Short 🧵 on case data.
This week sees a big milestone:
All UK Local Authorities have fewer than 100 cases per 100K (7-day rolling average).
TL:DR Generally cases continue to fall in most regions and in most age-ranges, but that doesn't mean this will continue as we open up.
1/9
Cases (per 100K) continue to fall in all home nations. Bigger falls in England and Scotland, smaller in Wales and NI.
All nations are now below 40 per 100K.
Still some way to go before we get back to September levels, but good news.
Cases have fallen in al regions.
Although Yorks & Humber remains the highest cases continue to fall there.
North West nearly back to its (albeit highest of all regions) September level. Some others getting close but others still some way off.
All local authorities in England have fewer than 100 cases per 100K.
237 out of 315 English local authorities showed reductions and those that increased were from a low level.
The top 20 English LAs are given in the second figure.
Almost all Scottish, Welsh and NI LAs showed reductions in the number of cases per 100K.
In all regions of England cases per 100K for under 20s dropped week on week.
Similar drops in cases per 100K are seen in 20-59 year-olds acorss England, but the falls are less pronounced.
Cases per 100K for over 60 year-olds have stabilised for all regions at low levels except for Yorks & Humberside which has shown a small rise.
Important to remember that most schools are still out for Easter and the impact of the most recent relaxations will not appear here
But, overall it's a good picture. Cases coming down in all nations, all regions of England and across the different age groups to differing degrees
Thanks as always to Bob Hawkins for his help with preparing the data.
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A short thread on case positivity data.
Overall case positivity has continued to fall across all regions and in the majority of local authorities.
Lets hope positivity rates continue to fall after this latest round of opening up.
All home nations are continuing to show falls in positivity and are now well below the 5% threshold recommended by the WHO.
Similarly positivity continues to fall in all English regions and all are now below 3%.
Yorkshire and the Humber continuing to be a bit of an outlier, but positivity is coming down nevertheless.
A short thread on vaccination data in lieu of the @IndependentSage data presentation today.
TL;DR Vaccine roll out still going well despite a slight slowdown. High proportions of older individuals receiving second doses.
With thanks as always to Bob Hawkins for his help.
After a slow-down over the Easter weekend vaccine delivery rebounded, but has slowed over all in comparison to pre-easter delivery rates.
As expected, the majority of doses being delivered now are second doses.
Looking at cumulative jabs given we can see how the the first doses delivery has slowed right down vaccinating just 1% of the adult population in the latest week compared to 4% in previous weeks.
Second dose delivery is still going strong though.
At the end of last week it was reported by the Telegraph that we would achieve herd immunity today (Monday 12/04/21).
There are a number of reasons I don't believe this to be a helpful headline.
Perhaps most importantly, telling people we have reached herd immunity will give people the impression that it is safe to open up completely and infections will still decline.
It's not hard to imagine that this may have a detrimental effect on behaviour and compliance.
Talking about herd immunity as "all or nothing" is not particularly helpful either.
Generally as immunity builds up in the population it slows the spread.
Even when spread starts to decline, if R stays close to one then lots of people may still get infected as cases come down.
Herd immunity is an incredibly important concept. It suggests diseases can be eliminated without everyone having immunity.
If you want to eliminate an established disease then herd immunity is the way to do it.
1/10
It's important to note that people can gain immunity in two different ways. Through being infected and recovering with immunity or through being vaccinated.
Hard to believe it needs to be said but, the best way for people to get immunity is through vaccination.
2/10
When enough people have immunity for the reproduction number to go below one the disease will start to decline.
This level of immunity is often called the herd immunity threshold or the critical immunisation threshold.
No @IndependentSage briefing today, but I don't want anyone to go into withdrawal though lack of data so here's a short thread on cases and positivity rates.
Overall it's good news.
Positivity rates low and falling or flat across all nations and most of local authorities.
Cases per 100K per week have plateaued for Scotland, England and Northern Ireland with slight falls in Wales.
This is good news, especially after some slight rises previously.
Positivity rates look even more encouraging.
All nations are well below the 5% threshold and continuing to decrease week on week.