Thread by @chrischirp

QUICK(ISH) THREAD ON UK COVID UPDATE:

TLDR: cases dropping (partly but not wholly a half term effect), but hospital admissions & deaths rising (in England). Vax still not fast enough.

1/13

Vaccination: NI v behind on boosters *and* highest rate of unvaxxed.

England v behind still on 12-15 yrs compared to Scotland & Wales. Disappointing. 2/13

In terms of speed, boosters are getting quicker but first jabs (teens) are not (in England).

Projecting forward *current* rates, the teen and priority group booster programme won't be done till Feb.

We need to increase availability *and* demand. 3/13

Overall, cases in UK have fallen this week. Positivity rates are lagged (about a week behind), but up the time of drop were going up in England and Scotland.

Wales was declining but still *very* high positivity rate.
4/13

Looking at lateral flow & PCR tests in England, you can see the steep half term drop - mirroring what we saw in summer. On avg we're doing 150K and 20K fewer LFD & PCR tests respectively.

➡️maybe 4K cases might be being missed. Be careful of assuming it's all a real drop! 5/13

That said, cases do looked to have peaked (for now) in school age children, but not yet in adults.

However, prevelence in primary and secondary school children remains very high - 3rd week in a row that ONS shows >8% for 11-15 yrs... 6/13

Since so many infections have been school age kids, I do expect half term to break many chains of transmission and I expect to see cases in kids fall for at least another 10 days... But they might pick up again once school is back. We'll see. Disappointing low vax. 7/13

In terms of regions, both in cases and positivity, the SW is a clear outlier - doubtless at least in part due to Immensa false neg test scandal.

ONS also shows highest cases in SW - and that's randomly sampled people. 8/13

Overall people in hospital rising in all nations apart from NI. In Scotland it's not growth in overall cases but growth in adults offset by drop in kids that is driving up admissions. Waning? (graph @TravellingTabby ) 9/13

In England, hospital admissions have risen quite steeply this week. Last time we had >955 admissions was 23 February :-(

This is not good news for the NHS - and they are likely to keep rising in near future because cases in adults have not dropped (yet?). 10/13

In terms of hospital, NE & Yorkshire still bearing the brunt. Both SW and NW are rising rapidly - and clear differences in SW by Immensa...



11/13

Deaths are also now going up - over 1000 deaths last week in the UK.

Rising cases recently suggests deaths will keep rising - but hopefully boosters will at least prevent some deaths in infected vulnerable people.

I do not think current level of deaths is acceptable. 12/13

So that's that. All eyes on what happens after return to school next week - will take a few weeks to know. We do need to get teen vax *much* higher. And where are the CO2 monitors for schools now that winter is here? 13/13