The number of COVID cases and deaths has fallen by almost a third in a week.

Figures show Britain recorded 52 Covid deaths and 41,270 positive cases of the virus in the past 24 hours.

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Compared to last week's statistics – 57,337 cases and 75 deaths – the figures are down 28 percent and 30 percent respectively.

It comes as the crucial R rate has also fallen slightly this week and is now between 0.8 and 1.

Last week the R-value was between 0.8 and 1.1, but it is important to note that there is always a lag in the data with these numbers.

As of yesterday, around one in 19 people in England currently have coronavirus, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows.

Experts said infection rates have remained high across Britain, while positive tests are rising in the south-east.

Both the south-west and east of England also saw a rise in cases in the seven days to February 5, ONS data shows.

The number of people testing positive has fallen in the North East, the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber.

Data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) also shows that the North East and Yorkshire currently have the lowest R rate in the country, between 0.7 and 0.9.

The southeast and southwest have the highest R rates, between 0.9 and 1.1.

The East of England and London are between 0.8 and 1.1, while the Midlands are between 0.8 and 1.

The northwest is between 0.7 and 1.

Earlier this week it was announced that our rapid vaccine rollout means we are on course to drop the final restrictions a month earlier – with the final legal restrictions being lifted on February 24.

The triumphant Prime Minister told his friends: 'We've got Covid done' as he announced the end of the measures.

It means Brits are no longer legally required to self-isolate for five days if they contract coronavirus.

This will give millions of children the freedom to stay in school instead of being sent home repeatedly due to symptoms that are usually little more than a cold.

Councils will also be stripped of emergency powers that allow them to close businesses they consider a risk.

On the same day that these latest domestic laws are scrapped, No 10 also wants to tear up the last of the Covid border controls.

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The death of his on-screen partner David Soul is the latest tragedy to strike in Paul Michael Glaser’s life.

Glaser, 80, played Detective Dave Starsky alongside Soul’s Detective Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson in the chart-topping 1970s TV series Starsky & Hutch.

The duo are remembered for tooling around the streets of California in their distinctive red-and-white Ford Torino, looking infinitely cool in spite of a penchant for belted cardies. 

But Glaser’s life off-screen was filled with both hardship and heartbreak. The actor-director lost his seven-year-old daughter Ariel and his beloved wife Elizabeth to HIV, which she had contracted during a blood transfusion following Ariel’s birth.

He eventually remarried but split with his second wife Tracy Barone in 2007, ending their 10-year union over ‘irreconcilable differences’.

Glaser also spent many years ‘fearing for his safety’ after being stalked by an obsessed fan who he found ‘lurking’ in his Los Angeles apartment. He claims the woman even followed him to the UK when he starred in Peter Pan.

Glaser and Elizabeth welcomed their first child together in August 1981 – their daughter Ariel. 

Elizabeth had haemorrhaged during her labour and was given a transfusion of seven pints of blood, which at that time was not being screened for AIDS.

About four years later, worried about their daughter’s persistent and severe stomach aches, the couple took Ariel to the doctor. She tested positive for HIV. 

It transpired Elizabeth had contracted HIV from the blood transfusion and, unaware she was carrying the virus, began breastfeeding Ariel, and in doing so passed on the virus to her daughter.

Three years later, still unaware that Elizabeth was HIV positive, the Glasers had a son, Jake, who was also infected with HIV in the womb. Paul was the only one to test negative.

In 1988, aged seven years and one week, Ariel died. Elizabeth also passed away from HIV in 1994, aged 47 – though not before campaigning vigorously for more research into the virus. 

Jake survived and was previously reported to be on medication to combat the effects of the virus. 

He has continued his mother’s advocacy work through the Pediatric Aids Foundation and in 2021 revealed that he had experienced survivor’s guilt growing up.

‘I resented my mom and sister for what I thought was abandonment,’ he told People Magazine. ‘And I beat myself up thinking, “Why couldn’t I have saved them?'” 

Glaser also experienced guilt, bitterness and grief over the deaths of Elizabeth and Ariel. He told The Daily Mail 11 years ago: ‘I began with a tremendous amount of rage and anger, mainly directed at myself for not being able to do anything about all of this. And guilt, too.

‘But going though the experience of losing my wife and daughter meant I was probably more open to learning about helplessness, fear and where we are in this life.

‘I’m a very different person now than I would have been had none of this happened, so I consider myself very fortunate that I was able to learn those things and end up in a place I’d never have imagined.’

He married his second wife, film producer Tracy Barone, in 1996. The pair shared one daughter together, Zoe.

The couple divorced in 2007 with Glaser citing ‘irreconcilable differences’ as the reason for ending his marriage in court documents filed in Los Angeles.

