TLDR: cases *and* hospitalisations in kids are much much higher than they've ever been.
13% of children are off school (for any reason).
England likely to follow suit... Protect schools. 1/7
Schools in Scotland were back by 19 Aug. Scotland moved to its final level of opening on 9 Aug.
Cases in 15-19 year olds shot up week after 9th & carried on increasing after 19th. Most recent week has seen a fall.
Cases 2x previous peak in July and 6x high than Jan peak. 2/7
Of course, many 15-19 year olds are not in school tho.
Looking at Under 15s, we see rise in cases in summer term, drop over holidays and then they have shot up this term. 5x higher than July peak. Last week plateaued... 3/7
Why is this? Unclear, but school absences (Whether Covid or something else) have gone up too - from 5% at beginning of term to about 13% of pupils now. That's a lot.
Are parents keeping kids home when they hear of an outbreak (which would be counted as non covid reason)? 4/7
And what are the consequences? In the mostly unvaxxed under 18s, hospital admissions with Covid have shot up too and almost 2x higher than July peak and almost 3x higher than Jan peak. 5/7
When cases in kids go up, so do admissions. Yes, it's rarer than for adults, but let's not pretend that high cases in kids are consequence free.
England has also gone back to school at high child admission rates but with fewer mitigations in place than Scotland. 6/7
I think we urgently need to make schools safer (masks, ventilation, testing, bubbles, distancing), roll out vaccinations to all 12-15 year olds and get community rates down (best way to protect children). 7/7
PS this is specimen date data (ie day of test) so the most recent week for cases will be an underestimate. So 15-19 yr old drop less steep and 0-14 likely slight rise
PPS about 25% of children were not in school in Scotland by the end of term in June 2021. But note that that was when we were isolating contacts of cases in school - that isn't happening any more.
These are the case charts (7 day rolling average) with most recent 2 days removed to account for lags in test results.
PPPS H/T to @TigressEllie & @jneill for highlighting the high numbers of children in Scotland being admitted
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The pandemic is as bad as it ever was for babies - in year to Aug 2023, 6,300 babies under 1 were admitted to hospital wholly or partly BECAUSE of Covid.
They are ONLY age group where admissions have NOT gone down over time 1/17
Our study, led by Prof @katebrown220, looked at all hospitalisations in England in children with a Covid diagnosis or positive test from Aug 2020-Aug 2023.
We then *excluded* all admissions where a Covid diagnosis was incidental (ie not why they were in hospital)
2/17
Infants (babies under 1) are generally at higher risk from respiratory infections, plus they are the age group that, if infected, are overwhelmingly meeting the virus for the first time.
They are not vaccinated and have not had it before. 3/17
Prof @Kevin_Fong giving the most devastating and moving testimony to the Covid Inquiry of visiting hospital intensive care units at the height of the second wave in late Dec 2020.
The unimaginable scale of death, the trauma, the loss of hope.
Please watch this 2min clip.
And here he breaks down while explaining the absolute trauma experienced by smaller hospitals in particular - the "healthier" ICU patients were transferred out, leaving them coping with so much death.
They felt so alone.
Here Prof Fong explains how every nurse he met was traumatised by watching patients die, being only able to hold up ipads to their relatives and how it went against their normal practice of trying to ensure a dignified death, with family there.
🧵War causes direct civilian deaths but also indirect deaths over the following years.
Recent paper estimates eventual total direct & indirect deaths in Gaza attributable to the war - 10% of entire pop'n.
I want to explain these estimates and why deaths must be counted. 1/13
Why count casualties from war anyway? For moral, legal and strategic reasons.
1 - owe it to those who have died
2 - International law says must count & identify dead as far as possible
3 - monitor progress of war & learn from tactics
2/13
There are direct and indirect casualties of war. Direct deaths include those who killed by fighting or bombs.
Indirect deaths are those that die when they would otherwise have lived because of one or more of: lack of food, healthcare, housing, sanitation, income, hope. 3/13
THREAD: the summer Covid wave in the UK continues.
Basically, there is a LOT of Covid around and not a lot of other respiratory viruses.
If you have cold or flu symptoms, it's probably Covid.
The latest hospital data from England shows steady, quite high levels. 1/8
But admissions don't tell us how much virus is circulating more generally. The best (but imperfect) measure we have is wasterwater measurements, and only in Scotland and not England.
Scotland's wastewater is showing a huge July peak - highest since Omicron's 1st yr in 2022 2/8
Because different people shed different amounts of virus and variants can matter too, you can't for sure infer how many people were infected between different wasterwater peaks. BUT given the size, I'd say it's pretty likely this is the largest peak since 2022 in Scotland 3/8