Thread by @gnomeicide

So we've had a big hospitalisations data drop today, as well as the rest of the normal daily Covid data. Might split this stats update into a couple of parts, pre and post dinner. Here's the overall picture before delving deeper (1)

179756 cases. Thats insane, bud lower than last Thursday. Don't get too excited though, last Thursday we had some delayed data (2)

The trend is still massively upwards, but because we're starting to get better data it may settle down rather. Over the last 7 days we're still looking at over a 4% rise in cases per day. (3)

So yeah, todays report is lower than last Thursday - thats deceptive, cases are rising, and fast. Look at the daily trends (4)

We may see more of this over the next few days, with daily data replacing the rather turbulent figures from over the New Year, so remember to look at the overall trend (5)

Deaths -last- Thursday had catch-up data, we drop those from the weekly average today so for the first time since Christmas Eve we've got a weekly average thats about right. And its not good. Deaths are up (5)

On Christmas Eve we'd seen 810 deaths over 7 days. Today that figure sits at 1085. Thats one every 9 minutes and 18 seconds, or thereabouts (6)

Or in other words, the lower reporting period is over, we're past that, and the deaths are now higher than before Christmas, and continuing to rise (7)

Over the last 7 days the average rise is around 7.5% a day. That may fall, but we are VERY MUCH going the wrong way (8)

The question of whether Omicron is less dangerous than Delta, well I think we know now. A lower proportion of those infected are dying - and that coincides both with the start of the booster program and the rise of omicron (9)

Its only fallen down to where we were earlier in the vaccination program, down to where we were with the Alpha strain last Summer. Vaccinations were more effective against Alpha but we were still at risk. Ergo - the risk now is roughly where it was, if you catch Omicron (10)

But lets face it, saying something is less damaging than the Delta strain really is setting our sights incredibly low. We are in trouble (11)

We got an other 5 days of UK wide hospitalisations data today, and they're going mad. Bluntly, this is a massive problem. Not only are admissions rising, but the number of patients in hospital is rising fast (12)

For all the spiel about the link between hospital admissions and cases being broken, its just flat out untrue. Where cases go, hospitalisations follow (13)

And deaths are following. (14)

We're seeing a lower proportion being hospitalised and killed than before vaccination. But we're seeing an astonishing rate of infection. Just astonishing. The question is not whether we're seeing hospitalisations and deaths rising, its just how bad it'll get (15)

And lets be clear - we can't go along with hospitalisations rising at over 7% a day. We just can't .(16)

Testing data is grim. If we keep going at this rate we're in trouble. Big trouble. And any acts we do to slow the rate of infection will only turn the hospitalisation and deaths trains around very slowly (17)

By inhumane mismanagement we've got a massive crisis on our hands, with hospitals across the country declaring major incidents. And our political leaders? They've all gone AWOL. What next? Nothing good. Nothing good. (fin)