Shortly before she died, Elizabeth wrote a moving book entitled In the Absence Of Angels where she noted that after the diagnosis, which the Glasers kept private for a long time, ‘we still appeared, to so many, the picture-perfect family’.

‘In private, after the diagnosis, I said: “Why me? Why me? Why me?”,’ Glaser admitted in 2013, ‘but the only answer to that question is: “Well, why not me?”.

‘In my darkest moments [after the deaths of Ariel and Elizabeth] I probably thought about ending it,’ he admits, ‘but I never had the…’ he stops. ‘It never made sense. How do you do something like that?

So it never entered my mind. But over time I learned that we’re all helpless in the face of our mortality.

‘We attempt all these illusions of empowerment: “I built this… I own this… I can buy this…”, but the nasty truth exists that we have no power whatsoever over our own mortality, or anyone else’s for that matter, and that’s our only real fear.

‘I still get enraged or angry or hurt or saddened or depressed but it takes me a much shorter time now to deal with it. So I consider myself extremely fortunate because I have a far greater degree of peace than I ever could have imagined.’ 

In the mid-80s, a climate of fear about AIDS prevailed. Elizabeth wrote movingly about how some schools wouldn’t admit their children and about how even certain school friends weren’t allowed to come round to the Glaser house to play.

Undaunted, she started the Pediatric AIDS Foundation to help further research into the virus and even lobbied Congress for more funds.

Princess Diana, on hearing about the Glasers’ plight, contacted Elizabeth and later admitted that Elizabeth’s courage in the face of adversity had helped spark her own work for AIDS charities in Britain.

Glaser, now an abstract artist, is the honorary chairman of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The charity was named in honor of his wife and daughter.

The actor was also forced to ask a Los Angeles judge for a restraining order to be filed against a woman who used to run his official website in 2011.

Glaser filed for a restraining order to protect himself from the unnamed woman, claiming she was ‘lurking’ in his apartment.

He claimed she followed him to the UK when he starred in Peter Pan in 2007 and attended the panto 23 times. 

The actor also alleged that she has sent him over 500 emails in a two-year span. In the stream of emails, the woman exhibited ‘both a rational and very irrational side,’ according to the documents.

Glaser at the time said, ‘I fear for my safety.’

Glaser become a household name as Detective Dave Starsky in the cop series which ran from 1975 to 1979. 

Today his co-star Soul, David Soul, who won cult status for his role in the series before topping the charts with his hit ‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, died at the age of 80. 

His heartbroken wife Helen Snell said the British-American star had passed away surrounded by his family following a ‘valiant battle for life’. 

She said in a statement: ‘David Soul – beloved husband, father, grandfather and brother – died yesterday after a valiant battle for life in the loving company of family.

‘He shared many extraordinary gifts in the world as actor, singer, storyteller, creative artist and dear friend. His smile, laughter and passion for life will be remembered by the many whose lives he has touched.’

Soul played Detective Ken ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson alongside Glaser’s Detective Dave Starsky. The pair remained friends, and in 2017 Glaser was seen pushing his old co-star on a wheelchair into the Comic Con in Liverpool. 

Soul married five times and leaves behind five sons and a daughter. He first wed the actress Mirriam ‘Mim’ Solberg in 1964, but this lasted only a year. 

Further unions followed with Karen Carlson, who he met on the set of TV series Here Comes the Brides; Patti Carnel Sherman, the ex-wife of 1960s pop idol Bobby Sherman; and the actress Julia NIckson. 

Soul described how he ‘fell in love’ with Britain after spending time there for work and lived in Maida Vale for many years – becoming a dedicated Arsenal fan. He gained citizenship in 2004. He met Helen Snell, a PR executive, in 2002 on the stage production of Deathtrap and they married in 2010.  

Soul became an international star and pin-up thanks to Starsky and Hutch during the show’s four year run between 1975 and 1979.

He had a cameo in a 2004 feature film remake of the hit show, starring Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch, which introduced the legendary characters to another younger generation.  

The original series ran for four seasons on ABC from 1975 to 1979, following the title characters, detectives who fought crime on the streets of the fictional Bay City, California in a bright red Gran Torino, with Antonio Fargas playing their informant, Huggy Bear.

Soul also enjoyed a short-lived pop career, scoring a number one hit in the US and UK with catchy ballad Don’t Give Up On Us Baby in 1976.

Further chart-toppers would follow in 1977, with singles Going In With My Eyes Open and Silver Lady, but Soul’s foray as a singer would end 12 months later with the release of It Sure Brings Out The Love In Your Eyes – his fifth and final single.

Other memorable film roles included that of a vigilante cop in Dirty Harry sequel The Enforcer and the lead as nostalgic writer Ben Mears in 1979 Stephen King adaptation Salem’s Lot.