Thread by @JamesWard73

it's a while since I've given you the age breakdown of English cases (sorry, it's been a busy couple of weeks at work and at home). and it's looking OK I think: overall cases are pretty flat, maybe even slightly falling. and the falls continue where it matters most (in 60+) 🧵

digging into the detail, starting with the younger age groups: these now all look fairly stable, maybe just slightly over the peak. (and note I'm being cautious by truncating 3 days on the specimen date series - the next day looks slightly better again, on a sneak peek).

there's still a little bit of growth in the 20-40s, mostly from the 30-40s:

and the 40-60s look fairly stable overall, with (gentle) growth in the 40-50s balancing (gentle) falls in the 50-60s:

the 60-80s continue to fall - although it would be good to see some faster declines in the 60-64s as more boosters take effect:

I never like to see cases in 90+ growing, but I have to keep reminding myself how volatile/noisy that series is. 🤞 that if we can sustain case reductions in the younger ages, that might feed into bigger falls here also (since the older groups tend to be infected by younger)

and if we look at the raw case date for 90+, it doesn't look particularly dramatic / worrying - more just a bit of a plateau.

PS I haven't said much about omicron yet because there isn't much for me to say: others with much greater expertise in viruses and variants have done some helpful threads, which I will continue to RT as I find them. once we get a better handle on omicron's transmission...

...advantage vs. delta, and its likely degree of immune evasion vs. prior infection and vs. vaccines, as well as its severity profile, then it may be possible to say something about its potential impact in the UK. but we're a way from having that data, so I'll wait patiently.