Covid in Wales: Infections continue to fall for fourth week

The regular swabs are taken in thousands of households in Wales for the survey, but not in hospitals or care homes

Coronavirus infections are continuing to fall in Wales, according to the latest weekly Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey.

One in 35 people are estimated to have had Covid in the latest week - 88,300 people in the week ending 7 May.

That equates to 2.91% of the population and is a fall for a fourth successive week.

This is the lowest estimate since the week leading up to Christmas.

Since the summer of 2020, the ONS has organised a weekly swab survey involving thousands of households across Wales.

It has become the most important tool to measure the level of infections, with the end of mass testing for people with symptoms at the end of March.

The estimate for Wales is a higher than those in the other UK nations, apart from Scotland. It was also still higher than in all English regions.

Infections are estimated to involve one in 45 people in England, one in 35 in Scotland and one in 55 in Northern Ireland.

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The age group in Wales with the highest proportion with Covid on daily rate estimates were 65 to 67-year-olds (3.11%) while the lowest estimates were in children.

Looking within Wales, infections are estimated to be slightly higher in south Wales and the valleys, compared to other parts of the country.

Meanwhile, there were 318 patients in acute beds in hospital who had positive Covid tests, although only 54 of these patients on Thursday were being actively or primarily treated for Covid.

This is the lowest number of "active" Covid patients since Digital Health and Care Wales started publishing these figures in January.

That means 83% of patients testing for Covid in hospital currently are there to be treated for other conditions.

Of these, 13 patients were in critical care, although there have been no patients with Covid in critical care across the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health authority now for six days.