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Prof. Christina Pagel Profile picture
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14 Jul, 4 tweets, 1 min read
THREE things:

TLDR: are we about to have another testing crisis?

1) feeling a bit worried for London in the coming days/weeks if PCR tests are getting hard to come by...
2) If testing capacity is constrained again (like last Sept) will be v hard to interpret case numbers over coming weeks.
3) people might rely on rapid lateral flow tests they can do at home - but less accurate and might not catch first few day or two of infectiousness - and will people report the result so that it's counted?

/END
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More from @chrischirp

Prof. Christina Pagel Profile picture
14 Jul
QUICK THREAD on North East (and Yorkshire):

Cases still going up very rapidly there and higher than they've ever been.

The NE is now not far off where London was in January and twice as high as previous peak. Yorks rising rapidly. Image
I had hoped it was flattening after the weekend showed lower numbers, but Monday is *already* a really big number and will keep going up for a couple of days yet.

Positivity rates very high in both and climbing.

Neither region is peaking just yet. ImageImageImage
And unfortunately these cases are translating into hospital admissions. In both regions cases are very high in over 50s (although highest in young adults and teenagers).

E.g dashboard gives a rate of over *950* cases/100k/week for 40-45 year olds in NE.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?… Image
Read 6 tweets
Prof. Christina Pagel Profile picture
12 Jul
Looking through latest SAGE SPI-M models:

@ShaunLintern has been reporting tirelessly on how NHS is already under incredible strain, with operations *already* being cancelled in some areas.

Spi-M: sustained periods of over 1K admissions day likely.

Govt: it's fine! 1/4
Gov: "herd immunity by infection? us? no no no"

SAGE: "extremely high prevalence of infection" over next two months...

if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... 2/4
Warwick SAGE modelling paper highlights all the problems with mass infection: variants emerging, ineffectiveness of contact tracing, variants not being spotted, long covid, workplace & educational disruption.

gov: "It's fine" 3/4
Read 4 tweets
Prof. Christina Pagel Profile picture
9 Jul
Been chatting to a hospital doc friend tonight.
"Just saw a terrified twentysomething with a very high oxygen requirement. ... It’s very scary."

"We are writing off a generation. The text books will have a chapter dedicated to complications of Covid for years to come"
and yes, young people much much less likely to need hospital than older people, but the plan is also to allow more infections than we've ever allowed before.
Out of control infections are causing:
- mass disruption in schools
- disruption to NHS care as staff isolating
- admissions to go up in an NHS that is already overstretched and traumatised
- vulnerable people to fear going out
Read 5 tweets
Prof. Christina Pagel Profile picture
7 Jul
QUICK NE CASE UPDATE BEFORE FOOTBALL:

Cases in NE continuing to grow fast and much higher than all other regions. Image
It's not just testing - similar pattern seen for positivity rates. Image
The hotspots are centred around Newcastle / Sunderland area and Hartlepool Image
Read 11 tweets
Prof. Christina Pagel Profile picture
5 Jul
I was hoping to dig through Sanger variant data for NE today but only 4% of NE June's cases & 19% of May cases have been sequenced so far (compared to e.g 70% & 23% for NW respectively).

This is the lowest of any region for both months - not sure why but it's frustrating. 1/2
It's likely NE rapid rise is a combination of the various factors people have suggested: high deprivation, lower January peak, football, students... but none on its own is unique to NE & start of rapid rise predated football.

But I'd like to be surer it's not a bad variant. 2/2
PS so far, NE looks like just a Delta rise - over 95% of sequenced cases in June were Delta. But as I said, small numbers.
Read 4 tweets
Prof. Christina Pagel Profile picture
3 Jul
THREAD: Something weird is happing in the North East - as mentioned today by @Unusual_Times and it came up briefly in the @IndependentSage briefing today.

But I've looked a bit closer and it's a bit worrying. 1/5
Their cases are rising very rapidly - as are their positivity rates and hospitalisation rates. The last two days are likely undestimates as well due to some test results still to come back. 2/5
If we look at cases on a log scale (where exponential growth is a straight line. Steeper straight lines mean faster growth), we can see that NE starts growing faster beginning of June.

SW grew that fast too - prob due to combo of half term + G7 - but has slowed down since. 3/5
Read 6 tweets

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