Here is the recent data from England from COG (genetics consortium for covid)
2.This includes data from travellers & surge testing
BUT overall picture is the same as for community cases from Sanger yesterday.
B1617 growing very fast & has overtaken all other variants of concern / under investigation (except B117 ("Kent") which is still >90% of cases).
3.Look at the number each week, you can see that the other main variants are hardly growing. B117 cases ("Kent") are also going down (which is why our overall case numbers are falling).
But this variant, B1617 ("India"), is still shooting up.
4.Digging into its subtypes, one in particular stands out: B.1617.2.
This is the one *without* the E484Q mutation. It is *also* the sub-strain that is now dominating India.
5.Who knows why it's outcompeting its variant siblings... (I don't anyway). Perhaps the prelim data from @GuptaR_lab showing that the "E484Q"+"L452R" mutations didn't seem to confer any advantage over just "L452R" provides a clue?
6.But basically - we've seen this characteristic spread in India, we are seeing it in the COG data (all England data - tweet 4 above) and we are seeing it in the Sanger data (just community cases).
Sanger chart is below
7. Do we have definitive evidence that B1617.2 is more transmissible? No
But honestly I think canaries are chirping - we know it's in the community (from Sanger) and we should act to contain right now while numbers manageable. /END
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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
The UKHSA have now published their modelled estimates of what percentage of English population has Covid. And as of a week ago it's high (4.3%) and rising.
It's highest in London, South East and East & in young and middle aged adults.
The main thing is it's going up and fast, so prevalence will already by significantly higher now than it was last week. 3/7
Short thread on what I said on Channel 4 news tonight.
1. Did I find Hancock a sympathetic witness?
A: I find it hard to have sympathy for someone who repeatedly claimed to have thrown protective ring around care homes, while discharging covid+ patients into them.
1/5
There were *28,000* excess deaths in care homes Apr-May 2020.
Harries thought it was "clinically reasonable" not to treat covid +ve residents in hospital. Even it was, it was NOT reasonable to return them somewhere they could infect so many other very vulnerable people. 2/5
2. Did I think scientists bear blame for not emphasising asymptomatic transmission?
A: No, because they very clearly did advise there could be asymptomic transmission before March 2020 - sources in next tweet. 3/5
Hancock: "there was no way we could allow the NHS to become overwhelmed"
Except, the NHS WAS overwhelmed
Here is what NHS staff said about that time - Pls read whole 🧵
"Heartbreaking"
"Horrific"
"It broke my soul"
"We cried, we came home exhausted. We were overwhelmed"
1/16
"Overnight we were told that all “safe working rules” were gone. There was no choice, we were forced to do it"
"It felt like a death sentence. It felt out of control"
"We were put on wards with no senior support, sometimes makeshift ... with little of the right equipment"
2/16
"Terrifying. A huge sense of duty ... but also terror. We were unprepared & ovt clearly had no plan"
"We had patients on wards on 19 litres of oxygen - this would never happen under normal circumstances - they’d have come to Intensive Care but we didn’t have the space"
TLDR: modest August wave with flatlining hospital admissions, but expect a bigger wave later this autumn 1/12
Hospital admissions with Covid in England are still quite flat for 3rd week in a row and at a level below previous troughs.
Number of people with covid in critical care & primaril yin hospital because of Covid also flat & low.
Deaths ⬆️, from case rises few weeks ago 2/12
However, Zoe symptom tracker app estimating significant increases recently. Very hard to know how reliable Zoe trends are, given far fewer people reporting, but it's worth bearing in mind.
THREAD: Various new or expanded cancer screening programmes have been announced recently and coverage has been overwhelmingly on the pros. But there are cons too.
First a screening recap : a relatively simple test that flags potential cause for concern. If flagged, you are offered more, gold standard, testing, often in a hospital (e.g. MRI scans, blood tests, other diagnostic procs). If those +Ve too, you are offered cancer treatment. 2/24
The benefits are clear: If you have undiagnosed serious cancer, screening can save your life if it leads to earlier treatment.
In this case massively beneficial to you *and* to NHS which can save on longer, more expensive treatment from later diagnosis 3/24