England take-up data, now including 30-39. Data is to Sunday and based on ONS pop'n estimates (NIMS gives lower %s.)
50-54 has levelled off at just over 90%, and the 40s look as though they will at around 85%. We're now making good progress in the upper thirties too.
1/
Second dose progress is much more spread than we saw in Wales yesterday, with good gains this week across all of 50 to 65. This spread may now reflect some of the acceleration to 8 weeks over age 50, with the younger ages more likely to be brought forward.
2/
2nd dose take up is now at 97% over age 70, around 92% at 65-69, and still making progress below that. It would be good to see all age groups get up beyond 95% given the lesser efficacy of one dose against B.1.617.2.
3/
Finally how many 1st doses are still needed? It all depends on take-up at younger age groups. If we assume 75% then it's around 7.5m. That will take around 5 weeks at the current rate, say to the end of June.
But, it could be better than that... 4/
In a couple of weeks the demand for 2nd doses will fall, as we track the fall in first doses in late March. The acceleration for those age 50 confuses the calculations a little, but I think we can expect much more to be available for 1st doses from mid-June. 5/
So even if (as I hope), we get a higher take-up in the under 30s (80% would add around 1m to the total needed), then we should still be able to finish off first doses by the end of June, maybe a little earlier.
6/6
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
A great thread on the state pension and National Insurance.
For me, the trailed abolition of NI and thus its replacement by general taxation in terms of funding state pension benefits will have a major generational redistribution of tax.
It’s been the case that (in aggregate) at any one time the working generation funds the SPs of the retired generation above it.
2/
If the abolition of NI results in an increase (albeit smaller - else why bother) in income tax, whilst those in work will in total be better off, pensioners will be worse off.
3/
The Pensions & Lifetime Savings Association has updated its guide to living costs in retirement. The full report is well worth a read, and goes into a lot of detail.
One key point is that it assumes that pensioners own their home outright - probably reasonable now, but the shift to renting means that in future years that may become increasingly questionable.
2/
It focuses on retirement income, but note that other sources may be used to fund retirement, whether it be income from savings/investments, or gradual withdrawal of capital. Much more likely to be relevant for those aspiring to a comfortable lifestyle of course.
3/
UKHSA estimates that prevalence of COVID in England and Scotland has nearly tripled in the month since the ONS restarted its COVID infection surveillance.
Fortunately prevalence is lowest at the oldest, more vulnerable age groups, but is estimated at just under 6% in the 18 to 44 age groups.
2/
Prevalence is estimated to be highest in the London area, at just over 6% across the population. Note though that confidence intervals are wider due to lower sample sizes than in previous studies.
So with the news this morning that the earnings growth announced today means the state pension (SP) will very likely increase by another 8.5% next year, it's time to set out once again why the SP triple lock (TL) is such a bad idea.
1/
It's all down to cherry-picking the best of the three rates each year. I did a thread nearly a year ago, that hopefully sets out clearly how the mechanism inevitably means that the SP will grow over time against both earnings (E) and prices (P).
With BH's still distorting individual weeks' figures, the cumulative position gives a better view, with the latest CMI age-standardised analysis showing mortality 3.8% (of a full year's mortality) worse than its reference year of 2019.
Here's the mea culpa - it was only wrong by a factor of 13, but at least the post has been deleted rather than just corrected and left up, when experience shows that only a fraction of the original audience will see the correction.
So what are the true numbers?
2/
In E&W the peak week in 2020 was just under 9,000, and the second wave peak was pretty close to that number.
In total ONS has recorded 199,728 COVID related deaths in E&W since the pandemic started.