NEW: big international Covid data thread, focusing on the contest between vaccines & variants

First to the UK, where things are looking very good. The vaccine effect is still crystal clear, with more than 10,000 lives already estimated to have been saved assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…
And critically, rates of cases, hospitalisations and deaths are all falling among both the most and least vaccinated age groups.

Those straight blue lines represent constant rates of decline among the most-vaccinated, completely unaffected by the reopening of schools.
It’s not just the very elderly who are benefiting, either. This chart (concept from @JamesWard73) shows that as the UK’s vaccination rollout has progressed down through the age groups, so has the vaccine effect. It’s amazing how clear the pattern is.
And note how on the original chart, even the least-vaccinated age groups are seeing cases fall. This is also clear in today’s ONS update, which finds no surge among school-aged children.

All suggests vaccines are reducing transmission as well as protecting against infection.
But UK began vaccinating in a better position than most countries. B.1.1.7 was already being beaten back by strict winter lockdown (📉 lines both among vaccinated and unvaccinated)

Vaccines were tasked not with fighting a rising outbreak, but with accelerating an ongoing decline
Cross the channel to France, and things look different. There’s still a very clear vaccine effect 💉💪 but rates of cases and admissions have been rising even among the older, most-vaccinated groups.

This is what happens when vaccinations and B.1.1.7 roll out at the same time.
Key thing to note here is there’s nothing to suggest the vaccines are struggling with B.1.1.7 (as we also know from lab data).

The share of cases, admissions and deaths among the elderly (most-vaccinated) population continues to fall, in some cases even accelerating its decline.
But what the French example illustrates is that while a vaccination campaign is still in its early stages, vaccines change the *level* of an outbreak, they don’t change its *direction*.
The vaccinated are far less likely than the unvaccinated to catch Covid or become seriously ill, but if a new variant sends rates rising overall, they’ll rise among the vaccinated too.

In such a scenario the vaccines are very much still working, but they can’t turn back the tide
And this brings us to the US, where B.1.1.7 is now surging.

The US is a month or two behind France in this regard, but has a big head-start in terms of vaccination rollout.
There’s already a clear and well-established vaccination effect in the US, with hospitalisation rates falling fastest and furthest among the vaccinated.

Cases and deaths look similar (see our story last month ft.com/content/78bb2c…)
But the steady overall downward trend may be coming to an end.

Michigan is leading a B.1.1.7-induced resurgence, with Covid hospital admissions climbing at a concerning rate. Other states are rising, too (read more here from @christinezhang ft.com/content/805702…)
Going through a B.1.1.7 surge is no fun, and this will be no different in the US than it has been everywhere else

More people will be infected, more will be hospitalised and more will die. But the rapid US vaccination rollout means it will suffer much less than many other places
Which other places are those?

Test positivity rates are currently climbing in dozens of countries around the world, in some cases very rapidly. The US is seeing one of the fastest resurgences globally, but starts with much more vaccine protection than all other countries here.
Particularly concerning is India, where some thought herd immunity may have been reached.

It had not.

Case rates are doubling every 5 days in Delhi.

There’s insufficient sequencing to track variants, but it’s likely they’re involved (our story: ft.com/content/38f539…)
Testing has been expanded in India to keep up with the resurgence, but despite more testing, the percentage of tests coming back positive is still climbing.

Even on this more conservative measure, rates are doubling in under a week in many regions.
Lots of Latin American countries are seeing resurgences, with the Brazilian P.1 variant heavily involved.

This is especially grim news considering the region is already the hardest-hit in the world, with more than a million excess deaths already recorded
A lot of us might have thought we’d be on a relatively steady, linear path out of Covid by now.

The examples of France, India and Brazil show how the variants and or slow vaccine rollout can hinder progress to the finish line.
But there are still far more reasons for optimism than pessimism. One example: data from Israel suggests new variants are *not* escaping vaccine-acquired immunity
So don’t get me wrong, we’re on the way out of this. Several countries are very nearly there.

Here is a new chart that we should all be watching over the coming months, as countries seek to follow Israel’s lead and reach the Covid endgame:
For much of the last year, we’ve lived with restrictions to save lives. What we want now is for societies to reopen *without* risking illness & deaths.

That’s the bottom-right quadrant here: people spending more time socialising at bars & cafés, while cases continue to fall.
So there we are. This was a long thread, encapsulating weeks’ worth of our coverage, but I hope it’s been worth the wait.

