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19 Jan, 5 tweets, 2 min read
ONS infection survey suggests 1 in 8 people in England have had Covid (around 12 %)

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati… Image
16.5% in London
16.8% in Yorkshire and Humber Image
Assuming 12% of 56 million England population infected at end of December (6.7 million) and registered England Covid deaths of around 66,000 (excess deaths higher at 72,000) at that point - suggests infection fatality rate of around 1%
Broadly in line with estimates from Imperial College researchers in October, who estimated 1.4% infection fatality rate for England

imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial… Image
Though, of course, remember that infection fatality rate is massively influenced by age.

Imperial researchers put it at roughly:

0% for young children

0.5 per cent for people in their 50s

And as high as 17% for 90 year olds Image

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More from @BenChu_

Ben Chu Profile picture
22 Jan
Thread on why Brexit has disrupted e-commerce and why it matters more than you might think

🧵💸💻

We’re getting lots of reports of people being hit by unexpected VAT charges and delays on their online deliveries when the vendor is in Europe.

Why is this happening?....1/
UK customers buying goods from relatively small EU vendors before Brexit could pay their VAT at the point of transaction under the EU’s distance selling regulations.

And, importantly, these vendors could charge the local rate of VAT and deal with their own tax authorities....2/
Since 1 Jan our online buyers don’t benefit from these EU regulations.

The EU vendor now has to register with HMRC and charge UK VAT in order to ship to UK (a big hassle and many won’t bother) or ship the item to the UK and let the buyer pay the UK VAT owed upon receipt...3/
Read 12 tweets
Ben Chu Profile picture
21 Jan
When can the UK economy safely re-open?

A thread

🧵💉💸🔓

Reports suggest Downing Street is looking at easing restrictions in England from early March, with a return to the regional tier system...1/
But question is: will the vaccination programme have reduced pressure on the NHS sufficiently by March to enable restrictions to be eased by then?

Or could this be another policy fiasco like delaying November lockdown or Xmas Day re-opening?... 2/
The COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group @COVID19actuary has modelled the impact of the government achieving its 14m vaccination target on hospitalisations and deaths.

The results are a mixed bag....3/
covid-arg.com/post/how-soon-…
Read 14 tweets
Ben Chu Profile picture
2 Jan
Thread on how easy it is to get tricked into haemorrhaging money from your bank account after an online purchase – and why financial regulators seem to be behind the curve on this.🧵💸💻

Forgive the personal story, but I think it's relevant...1/
I’m pretty careful with my money online - regularly checking my pension, combing my online bank statement for suspicious transactions, pruning unwanted subscriptions etc...2/
I’d describe this as financial hygiene – and would advise everyone to do it.

Yet it’s not always enough.

While looking through a list of transactions on my online account before Xmas I noticed a £15 payment to something called "WLY*COMPLETESAVE.CO.UK" ...3/
Read 25 tweets
Ben Chu Profile picture
31 Dec 20
THREAD ON THE IMPACT OF THIS BREXIT DEAL ON SERVICE EXPORTS💸🏦✉️🧳

Boris Johnson in BBC interview on Wednesday said: “There are already immense barriers to UK services – there is no internal market for services in the EU”....1/

The message the PM seems to be pushing is that the failure to get much on services in this UK-EU trade deal is no big deal.

Here’s why that’s grossly misleading and it IS a big deal economically...2/
First the data.

In 2019 the UK exported services with a value of around £127bn to the EU.

That's equivalent to around 6% of our GDP...3/
Read 12 tweets
Ben Chu Profile picture
30 Dec 20
Is Covid really being spread significantly in and by schools? 🦠🏫🧑‍🎓

Thread 🧵

The decision by the government to relay the school return for secondary pupils by a week suggests ministers now believe so.

But what’s the evidence? 1/
The basic facts are not disputed.

The Office for National Statistics’ large-scale and random weekly survey shows that rates in the run-up to Christmas were considerably higher for school age children than adults...2/

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati… Image
Another large and random survey by researchers at Imperial College London, known as REACT, has been showing a similar picture.

Prevalence in school age children is roughly double the rest of the population...3/

spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/1004… Image
Read 17 tweets
Ben Chu Profile picture
29 Dec 20
Striking that the Tory ERG (left) and the @IPPR think tank (right) agree the UK-EU deal is too weak on "rebalancing" sanctions/procedures to, in practical terms, have any impact on preventing the UK government doing what it wants in future on environment/labour/subsidies etc... ImageImage
ERG verdict here...
IPPR view here...
ippr.org/research/publi…
Read 6 tweets

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