16 Comments
User's avatar
Peter Bell's avatar

This is absolutely excellent as usual. Wonderfully comprehensive and very much appreciated.

Expand full comment
Nemo Halperin's avatar

Thank you for another detailed informative update.

Expand full comment
Annette's avatar

Thank you, very much appreciated. The extended information on the new variant and situation across the wider geographic areas is particularly welcome as we approach holiday season.

Expand full comment
Monnina's avatar

🙏

Expand full comment
Dr Joe Pajak's avatar

The findings of the study by @laurenwisk.bsky.social et al, 'point to the need for a deeper understanding of how COVID-19 infections affect the body, physically and mentally, in the short and long term', and we need to be thinking potentially about a longer road to recovery.

https://bsky.app/profile/drjoepajak.bsky.social/post/3lrgahodojk2t

Expand full comment
M r buckton's avatar

COVID still spreading.

Expand full comment
Yommie Gua's avatar

COVID has been around for centuries.

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35632836/

Expand full comment
M r buckton's avatar

But not the recent human strains

Expand full comment
Yommie Gua's avatar

True, they are all COVID, only COVID-19 is the new one.

Expand full comment
Yommie Gua's avatar

I found something quite interesting. Even though the UK stopped doing lateral flow testing on a large sample of people to estimate infection rate, the US is conducting PCR testing on arriving passengers at international airports in a number of major cities. The test positivity rate is 1.3% in the latest update. Assuming the UK has similar infection rate as the rest of the world, it would be reasonable to say about 1.3% of the people in the UK are infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (species Betacoronavirus pandemicum) in recent weeks. This number is pretty much the same as what it used to be in earlier years when the UK did testing on a large sample of people to estimate infection rate. This would suggest infection rate in the UK remained more or less constant with very little change from one year to the next.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/traveler-genomic-surveillance/php/data-vis/index.html

Their methodology is described here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9752054/

And here's a funny video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvHUCzaK05w

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (species Betacoronavirus pandemicum) rules!

Expand full comment
Vivien RM Stark's avatar

Wonder what they’re up to in NI

Expand full comment
Bob Hawkins's avatar

Northern Ireland have moved to publishing the data every two weeks over the summer months, so we should get an update this week.

Expand full comment
Yommie Gua's avatar

Bob, is there no chance of anymore ONS Winter Infection Survey using lateral flow tests?

Expand full comment
Yommie Gua's avatar

Good to see deaths going down. We could very well see severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Betacoronavirus pandemicum) becoming endemic within the next 10 years.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Betacoronavirus pandemicum) rules!

Expand full comment
Mhairi Abbas's avatar

Thank you for your continued service!

Expand full comment
Richard Rayner's avatar

Thank you for this information. The charts did not seem to render properly in the Substack App but were fine in the email I received. Not sure if it is a problem with my phone or with the app?

Expand full comment