As usual, do hit me up with any questions and comments, and you can keep track all of the FT’s Covid-19 coverage here: ft.com/coronavirus
One more note:

There’s been some alarmist reporting that the situation in Chile shows that its vaccination campaign isn’t working

The data suggest otherwise. As in France, rates are rising much more slowly [if at all] among the most-vaccinated age groups
And here’s our story on Chile ft.com/content/89992b…
Edit: original version of this chart exaggerated the steepness of the US trajectory

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More from @jburnmurdoch

7 Apr
EU regulator: AstraZeneca vaccine should continue to be used across all age groups theguardian.com/politics/live/…

UK regulator: under-30s should be offered an alternative jab to AstraZeneca (but those who have had first AZ jab should get a second AZ jab)
Both orgs are clear that the specific blood clotting side-effect is extremely rare, and the vaccine has been proven highly effective, so the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine still outweigh the risks for the vast majority of people.
So UK decision is based more on the other side of the coin: that Covid mortality risk is also very low for under-30s, so the balance of two low risks becomes less clear-cut.
Read 4 tweets
6 Apr
NEW: just updated our excess deaths figures, including data into April

It’s abundantly clear that Latin America is the hardest-hit region in the world, with the five highest excess death rates globally. The UK is 21st out of 48 countries, and the US 24th

ft.com/coronavirus-la…
Note the underlying patterns. It can be easy for people in the US and UK to think Covid is almost gone, but excess deaths are climbing again in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru to name just three countries.

You can get all of the raw data here: github.com/Financial-Time…
The grim toll of Europe’s third wave is also clear. The Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Poland have all climbed above the UK into the global top 20.
Read 5 tweets
18 Mar
It’s rare to see a lorry complete the full bingo card of illegal & potentially lethal manoeuvres in one go, but this just might do it.

But sure, do go on about how cyclists are the real scourge of the roads...
And this comes just two days after another cyclist was killed in a hit-and-run collision with a lorry.

Your regular reminder that HGVs are involved in 15% of fatal crashes in London, despite making up just 3% of traffic.
Incidentally, one of the highlights of my third lockdown was a driver leaping out of his van and coming over to bump his forehead against mine, footballer style, because I had the temerity to walk across a side road that he wanted to speed out of.
Read 4 tweets
18 Mar
NEW: I saved this one up for the US morning, because it’s a big "good Covid news" moment for our friends across the Atlantic

A "vaccine effect" is now clear in US data, with hospitalisations falling faster among the old (mostly vaccinated) than the young ft.com/content/78bb2c…
This divergence can’t just be explained by the elderly being more cautious: we did the same analysis for the second wave last summer/fall, and back then rates among the old actually fell slower & less far.

Now they’re falling faster. What’s changed? They’ve been vaccinated 💉💉
Hospitalisations are clearest sign of vaccine doing its work, but we can see similar patterns in cases & deaths if we make the same comparison:

Second wave, no vaccines: rates fell slowly & less far among the old

Today, with vaccines: rate of decline among elderly has caught up
Read 5 tweets
10 Mar
@LyricalFalls Sorry but this take is so tiresome.

In dataviz, painting as honest & clear a picture as possible is about showing as much context as poss, not a zero y-axis.

Here, 20 years of context are carefully built up to show typical range, then we see how 2020-21 has diverged from that.
@LyricalFalls Extending the y-axis to zero would make the picture less clear. That’s all it would do. No added clarity. No added information.
@LyricalFalls Every tiny design detail in this chart is about maximising information and minimising risk of misinterpretation.

Gradually showing the context, changing the lower extent of the chart to make clear it’s not a hard floor, using light gridlines instead of a dark baseline.
Read 7 tweets
9 Mar
Once again as I set out to collect Covid-related data for multiple countries (in this case vaccine coverage), I find myself marvelling at how much better the UK data is in terms of granularity, frequency & clarity. PHE & NHS really are world-leading in a lot of this stuff.
Plus a very big shout-out to the @opensafely team in this case, who are doing amazing work in this space that — from what I can see — is unrivalled elsewhere.
To be fair part of the issue here is many countries simply don’t collect data on race — in any context, not just Covid — which is ... quite something.

As someone once said, "what’s counted, counts". I guess if you don’t measure health inequalities, you won’t find any 🤷‍♂️
Read 4 tweets

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