TLDR slow growth in cases & hospitalisations flat. But both cases and hospitalisations remain very high.
Plus some perspective internationally, over time and on kids.
19 tweets.
1. Cases have been creeping up across the UK for last few weeks. Positivity rates are going up in all nations except NI (but that's also where they are highest).
ONS says prevalence flat everywhere except Scotland so slightly different but represents infections a bit earlier.
2. Cases are highest in NI, SW (tourism?), North & Midlands.
All regions in England are going up except the NE which is still coming down from its massive peak.
3. Cases in England are concentrated in young adults but are falling in under 20s and going up in over 20s.
Worryingly cases in over 60s are going up quite a lot in all regions apart from NE. This is not great.
4. The most deprived communities are more likely to have very high case rates.
Once again the burden of high cases falls on disproportionately on those least able to isolate and more likely to get very sick or get long covid.
5. Overall in England, we've seen 1.6 million cases reported since 1st May in this Delta wave. But the wave isn't over yet, and we are going into September with very high cases compared to last year.
6. In terms of people in hospital, England and Wales are flat, Scotland is coming down still and NI is increasing - likely a result of rapid increase in cases a week or two ago.
7. In England, we've had 33,000 new admissions since 1st May & are adding ~5,000 new ones a week. That's a lot! Especially when NHS is struggling.
The percentage of reported cases than "turn into" admissions 7 days later is creeping up. Likely as cases shift to older groups.
8. UK deaths remain far below their January peak, but *are* going up. We're currently averaging 100 deaths a day - *10 times* higher than last August.
Vaccines are doing *a lot* but cases are also very high.
9. Speaking of vaccination, we are continuing mopping up second doses and doing about 20K first doses a day.
Uptake is lower for younger age groups but 18-29 year olds are catching up 30-34 year olds. Let's hope we can get all under 50s to 85% at least.
10. Compared to other countries, we have excellent vaccination coverage but we're not the highest. Most of Europe is now over 50% of population fully vaccinated.
11. I tweeted this earlier this week but it's worth repeating. Despite vaccination, cases are 25x higher than a year ago and hospitalisations are 10x higher.
Many more people are getting very sick this month vs last August. I don't think this is good public health policy.
12. Looking at hospitalisations by age... for Over 65s we can see far far fewer hospitalisations now compared to peaks. That's the massive benefit of vaccines.
That said, hospital admissions are still significantly higher than last summer.
13. For working age adults, admissions are still a long way below peak - again a consequence of vaccination (and mainly in the older groups), but are nonetheless a LOT higher than a year ago.
14. For kids... hospital admissions are *much much* lower than adults. But obviously there is no vaccine benefit. Kids are seeing the same pandemic peak as in January.
There were 1.3K <18 admissions in 1st wave and 4.2K in 2nd wave.
Since May, over 2K kids have been admitted.
15. We are one of the few high income countries not vaccinating 12-15 yr olds.
As well as the ones in the chart below, Israel, Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, Chile, Canada, China, Philippines, Indonesia and Dubai are all vaccinating adolescents.
16. Cases in kids will go up when schools return.
We are also one of the few countries removing mitigations from schools instead of adding them in the face of Delta.
The European CDC & the US CDC both recommend mitigations to prevent transmission in schools.
Why aren't we?
17. ONS Schools study, widely reported this week, concluded that schools weren't hubs of infection.
They said partly because mitigations helped & partly cos infections depended on community rates. gov.uk/government/new…
18. I was not convinced by their conclusions, but even if you take them at face value, those mitigations have now gone & next term will start with v high community rates.
I think we're only country doing NONE of mitigation, low cases, vaccination to keep kid infections down.
19. So to conclude, cases and hospital admissions remain high and are showing gradual increases in most UK nations.
We are definitely the international outlier in our approach to infections in children. /END
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
The UKHSA have now published their modelled estimates of what percentage of English population has Covid. And as of a week ago it's high (4.3%) and rising.
It's highest in London, South East and East & in young and middle aged adults.
The main thing is it's going up and fast, so prevalence will already by significantly higher now than it was last week. 3/7