Thread by @chrischirp

THREAD: Where are we in UK with cases, where are we going and should we care?

TLDR: nowhere good, somewhere worse, absolutely yes.

1/24 (yes, I know, another long one. Still worth a read I hope!)

We are at almost 30,000 daily cases again - numbers last seen in mid December.

Cases are climbing steeply. 2/24

They are climbing in all nations now - over the last week growth in all nations was about 70%.

This is clearer when looking at the same plot on a log scale (2nd chart).

It's not just testing- positivity is rising too (note that positivity chart only to 26 June) 3/24

What does this mean? 70% growth is about 9 day doubling time & 18 days left till 19 July.

Growth has accelerated recently but projecting forward at current 70% gives 90K 7 day average & over 100K cases a day by 19 July.

Charts show same thing on log and normal scales. 4/24

This may seem unbelievable - but we have about 25 million people likely still susceptible to covid (only 50% of pop fully vaxxed).

Schools have another 3 weeks of term.

Most things are open, inc pubs and each other's houses.

The football is on, England is winning. 5/24

Vaccination will slow growth but unlikely to have massive impact in next 18 days.

Even if growth slows to 50% a week, that's still 80K daily cases by 19 July. To get to "only" 50K daily cases you'd need to suddenly slow down a lot.

Today's week on week rise is 74%. 6/24

So who is getting infected?

Well mainly younger people - particularly school age children and twentysomethings.

While cases are highest in 15-29 yr olds, they are rising fastest among 5-14 year olds. 7/24

In England, the number of school outbreaks is almost back to where we were last December and almost 400,000 children were off school due to Covid in week to 24 June.

There are still 3 weeks left of term in England. 8/24

In Scotland, cases are highest in 20-24 year olds and much lower in under 14s. School term has ended in Scotland which is a good thing.

Two thousand recent cases in Scotland were linked to football, particularly the England/Scotland match.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla… 9/24

Covid is everywhere but cases are highest in Scotland and North of England (and Cornwall!).

Looking at regional English data, once again the North is disproportionately affected by covid.

But almost *every* local authority saw increases last week. 10/24

So that's where we are and where we are going over next 18 days.

And then on 19th July, we open a lot more. Will this matter?

What about hospitalisations & deaths? 11/24

The number of people in hospital is still low - much much lower than it would be without vaccination and compared to where we were in Nov with similar case rates.

But hospitalisations are rising - especially in Scotland and England and that growth is also increasing now. 12/24

In England, hospital admissions are rising in every region but are highest in the North. 13/24

Daily reported deaths have started rising a bit but are still very low - much much lower than compared to last autumn with similar case numbers. This is a good thing and largely due to vaccines. 14/24

So why should we care?

Many (inc govt) are saying infections don't matter any more, that the link between cases and hospitalisations / deaths is broken. That it's fine if kids & young people get it and we shouldn't worry about it.

I disagree. Strongly. Five reasons. 15/24

1. Hospitalisations & deaths are far lower than they would be without vax. But they are rising - and if we get to over 100K cases a day, many will still get very sick and some will die.

Plus hospitals are already stressed and don't need more stress! 16/24

2. Long covid. ONS reports 1 million people a year living with long covid, and 385K have had it for over a year. 634K said it adversely affected their daily lives.

Even 7-8% of 2-15 yr olds & 12% of 17-24 yr olds reported symptoms for over 12 weeks.
ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati… 17/24

Sooo... for every million new infections, we might expect 100K-200K (mostly young) people living with long covid.

Many will find their ability to work or study affected.

The longer term impact of covid on the organs are unknown - but we know covid can damage the body. 18/24

3. Deprivation.

Cases are highest & vax rates lowest in deprived areas, and people more likely to need hospital and get long covid.

Children in deprived communities suffer more from education disruption.

Letting infection rates soar will exacerbate inequalities. 19/24

4. Variants

Every new case provides chance for further mutation.

Delta went from 0% to over 90% of cases in 10 weeks.

As children get infected, any mutation that can better infect their vaxxed parents (and their parents' friends) will have a selection advantage. 20/24

5. We can prevent cases!

We have safe & effective vaccines. Pfizer is approved for over 12s & vax for under 11s are being trialled.

We have an excellent vax programme, it *just isn't quite finished yet*.

We are letting things rip for the sake of a couple more months. 21/24

We also need to support vaccines through public health measures *which govt is not doing*:
- excellent (rapid!) contact tracing
- support for isolation
- better ventilation
- better communication of symptoms, testing, isolation, vaccines 22/24

Instead, govt is planning to remove the few measures that we do have: social distancing, masks, isolation and allowing mass events & venues such as nightclubs without testing or other measures.

This is a deliberate choice to allow millions of young people to get infected. 23/24

With our excellent vax programme + better public health measures we can vaccinate instead of infect - and avoid the negative consequences of infection.

Instead govt has given up and plan is to "live with" soaring infections.

It's a terrible plan. 24/24

PS thank you to Bob Hawkins for his help in preparing the charts as ever!