For contact tracing, of the 33,266 cases passed to T&T, 90% were reached and 84% - 25,016 cases - gave details of close contacts.
The percentage reached is similar to previous weeks, but the percentage of cases providing details of contacts is climbing.
And not only is the total number of contacts rising as a result, but so is the average number of contacts per case - now 3.3 up from 2.7 last week and the highest since the end of Sept.
The % of these contacts reached has fallen slightly.
This is solely because a greater proportion of contacts are not from same household as case (the drop off is striking).
And in fact, the percentage of contacts reach for either HH or non-HH are both *better* this week.
This will be due to more mixing, primarily in schools, but unfortunately there isn't a breakdown of contacts by age/setting to understand this more.
It's really great that people are choosing to report contacts, but more contacts inevitably means more potential for transmission.
As more close contacts not from same HH, end-to-end time from case taking test to contact being reached is slightly longer.
But end-to-end time for symptomatic cases falling.
This suggests much of ⬆️in non-HH contacts may be from asymptomatic testing - which is what you'd hope.
Nearly one in four reception age children and one in three children at year 6 are overweight or obese.
And there are stark inequalities - children in yr 6 are *more than twice* as likely to be obese if living in the most deprived areas compared to the least.
The government is aiming to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and reduce inequalities.
You can't do this with one or two policies here and there. Obesity is complex and multifaceted. To make any kind of dent, you need a multifaceted solution.
This week's PHE surveillance report is now out, covering 15-21 March. 🧵
Tl,dr:
- increasing case rates among 5-9y/o and 10-19y/o
- important geographic variation
- hospital data still improving
- vax going strong
- and inequalities persist.
Number of PCR and LFD tests done similar to the previous week, but positivity (percentage of tests that are positive) for PCR still trending down and is now 2.1%
For LFDs it's 0.19% compared with 0.15% the week before.
Case rates are falling less slowly, but they're still falling across all ages...
*except* 5-9y/o where they're up 59% to 63.5/100,000, and 10-19y/o where they're up 26% to 100.7/100,000.
The language has officially changed from health protection to health security - with the launch of the UK Health Security Agency, or UKHSA.
Will cover pandemic prevention and response, communicable disease, and external threats.
Chief Exec will be Dr Jenny Harries (Dep CMO with hugely impressive public health background)
Chair is Ian Peters, current Chair of @NHSBartsHealth
The challenge (as ever) will be maintaining interest and funding for the agency in between crises.
Stresses importance of relationships with DsPH, although no mention yet of local PHE Health Protection Teams who have also been critical in local response as well.
This week's PHE surveillance report, covers 8th-14th March. 🧵
Tl,dr:
- cases falling but LFDs making it a harder to follow trends
- Still important inequalities by local authority, ethnicity, & deprivation.
- And good news on vaccines and seroprevalence
case rates continue to drop, but increasingly difficult to interpret pillar 2 data (community testing) here as it includes both lateral flow devices (LFDs) for those without symptoms, and PCR tests for those with symptoms.
This is laid out here - LFD test use over 5m in the most recent week reported, with positivity 0.15% compared with 2.4% among PCR tests.
There's no specific remit letter and whilst a new strategy is awaited (see @CommonsPAC report), the most recent T&T business plan from Dec 2020 covers four key priority areas.
For 'Team of Teams' - it's a lots of local gov led programmes: community testing, local contact tracing, support for self-isolation, and local outbreak management.