THE director of public health for North Yorkshire says she is “cautiously optimistic” that the county has seen the worst of the Omicron wave as Covid infections continue to fall.

Louise Wallace told a meeting of North Yorkshire’s Outbreak Management Advisory Board on Monday that the latest figures showed a “much better picture” with a 43 per cent drop in the county’s weekly infection rate, which then stood at 1,048 cases per 100,000 people.

However, she said infections were still higher than previous months and that this was putting pressure on care homes, hospitals and schools.

Ms Wallace said: “We are now seeing a decline in some of the numbers and I’m really hopeful that they are heading in the right direction.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that we are turning the tide, but we still do have 854 daily cases.

“And of course we have had changes to testing arrangements over the last few weeks which may be having an impact on some of the data.”

NHS staff told Monay’s meeting that despite the improving picture, many patients were still being hospitalised with the virus.

They also expressed concerns that fewer people are now testing for Covid and that this was “skewering” the true rates of infections and estimates on how many more patients could need hospital treatment.