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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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
Short thread on what I said on Channel 4 news tonight.
1. Did I find Hancock a sympathetic witness?
A: I find it hard to have sympathy for someone who repeatedly claimed to have thrown protective ring around care homes, while discharging covid+ patients into them.
1/5
There were *28,000* excess deaths in care homes Apr-May 2020.
Harries thought it was "clinically reasonable" not to treat covid +ve residents in hospital. Even it was, it was NOT reasonable to return them somewhere they could infect so many other very vulnerable people. 2/5
2. Did I think scientists bear blame for not emphasising asymptomatic transmission?
A: No, because they very clearly did advise there could be asymptomic transmission before March 2020 - sources in next tweet. 3/5
Hancock: "there was no way we could allow the NHS to become overwhelmed"
Except, the NHS WAS overwhelmed
Here is what NHS staff said about that time - Pls read whole 🧵
"Heartbreaking"
"Horrific"
"It broke my soul"
"We cried, we came home exhausted. We were overwhelmed"
1/16
"Overnight we were told that all “safe working rules” were gone. There was no choice, we were forced to do it"
"It felt like a death sentence. It felt out of control"
"We were put on wards with no senior support, sometimes makeshift ... with little of the right equipment"
2/16
"Terrifying. A huge sense of duty ... but also terror. We were unprepared & ovt clearly had no plan"
"We had patients on wards on 19 litres of oxygen - this would never happen under normal circumstances - they’d have come to Intensive Care but we didn’t have the space"
TLDR: modest August wave with flatlining hospital admissions, but expect a bigger wave later this autumn 1/12
Hospital admissions with Covid in England are still quite flat for 3rd week in a row and at a level below previous troughs.
Number of people with covid in critical care & primaril yin hospital because of Covid also flat & low.
Deaths ⬆️, from case rises few weeks ago 2/12
However, Zoe symptom tracker app estimating significant increases recently. Very hard to know how reliable Zoe trends are, given far fewer people reporting, but it's worth bearing in mind.