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.
Just a suggestion: would it be possible to include a simple weekly headline figure along the lines of, say: "This week, an estimated 1 in 35 people had Covid in England" ?
Thank you so much for this. It’s easily accessible for non scientists like myself. My concern is Govt doesn’t seem concerned about organ damage as a result of Covid or the implications of other respiratory diseases. Public health seems to be deteriorating.
Hi Bob, many thanks for your very useful summaries. Apologies if I've missed this, but would it be possible to add wastewater levels to your reports too please? With the lack of testing I wonder if wastewater levels are the closest we'll get to understanding current prevalence rates.
Cass, Glad you find the updates helpful. Unfortunately wastewater monitoring stopped in England and Wales some time ago. Scotland still publishes wastewater monitoring data which I have included in past reports. The latest wastewater monitoring only goes up to Dec 14 so is not very current.
Thank you! A comment about vaccinations: some of the most vulnerable people, myself included, were vaccinated last September with the old BA 4/5 vaccine. Some have succeeded 3 months later in getting the newer XBB vaccine which is more effective against new variants. This is a postcode lottery. I was refused this newer vaccine this week, as was someone else in the same area, on the grounds that a second vaccination is not “legal”. It leaves us more vulnerable than we need to be.
Thanks so much for compiling this post - as a non-scientific person, it's so good to read your interpretations, In straightforward, comprehensible language.
Glad that you find the reports helpful. Unfortunately the ONS data which used to be published on 'Long Covid' trends in the UK stopped in March 2023. I wil look to see if there is any more up -to date information, but am not hopeful,
Many thanks for this Bob, and all the work you're doing keeping us informed. I read Adam Kucharski's article and don't follow how this indicates that SARS-CoV-2 may become seasonal (i.e. occurring about once a year). A recent article in Cell (published before JN.1 appeared) says it mutates 2-2.5 times faster than influenza and there is no evidence that this rate is slowing. Also, waning of antibody levels occurs within a few months indicating there are likely to be several waves each year. Am I missing something? Be glad for your thoughts, many thanks.
A thought occurred. The various brands of respiratory illness are shown on separate graphs but in reality for vulnerable people the main point surely is the total amount of respiratory illness flying around in the air. I wondered if you knew of anyone who did a combined respiratory illness cases graph ?
If I have read your graphs properly rsv and covid are decreasing and flu is on the rise but if you combined all 3 now is about the time when maximum total respiratory bugs are in the air. Hence now is maximum danger time for vulnerable folk. After all does it matter which bug you get if you are vulnerable? They are all going to cause you a major problem.
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your very useful weekly summaries.
Just a suggestion: would it be possible to include a simple weekly headline figure along the lines of, say: "This week, an estimated 1 in 35 people had Covid in England" ?
Thank you so much for this. It’s easily accessible for non scientists like myself. My concern is Govt doesn’t seem concerned about organ damage as a result of Covid or the implications of other respiratory diseases. Public health seems to be deteriorating.
Hi Bob, many thanks for your very useful summaries. Apologies if I've missed this, but would it be possible to add wastewater levels to your reports too please? With the lack of testing I wonder if wastewater levels are the closest we'll get to understanding current prevalence rates.
Cass, Glad you find the updates helpful. Unfortunately wastewater monitoring stopped in England and Wales some time ago. Scotland still publishes wastewater monitoring data which I have included in past reports. The latest wastewater monitoring only goes up to Dec 14 so is not very current.
Thank you! A comment about vaccinations: some of the most vulnerable people, myself included, were vaccinated last September with the old BA 4/5 vaccine. Some have succeeded 3 months later in getting the newer XBB vaccine which is more effective against new variants. This is a postcode lottery. I was refused this newer vaccine this week, as was someone else in the same area, on the grounds that a second vaccination is not “legal”. It leaves us more vulnerable than we need to be.
Thanks so much for compiling this post - as a non-scientific person, it's so good to read your interpretations, In straightforward, comprehensible language.
Thanks. Good to hear that you find them helpful.
Thanks so much for your really useful update as usual. Do you know any data on Long Covid trends (increasing/decreasing?).
Marion,
Glad that you find the reports helpful. Unfortunately the ONS data which used to be published on 'Long Covid' trends in the UK stopped in March 2023. I wil look to see if there is any more up -to date information, but am not hopeful,
Thanks for the info, and for looking!
Many thanks for this Bob, and all the work you're doing keeping us informed. I read Adam Kucharski's article and don't follow how this indicates that SARS-CoV-2 may become seasonal (i.e. occurring about once a year). A recent article in Cell (published before JN.1 appeared) says it mutates 2-2.5 times faster than influenza and there is no evidence that this rate is slowing. Also, waning of antibody levels occurs within a few months indicating there are likely to be several waves each year. Am I missing something? Be glad for your thoughts, many thanks.
https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/pdf/S1931-3128(23)00380-3.pdf
Many thanks for the really useful synthesis.
Hi Bob. Thank you for these marvelous summaries.
A thought occurred. The various brands of respiratory illness are shown on separate graphs but in reality for vulnerable people the main point surely is the total amount of respiratory illness flying around in the air. I wondered if you knew of anyone who did a combined respiratory illness cases graph ?
If I have read your graphs properly rsv and covid are decreasing and flu is on the rise but if you combined all 3 now is about the time when maximum total respiratory bugs are in the air. Hence now is maximum danger time for vulnerable folk. After all does it matter which bug you get if you are vulnerable? They are all going to cause you a major problem.
Keep up the good work sir.