The latest antibody survey from @ONS has been published, and show that levels have flattened off in England and are falling in the oldest age groups. Similar patterns are seen in W and S, though not in NI.
The overall % in England is 54.9%, compared with 54.7% two weeks ago. 1/5
In England the first sign of a fall in older ages was seen two weeks ago, but is now clearer and extends down to all groups over 65. Younger age groups are continuing to rise.
The fall over the 2 weeks for 80+ is from 86% to 78%, and is 8-9% in the three upper groups.
2/5
Visually you can see it here at the latest point in time, or follow the link to have the interactive version. ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati… 3/5
Of interest there's not the obvious link between level of vaccination and antibodies you might expect.
eg London is by far the lowest for the former, but immediately to the right you can see the contrast with the SE - much higher vaccination, but lower antibody prevalence. 4/5
The survey models results up to the 28th March. Hopefully the start of widespread second doses will give a further boost to the older ages in coming weeks. Meanwhile, the report ends with a note of caution regarding what these results mean.
5/5
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
A great thread on the state pension and National Insurance.
For me, the trailed abolition of NI and thus its replacement by general taxation in terms of funding state pension benefits will have a major generational redistribution of tax.
It’s been the case that (in aggregate) at any one time the working generation funds the SPs of the retired generation above it.
2/
If the abolition of NI results in an increase (albeit smaller - else why bother) in income tax, whilst those in work will in total be better off, pensioners will be worse off.
3/
The Pensions & Lifetime Savings Association has updated its guide to living costs in retirement. The full report is well worth a read, and goes into a lot of detail.
One key point is that it assumes that pensioners own their home outright - probably reasonable now, but the shift to renting means that in future years that may become increasingly questionable.
2/
It focuses on retirement income, but note that other sources may be used to fund retirement, whether it be income from savings/investments, or gradual withdrawal of capital. Much more likely to be relevant for those aspiring to a comfortable lifestyle of course.
3/
UKHSA estimates that prevalence of COVID in England and Scotland has nearly tripled in the month since the ONS restarted its COVID infection surveillance.
Fortunately prevalence is lowest at the oldest, more vulnerable age groups, but is estimated at just under 6% in the 18 to 44 age groups.
2/
Prevalence is estimated to be highest in the London area, at just over 6% across the population. Note though that confidence intervals are wider due to lower sample sizes than in previous studies.
So with the news this morning that the earnings growth announced today means the state pension (SP) will very likely increase by another 8.5% next year, it's time to set out once again why the SP triple lock (TL) is such a bad idea.
1/
It's all down to cherry-picking the best of the three rates each year. I did a thread nearly a year ago, that hopefully sets out clearly how the mechanism inevitably means that the SP will grow over time against both earnings (E) and prices (P).
With BH's still distorting individual weeks' figures, the cumulative position gives a better view, with the latest CMI age-standardised analysis showing mortality 3.8% (of a full year's mortality) worse than its reference year of 2019.
Here's the mea culpa - it was only wrong by a factor of 13, but at least the post has been deleted rather than just corrected and left up, when experience shows that only a fraction of the original audience will see the correction.
So what are the true numbers?
2/
In E&W the peak week in 2020 was just under 9,000, and the second wave peak was pretty close to that number.
In total ONS has recorded 199,728 COVID related deaths in E&W since the pandemic started.