Adam Briggs Profile picture
22 Apr, 18 tweets, 12 min read
PHE's surveillance report for 12th to 18th April now out. 🧵

Second week of school holidays for most, but some schools will have gone back.

Tl,dr:
- case numbers down & vaccination up
- persistent inequalities by geography, ethnicity, & deprivation

gov.uk/government/sta…
Case rates & positivity continue to fall across the age groups with no clear sign of pre-Easter rise in school-age cases leading to more infection in older ages.

Highest in 10-19y/o (42 per 100,000) and lowest among 70-79y/o at just 7.2/100,000.

A pattern matched by ONS survey
Case rates also falling across all the regions, with slightly higher rates in Yorkshire and Humber (45 cases per 100,000 compared with just 14/100,000 in the SW).

Again not dissimilar to ONS and good to see case rates come down (next ONS update due tomorrow)
This does mask some differences by age - particularly look at Y&H, as well as 10-19y/o in EofE, London, and SE.
The upper tier local authority data show this even more starkly.

Whilst case rates are generally falling everywhere, the same places still have the highest rates.

They range from 74 cases per 100,000 in Doncaster to just 7/100,000 in Torbay.

A factor of 10.
And just to emphasise this point, the places with high case rates in the most recent week generally overlap with the cumulative highest case rates, and highest death rates.
As have said multiple times, this is largely driven by structural inequalities - job security, housing - @louisemarsha11 and I wrote about this again just this week.

Percentage of tests that are positive for PCR now just 0.89% (PCR uptake relatively static)

and for LFDs it's 0.15%, falling as LFD use increases (LFDs were available to everyone from 9th April).
Differences by ethnicity may not be particularly obvious overall, but they are still apparent when looking at the regional data.
And for deprivation it's easier to see.

Both the inequalities in case rates by deprivation and ethnicity will underlying much of the difference in case rates seen at local authority level.
When it comes to outbreaks, care home and hospital outbreaks remain as low as they've ever been.
As do schools given the Easter hols.
Perhaps still a little early but a good sign to see no signal (yet) for outbreaks/incidents in workplaces notified to PHE either.
As has been widely reported, hospital admissions continue to fall across the country.
And as community infection rates fall and younger people start getting their first jab, ICU admissions are also still falling.
It's important to remember that people are still dying from COVID-19, but the numbers are orders of magnitude better than they have been.
And finally, first dose vaccine uptake is now over 90% for *ALL* age groups >65yrs.

This is pretty incredible and a huge achievement for everyone involved. Bear in mind that most years flu vaccination uptake for over 65y/os peaks at around 70%. /end

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More from @ADMBriggs

22 Apr
Updated our T&T performance tracker, covers 8-14th April.

Key points
- lots of changes to LFD use, with differences across the country
- despite falling cases, end-to-end journey time from symptoms to reaching contacts increasing

Detail in 🧵

health.org.uk/news-and-comme… Image
After a dip over the Easter bank holiday w/e, number of people tested increased by 15% to 4.4m

although this is still some way off the peak of 6.2m four weeks earlier ImageImage
The changes have been mainly due to variations in use of rapid lateral flow devices (LFDs).

These have been rolled out by the government for people without symptoms over recent months and are now available to everyone in England. Image
Read 18 tweets
19 Apr
Having now worked it's way through the @Telegraph system: with @louisemarsha11, our take on the plans for replacing Public Health England. 🧵

tl,dr: we need a more, not less, joined up system if we're serious about health & inequalities

No £-wall🔓
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
PHE is being split into the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA which also includes Test&Trace) - focusing on external threats like pandemics

and the Office for Health Promotion - focusing on health improvement and inequalities, such as obesity and tobacco.

gov.uk/government/pub…
As we wrote at the time, it's a risky business reorganising public health in the middle of a pandemic.

telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
Read 25 tweets
8 Apr
This week's Test & Trace data - for 25th to 31st March (around the last week of school before holidays)

🧵
tl,dr:
- LFD tests down
- big variations in LFD use across the country
- and increase contacts per case.

gov.uk/government/pub…
The number of people tested week on week has fallen for the past two weeks, down to 4.8m from a high of 6.2m.
The fall is due to reductions in LFD use - down 23% to 5.5m.
Read 25 tweets
8 Apr
This week's @PHE_uk COVID surveillance report, 29th March to 4th April (incl. start of the school hols). 🧵

⬇️ case rates, partly from fewer 10-19y/o LFDs with no clear sign yet of schools leading to ⬆️cases in older ages

+ important variation by region

gov.uk/government/sta…
Further drop in cases in the most recent week following a bit of a flattening off in previous weeks - with some of this due to school holidays and fewer LFD tests.

Worth noting that for March, both REACT and ONS surveys suggest that case rates are generally static.
Big drop in LFD use, which is mainly due to a drop in test use by secondary schools (see T&T data).

The drop off has accelerated with the school holidays, but the move from testing in school to at home may have contributed over the past few weeks.
Read 19 tweets
8 Apr
Latest update from REACT-1.

Looks 11-30 March (schools fully reopened on 8th March).

- Suggests infection rates fell by around 60% between Feb and March to 0.2%
- Big differences by age, region, and deprivation
- R now estimated at approx 1.

imperial.ac.uk/news/218993/co…
Falls across all regions but highest rates still in NE, NW, and Yorkshire and Humber (round 9 is swabs from 4th-23rd Feb, round 10 is 11th-30th March)

Includes 12% probability R>1 for Y&H between two rounds. <1% in all other regions.

This is consistent with ONS survey data.
Highest infection rates among 5-12y/o (as does ONS), but REACT suggests lower infection rates among school age children than ONS does.
Read 4 tweets
1 Apr
PHE latest COVID surveillance report now out, as is ONS.

Covers 22nd-28th March 🧵

tl,dr:
-cases down all ages except 10-19yrs.
-Significant geographical variation.
-Vax still motoring.
Fall in case rates in all age gps (incl 5-9y/o) *except* for 10-19y/o where they've increased by 7% to 110 cases/100,000.

Lowest cases rates are among 70-79y/o at just 11/100,000, and generally there's a step decrease in case rates for ages 60yrs+ compared to those <60yrs.
And among 10-19y/o, case rates seem to be rising mainly among 10-16y/os.
Read 27 tweets

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