Thread by @andrewflood

Increase in positive swabs (2791) to be expected on Weds & anticipated in Mondays GP referrals. Tues to Weds last week saw day to day 160% increase, this is 156% so comparable. This is also a 2.4% increase in positivity to 11.5%, last week it was a 2.5% increase /1

2791 is 71% of last Weds figure but averaging over 3 days we have 2128 swabs with a reduction of 68% on equivalent days last week which same as yesterday gets us under 100 cases a day 8 weeks from now on March 17th. So no big change in pattern despite apparent one day rise /2

That weekly 3 day average reduction sequence now looks like
1449 - Jan27
986 - Feb3
672 - F10
457 - F17
311 - F24
212 - March3
144 - M10
98 - M17
67
46
31
21

For comparison here is yesterdays, we basically hit 98 on March 18 rather than the 17th from todays which is a pretty small difference. Basically Tuesday is liable to be too optimistic & Thursday too pessimistic each week using 3 day average /3

https://twitter.com/andrewflood/status/1351558808011743236?s=20

Reason 7 & 14 day incidence are useful is that although they are slowest to react to change they don't bump up & down according to what day of the week it is. Same is true as I understand it for R. When we need to see cases fall fast the swab bounces can be stressful /4

Swabs today ran almost 300 ahead of cases notified for the first time in a week. May indicate about 150 added to whatever backlog is rolling over. Normally swabs become cases within 48 hours although given that they are still running far ahead of old 1600 capacity we will see