Covid cases jump 60% in a week to 9,600 daily infections but symptom app reveals they nearly DOUBLED to 16,000
CORONAVIRUS cases have jumped 60 per cent in a week to nearly 10,000 infections a day - but app data suggests it could be nearly double.
New figures from the Office for National Statistics shows there were around 9,600 new Covid infections per day in England - up on 6,000 last week.
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But data from the King's College London Symptom Tracker app, also published today, suggests the true figure could be almost twice that.
The app, which relies on people self-reporting their symptoms, found 16,130 people were infected each day over the two weeks up to 20 September.
These new figures come as people across the country are still scrambling to get tests at drive-through centres and in the post amid capacity constraints.
Data from the app also revealed today that the number of people in the virus in the North West had tripled in the last seven days.
Last week it recorded 12,544 cases in the region and this week it states there are 36,316 cases.
In the North East and Yorkshire numbers have doubled from 12,916 to 27,731, which in London they have gone from 9,291 to 18,200.
The app also revealed that in London there are 213 new cases per million of the population each day.
Recent figures also revealed that hospital admissions in the capital have tripled in the last two weeks.
During the last week the ONS said that there were approximately 1.75 new Covid-19 infections for every 10,000 people per day in the community - equating to 9,600 new cases per day.
The ONS stated that around 103,600 people within the community in England had the virus in the last week, this equates to around 1 in 500 people.
The ONS stated: "There is evidence of higher infection rates in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, London and North East; both West and East Midlands are recently showing a small increase."
Regional trends show that both the West and East Midlands are also showing small increases in case numbers.
In recent weeks the virus has been increasing across the country, and data from the ONS states that it is also increase in younger age groups such as the 17-24 group.
The ONS said this is based on "statistical modelling of nose and throat swab test results";.
"In the data used to produce these estimates, the number of people sampled in some age groups who tested positive for Covid-19 is lower relative to England overall.
"This means there is a higher degree of uncertainty in estimates for some age groups over this period, as indicated by larger credible intervals."
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Data from the King's College App added that its estimates suggest that 147,498 people currently have symptomatic Covid-19 across the UK.
It also revealed that all 25 regions in the UK have seen an increase in cases over the last week.
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Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London said cases were rising at an "alarming rate".
“The number of cases in the UK continues to rise at an alarming rate as we are seeing figures doubling weekly across the country, in particular we are worried about places like London and other major cities like Manchester, Belfast and Glasgow where cases are surging and the R value is around 1.4. "