But the health secretary said people should “remain cautious” and celebrate outside on New Year’s Eve if possible.
Meanwhile, England reported a record number of cases on Christmas Day.
The figures showed there were 113,628 new infections reported in England on 25 December, 103,558 on 26 December and 98,515 on 27 December.
Only partial Covid data has been published over the Christmas period.
Dr Sarah Pitt, a virologist at the University of Brighton, told the BBC the cases data was “likely to be an underestimate” for several reasons, including people being less inclined to come forward for a test on Christmas Day and data processing delays over the festive period.
Latest figures also showed there were 8,474 people with Covid currently in hospital in England - the highest since March, but well below last winter’s peak of more than 34,000.
Meanwhile, the Scottish government said provisional data suggested Christmas weekend had seen the highest daily cases recorded in Scotland since the start of the pandemic.
If the data gets updated then I will. At the moment detailed figures are only up to 22nd Dec. The rest is caveated. Therefore I’m surprised the DM has all the facts when the .Gov website does not.
