THE UK's Deputy Chief Medical Officer has warned that a "resurgence" in Covid-19 cases among young people is being spread to the older generation.
Speaking at a Downing Street briefing this morning, Jonathan Van-Tam said while many of the new cases seen have been in people aged under 30, it is now being spread from these younger people into older age groups, especially in the North East and North West.
He was presenting information about how the second spike in Covid-19 has come about and what it means for the coming weeks.
In a graph of daily case rates from February to mid-October, it showed the first peak in cases compared to the peak now, but said the two are "apples and pears" in comparison due to the increased testing capacity.
After a flat summer, Prof. Van-Tam said there has been a "marked pick-up" in cases, and shorter columns at the end of the graph are "only going to go one way and that is up".
He added: "As people become ill with the virus they don't go into hospital straight away, and when people go into hospital people do not die straight away, but some sadly will do at some point.
"As cases go up, there is a lag on the worst statistics, which are on hospitalisations and deaths."
In a second slide showing the geographical spread of Covid-19, it revealed the spread has been worse in the North as "disease levels in the North never dropped to the level they did in the South", but Prof. Van-Tam did say there has been a rapid increase in its spread in the South "in a matter of days, which is of concern to me".
After displaying a final 'heatmap' slide, he added: "The resurgence of cases has been mainly in adults under the age of 30, but there is a spread from younger age groups into older age groups, particularly in the North West and North East."
The graph shows cases in the 16-29 have been rising rapidly in Yorkshire and have not really changed in older age groups, but Prof Van-Tam warned: "This is just the beginning, Yorkshire is at an early stage of what we can see in the North West where cases are going up among older people."
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