While Covid cases may be low in many parts of the country, there are still rates of over 70 cases per 100,000, in upper tier local authorities
Slow increase in number of outbreaks/incidents
Falling hospitalization rates
Continued excellent results showing how the vaccines are increasing protection (difference between the red and black lines, where the red line is detection of antibodies acquired through infection and the black line is detection of antibodies through vaccination or infection
There is still a significant problem with vaccinations in the Black/African/Caribbean/Black British population.
For the over-50s:
65% vaccinated compared to 93% vaccinated in the White population.
And for vaccinations. First doses in 40-50s increasing. Others relatively constant.
Second doses. Some increases in all age groups.
*Worth noting that only 94% of over-75s have gone on to have their second dose, meaning that they are not fully protected.*
Please get your second dose when it is offered.
I will add detail on variants later today.
Actually, no I won't
"Due to a processing issue, Public Health England’s weekly variant data will not be updated today (Thursday 6 May). The data will be available as soon as possible tomorrow (Friday 7 May). We apologise for the delay."
I will update tomorrow instead.
"But in an email containing details of the situation, a staff member at the Department of Health and Social Care wrote: “Data publication [is] to be delayed 24 hours from Thursday to Friday given it is local elections tomorrow.”
The UK Covid Public Inquiry has published its first Report, on Resilience and Preparedness. It is the most urgent report, as we are still ill-prepared for the next pandemic.
🧵
This is the first of many reports, each reviewing a specific area, including healthcare systems; test, trace, and isolate; and the economic response to the pandemic.
The Module 1 Report sets out nine significant flaws from the Covid-19 pandemic:
"Inflation is currently 10%. If inflation halves, how much will a £1 pint of milk cost".
Sounds easy. It's not. It's ambiguous. It's not a good question. Unless it's designed to be a bad question. In which case it's a good question.
1. It talks about 'inflation'. But *what* inflation? At the moment, we have overall inflation at roughly 10% but inflation of food at roughly 20%. So is the overall inflation rate the same as the inflation rate for milk? It's not clear. Bad question.
First, the @ONS Covid Infection Survey is being paused, and @CovidGenomicsUK is being retired. This will have implications for data reliability and availability going forward.
OK, I'm going to write a response to this maths problem, published in @DailyMailUK, that has caused a lot of comment, some thinking the answer is 1 and some thinking the answer is 9.
Many of us would go straight to the answer 1. That's because we know (or our children know, and have taught us), that there is a 'rule' for how you deal with the order of doing the calculation - do you do + first or ÷, for example?
Enter BIDMAS (or BODMAS).
"It stands for Brackets, Indices [or Order], Division, Multiplication, Addition and Subtraction."
That's the conventional order. Forget about indices [or order] for now - that's not important for this one. bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topic…