TLDR: not over yet. Good news is high booster coverage in over 50s & no rise in ICU. Bad news is high strain on hospitals, no plan for schools & worsening admissions & long covid for kids.
+ Indie Sage has some suggestions...
1/21
Firstly Omicron - now dominant in Scotland, Wales & England. Probably in NI but no recent data. N Ireland is about week behind other nations.
Omicron dominant in all English regions, London c. 1 week ahead.
Omicron's rise has been very rapid! 2/21
Omicron is v good at infecting vaxxed people - even being boosted only gives you about 40% protection after 10 weeks.
Booster gives *88%* protection against hospital admission - GET IT!
NB booster hosp protection for Delta was close to 100%, Omicron has made things worse. 3/21
So given boosters so important... over 50% of whole population boosted everywhere except N Ireland.
Massive booster effort before Xmas but doses have dropped now :-(
England & NI behind on teen vax (about 50% have received 1 dose). 4/21
By age (England), we have excellent booster coverage in over 60s - this is making big difference to admissions and is why e.g. N America in harder situation. BUT plenty of unboosted younger adults left and kids have v little vax protection. 5/21
Plus very large gaps in booster coverage for adults and first dose for teens by deprivation.
We *have* to address this because it will only exacerbate existing inequalities if ignored. 6/21
In terms of cases... 3 million cases in last 3 weeks - same as in the whole 12 weeks before that.
Cases & positivity rates at record highs in all nations. Testing is struggling - ONS infection survey (not affected by test capacity) shows this peak dwarfs previous ones. 7/21
Reinfections are also rising - over 140,000 in England in last two weeks - these are *not* on the daily dashboard (but will be soon). Wales & NI do include these and so will be reporting relatively higher case numbers. 8/21
Regionally, London has dropped since pre Xmas but recent days flat. all other regions rising still.
Positivity rates rising everywhere (inc London!). ONS also shows recent fall in London but age profile is interesting... 9/21
Overall in England, confirmed cases in all ages are rising. ONS shows we're likely undercounting primary school kids - extremely high rates!
Kids are returning to school & young adults to uni with highest ever prevalence. 10/21
In London, drops in school age children and young adults since just before Xmas - but flat in most recent days - *before* any new year mixing impact.
Cases in older adults are still rising (although might be flatting in over 70s). What does this mean for hospitals? 11/21
Number of people in hospital with Covid is going up sharply - not *that* far from wave 1 peak.
BUT few people are needing intensive care - pressure there is NOT rising.
Both admissions *for* & *with* covid are rising steeply, *but* percentage for is falling. 12/21
There is a lot of staff sickness - climbing steeply.
This, combined with covid pressure + high existing hospital load + social care pressure, means many hospitals are in crisis.
NHS doesn't have same resilience 2 yrs into pandemic. NW particularly stressed. 13/21
Deaths are hard to interpret right now with reporting delays over holiday period, but are likely flat or slightly increasing.
With fewer people needing intensive care and high boosters in older adults, hope that deaths will not increase too much... 14/21
If we look at the age of admissions, they might be peaking in 18-64 year olds but still going up in over 65s.
Admissions are at record highs for under 18s, *particularly* for *0-5s*.
More children have been admitted with Covid in *last 3 weeks* than *whole of 1st wave*. 15/21
If we look at long covid, children reporting symptoms longer than 4 weeks has shot up, sharply reflecting high case numbers in Sept & Oct. Adults in their parents' generation (35-49 yrs) also reporting increasing long covid. 16/21
Long covid reports in 17-24 yr old has fallen, reflecting more people recovering than being added as cases have fallen - good. But we've just seen record cases in this age group - and we have no idea about Omicron and Long Covid. Vax should help, but no omicron data. 17/21
As for kids - we know they've got more months of high (Delta) cases that will increase long covid. AND they've returned to school & likely Omicron wave. What then?
With increasing long covid & hosp admissions & little vax, we must stop pretending covid fine for kids. 18/21
Also, a new school wave will prolong the Omicron wave for everyone, and further risk school staff (already reporting more long covid alongside health care workers).
AND high school cases disrupt education for kids who fall ill and those left without teachers. 19/21
So @IndependentSage think it's too late for a circuit breaker - time for that was in Dec. Now it's about reducing the "comedown wave" as fast as possible through:
communication (symptoms, airborne)
protection (clean air, masks, vax)
support (isolation, clean air, industry) 20/21
Different ages will peak at different times. The risk of "muddling through" is that we face a slow descent, resulting in far too much illness, disruption and prolonged NHS pressure.
We didn't slow growth of Omicron, so let's now accelerate its decline. 21/21
PS incidentally, all the measures we've suggested are important for new variants, and most for new airborne diseases...
PS2 thanks to Bob Hawkins for his help as ever.
PS3 you see same patterns of long covid (but lower numbers) when looking at symptoms for longer than 12 weeks - but that still only includes people infected up to September because of lags and so misses school wave.
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Quick thread on current Covid situation in England and Long Covid.
I have Thoughts about the Inquiry Report published yesterday but am still trying to organise them.
TLDR: high Covid levels remain, Long Covid remains 1/11
This wave is not over. While the number of admissions with Covid remains lower than the autumn/winter waves, it has now remained highsh for several weeks.
This means there are a lot of people out there getting sick - and having their work, plans and holidays disrupted. 2/11
Scottish wastewater data to 9 July shows a sharp decrease, suggesting that prevalence might be on its way down.
Obviously Scotland and England can have different dynamics, but it’s the best we’ve got as long as England refuses to analyse its own wastwater. 3/11
THREAD: Given tomorrow's election, I've been thinking about our nation's (poor) health, the wider determinants of health and how these have worsened and what it means for policy....
TLDR: worrying only about NHS & social care is missing the point
let's dive in... 1/25
The UK has a health problem. After steady gains in life expectancy for decades, it flatlined during the austerity years and fell for the first time this century with the Covid pandemic.
The number of people out of work for long term sickness is near record levels. 2/25
There are huge inequalities between rich & poor. Boys born in the most deprived areas can expect to die almost 10 years earlier than their peers in the least deprived areas.
Even worse, they can expect to spend 18 fewer years of their life in good health (52 vs 70 years) 3/25
As ever, I am getting lots of pushback.
Here is a compilation of the European countries I've found with recent wastewater data. Some are going up a bit, some down a bit, some are flat, none are anywhere near previous peaks.
I can't see anything here to be panic anyone. 1/3
I can't find the dashboard for Spain, but others saying it is in a wave. Perhaps it is. England has just had one - the last data we had (a couple of weeks ago from Bob Hawkins) looked as if our wave had peaked.
So, I'm not seeing reason to think things are terrible here! 2/3
Yes there are new variants growing right now. They are not growing faster than JN.1 grew in December and that wave did not end up as bad as feared.
Clearly it remains true that Covid is NOT a seasonal disease (unlike Flu and RSV)
3/3
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