🧵tl,dr:
- fewer LFDs
- fewer cases
- fewer contacts reached and it's taking longer, plus what might be the role of international cases
- and why this is the last update to our @HealthFdn performance tracker.
Number of people tested is down this week by 7% to 4.61m, with number of positive cases also down 9% to 14,313.
The drop in people tested is again due to changes in the use of rapid LFD tests for people without symptoms, rather than changes to PCR test use.
And nearly 2/3 of the fall is due to less reported secondary school testing.
Across the regions, there are ongoing differences in testing rates - lowest in London and the highest in the East Mids.
When looking by local authority, it varies by nearly five-fold.
This could be for very good reasons, but also it may also indicate structural differences in test access with implications for viral spread.
We plan to explore this separately in the coming weeks.
Much of the contact tracing performance is largely unchanged.
91% of cases were reached, and 82% provided contact details.
39,875 contacts identified with around 4.6 contacts per case.
But the percentage of contacts reached is falling - now at 84%. Why?
Main reason is that fewer contacts are from the same household as the case. Now just 46%.
Non-HH contacts are more difficult to reach.
The percentage of contacts in the same HH is the same as ever at 96%, and the percentage of non-HH contacts reached is also largely unchanged.
This week it's down a little at 73% compared with generally hovering between 75% and 78%.
One thing mentioned in the T&T report is the impact of international arrivals on contact tracing, and numbers by country are now reported in the data tables.
In the 2 wks from 22/4-5/5, over 800 international arrivals tested positive. In the preceding 2 weeks it was over 1,400.
Here, contact tracing everyone on an aircraft is both arduous and time consuming.
This is seen in the end-to-end times, where % of contacts reached <3 days of the case tested fell from 80% at the end March to 59% 2wks later, before picking up a bit to 68% in the most recent wk.
And, as mentioned in thread on today's surveillance report, I'm really concerned that yet *again*, its the areas of the country most in need of socioeconomic recovery that are being most impacted by rising case rates and variants.
And finally, after nearly a year since T&T launched, today's the last (planned) update to our @HealthFdn T&T performance tracker from @cfraserepi and me (big thanks to comms colleagues on this).
As we get closer to it's anniversary, we'll write a short blog about the first 12 months of T&T, but here are some of my thoughts on the situation and why now seems like a good time to stop.
Furthermore, the significant increases in case rates in some parts of the country continues to raise concerns about potential community spread of variants of concern such as VOC-21APR-02 (first identified in India) among the very places already most impacted by the pandemic.
In the most recent week, case rates in Bolton have doubled from 85 per 100,000 to 188 per 100,000, for Blackburn with Darwen they've doubled to 107/100,000.
Latest REACT study shows that case rates between 15th April and 3rd May (round 11) fell by 50% compared with 11th - 30th March (round 10), from 0.20% to 0.10%
Differences by age, region, ethnicity and deprivation remain (with large uncertainty). short 🧵
*Note very wide uncertainty intervals as case rates fall*
In general, highest rates estimated in West Mids and London, and likely falls in all ages except 25-34y/o.
ONS survey tomorrow will update on this.
See the adjusted results showing general trend for higher case rates in bigger households, more deprived and Asian ethnicity - esp with higher viral loads (right hand column).
Again - big uncertainty but consistent with everything else we see with COVID and inequalities.
This week's PHE surveillance report, 26th April - 2nd May
- despite easing of social restrictions & schools returning after Easter hols, case numbers still going down among all ages.
- still regional/local variation
- and ++concerns around variants.🧵 gov.uk/government/sta…
Still some big differences by region - particularly looking at younger adults in Yorkshire and Humber.
Case rates in Y&H are 42/100,000, more than 3 times the rates in the SW at just 12/100,000.
This is even more apparent when looking at data by local authority.
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
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)