“England 'risks Covid-19 surge' without test-and-trace safety net” I agree, and am concerned about rapid easing of lockdown. 1/n. theguardian.com/world/2020/may…
The ONS reports around 8,000 new infections per day, and that has not been declining quickly. 2/n ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
The central estimate for the number people positive for currently shedding virus is 148,000 people for 27 April to 10 May, 137,000 people for 4 May to 17 May and 133,000 people for 11 May to 24 May. This indicates R very close to 1 during May. 3/n ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…
As community testing has rolled out, the % of people testing positive for virus shedding has been roughly constant over time, not declining quickly, again consistent with R close to 1. (Not unbiased sample, but still.) 4/n
A lot more data on time trends is available here assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… 5/n
COVID-19 associated deaths have been declining more quickly over this time period, but deaths during May mostly occurred amongst people infected in April, and so are not indicative of recent trends in infection. 6/n coronavirus.data.gov.uk
The proportion of the population that is potentially immune, as measured by serology, is low: central estimates are 6.8% for England according to ONS, ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati… and similar range from PHE blood donor survey gov.uk/government/pub… 7/n
Until the test, trace and isolate control measures are up and running and effective, easing the lockdown quickly risks the rate of new infection starting to increase again (R>1) leading to a second surge in infections. 8/n
