The latest UK Covid data paints a dire picture, with London and much of the south now in a worse position than they were at the spring peak, and hospitals struggling to cope
18% of tests in London now come back positive, and rates are climbing everywhere.
The surge in infections is putting hospitals under immense pressure. London now has 5,524 Covid patients in hospital beds, surpassing its April peak.
There were 739 new Covid admissions or diagnoses on Monday, up 50% on the previous week. The steepness of these climbs is scary.
London’s numbers are the most grim, but the same pattern is visible across most of England, with new hospital admissions and diagnoses now doubling every ~2 weeks in several regions.
And the same is true of total hospital load, where the number of Covid patients in hospital beds is now above the spring peak in 4 of the 7 English regions, plus Wales, and indeed in aggregate across the UK.
The numbers alone are grim, but it also helps to think about what they mean.
For example, as more and more hospital beds and ambulances are occupied with Covid, people with non-Covid illnesses and injuries are now at risk of missing out on urgent care
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.
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
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.
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.
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.