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.”
Most of these cases were related to travellers. We have since required quarantine for people that have been in India. So this should (in theory) reduce significantly the import of B.1.617.2
"In addition to the direct effects of preventing cases and reducing severity, we have shown that both the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and BNT162b2 vaccines are associated with reduced likelihood of household transmission by 40-50% from individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 after vaccination...
Travel is starting to split into countries with low Covid cases and countries without low Covid cases.
A short thread.
Singapore and Hong Kong have announced a travel bubble
"All passengers departing from Hong Kong are required to be vaccinated, and passengers from both cities are expected to take a test within three days of departure and again on arrival."
Public Health England have updated their analysis of Variants of Concern and Variants under Investigation. It is great that this expert analysis has been published.
Some commentary.
Firstly, the India variant (B.1.617). This has been split. Only B.1.617.1 with E484Q is a Variant under Investigation.
Variants of Concern remain
B.1.1.7 (UK/Kent)
B.1.351 (South Africa)
P.1 (Manaus)
B.1.1.7 with E484K
Several other variants are being monitored.
This is PHE's chart of variant prevalence. As you can see, B.1.1.7 (Kent variant) dominates (purple)
The latest @PHE_UK variant data has been published for the UK. First, the heatmap of new cases.
Significantly:
P1 (Manaus) has increased from 40 to 60 total cases
B.1.617 (India) has increased from 77 to 132 total cases.
B.1.351 (SA) has increased from 600 to 670 total cases
Here is my Covid variants cumulative chart (excluding UK variant).