Thread by @ADMBriggs

Test and Trace wk 28 data covering 3/12 to 9/12.

Case numbers up and performance either similar or improving. This is well timed as we head to Christmas.

gov.uk/government/pub…

As is now abundantly clear and has been for some time, case numbers are rising (12% up this week)

(**skip the next five tweets if not interested in the subtleties of pillar 2 testing**)

Number of tests increased this week, as did positivity, but it's getting increasingly hard to disentangle.

In Pillar 2 there were 1,368,539 tests and 1,318,768 individuals tested (so 49,771 tests were people tested >once).

Pillar two tests (community) includes all this:

While the number of people tested in P2 has risen by 11% this week (127,861 more people), a chunk of that is from LFDs (115,497 more this week) and some is PCR (7,670 more).
But you can't tell which, which has implications as 7.3% of PCR tests were +vs compared to 0.4% of LFDs.

And LFDs are used for asymptomatic testing (as is a small amount of PCR testing in care homes etc), compared to most PCR testing used only for symptomatic people.

Which is a very roundabout way of saying it's hard to interpret trends in the positivity rates unless you can separate asymptomatic vs symptomatic testing.

Apart from to say positivity is rising again.

Also, an 'issue with the underlying data' means that this week we don't have the total number of people tested or testing positive since TT launched. The IT gremlins clearly still persist.

Back to TT report, test turnaround time plateaued or a little worse this week

Quick run down:
Percentage of cases reached by TT (87%), giving details of contacts (77%) and reached within 24hrs (75%) all very similar to the week before.

Slight drop in avg contacts per case (both for cases managed by HPTs and those managed nationally)

But here is the real surprise.

A week after changes to how household contacts are managed meaning they no longer receive multiple calls, the percentage of close contacts reached has continued to rise and is now at a whopping 93%.

This is mainly due to better management of HH contacts - 97% were reached, but also now more non-HH contacts are being reached, up from 65% last week to 68%.

In the week reported, the % who were HH contacts fell slightly as overall performance increased.

And this has inevitably to far better times to reach contacts.

So as case numbers rise again, performance is improving. This is good timing.

But it means very little if people don't also isolate when symptomatic, when they test positive, or when they're identified as a close contact.

And as hospital admissions and ICU admissions rise, it is impossible overstate how important this is over the Christmas period. Your local authority can help with support where needed, please do ask.

https://twitter.com/ADMBriggs/status/1339687257637335041?s=20

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