Thread by @john_actuary

A short thread with some key points on the latest PHE surveillance report issued Friday. I'll start with the age breakdown and trend - the colour coding highlights how the level of infection is gradually spreading to older, more vulnerable, ages. 1/5

The regional split shows a now familiar picture. There's not the same concept of spreading as for age of course. The E/SE/SW regions are not showing the same growth - possibly an argument against national measures where they are particularly damaging economically? 2/5

We know that outcomes are worse for ethnic minorities once infected, but the difference in infectivity levels is startling. The correlation with other factors (eg socio-economic) needs to be understood before jumping to conclusions, but surely more research is needed here? 3/5

The report does give a regional split of ethnicity. What's possibly surprising is how in the SE, some ethnic communities have shown very little change over the 6 weeks, in stark contrast to increases elsewhere in the country. 4/5

Finally, the breakdown of outbreaks shows most increasing as might be expected. We might predict educational outbreaks to increase with schools returning, but the steep rise in care home outbreaks this week must surely be of concern. 5/5 ENDS