Thread by @chrischirp

THREAD: good news / bad news / good new on covid with data up to 5/6th Jan by date of test.

Thanks to Bob Hawkins who did the charts for me :-)

First, both Wales and N. Ireland now seeing sustained decreases in case positivity rates. Long may this continue.

Scotland is definitely flattenning and England looks like it is too. WIth any luck, both will start trending down over the next few days.

Looking at English regions, places that have been tier 4 equiv restrictions for longest (inc Christmas) are seeing little or no increase (SE, East, London). This is GOOD.

Bad news is that West Mids & NW saw big increase week after Christmas. Birmingham & Liverpool struggling.

Separating local authorities into tiering groups by how long they've been in strictest restrictions (A - longest to D - shortest) shows that tier 4 equiv does seem to have stopped growth - and (just about?!) turned it downwards.

This is goodish news for lockdown - particularly for areas where variant is still minority of cases.

BUT:
1) what is impact of last week's increased mixing from (partial) school opening, nurseries open, more people at work?

should have some idea by weekend.
AND

2) even cases fall, will they fall quickly enough to relieve NHS pressure sooner rather than later?

But better news so far than it could be.

Finally, Ireland's experience shows that opening up is going to be v difficult bbc.com/news/world-eur…