Thread by @dgurdasani1

The timing/extent of decline of hospitalisations suggests that the extent of decline we've seen in cases for the past 2 wks was likely real. Not sure how to square this with positivity, but hospitalisations are the real test & their extent/rate of decline tells us what happened🧵

https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1422223706617696259

I was more skeptical of case declines in children at the same time, because positivity had continued to rise even though cases were declining, suggesting undertesting/underreporting. But hosps in kids have peaked, which suggests these declines were real.

https://twitter.com/jneill/status/1422215765734875139?s=20

As many others have commented, it's likely a number of factors contributed - included the end of Euro2020s, >33% of children in secondaries being absent at the end of term, many Y11-13 being off post-exams, and many people isolating.

We know that in Scotland too, case declines began after Scotland dropped out of the Euro2020s, and schools closed and declines were sustained despite Scotland dropping to level 0 (of course still keeping mask and distancing mandates - so not fully comparable to England).

All of this suggests to me that schools and the Euro2020s likely played a major role in transmission. This is also clear from looking at incidence data with incidence >1000/100000/wk in secondary school children & young adults & a gap between case incidence in young men & women.

Understanding this is important, because this does suggest that we need to prepare for school openings in September, and also tells us about the risks of large events that lead to increased socialisation and activity that leads to superspreading.

While I'm incredibly grateful to see these declines, we should use this precious time to prepare for school openings & vaccinate adolescents, because if declines in school attendance & subsequent closures were partly responsible for this drop, they will reverse when schools open.