18 June,2021 06:26 AM IST | London | Agencies
A person walks by closed shops in Blackburn on Wednesday. The UK government on Monday announced a four-week delay to lifting restrictions due to rise in infections caused by Delta variant. Pic/AFP
The number of people infected with coronavirus is increasing rapidly in England, doubling every 11 days, which coincides with the Delta variant of Covid-19 becoming dominant in the country, a new study reports on Thursday.
The Imperial College London led Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT-1) analysis, based on over 100,000 home swab tests taken between May 20 and June 7, estimates that 0.15 per cent of people have the deadly virus, or roughly 1 in 670.
It found that the link between infections, hospitalisations and deaths had been weakening since February, but since late April, the trend has reversed for hospitalisations.
"We found strong evidence for exponential growth in infection from late May to early June in the REACT-1 study, with a doubling time of 11 days on average for England," said Prof. Paul Elliott, director, REACT programme, Imperial's School of Public Health. "This data coincides with Delta variant becoming dominant and shows the importance of continuing to monitor infection rates and variants of concern in the community," he said.
Researchers have successfully used graphene - one of the strongest, thinnest known materials - to detect SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory. This can help detect coronavirus and its variants accurately. The study, published in ACS Nano on Tuesday, found that the vibrations of antibody-coupled graphene sheet changed when treated with a COVID-positive sample, but not when treated with a COVID-negative sample or with other coronaviruses.
The United States is devoting more than $3 bn to advance the development of antiviral pills for Covid-19, according to an official. The pills, to minimize symptoms after infection, are in development and could arrive by the year's end, pending completion of clinical trials.
Australia has raised the age for which the AstraZeneca vaccine is recommended to 60 from 50 after it was blamed for a 52-year-old woman's death last week from blood clots in the brain.
Japan on Thursday will ease a coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo and six other areas next week, as it begins final preparations for the Olympics starting in over a month.
Also Read: Covid-19: Mumbai sees a dip in fresh infections again at 666
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