Thread by @chrischirp

THREAD on current Covid situation in UK:

TLDR slow growth in cases & hospitalisations flat. But both cases and hospitalisations remain very high.

Plus some perspective internationally, over time and on kids.

19 tweets.

1. Cases have been creeping up across the UK for last few weeks. Positivity rates are going up in all nations except NI (but that's also where they are highest).

ONS says prevalence flat everywhere except Scotland so slightly different but represents infections a bit earlier.

2. Cases are highest in NI, SW (tourism?), North & Midlands.

All regions in England are going up except the NE which is still coming down from its massive peak.

3. Cases in England are concentrated in young adults but are falling in under 20s and going up in over 20s.

Worryingly cases in over 60s are going up quite a lot in all regions apart from NE. This is not great.

4. The most deprived communities are more likely to have very high case rates.

Once again the burden of high cases falls on disproportionately on those least able to isolate and more likely to get very sick or get long covid.

5. Overall in England, we've seen 1.6 million cases reported since 1st May in this Delta wave. But the wave isn't over yet, and we are going into September with very high cases compared to last year.

6. In terms of people in hospital, England and Wales are flat, Scotland is coming down still and NI is increasing - likely a result of rapid increase in cases a week or two ago.

7. In England, we've had 33,000 new admissions since 1st May & are adding ~5,000 new ones a week. That's a lot! Especially when NHS is struggling.

The percentage of reported cases than "turn into" admissions 7 days later is creeping up. Likely as cases shift to older groups.

8. UK deaths remain far below their January peak, but *are* going up. We're currently averaging 100 deaths a day - *10 times* higher than last August.

Vaccines are doing *a lot* but cases are also very high.

9. Speaking of vaccination, we are continuing mopping up second doses and doing about 20K first doses a day.

Uptake is lower for younger age groups but 18-29 year olds are catching up 30-34 year olds. Let's hope we can get all under 50s to 85% at least.

10. Compared to other countries, we have excellent vaccination coverage but we're not the highest. Most of Europe is now over 50% of population fully vaccinated.

11. I tweeted this earlier this week but it's worth repeating. Despite vaccination, cases are 25x higher than a year ago and hospitalisations are 10x higher.

Many more people are getting very sick this month vs last August. I don't think this is good public health policy.

12. Looking at hospitalisations by age... for Over 65s we can see far far fewer hospitalisations now compared to peaks. That's the massive benefit of vaccines.

That said, hospital admissions are still significantly higher than last summer.

13. For working age adults, admissions are still a long way below peak - again a consequence of vaccination (and mainly in the older groups), but are nonetheless a LOT higher than a year ago.

14. For kids... hospital admissions are *much much* lower than adults. But obviously there is no vaccine benefit. Kids are seeing the same pandemic peak as in January.

There were 1.3K <18 admissions in 1st wave and 4.2K in 2nd wave.

Since May, over 2K kids have been admitted.

15. We are one of the few high income countries not vaccinating 12-15 yr olds.

As well as the ones in the chart below, Israel, Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, Chile, Canada, China, Philippines, Indonesia and Dubai are all vaccinating adolescents.

16. Cases in kids will go up when schools return.

We are also one of the few countries removing mitigations from schools instead of adding them in the face of Delta.

The European CDC & the US CDC both recommend mitigations to prevent transmission in schools.

Why aren't we?

17. ONS Schools study, widely reported this week, concluded that schools weren't hubs of infection.
They said partly because mitigations helped & partly cos infections depended on community rates.
gov.uk/government/new…

18. I was not convinced by their conclusions, but even if you take them at face value, those mitigations have now gone & next term will start with v high community rates.

I think we're only country doing NONE of mitigation, low cases, vaccination to keep kid infections down.

19. So to conclude, cases and hospital admissions remain high and are showing gradual increases in most UK nations.

We are definitely the international outlier in our approach to infections in children. /END

this is from 2 months ago
reuters.com/business/healt…

also the title on the chart should say "fully vaccinated" not one dose!