The PM has set an ambitious vaccination target - around 12,000,000 first doses in around 6 weeks. But what happens if instead of 2 million doses per week we have 300,000 per week (current rate)?
This happens.
We need to get vaccinations into people. Not 'hopes'
This is the wording from the PM's statement yesterday and is the source of the rough calculation above.
It's odd that this is phrased as 'the NHS hopes'.
What does the *PM* 'hope'? As it is DHSC/ CO/ BEIS/ Vaccine Task Force who are responsible for *procuring* these vaccines.
6,300 cases (7 day average)
354 patients admitted to hospital (7 day average)
1,634 patients in hospital (7 day average)
204 patients in mechanical ventilation beds (7 day ave)
34 deaths/day (7 day ave, within 28 days of +ve test)
20 October
21,866 cases
1,251 patients admitted to hospital
8,499 patients in hospital
733 ventilated patients
217 deaths/day
Who is in intensive care and where are they? A thread.
The Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre @ICNARC have just published their report on COVID-19 patients admitted to ICU/HDU in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
It looks at two periods: up to 31 August (including the devastating first wave), and 1 September - 30 December. There is a lag in reporting, so not all patients are recorded in the Sep-Dec figures.
Remember, these are patients that are *very ill* requring intensive care.
Here are the heatmaps for Covid detected cases, positivity, hospitalizations, and ICU admissions. This is up to week 52 (21-29 December). This covers Christmas, so data should be interpreted with caution.
And some commentary in the thread of where we are at the end of 2020.
Detected case rates. Very high amongst working age population, highest in 30-39 year olds. Rates above 150 cases per 100,000 (ie very high rates) in *all* age groups (colour and monochrome versions below)
However, not all cases are detected, so we can look at positivity (number of people testing positive / number of people being tested).
Over 10% positivity in under-80-year-old males and in under-50-year old females.
For the first time, there is over-10% positivity in children.
A bit of background. To get out of national Lockdown 1, we were promised a test trace and isolate system. That uses PCR tests. These are accurate, but take time to get results back. There were also significant issues in the way that the Government organized 'NHS' Test & Trace
The Government is now relying on a less accurate technology, Lateral Flow tests. In order to roll these out nationally, the Government tested these.