Thread by @ADMBriggs

Week 16 Test & Trace data summary. 09/09/20 – 09/09/20.

Cases ⬆️3%.
Tests ⬆️1%.
Test positivity rate ⬆️from 3.2% to 3.3%

⬆️⬆️ pillar 1 (hospitals/outbreaks) cases & positivity.

Not in pillar 2 (community).

Summary in picture, detail in thread 👇

gov.uk/government/pub…

KEY POINTS
⬆️⬆️in pillar 1 cases

- Number of tests in pillar 1 ⬆️by 21%, pillar 2 ⬇️by 7%
- Number of cases in pillar 1 ⬆️123% from 1,589 to 3,550
- Number cases in pillar 2 ⬇️8% from 17,181 to 15,728

Means positivity for pillar 2 remains 4.1%
And pillar 1 ⬆️to 1.8% from 1.0%

Ongoing ⬆️pillar 1 cases may be due to more cases in care homes and hospitals (some PHE data supports this).

May also be due to prioritising tests among symptomatic.

Drop in number of Pillar 2 tests is worrying.

And @PHE_UK data to 13th Sept show this cases still largely driven by younger adults, but rises in positivity rates across all age gps (next PHE surveillance report is tomorrow)

And older, more vulnerable people are already in hospital and on ITU

So as daily case updates lose relevance. Harder outcomes - number of hospitalised cases, admissions, & intensive care patients really climbing.

Deaths within 28 days of test result also now starting to follow (note delay in reporting deaths).

And as previously written, testing is crucial for understanding viral spread and targeting public health policy.

Without it, we’re left with far blunter (and often inequitable) public policy options like lockdown.

A massive 21,268 people transferred to Test & Trace. About 2,000 more than the number of weekly cases meaning the system may have largely caught up on any backlog.

A disappointing 78% of cases reached down from 83% the past week.

Highest yet (84%) provided details of at least one contact. Again, suggesting good engagement once contacted.

*Again* would like to know contribution of local authority contact tracing systems – how has their introduction improved overall T&T performance for contacting cases and identifying contacts?

Number of contacts identified has increased, but contacts per case largely the same.
It’s 4.7 contacts per non-complex case (5.2 last week), and 30.7 contacts per complex case (34.2 last week).

These difference from last week may just be natural variations but equally, might reflect a change in social behaviours/local lockdowns. Need to analyse local level data to pick that apart.

Percentage of non-complex contacts reached remains 64%.

This means only 50%-60% of possible contacts are reached (78% cases reached, 84% give details of contacts, and 75% of contacts reached)

There are few things changing .

The NHS App has launched. Really don’t know what that’ll do here. It may identify more contacts and do so in a more timely way, but we don’t haven’t seen the trial data.

Plus T&T still relies on people manually inputting contacts (app is anonymous) and might it mean people choose not to enter contacts as they think the app will do it automatically?

We also have additional payments for those on low incomes needing to isolate plus fines for those not doing so coming in on the 28th.

Test times still awful. Whilst has improved a little for home test kits, this offset by worsening performance for local/mobile test sites.

Once in the system, time performance largely similar to past weeks

And a new metric, median distance to a test site

Unlike an average, not skewed by some huge distances. But this is still only people who take up a test that's miles away, so doesn't reflect what people are offered. Not to mention inequals of people who don't have car etc.

And after all this, it looks as though more money might be going to T&T - now £12bn(!) up from £10bn earlier in the year.

Partly to support mass testing infrastructure.

(reminder, PHE budget was £287m)

gov.uk/government/new…

Cases continue to rise, please take care and access support when you need to. Do try to get tested if you have symptoms, and isolate if required. It will make a huge difference to what happens in the coming weeks.

Finally - we've just published a big explainer on T&T, please do take a look.

There's tonnes in there and it really tries to unpick what's happened plus looks at what might be done to address ongoing challenges.

Wk16 @felly500 @trishgreenhalgh @deb_cohen @martinmckee @carolecadwalla @mgtmccartney @ADPHUK @Jeanelleuk
@fascinatorfun @profchrisham @petermbenglish @HPIAndyCowper @Davewwest @HSJEditor @KateAlvanley
@IndependentSage @nedwards_1 @chrischirp @SamanthaJonesUK @ewanbirney

@TimHarford