THREAD on IMPACT OF IMMENSA SCANDAL:

Here are case rates in 10-14 yrs for the 13 most impacted English local authorities compared to all other local authorities.

The dodgy artificially low case rates are obvious as is massive increase in spread compared to rest of England 1/6
Here are primary school age children who *weren't* doing regular LFD tests and relied much more on PCR tests for symptoms.

The two dips looks as if different authorities in that list might have been impacted at different times. 2/6
The recent increase is *not* people rushing out to get tested. The last data point is 19 Oct - the scandal only broke on 15 Oct. The increases all started before then.

It wasn't just children either - here are their parents' age group 3/6
I find these charts quite upsetting - the most basic quality assurance processes should have picked this problem up within days - both at the lab and UKHSA.

Instead, thousands more people have been infected, some will need hospital and a few will die. 4/6

@JolyonMaugham
The govt *should be investigating on behalf of these areas* instead of pretending that everything is fine.

It's a total dereliction of duty towards your citizens. 5/6

And thank you to @AlastairGrant4 who has been investigating so thoroughly - I took the list of local authorities from him. 6/6



@ProfColinDavis @Kit_Yates_Maths @IndependentSage

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More from @chrischirp

24 Oct
Not only does Wales have a very high case rate at the moment it also has an *extremely high* positivity rate - almost a quarter of people tested are testing positive...
Also -Welsh hospital admissions with Covid are pretty much the same as their *first wave* peak and half their Jan 2021 peak.

In contrast, England is at about a quarter of Jan peak and a third of first wave peak.
You can see a vaccine effect though - severity of illness seems quite a bit less this time around and with shorter stays (so total number in hospital lower at any one time)
Read 6 tweets
23 Oct
THREAD: overview of where we are with Covid.

TLDR: Things aren't looking great, SW hit hard by the Immensa lab scandal, admissions climbing quite fast.

Half term should help a lot in the short term. Esp if we accelerate vax. Clear case for Vax Plus. 1/20
On vaccination, home nations between 65 and 71% fulle vaxxed. Good but behind many other high income countries now.

England v slow on 12-15 rollout - 18% vs 36% in Wales & 50% in Scotland.

16-18 yr old data shows vax works 2/20
On boosters - firstly looks like Pfizer booster works phenomenally well - much higher levels of antibodies after 3rd dose and 96% reduction in risk of catching covid after 3rd dose compared to just 1 dose.

So we def want to them in people - & case stronger for under 50s? 3/20
Read 20 tweets
19 Oct
Two things stand out to me from this chart:

1. The SW is accelerating much faster than anywhere else
2. London rates are almost half those everywhere else.

1. could be driven by the testing scandal but I have no idea what is driving the lower rates in London! and... 1/2
... it's not just testing behaviours!
Positivity rates in SW are also climbing steeply (*before the scandal came out late last week).

Meanwhile positivity rates in London are *also* lower than everywhere else, so it's not just lack of testing 2/2
PS the lower rates in London are seen across the whole age range.
Read 4 tweets
17 Oct
THREAD: Some numbers on Covid and kids since 1 Sept 2020.

For 5-14 yr old kids:
Whole of Autumn term (rise of Alpha) through to spring: 239K confirmed cases.
Summer term starts low, then Delta. April - August another 285K cases.
Since 1 Sept, 336K cases *so far*. 1/7
Case ascertainment improved in March with regular testing for school kids - but even compared to summer term, numbers this term are *far higher*.

ONS infection survey (no testing bias) reported that prevalence in 2nd-ry school kids now more than 2x higher than winter peak . 2/7
What will burden of Long Covid be in children infected since summer?
ONS estimated that in 4 weeks to 2 May, 23K children ages 2-16 had persistent symptoms from Covid caught at least 12 weeks before - ie infections before mid Feb 2021.
(June dataset: ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…) 3/7
Read 7 tweets
16 Oct
1.THREAD on Covid, children, failure, bafflement and anger.

TLDR: English policy has failed children, and then everyone else, I am baffled why people aren't angrier. I am angry.

23 tweet rant.
2. By the time schools broke up in July, cases in children were incredibly high, there was mass education disruption and we were going through a massive delta surge (aided by the Euros).
3. US, Canada, France & Israel were already vaccinating 12-17 year olds to protect them from Covid *and* to protect their education in the autumn.

From June onwards, data was firming up, mainly from USA, about the v low risk of the vaccine & higher risks of Covid
Read 23 tweets
14 Oct
VARIANTS: Everyone knows that Delta is the dominant variant in the UK (almost 100% of cases).

But Delta has continued to mutate & there are several subtypes in the UK (all start with AY).

The most common is called AY.4 - almost 80% of sequenced cases in UK are this type 1/6
So far no Delta subtype has seemed to have had much of an advantage over the others & non-Delta variants aren't getting anywhere
news.sky.com/story/covid-19…

But AY.4 has developed a new mutation (S:Y145H) & that variation (AY.4+S:Y145H) has been growing here since July 2/6
It was spotted by @CorneliusRoemer and he suggested giving it its own designation: AY.4.2 (meaning it becomes an official subsubtype of Delta subtype AY.4).

This designation has recently been accepted github.com/cov-lineages/p…… 3/6
Read 7 tweets

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