So R is staying stubbornly high in England, and maybe even drifting upwards. Why is this? I’m not really sure, but as usual I think the age-stratified case data is the first place to look for clues. And the changing growth probably isn’t quite where you’d expect it to be. 1/7
Your first suspects might be unvaccinated young adults, out partying and watching the football? Well, their case rates continue to be high and growing, but R seems to have settled down to a new level around 1.3, so it’s not them that’s caused any recent uplift in R. 2/7 
Your next suspects might be schoolchildren – we know they spiked up about a week ago, and again growth continues, but there isn’t strong acceleration (although maybe a bit in the 10-14s). Still, there could be a mix effect happening here: 3/7
…although the growth rate in schoolchildren may not have moved much, since it’s higher than average, they will be forming an increasing % of the total cases over time. Which means the contribution of their R to the total R will also be increasing, pushing it upwards. 4/7
But I’m not convinced that’s the whole story. So let’s look up the age distribution a bit, into the 30-60 year olds. Ah. Their R rate seems to be sliding upwards, from about 1.2 to nearer 1.3-1.4 over the last week. This is odd; we’d expect second doses to be pushing 5/7
…growth in this group down, not up. Again, there may be a bit of a mix effect going on, but on a regional rather than age-group basis. Or it may be that poorer weather has driven people indoors, or that compliance with restrictions is weakening. Ideas very welcome…. 6/7
One piece of good news is that there isn’t much change in the growth rate of the over-60s, who are the most vulnerable (but also the most vaccinated). So the wall is holding, and we can retain hope that hospitalisations and deaths will grow only slowly. 7/7
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