, when the vaccine rollout began.

The research, commissioned by the government and run by Imperial College London, is based on swabs taken from 140,000 people selected to represent England's population. Of that group, who were tested for the virus between 11 and 30 March, 227 had a positive result, giving a rate of 0.2%, or one in 500 people. But in people over the age of 65, the infection rate was half that with one in 1,000 people testing positive for Covid.

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Source: BBC News, 8 April 2021