Update to various Covid-19 indicators for England:
• Deaths up again (data to 9 Sept) but looks like will turn back down from tomorrow.
• Admissions coming down faster now.
• Positive tests also falling quite fast, both school age & others.
• Triage & Zoe steady.
What is particularly encouraging for future hospitalisation and deaths data is that positive tests are at long last falling steadily in the 60+ and 90+ groups ...
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Encouraging also that school age rates are decreasing *despite* (!) no masks.
Mass school testing makes interpreting trends a little tricky, but no obvious signal from the positive tests data of any significant increase in infections after schools opened in England ...
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In fact the overall positive test average is already lower than before schools opened despite mass testing.
Scotland did see a big increase after their schools opened *despite* (!) masks but the rise started before opening & positive tests now coming down in Scotland too.
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The Govt seem to have authorised vaccinating 12-15 year olds on the basis of modelling suggesting the programme will avoid the loss of about 15 minutes schooling per pupil over a 6 months period.
... 1. No vaccinated children have been previously infected.
But we know a high % of children have been infected & hence already have high immunity. Allowing for this wd mean estimated schooling saved is much lower even than 15 mins /pupil.
As far as I can see and quite remarkably, the modelling uses vaccine effectiveness estimates vs unvaccinated but not previously infected.
Their mid-point VE is 55%, close to 57% in the Oxford study which definitely has not previously infected as the reference group ...
... those previously infected have a high level of immunity. There may be an additional effect from vaccines, but it will much, much smaller for this group ...
.. the higher the % of children previously infected, the lower will be potential school absences prevented. Knowing this % is essential to the modelling but I can't find any reference to their estimate of this ...
We know vaccine passports:
• are unethical & discriminatory.
• are unlikely to have any beneficial effect on infections.
• will create huge costs to firms & individuals.
• will entrench anti-vax sentiment.
but how bad is the problem they are actually trying to solve?
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The Govt says they want to introduce vaccine passports for nightclubs, football matches & other crowded events as they think, otherwise, those will cause big rises in infections …
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Well, since 19 July, we have been running an experiment:
England opened all these events in full & with no legal obligation for vaccine passports/tests.
We've had full sports stadia for #100, T20, Tests, Premier league etc, packed nightclubs & loads of festivals …
The new Lancet Infectious Diseases study finds vaccination reduces risk of infection relative to unvaccinated who have not previously been infected (they don’t compare risk to unvaccinated with a previous infection) but ... thelancet.com/journals/lanin…
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crucially the study also finds “increased incidence of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic infection in vaccinated participants”
The researchers warn of the potential risk this creates from vaccinated workers like carers who interact with vulnerable people ...
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i.e. to the extent asymptotic transmission occurs, vaccinated carers who get infected may pose a bigger risk to residents than unvaccinated.
More evidence the Government's policy of sacking unvaccinated carers may have all sorts of unintended consequences ...
The latest ONS official incidence estimates confirm new infections continued to fall after the final re-opening in England on 19 July (including end of social distancing restrictions, nightclubs open, full sports stadia & end of mask mandates).
The trends in Wales, NI & Scotland (who all kept their mask mandates in place) show a mixed picture: rates increased in NI (fast) & Wales (more slowly). Scotland rates continued down quite fast over the same period.
These are the estimates of daily new infections in England.
The most recent few days can get revised, but safe to conclude that new infections were decreasing for at least 2 weeks from 19th July reopening/end of mask mandate.