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18 Nov, 4 tweets, 2 min read
only three graphs today: one bad, and two good (which is probably a fair summary of how I'm feeling). firstly the bad: cases in 5-9s appear to have hit an all-time high, which isn't ideal: 1/4 Image
the better news is that growth seems to be fading in the younger age groups (but with cases still growing, for now at least), and cases are already falling in the older (60-80 and 80+) age groups: 2/4 Image
even better to see this feeding through into hospitalisations: we can see the orange line (65-84s) clearly trending down. I'd like the blue line (85+) to have a steeper downward trend over the next week 🤞: 3/4 Image
so overall I'm still cautiously optimistic. but we really need to get cases and admissions down over the next 2-3 weeks before we all start doing work Christmas parties and school end-of-term concerts / carol services etc, which have big super-spreading potential. /end

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More from @JamesWard73

James Ward Profile picture
13 Nov
Honestly not a big fan of the case trends in the last couple of days. Here’s the overview: with the kids still driving the growth, but other groups also starting to pick up. (and I wouldn’t take too much cope from the flattening on the last day – that will get revised up) 🧵
Looking in more detail at the under-20s, we can see the power coming from the 5-9s, but with 0-4 and 10-14 not far behind, and even 15-19s now back into positive territory (i.e. cases growing)
In the 20-40s, cases now also (gently) growing:
Read 9 tweets
James Ward Profile picture
11 Nov
The headlines from today’s case data are concerning, and it’s certainly not great news. But there are some glimmers of hope in the detail by age, so let’s have a dig in. The overview doesn’t look too bad, with case rates stable in the under-40s, and still falling in the 40+ 🧵 Image
But that is a slightly lagged view of what’s going on, and obscures some useful detail. So I’ve built some new graphs which break down each of those lines into 5-year age groups, with no averaging, and using data up to specimen date 9th Nov – NB this date will get revised up.
Here’s the under-20s, to start with – we can see growth re-emerging in the 5-9s and 10-14s, but not so much in the 15-19s. The 0-4s were already bouncing around, close to stability – and that looks to be continuing here. Image
Read 12 tweets
James Ward Profile picture
3 Nov
The case trends remain hard to read, but with a bit of age-group case ratio analysis, I think we can see a bit further into the fog. Let’s start with the overview: cases still falling in the under-20s and over-60s, but not the 20-60s. But that hides some important detail. 🧵 Image
Looking first at the older (60+) age groups., we can see some very steep (and welcome) declines in the 75+, a gentle decline in the 70-74s, and gentle increases in the 60-69s. Exactly what you might expect if we were giving boosters to the most elderly first, for example. Image
So – good news overall. But also a reminder that if we leave the 60-69s unboosted for too long, we might see those case rates drift upwards, which would be very unhelpful.
Read 15 tweets
James Ward Profile picture
30 Oct
There been something bugging me for a while about how my model (and others) works. And I think I’ve finally pinned it down. It’s subtle and technical, but I think might turn out to be surprisingly important. And it’s all to do with the “leakiness” of the immunity model. 🧵
The difference between a “leaky” vaccine and an “all-or-nothing” vaccine has been well-covered by others – my favourite explanation is in this thread:
As it happens I’m not particularly happy with the “leaky” terminology – it could mean a number of different things, and so could be misinterpreted. I prefer to think about this in terms of the variability of the vaccine effectiveness (VE) at individual level.
Read 25 tweets
James Ward Profile picture
29 Oct
I’ve been thinking a bit about optimism and pessimism, and how that might affect our views on whether additional restrictions (such as the government’s “Plan B”) should be imposed. It’s not quite as simple as it might first appear. Let me explain…. 🧵
The first thing to note is that optimism and pessimism can operate on different timescales. So you might think that things are going to get worse over the next couple of months, but that 2022 will be a more positive experience, due to boosters and improved treatments.
Or you might be relatively optimistic about the next couple of months, but concerned about the potential for a resurgence in early 2022 as we reach the depths of midwinter, and as waning immunity hits the populations in their 40s and 50s who may not have had a booster yet.
Read 12 tweets
James Ward Profile picture
28 Oct
It’s been a while since we’ve had a set of SPI-M models and it’s taken me a few days to read through them properly. Having done so, I have a few thoughts – as usual I’ve found 10 key messages to take away. For reference, the papers are all here: gov.uk/government/col… 🧵
In terms of overall messages, I would agree with everything that @BristOliver said here: . So I’ll focus my own comments more in the detail of how the modelling has been done, and its implications.
1) In general, the models are fairly optimistic about the course of the next 2 months, but after that they vary a lot – with some scenarios showing significant peaks in 2022 (at any time from January through to June) and others with no big resurgence
Read 16 tweets

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