TLDR good news on new infections, admissions & deaths, bad news on Long Covid, unclear what will happen with latest variants (BA.4, BA.5 & BA.2.12.1 all on the up).
1/11
Firstly variants... We can see that dominant Omicron variant BA.2 that caused the March surge is falling back now.
But its decline seems to have slowed a bit - I thought it would have lost its dominance by now but that is likely at least a week or two away still. 2/11
3 Omicron subvariants on the up: BA.4/BA.5 (dominant in SA & Portugal) & BA.2.12.1 (dominant in US) - risen from 0.5% each to ~5% each in 3 weeks. Portugal & US seeing a new moderate surge in admissions. From US looks like BA.4/5 will win out over BA.2.12.1 eventually. 3/11
These variants are mostly in the South and Midlands - but even in East of England and London, only 20% of sequenced cases by w/e 21 May - so still too early to see an impact in overall infections yet. 4/11
And ONS measured infections (*random testing*) shows prevalence still falling in England.
Infections in kids lowest by age group (<1%) so that's good news for schools (and exams!) this summer. 5/11
Hospital admissions and deaths are falling still too - back at levels last seen summer 2021 (still far higher though than summer 2020!). 6/11
But the really high infections we've had since Omicron are bad news for long covid - record numbers of people reporting symptoms continuing at least 4 weeks to ONS. *2 million* people now - 619K from Omicron era. 7/11
And Omicron has been worst for the older age groups in terms of long covid. Really sharp increases in over 25s and over 50s especially.
Meanwhile 376K have had long covid for more than *2 years*. 8/11
@Daltmann10 , my lovely colleague on @IndependentSage , who runs very large Long Covid studies puts it well - initial hopes that vaccines would get rid of long covid have faded. We are *not* living with Covid successfully.
So what next? Still likely that BA4/5/2.12.1 will cause a surge in infections & admissions once they are dominant - likely shifted back to end June/early July now. Also I suspect a smaller surge than we saw in Jan/March 10/11
Nonetheless, more people will get sick & die. More people will be off work again & more people will develop Long Covid. Even long covid that resolves in a few months is serious for the person experiencing it! There are basic mitigations we could do but we aren't. We should. 11/11
PS here's a tweet thread I did recently on Long Covid and the economy.
People say "winter flu deaths" but they really mean deaths from either flu *or* pneumonia. Pneumonia covers a whole host of things - inc complications from flu but also many other infections.
So that's point number 1!
AND Covid was and remains more of a thread than both 2/7
The number of deaths due to Covid in 2020 and 2021 were far higher than annual number due to flu and/or pneumonia in every single year since 1918/19.
Particulary, flu/pnuemonia deaths lower this century due to more widespread flu vaccination. 3/7
Browsing the Sue Gray report - the stuff going on in Dec 2020 when London was in Tier 3 was totally outrageous. Full on Christmas parties! This is pre vaccine and Alpha was surging in the SE and hospitals feeling the strain already 1/7
There were *two* raucous leaving parties that carried on till 1am on 17 December, which ended by joining up after midnight. Remember - "reasonably necessary for work" 2/7
On Fri 18th Dec the press office held a Xmas party with secret santa, alcohol and Quiz - was this the party Allegra Stratton was joking about & resigned over?
they sent the invite twice replacing "wine & cheese evening" with "meeting with wine & cheese".
How fucking funny. 3/7
Quick thread on long covid & workforce & why it matters:
Today UK report lowest unemployment for 50 years - fair to say there is a labour shortage here right now.
But part of low unemployment is simply that we have *fewer* people to work cos of long term ill health 1/8
Long term sickness is higher than expected (350,000 people) and the Bank of England last week particularly highlighted Long Covid.
Women more likely to be not seeking work cos of sickness than men - consistent with Long Covid which affects women more often 2/8
The 350,000 people reported by the Bank of England is very similar to the 346,000 people ONS estimates as living with Long Covid that affects their day-to-day activities a lot. (it won't be a direct overlap though) 3/8
We've never had less data in the face of rising new variants. 🧵
The European CDC designated Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 as variants of concern on Friday. They expect a new wave in Europe in the next 2 months. 1/4
In S Africa, where BA.4/5 are causing a wave right now, there is much less testing going on than previously. Admissions are going up, but are also lagged and have jumps (that may or may not be real).
SA *may* be close to peaking but v hard to tell... 2/4
BA.4/5 variants are growing fast here too (as is BA.2.12.2, causing a wave in US) but there is so little PCR testing happening now. This is the first new variant takeover where we are flying so blind.
We will only have limited warning this time. And who knows for next time. 3/4
THREAD on why excess annual deaths are *not* a great *comparison* of impact of pandemic policy *between* countries.
TLDR: excess deaths have competing factors + depend on pandemic policy BUT ALSO popn health AND populatn age AND existing health systems etc. 1/11
Here's an illustrative example. Deaths in an "average" pre-pandemic year ("baseline deaths") will be a combination of deaths from (non-infectious) cancer, heart disease, diabetes; flu & pneumonia (and other infectious diseases); everything else. 2/11
How deaths are split among these causes, and how many deaths per population, are different for each country! E.g. depends on population health (& inequalities), population age, different levels of some diseases (e.g. malaria; flu); how well the health system functions etc 3/11
THREAD on the NHS crisis that doesn't seem to be in the news...
The latest Omicron Covid wave is on the wane but hospitals remain severely overstretched - by over 2 yrs of Covid & over a decade of underfunding.
Things are not good if you are sick - some charts 1/9
Ambulance response time for the most life threatening conditions are over target everywhere except London - but for serious, potentially life threatening, problems they are way over target everywhere. SW is worst hit. 2/9
Things are no better once you get to hospital - the proportion of people waiting a long time in A&E before admission is way higher than ever before and rising.
And reports are saying it's much worse than even these figures show. 3/9