Britain's COVID-19 infections may be "flattening" in some areas: chief scientific officer

LONDON (Reuters) - There is evidence levels of COVID-19 infections are "flattening" in some areas of Britain due to the measures the government has taken to stem the pandemic, the UK's chief scientific officer Patrick Vallance said on Thursday.

"There are some areas where we begin to see real effects of what's happening, so there's some indications that amongst young people the rates are coming down or flattening off a bit," he said at a media briefing.

"And in some areas of the country we can begin to see a little bit of flattening possibly. So the measures are having an effect but we need to do more if the aim is to get 'R' below one and to shrink this epidemic."

Vallance added that the latest modelling consensus suggested between 53,000 and 90,000 new infections may be occurring each day.

(Reporting by William James, writing by James Davey Editing by Andrew MacAskill)