Thread by @ADMBriggs

Short thread on today's latest @ONS COVID Survey release for 02/10 to 08/10

The number of community cases is really rocketing - now estimated at 27,900 cases/day in England.

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

This is about double what's coming through on Test and Trace data for the same time. And note that ONS doesn't include care homes, hospitals OR INSTITUTIONS - this means Uni halls of residences and colleges where we know there are significant outbreaks.

As with national testing data (as reported in PHE surveillance report), huge geographic variation with NE, NW, Yorkshire/Humber still massively more cases than elsewhere.

BUT cases may be plateauing in the north, although not in midlands/London.

But for me this is the key graph – age 2 to 11 (school yr 6) there really is no change.

For secondary school age, there’s now a real uptick for children up to age 16, but for 17-24, it’s beginning to level off.

This is important, because as @apsmunro notes in his thread on the previous release, this way of breaking down age is far more informative for policy than the 10-19 and 20-29 categories use in gov data.

https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/1316093455395958787?s=20

And again as @apsmunro says - it looks increasingly like primary school age children are really not an issue here, but unlike in previous weeks, we now seeing more cases in 11-16y/o, may have big implications for secondary schools if trend continues.

And the new Flu and COVID surveillance report from @PHE_uk now doesn't break down incidents in educational settings by type (university, secondary school etc).

This would be so helpful for knowing if these are community or school transmission. Please start doing it again!