Overall picture of differences by ethnicity masks significant differences at the regional level.
And differences by deprivation group persist as case rates fall.
Great to see continued decline in numbers of COVID incidents/outbreaks in care homes reported to PHE health protection teams.
Number of outbreaks in educational settings has stayed the same, however (although note different scale compared with care home outbreak numbers).
Big drop in hospital outbreaks. Just 28 linked to a known case of COVID in a wk across the country is remarkable.
Well done NHS infection control teams plus staff doing the necessary infection control processes. PPE & cleaning work, + regular testing is also likely contributing
And finally, a welcome drop in outbreaks in workplace settings.
Hospital admission rates have now clearly peaked in all regions and ages (although still not back to admission rates seen during Nov peak)
And this is now translating into meaningful falls in the number or people in hospital, but note there are *still* more people in hospital with COVID than the first wave peak.
ICU admissions have also peaked in all regions & ages (although still looking high in EoE & not falling as fast as elsewhere).
There will still be repatriation of ICU pts as well as moving of people to ICU from wards so admission rates and occupancy will fall slowly.
And whilst deaths have peaked, excess mortality remains really high.
So in summary, things are going in the right direction, but still pockets of high case rates, excess mortality remains upsettingly high, and there's still some way to go before hospitals are back to anything close to normal.
And huge numbers of people are getting vaccinated.
The *vast* majority of people are trying to do the right thing.
As ever - please do ask for help if you need it whilst in lockdown or isolating. Friends, family, neighbours, local government community teams (on your local gov website), and charities.
Case rates are falling in all ages and all regions.
The percentage of PCR tests coming back positive (positivity) is also now clearly falling in in pillar 1 (NHS/PHE labs for health care workers and those in clinical need), as well as pillar 2 (community testing).
And for those who like to squint, I really like the chart from PHE showing case rates by age and region.
For example, it shows that 0-9 yr olds track along the bottom and 20-29 yr olds along the top throughout this wave.
As case rates fall, so are the numbers of people getting tested - down 5% on last week.
In pillar 2 - community testing - the number of rapid LFD tests being used continues to rise, 1.3m tests used and 12.8k people tested positive (972k tests last week with 14.3k positive).
Recorded case rates are falling in *all* age groups. And almost as quickly as the rose. This is a good thing.
The @ONS COVID infection survey is due to update tomorrow which will be helpful to see how closely the PHE data reflect community prevalence in the survey.
Also the % of PCR tests that are positive (positivity %) in pillar 2 is also reassuringly falling.
However, not in pillar 1 for most ages. Pillar 1 includes NHS or PHE lab tests for health care workers and those in clinical need.
Big jump in number of people tested. Up 14% to 2.9m (>5% of English population in a single week).
This is partly due to a 20% increase (from 435k to 521k) in number of people tested in pillar 1.
These are NHS and PHE labs - generally used for hospital patients and more complex settings, with some of the increase because there are more people in hospital and more outbreaks.
This week's @PHE_uk COVID surveillance report's just out.
Most recent week covered is 11th-17th Jan.
Case numbers may have peaked but hospital situation remains critical & deaths continue to rise, with large regional variation.
We're not out of this yet. Please stay 💪.
🧵
For two weeks in a row there are decrease in number of cases.
It seems fairly clear that with lockdown, infection rates are declining in all regions. Importantly (compared with last week) this now includes those aged 80+.
In some regions, particularly those with high case rates in this wave, infection rates are coming down fairly quickly.
In other regions & ages, there is little shift in some age groups. For example, see age 40-60yrs in East and West Mids.
Most recent Test and Trace data, covers 31st Dec - 6th Jan.
Mixed picture this week:
- tests, cases, contacts ⬆️
- test turnaround times still not great
- taking longer to reach cases, but contact tracing performance remains fairly strong
Following dip over Christmas week, number of people tested this week back up to 2.58m - 2.15m people tested in pillar 2 (community, including both PCR and rapid lateral flow devices) and 0.43m in pillar 1 (hospitals, just PCR).
For week ending 6th Jan, there was a 21% increase in number of people testing positive to 388k, with similar percentage increases in both pillar 1 and pillar 2.