The number of people in hospital in England with Covid-19 has nearly halved from its recent peak in mid-October, new figures show.
A total of 5,647 patients testing positive for coronavirus were in hospital as of 8am on Wednesday November 9, according to NHS England.
This is down 23% from the previous week, but also a fall of 47% since hitting 10,688 on October 17.
The sharp drop in patients is another signal that the latest wave of the virus is now receding.
Patient numbers had begun to climb in mid-September, driven by a fresh surge in infections.
But this trend came to a halt only a month later, since when the figures have been on a downward path.
Covid-19 hospital data is published every Thursday, so it can take time for a clear trend to emerge.
However, the total number of coronavirus patients has now fallen 23 days in a row.
Earlier this year patient levels topped 14,000 at the peak of the wave of infections caused by the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the virus.
This was well below the levels seen during the early waves of the pandemic.
Estimates published last week by the Office for National Statistics suggested that infections in England started to fall at the end of last month, with 1.6 million people in private households likely to test positive for Covid-19 in the week to October 24, down from 1.7 million the previous week.
Infections in England peaked at 3.1 million during the summer BA.4/BA.5 wave.
