NEW: UK reports another 915 Covid deaths.

Takes the total to over 110,00 to 110,250.

7 day average is down by 16.6%- which is substantial. But they're coming from such a high base after a really terrible month or so, that the overall numbers remain extremely high.
Better news- first dose administrations have gone up by about 470,000 or so to nearly 10.5 million. Going on for 17% of total population, higher still of the adult population.
Depending on how you count it, around 30k deaths came in the month of January alone between a quarter and a third of the total so far.
Many of these deaths came as a result of infections from mid to late December onwards. Given we know full lockdown has worked, the hard question policy makers will have to answer at some point will be, how many might have been prevented had action come earlier?
Also worth noting, given political music is shifting to easing- though cases have fallen dramatically, they're still hight at the 20k mark. Ie around the point they were in mid to late-Oct when we went into part lockdown. When we unlocked form lockdown 1 cases were in the 1000s.
And then we didn't have the new variant to contend with which is now dominant in most places. We'll have vaccines but will still take a while to know for sure how effective they're going to be in preventing transmission (though early signs are good).

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More from @lewis_goodall

5 Feb
Have seen a copy of Spi-M's latest draft submission to SAGE.

Modellers sounding a deeply cautious note about the rate of lockdown unwinding that we can do safely in the months ahead, even with vaccines.

They say that some measures may have to stay into 2022.
Modellers emphasise that pace will be key: “A gradual lifting of restrictions can maintain hospital occupancy below 10,000; but this requires some measures to persist until 2022.”

They do not specify what measures in particular these would be but consistently emphasise speed.
They set out three scenarios. In each we continue to use measures to restrict transmission by 25% even at the end.

The purple line we relax in 3 months

Blue line 6 months

Yellow line in 9 months- this is the only scenario we keep hospitalisation below 10k (the horizontal line) Image
Read 14 tweets
4 Feb
On Brexit, James Buchan, Chief Exec of Scottish Seafood Association tells the Scottish Affairs Select Committee: “I’m not going to say it any other way: for our members it has not been the best deal- it’s a sad state of affairs.”
James Withers, Chief Exec, Scottish Food and Drink Federation adds: “There have been catastrophic decisions taken to create enormous non-tariff barriers. We have ended up with a trading regime which is complex, costly, slow, prone to break down at its best.”
Withers continues “At its worst some food exporters have been shut out of the EU market altogether in Scotland and the rest of the UK. Unfortunately it’s the very predictable outcome of trying to test a multi billion £ trading system in real time in the middle of a pandemic.”
Read 25 tweets
3 Feb
Curious discourse at the moment on Northern Ireland. The problems were predicted and are intrinsic to divergence and the Protocol. And here's the thing- the more GB diverges (ie the point of Brexit), the more potential there is for friction for NI north/south and east/west.
There is a great deal of talk at the moment (we heard from the PM yday) about protecting and securing NI's place in the Union. Sometimes it doesn't seem to have quite sunk in that NI's place in the Union has quite fundamentally changed- and that was at the PM's own hand.
Reported this on Dec 10th when Protocol was signed. Doesn't contain unique insight that many others didn't express. It was clear that tension had potential going to exist permanently as a result of these much changed economic and political structures. bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09…
Read 4 tweets
3 Feb
NEW: The UK records another 1322 Covid deaths.

That takes the total to 109,335.

Roughly one in 608 of the population has died of this disease.
Nearly 50,000 of those deaths (49,077) have been recorded since the 1st December alone.

33,117 of the deaths have been recorded since January 1st.

That's roughly 30% of all Covid deaths in the UK since the start of the year.
Have to be a bit careful because date of death is different to when the data comes in. But still the point is this "wave" has been catastrophically lethal. The immediate pre and post Christmas period has made up a huge % of our total death toll.
Read 8 tweets
3 Feb
There’s an argument the UK got unlucky with the Kent variant. But the idea that no-one predicted it could happen is nonsense. It was widely speculated about from the pandemic’s earliest days.
Though even with this, scientists were also warning that high prevalence=more chance of a mutation.
Read 6 tweets
2 Feb
Spent the day at a special school in south London.

The difficulties parents are facing are significant everywhere. None more so than in special schools.

All special schools are supposed to be open for all their children. But in practice it often isn't working that way.
Under government rules, all children with Education, Health and Care Plans (or EHCPs) are considered vulnerable and entitled to school places full time.

But in special schools, every child has an EHCP. They're all entitled to a place.
Yet recent DfE figures suggested only a third of special school pupils are in attendance.

Why? Because schools simply can’t offer every child a place in a way which is safe for them or the staff.

Staff to pupil ratios are high (perhaps as many as seven or eight for a class...)
Read 18 tweets

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