Thread by @ADMBriggs

Latest T&T data out, covers 18-24th Feb.

Bit of a dive into testing and LFD use this week.

Tl,dr: Tests up (all LFDs), cases down, and performance relatively unchanged.

Summary in pic, detail in 🧵

gov.uk/government/pub…

There were 2.8m people tested, up 9% on the week before but still down from 3m two weeks' before.

This was all pillar 2 (community testing), up 14%. People tested using pillar 1 (HCWs and those in clinical need) fell 12%.

And more specifically, this was all lateral flow devices (LFDs) - rapid tests for people aiming to find cases among those without symptoms.

The number of LFDs used increased by 470k to 2.2m, whereas the number of pillar 2 PCR tests dropped slightly.

And of those 470k additional LFDs used, 410k were in educational settings (and of the 2.2m LFDs done that week, 45% were edu settings)

The fall in the preceding wk coincided with half term. This is seen more clearly in today's PHE surveillance data (half term was 'week 7')

The roadmap puts a lot on increased case finding among those w/o symptoms.

So while non-education LFD use didn't change much in the week starting 18th Feb from the week before, we should expect big increases both schools testing, and testing elsewhere, in coming weeks.

And there'll inevitably be differences in use by region/local authority that's worth watching.

When it comes to T&T performance, slight increase in the time taken to get results this week after a couple of weeks of improved performance.

Overall, 83% of in-person pillar 2 PCT tests were received within 24hrs.

There was a 19% fall in the number of cases to 69k, and of the 69,129 cases handled by T&T, 61,145 (88%) were reached

And of the 61k reached, 75% (45,803 cases) gave details of contacts.

This percentage has stayed roughly the same for the past two months or so.

There were 129,243 contacts identified (down 12% of the week before, mean 2.1 contacts per case).

Increase in the median number of contacts per case handled by health protection teams (23 this week compared with 12 the week before).

This will fluctuate wk by wk as variants of concern are identified and then managed by HPTs

Slight increase in contacts per case handled by national T&T team (up from 2.1 to 2.2). Not a big change but will watch to see if it increases as we come out of lockdown.

And it may relate to a wk on wk fall in % of contacts who are from same household as the case, fallen from 87% to 84% over the past two weeks.

84% is still high but may be sign of more people leaving home and mixing with non-HH groups. Again - one to watch.

Similar proportions of close contacts being reached and told to isolate as previous weeks (93% for contacts handled by T&T).

But v slight lengthening of the end to end journey (although still good compared to most of the time T&T has been operating).

Median time from case getting symptoms to contacts being asked to isolate is 79hrs, up from 77hrs the wk before.

Finally, this doesn't tell us about people not getting tested or who struggle to adhere with isolation. Nor does it tell us about the inequalities this exacerbates.

The roadmap takes some steps towards tackling this, but many structural drivers remain.

https://twitter.com/ADMBriggs/status/1364002368946397186?s=20

With @cfraserepi we'll update our @HealthFdn T&T performance tracker in the morning.

health.org.uk/news-and-comme…

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