UK Covid daily cases drop for sixth day in a row with 24,950 infections and 14 deaths

COVID cases have dropped for the sixth day in a row with a further 24,950 infections reported in the past 24 hours. 

The figures mark a 46 per cent decrease in a week amid growing hopes that the third wave may have peaked.

Today’s daily case toll is 46 per cent down on the 46,792 infections reported last Monday, and a significant decrease on the 43,599 recorded a fortnight ago. 

Meanwhile, daily Covid deaths continue to remain relatively low, with a further 14 fatalities reported today.

The figure is down on last Monday's rise (19) but higher than the Monday before that, when six people lost their lives to the bug.

It brings the total number of UK Covid deaths recorded within 28 days of a positive test result to 129,172.

It comes as...

• Boris Johnson warned the UK is "not out of the woods yet" despite a drop in cases
• Experts said the third wave may be coming to an end as jabs continue to halt transmission
• France could return to the amber list in weeks amid growing confidence the Beta variant is not as dangerous as feared
• Supermarket shelves could be left empty again in weeks as a result of the "pingdemic"

Boris Johnson today warned the country was "not out of the woods" despite the sustained fall in cases.

The PM believes the rapid fall in infections is "encouraging" but insisted the pandemic "is not over" and Brits must still stay on their guard.

As of July 23 (Friday), 5,238 people were in hospital with Covid across the UK.

Of these, 715 were on ventilators.

A Downing St spokesman said: "Throughout the pandemic we have always said it's encouraging when cases are falling."

'NOT OUT OF THE WOODS'

But he added: "We should still expect to see a rise in case numbers given the move to Step 4 last week".

"The Prime Minister thinks we're not out of the woods yet."

Health experts are optimistic that the third wave, driven by the Delta variant, may have now peaked.

It's understood ministers are "trying not to get too excited" about the drop - but there's now "confidence" that things are heading in the right direction, Politico reports.

Dr Simon Clarke, from the University of Reading, said: "We could now be starting to come out of this wave, based on these case numbers.

"It may be that, if the Euros affected case numbers from people mixing, we are now returning to the level of cases we would have had without the tournament."

However, he urged caution - and says school holidays have "taken a lot of heat out of this", while there's not yet data from Freedom Day.

Latest figures show that a total of 37,287,384 people in the UK have received both doses of the Covid vaccine so far.

As of July 25, 46,589,211 first doses had been given.