Positive coronavirus cases have dropped by 28% in England, weekly Test and Trace figures show.

Between 19 and 25 November, 110,620 people tested positive for COVID-19 in England.

It marks a 28% decrease on the previous week, reversing a trend that saw cases rise steeply at the end of August.

The number of traced contacts was boosted after the Test and Trace system stopped trying to reach under-18s separately, the report said.

The new figures show that 72.5% of the 246,604 people identified as a close contact of someone who tested positive for COVID-19 in the week to 25 November were contacted.

It comes after weeks near a record low of around 60% of contacts of positive cases being successfully traced.

“Under-18s in a household will no longer be contact traced individually, providing the parent or guardian in the household confirms they have completed their legal duty to inform their child to self-isolate,” the Department of Health and Social Care said.

“This operational improvement has resulted in an increase in the proportion of contacts reached, and the proportion reached within 24 hours.”

The recent tweak means it is no longer possible to compare historically the proportion of contacts that have been reached each week under Test and Trace.

Meanwhile, the UK reported a further 16,170 coronavirus cases and 648 deaths on Wednesday – an increase from Tuesday when 13,430 cases and 603 deaths were reported.

But “help is on the way”, health secretary Matt Hancock said, as he announced the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will start being rolled out across the UK next week.

The government has secured 40 million doses of the vaccine, which needs to be refrigerated at -70C (-94F).

Ten million doses are expected to arrive by the end of the year – with care home residents and their carers the first in line to be vaccinated.

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