Since Delta became dominant in the UK and the opening of indoor spaces in England and the other home nations in May, cases have rapidly increased. 1/14
Cases & positivity rates (showing that it's not just more testing) are going up in all nations except N Ireland (where Delta is not yet dominant).
Still driven by regional hotspots in Scotland and England.
In England the NW remains a hotspot, but cases now also rapidly rising in NE, Yorks & Humber & Cornwall.
But most local authorities in Wales, Scot & Eng are going up. 3/14
Digging into English cases, it's mainly in younger people where vaccination rates are (obviously) lowest.
Since step 3 of roadmap, rates in young adults have overtaken school age children, but cases in school children starting to increase rapidly again since half term. 4/14
Vaccination is certainly working to keep cases down in older age groups, although cases are rising in all age groups. 5/14
The number of school children missing school due to covid is rocketing up since half term... with English schools still a few weeks away from end of the term, expect this to worsen in short term.
Looking at cases by deprivation we can see that the more deprived areas are disproportionately representing in covid hotspots compared to least deprived areas. Again. 7/14
Vaccination programme continuing well, although slowing down of late.
Still 50% of population only partially protected or unprotected - including all children.
We should celebrate our vaccine roll out but not act as though it's finished yet. It hasn't. 8/14
The Imperial React study released detailed data on over 76,000 adults in England who had Covid between Sept 2020 and Feb 2021.
Over 37% had at least 1 symptom persisting for at least 12 weeks...
And in particular, older people more likely to have long covid than younger people (althougb still 30% of 18-24 yr olds affected).
Women more likely than men and more deprived more likely than less deprived to have long covid. 10/14
So we're now having rising cases in young people, more in deprived communities, more kids off education (disadvantaging them and, disproportionately, women). 11/14
"Living with" high infections disrupts lives, disrupts education, leaves very many with long covid, and provides more chances for further mutations to arise.
Rising infections over next month could easily lead to tens of thousands of more people living with long covid. 12/14
And, given demographic of cases, will result in yet more burden on the young, those in more deprived areas and women. 13/14
We should be doing all we can to reduce cases.
This needn't be restrictions - better contact tracing, support for isolation (see
Quick thread on current Covid situation in England and Long Covid.
I have Thoughts about the Inquiry Report published yesterday but am still trying to organise them.
TLDR: high Covid levels remain, Long Covid remains 1/11
This wave is not over. While the number of admissions with Covid remains lower than the autumn/winter waves, it has now remained highsh for several weeks.
This means there are a lot of people out there getting sick - and having their work, plans and holidays disrupted. 2/11
Scottish wastewater data to 9 July shows a sharp decrease, suggesting that prevalence might be on its way down.
Obviously Scotland and England can have different dynamics, but it’s the best we’ve got as long as England refuses to analyse its own wastwater. 3/11
THREAD: Given tomorrow's election, I've been thinking about our nation's (poor) health, the wider determinants of health and how these have worsened and what it means for policy....
TLDR: worrying only about NHS & social care is missing the point
let's dive in... 1/25
The UK has a health problem. After steady gains in life expectancy for decades, it flatlined during the austerity years and fell for the first time this century with the Covid pandemic.
The number of people out of work for long term sickness is near record levels. 2/25
There are huge inequalities between rich & poor. Boys born in the most deprived areas can expect to die almost 10 years earlier than their peers in the least deprived areas.
Even worse, they can expect to spend 18 fewer years of their life in good health (52 vs 70 years) 3/25
As ever, I am getting lots of pushback.
Here is a compilation of the European countries I've found with recent wastewater data. Some are going up a bit, some down a bit, some are flat, none are anywhere near previous peaks.
I can't see anything here to be panic anyone. 1/3
I can't find the dashboard for Spain, but others saying it is in a wave. Perhaps it is. England has just had one - the last data we had (a couple of weeks ago from Bob Hawkins) looked as if our wave had peaked.
So, I'm not seeing reason to think things are terrible here! 2/3
Yes there are new variants growing right now. They are not growing faster than JN.1 grew in December and that wave did not end up as bad as feared.
Clearly it remains true that Covid is NOT a seasonal disease (unlike Flu and RSV)
3/3
Quick thread on the Astra Zeneca (AZ) covid vaccine since it's been in the news today.
TLDR there isn't a new "smoking gun", the AZ vax was one of first and cheapest, it saved millions of lives globally, there are better vax out there now, adapted to new variants 1/9
the AZ vaccine was one of the first approved at the end of 2020, cheaper than Pfizer, and - importantly - easier to administer in lower resource settings as it didn't require super low temperatures for storage 2/9
In most countries it was first rolled out in older adults. As it was rolled out in younger adults, a *very rare*, serious, side effect was noticed - it could cause deadly blood clots
This was spotted quickly and studied. Vax monitoring did its job. 3/9
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