NEW: Christmas eve update on key Covid metrics in the UK and beyond

Cases and positivity rates are still rocketing in London and surrounding areas, the regions where the new B.1.1.7 variant is known to be most prevalent.

15% of tests in London now positive.
If we group by restriction tier instead of region, we can see the justification for the additions to Tier 4 on Saturday.

Case rates and positivity in these areas were the lowest in the country a couple of weeks ago, but have since shot up, growing faster than any other areas.
Here’s the same thing in map form:

Every London borough now has case rates above 400 per 100k, and almost the whole of the south/east is a deep shade of red.

Growth rates are very high right across to the south west and down to the Isle of Wight.
And it’s not "just cases".

The number of Covid patients in hospital is rising across almost all of the UK, doubling every ~2 weeks in London and the East of England.

Across UK as a whole, 21,286 hospital beds are occupied by Covid patients, rising fast. Spring peak was 21,683.
And this Christmas surge isn’t only a UK phenomenon.

Happily, much of Europe is still seeing positivity rates fall. But Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and further afield the US are all seeing rates rise again.

Declines have also stalled at high levels in many other countries.
Again, rising case & positivity rates are followed by hospital admissions.

Hospitals are filling up with Covid patients in countries including Croatia, Sweden & US as well as UK.

Numbers are falling steadily in Austria, Belgium & Italy, but declines have stalled elsewhere.
And, yes, unfortunately rising cases and hospital admissions lead to more deaths.

Covid’s winter wave has taken tens of thousands of lives across Europe and the US, with the tallies still mounting
Hopefully countries where outbreaks are currently in remission can avoid the highly transmissible variants and the resurgences that come with them.

And finally, I hope everyone is able to have a safe Christmas and to speak to loved ones one way or another.

Over and out, folks.
And now onto the main event: lasagna assembly

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More from @jburnmurdoch

22 Dec
NEW: long overdue, I’ve updated our excess deaths data, expanding the list of countries to 30

We have tracked 1.5 million excess deaths so far, considerably more than the 960k attributed to Covid-19 in the same countries over same period.

Free to read: ft.com/coronavirus-la…
Here’s a summary of the different ways of tallying excess deaths:

Whatever metric you choose, Latin America has been hit extremely hard. Europe next hardest-hit, though with very different outcomes from place to place.
First, top-level patterns:

In the English-speaking world we often focus on situation in Europe & US, but large parts of Latin America have endured a brutal year.

Mexico, Ecuador & especially Peru have seen deaths soar far above expected levels. Brazil & Chile have also suffered
Read 17 tweets
19 Dec
NEW: quick chart showing key context for today’s news of a Tier 4 Christmas

Cases are soaring in areas set to go into T4, with rate of increase extremely worrying. Testing has increased lately too, but even if we look at positivity, the rate of increase is very steep.
Story here from @PickardJE ft.com/content/3484bb…

And we’ll have more later on what we know about the new strain
And here’s weekly change in positivity for all English local authorities:

Increasing almost everywhere, and doubling every 10 days in almost 50 local authorities.
Read 5 tweets
17 Dec
NEW with @JasmineCC_95 & @ChrisGiles_

38.5m people (68% of England’s population) will be in the tightest restrictions from Saturday.

Story: ft.com/content/e4eea7…

Two charts show that most moves into T3 were really no-brainers:

1) Case rates in these areas are high
And 2) in all-but-one area moved into T3, cases are also rising, in some cases very rapidly.

The exception is Runnymede in Surrey, where cases are elevated but trending downwards.
And here’s all of the above in map form.

Tier 3 maps very neatly onto areas whose case rates are currently elevated.

Rate of change (right) is a less neat fit; some areas in T3 are trending downwards, and most in T2 are trending sharply up.
Read 4 tweets
15 Dec
Genuinely amazed that we aren’t able to get data on the number of people who have been vaccinated.

Such a huge own goal.

Not only is it really important to know this for public health reasons, it would also be a "good news" number to track, and may show the UK in a good light.
I suspect (and certainly hope) we will start getting this data in the near future, but that it wasn’t planned for and published from the outset suggests that once again this stuff is being made up as we go along.
It also sows distrust at a time when this could not be more crucial.

Distrust fuels vaccine hesitancy, and people project their distrust from one domain onto vaccine safety.

Hailing vaccination successes while unable to point to any evidence is a complete shambles.
Read 4 tweets
14 Dec
NEW: the latest UK data is out, and it’s not good.

London is into Tier 3, but that’s only a small part of the wider story of UK’s looming Covid winter.

Case rates rising fast in London, SE & E, but also now rising in Midlands, NW and SW, and decline has halted in NE.
Regrettably, it’s also clear only tough restrictions suppress transmission.

During national lockdown, case rates either went from rising to falling, or from falling slowly to fast, in all English regions.

Since restrictions eased, all declines have either flattened or reversed.
The picture in Wales is even more stark:

During the 17 days of their "fire-break" lockdown, the weekly case rate fell from 295 per 100k to 184. In the first 17 days after restrictions eased, it rebounded to 301.

In the 6 days since then, the rate has increased by 45% to 440.
Read 15 tweets
10 Dec
NEW: it’s expected (but not yet confirmed) London will go into Tier 3 when England’s Covid restrictions are reassessed next week, so what do the data show?

Let’s dig into all 6 metrics the govt is using.

First, new case rates:
• High in much of London, well into old T3 levels Image
But with cases, *growth rate* is also a key consideration, and this could be the big one for London.

Rates are rising in the vast majority of London boroughs, increasing by 50% per week in many places, and rising faster than almost all current Tier 3 areas. Image
Sticking to cases, government is also looking at rates specifically among those aged 60 and over.

As with the pattern in the general population, London boroughs send that Tier 2 slope steeply upwards on the left, with case rates among the 60+ well into former Tier 3 territory. Image
Read 8 tweets

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