LONDON — London is recording fewer than 24 new coronavirus cases a day and could see the virus eradicated within weeks, according to data that suggests around 12 percent of England has already been infected and that the virus kills around 0.63 percent of cases.

Analysis by Public Health England and Cambridge University researchers calculated that the 'R' reproduction rate, the average number of people an infected patient passes the virus on to, has fallen to just 0.4 in the capital — with the number of new cases halving every 3.5 days, The Daily Mail reported.

The team — who provide the numbers to a sub-committee of the government scientific panel SAGE — estimate that 1.8million people in London (20 percent) have already had the disease.

And they say between 10 and 53 people in the capital caught the virus on May 10. Their forecast also predicts that that number would have dropped to just 10 by Friday.

The estimate shows the capital, once the worst-affected region of the country, is now ahead of every other area in recovering and could see all new cases eliminated by June.

It is believed London had been on downward trend in the rate of infections quicker than the rest of the country because of social distancing measures that were being encouraged on public transport before the lockdown began.

Meanwhile, the northeast of England is recording 4,000 daily infections and has an R rate of 0.8, twice that of the capital after seeing a slower increase in cases at the start of the pandemic.

The northwest is also still being hit hard, with the academics estimating the region is seeing around 2,400 new cases each day. — WAM