Covid Situation Report: Apr 25, 2024
Update on Covid providing information on prevalence and hospital admissions for England and its regions. This post is best viewed using the browser or Substack app.
Introduction.
This report is part of a weekly series that summarises the Covid situation in England and its regions.
A reminder that not all of the data that was previously included in the situation update is now available on a weekly basis. Where relevant, changes to the content and data sources have been noted.
This week, the ONS released data on self-reported Long Covid in England and Scotland from the Winter Infection Survey. A brief summary of the ONS report's main points is provided, with a comprehensive post detailing the data to follow soon.
Summary.
Once again this week’s news is positive, as the Covid metrics indicate that the winter surge is over. Nonetheless, Covid has not vanished entirely, with stable, though comparatively low, numbers of hospital admissions still being reported.
There has been another small rise in the Covid positivity rate this week, while the rates for Flu and RSV continued to fall. Nevertheless, the positivity rates for all these viruses remain relatively low.
Weekly hospital admission rates for Covid remained unchanged but continued to fall for Flu.
Over the past week, a few regions have seen a small rise in hospital admissions due to Covid, yet their rates continue to be low.
Recent data from the Winter Infection Survey indicates that 2 million people reported suffering from Long Covid during the four-week period ending on March 7, 2024.
Self-reported Long Covid is most common in people aged 45 to 64 years, with just over half those reporting Long Covid having suffered for more than two years.
The Spring 2024 booster campaign for people aged 75 years and over, those in care homes, and individuals aged 6 months and over with a weakened immune system has now started. Details of how to get a Spring Covid vaccine are here.
It’s important to remember that the risk of hospitalisation from Covid infection increases significantly with age and for those immunocompromised. Also ‘Long Covid’ remains a risk for all as shown by the recent ONS report. Therefore, it is prudent to take appropriate measures such as self-isolating when experiencing Covid symptoms and enhancing ventilation whenever possible.
Status of main respiratory diseases in England.
This section present the latest data on positivity for the primary respiratory infections present in England, and its important to understand how positivity differs from the overall prevalence of Covid in the general population.
Positivity rates are derived from the results of hospital laboratory tests conducted on patients exhibiting symptoms of respiratory diseases. Test positivity is the percentage of patients who test positive for Covid of the total number of patients tested. Since the individuals tested for this measure are not a representative sample of the general population it differs from prevalence, which is derived from a representative sample of the population.
Test positivity rates, while not directly estimating the number of Covid infections in the general population, can be a valuable indicator of the infection trend. The panel chart below compares the weekly test positivity rate among hospital patients with respiratory symptoms to the prevalence of Covid in the general population, as reported in the Winter Infection Survey.
The chart shows that the weekly test positivity rates for patients with symptoms of respiratory infections follows the same pattern as the prevalence for Covid reported by the Winter Infection Survey. Since the Winter Infection Survey is based on a representative sample of the general population this supports using test positivity as a useful proxy for infection trends.
The chart below displays the test positivity rates for the main respiratory illnesses in England, including Flu, Covid, RSV, and Rhinovirus.
There was a continued rise in the Covid positivity rate to 4.7% this week, yet it remains at a relatively low level. The positivity rate for flu decreased for the fifth week in a row to 2.2% which is now well below that of Covid. Additionally, the rates for RSV continued to fall although there was a slight increase for Rhinovirus.
The following chart shows hospital admissions per 100,000 people in England for the main respiratory diseases.
Weekly hospital admission rates for Covid and the Flu remain low, with Covid admissions stable and Flu admissions on a downward trend.
The next panel chart in this section shows Covid hospital admissions per 100,000 people by region.
While there have been minor increases in hospital admissions for Covid in certain areas, such as the South West, the overall admission rate continues to be low and stable across the regions.
Hover your cursor over one of the chart lines to display the admission rates for all regions.
The final panel chart shows Covid hospital admissions per 100,000 people by age. Each panel represents one age group and the title and lines are colour coded. The grey lines show all of the other age groups to provide context.
All age groups have seen significant reductions from the winter peak and have now stabilised at relatively low levels.
It's important to note that while testing policies have been updated from April 1, 2024, the guidelines for testing patients showing Covid symptoms or when a positive result would change the patient's treatment remained unchanged. Consequently, the number of Covid hospital admissions continues to be a dependable indicator of the virus's prevalence in the community for the period shown in these charts.
Covid hospital admissions and bed occupancy.
This section gives a more detailed examination of the most recent daily Covid data for hospitals in England.
NHS England stopped the weekly publication of data used to create these dashboards from April 4, 2024. As a result, the next update of the daily Covid data for hospitals in England will be on May 9, 2024.
Long Covid in England and Scotland
The Winter Coronavirus Infection Survey, representing a cross-section of the population, was conducted from November 2023 to March 2024 in England and Scotland. Participants were required to take a Lateral Flow Test and report their results. Additionally, they completed a questionnaire to determine if they identified as having Long Covid, which is characterized by symptoms persisting for more than four weeks post-Covid infection and not attributable to other causes.
According to the survey, an estimated 2 million individuals (3.3% of the population) in England and Scotland reported experiencing long COVID from February 6 to March 7, 2024. This figure is marginally higher than the 2.9% of the population estimated at the conclusion of the UK Covid Infection Survey in March 2023. However, the surveys differ slightly, which means its difficult to compare the results.
A subsequent post will delve into the survey results in greater detail, while the charts below highlight some significant insights.
The following chart shows the percent of those who self-report having Long Covid by the length of time since their symptoms started.
Whilst some people are reporting that their Long Covid has only started recently, over a half reported that they have suffered from Long Covid for over two years.
The final chart shows the percent of the population in each age group who report suffering from Long Covid of any duration.
The characteristics of those most likely to have self-reported Long Covid follows a similar trend to that previously reported in March 2023. During the four week period ending Mar 7, 2024, the highest rate of self-reported long COVID was greatest in people aged 45 to 64 years and lowest in the youngest and oldest age groups.
In conclusion
Despite the reduced level of data, the available information indicates that Covid levels have remained relatively low and stable in recent weeks.
Long Covid remains an issue especially for the ‘long haulers’ who have now been suffering for over two years.
As always, if you have any comments on this Covid Situation Report or suggestions for topics to cover, please post a message below.