FRIDAY GOOD NEWS THREAD:
how about some positivity?
Here's a brief overview of state of Covid in UK right now.
TLDR: pretty good, couple of things to keep an eye on. 1/13
Case rates are below 50/100,000 people/week in all nations (orange), dropping from prev week (grey) and approaching levels last seen Sept 1 last year (green). 2/13
England is the flattest in terms of case rates and this is reflected regionally (orange and grey dots close together). Yorks & Humber still highest region, confirmed by the ONS infection survey too. 3/13
One thing to note is that although all positive LFD tests are now encouraged to get confirmatory PCR, about a third of cases are now positive LFD without confirmation. 4/13
Cases by age are also flat or falling which is good news. This chart is from the ONS infection survey data so is not affected by whether someone has symptoms or changes in LFD test numbers.
All good but note only covers a few days of summer term.
Case data also flat 5/13
So great news that all going in right direction - so much of a better picture compared to where we were a few months ago and also where much of the rest of the world is now.
Couple of warning things to note... (wouldn't be me without some warnings!) 6/13
Firstly, the impact of deprivation has been stark for the last 8 months - Imperial REACT study shows that if anything the disproportionate impact is larger when prevalence is lower. 7/13
Secondly, while overall vaccination is great with 62% of adults having had 1 dose and 26% 2 doses, there are (obviously) differences by age. 8/13
and these differences have also translated (naturally) into presence of antibodies (which arise either from vaccination or from previous infection).
ONS released its latest population antibody survey today. 9/13
So roughly half of people between 16 and 34 don't have any Covid antibodies, maybe 8 million people... (plus 11 million children who've not been vaccinated, although some will have antibodies through prev infection). 10/13
Having so many people with some immunity will do a great deal to slow down any spread as we open up, but might not be enough to keep R<1 (which is what SAGE is worried about after June).
Adding better contact tracing, ventilation etc could keep R<1 + continuing to vax. 11/13
Finally there are variants. These remain the biggest medium term threat to our vax programme and we need to stay on top of them here.
Quick thread on current Covid situation in England and Long Covid.
I have Thoughts about the Inquiry Report published yesterday but am still trying to organise them.
TLDR: high Covid levels remain, Long Covid remains 1/11
This wave is not over. While the number of admissions with Covid remains lower than the autumn/winter waves, it has now remained highsh for several weeks.
This means there are a lot of people out there getting sick - and having their work, plans and holidays disrupted. 2/11
Scottish wastewater data to 9 July shows a sharp decrease, suggesting that prevalence might be on its way down.
Obviously Scotland and England can have different dynamics, but it’s the best we’ve got as long as England refuses to analyse its own wastwater. 3/11
THREAD: Given tomorrow's election, I've been thinking about our nation's (poor) health, the wider determinants of health and how these have worsened and what it means for policy....
TLDR: worrying only about NHS & social care is missing the point
let's dive in... 1/25
The UK has a health problem. After steady gains in life expectancy for decades, it flatlined during the austerity years and fell for the first time this century with the Covid pandemic.
The number of people out of work for long term sickness is near record levels. 2/25
There are huge inequalities between rich & poor. Boys born in the most deprived areas can expect to die almost 10 years earlier than their peers in the least deprived areas.
Even worse, they can expect to spend 18 fewer years of their life in good health (52 vs 70 years) 3/25
As ever, I am getting lots of pushback.
Here is a compilation of the European countries I've found with recent wastewater data. Some are going up a bit, some down a bit, some are flat, none are anywhere near previous peaks.
I can't see anything here to be panic anyone. 1/3
I can't find the dashboard for Spain, but others saying it is in a wave. Perhaps it is. England has just had one - the last data we had (a couple of weeks ago from Bob Hawkins) looked as if our wave had peaked.
So, I'm not seeing reason to think things are terrible here! 2/3
Yes there are new variants growing right now. They are not growing faster than JN.1 grew in December and that wave did not end up as bad as feared.
Clearly it remains true that Covid is NOT a seasonal disease (unlike Flu and RSV)
3/3
Quick thread on the Astra Zeneca (AZ) covid vaccine since it's been in the news today.
TLDR there isn't a new "smoking gun", the AZ vax was one of first and cheapest, it saved millions of lives globally, there are better vax out there now, adapted to new variants 1/9
the AZ vaccine was one of the first approved at the end of 2020, cheaper than Pfizer, and - importantly - easier to administer in lower resource settings as it didn't require super low temperatures for storage 2/9
In most countries it was first rolled out in older adults. As it was rolled out in younger adults, a *very rare*, serious, side effect was noticed - it could cause deadly blood clots
This was spotted quickly and studied. Vax monitoring did its job. 3/9
A short thread on why this is not a scary chart and why all the evidence suggests that there is not much Covid around right now. 1/6
the above chart is recorded covid hospital admissions / reported covid cases. It is close to 100% now *because basically only hospitals can report cases since Feb 2024*
It is to do with changes in case reporting and NOT hospital testing
2/6