2. Globally we are back in a pandemic that is as bad as it has been and no sign of peaking yet.
Deaths are trailing cases by a few weeks as expected but they are also rising steeply - this isn't just more testing or ok because we have vaccines & better treatments.
3. Out of control covid anywhere is a danger everywhere.
We need to address vaccine inequality ASAP. This is urgent - morally for global fairness & self-interestedly to stop future UK waves.
We'll be covering this in Friday's @IndependentSage
briefing - join us!
PS also insane that the US and Canada are not on the travel red list either btw.
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I know I've tweeted about this before, but now we can look at how gaps by deprivation and ethnicity change with age groups and what that might mean...
TLDR: widening gaps but access and communication will be key I suspect 1/5
By deprivation:
Vax coverage gaps *widen* markedly as we move to young ager groups. This is not just a time effect - coverage has flattened off for all these age groups.
Access (able to leave work to get vaccinated, travel, internet access) & communication likely issues 2/5
By ethnicity:
Much larger gaps for all age groups by ethnicity but less impact by age.
Different but overlapping reasons driving ethnicity gaps compared to deprivation gaps? 3/5
TLDR things going in right direction overall but some areas of concern for deprived communities & in schools. 1/19
Overall cases in the UK have fallen over last week after a long flat period. Note that tests have fallen too though (mainly lateral flow device (LFD) tests as schools are on holiday). 2/19
The ONS infection survey with data to 3 April - which tests random sample every week - reports new cases going *up* in England, flat in Wales and NI & going *down* in Scotland. 3/19
Three charts to highlight vaccine impact in England... Hospitals: For almost all the second wave hospitalisations were highest in the over 65s - but at the end of February the under 50s (unvaccinated) overtake over 65s in admissions... This is good news on vax impact! 1/3
Deaths: REACT released its latest report this week. In it they overlaid actual deaths onto infection trends adjusted for the time lag between infection & death and scaled for case fatality rate. Since Jan deaths have dropped off the infection line - more vaccine impact! 2/3
Deaths *and* Hospitals: Using published case, hospital and death data we see similar trends as this beautiful plot from @jburnmurdoch shows.
Firstly, vaccines have slowed down a bit since March - 1.6m jabs last week (but includes Easter weekend).
We are now giving mostly 2nd doses. Expect that to continue until end of May... should still be able to jab 40+ by end May tho. 1/6
53-58% of adults in UK have had a first dose of vaccine and 11%-18% have received a second dose.
Wales is storming ahead with its second doses! 2/6
Digging into English data now...
Almost 60% of over 80's have had their second dose which is great.
One thing to watch out for is whether we will get *everyone* coming back for their second dose across age groups - it's important to get full benefit from the vaccines. 3/6
THREAD on English vaccine supply & what this might mean for the roadmap.
It was reported the other day that England will have relatively restricted supply for the foreseeable future theguardian.com/politics/2021/… 1/9
This is based on the recent SAGE SPI-M modelling where the central estimate for vaccine supply was 2.7m doses a week in England from April -July and then 2m doses a week. This compares to 3.2m doses a week in February & March & the previous plan of increased supply. 2/9
This means that most of April AND May will taken up honouring second doses for the over 50s.
Under 50s won't be getting their first doses in any big numbers until June and July...