Covid infections fall for the fifth successive week in Wales

Swab tests are taken from nearly 5,000 people of all ages in Wales every week in the survey

Covid infections are estimated to have fallen in Wales for the fifth successive week.

One in 45 people is estimated to have had Covid in the latest week, according to the weekly swab survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

An estimated 65,500 people in Wales had Covid in the week ending 16 August, which equates to 2.15% of the population.

This compares to the last weekly estimate, when it was 72,600 people.

The recent trend has been falling after a rise in May and June.

Since the summer of 2020, the ONS has organised a weekly swab survey involving thousands of households across Wales, which now involves people being sent test kits by post.

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

Infections are estimated to be lower in Wales than Scotland and England and all English regions apart from South West, London, East Midlands and the East.

ONS estimates infections to involve one in 45 people in England, one in 40 in Scotland and one in 70 in Northern Ireland.

Broken down, daily estimates of infection in Wales are highest in people in their early 70s and lowest in young children.

91% of patients testing positive for Covid are being treated for another condition and numbers in hospital are still falling.

Meanwhile, the number of patients testing positive for Covid in hospital beds in Wales continues to drop too.

It has averaged 350 a day over the past week - down 5% on a week ago and a fall of 43% on a month ago.

But only 9% of patients in acute hospital beds with Covid were being primarily or "actively" treated for the virus, with 91% in hospital for other reasons.

The average number has been 29 patients primarily being treated for Covid in the most recent week, the lowest since early June.

This number of "active" Covid patients on 23 August was around a third of the number in hospital the month before, according to the Digital Health and Care Wales figures.

Figures from earlier this week showed deaths involving Covid are at half the level so far in 2022 than they were at this point in 2021.

Deaths overall have been above the five-year pre-pandemic norm for the last five weeks in Wales, according to ONS.

There were 661 deaths from all causes - 73 (12.4%) more than the average in the most recent week.

Covid accounted for 4.5% of all deaths in Wales in the latest week, less than the proportion in England (5.8%).

In the most recent week, up to 12 August, 30 people in Wales had a death registered which involved Covid-19 and saw it included as a contributory factor on their death certificate, according to the ONS.

That compared with 39 registered in the previous week.

Analysis for July showed Covid was the sixth leading cause of death in Wales after being the 19th leading cause in June.

Heart disease (10.8% of all deaths) was the leading cause of death in July and has been for seven consecutive months.