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.
I'm sorry if this seems like nitpicking, but you write: "it is important to remember that the risk of hospitalisation from Covid infection increases significantly with age and for those immunocompromised", and indeed, these are the people eligible for the Spring booster, however it seems unfortunate that you don't mention here that the acute illness is also a serious danger to a larger group, those that may be eligible for treatments because, NHS Inform (Scotland) states, we are "at highest risk of becoming seriously ill from coronavirus".
For those of us in this group, life is difficult enough without most sources failing to recognise that we are out here, mostly not recently boosted, having to navigate a world that largely seems to think that Covid is no big deal. It would be great if in future you could remember that there are still a lot of people who are still at high risk who now have less protection and who would appreciate your help in remaining visible to larger society!
Peter -- no it is nothing to do with the election.
Before Covid the UKHSA report typically moved to reporting every two weeks during the period mid-May to September and was published weekly between October to mid-May. This was because pre-Covid the report was focused mainly on Flu and the other seasonal 'Winter' respiratory illnesses so there was not much to report.
From the start of the Covid epidemic it was published weekly throughout the year, but UKHSA announced that they were reverting back to reporting every two weeks from mid-May back in April (pre the election announcement).
Effectively they are now treating Covid as a seasonal virus from a publishing point of view. Wrongly in my opinion.
Thanks for clarifying that for me, Bob! In HPA days we dealt with a measles outbreak in Surrey during purdah. It was actually much wider than Surrey. When we, as an HPA health protection team, asked about this, HPA Colindale told us that they were not permitted to tell us during the purdah period. And previously in the early 2000s, a lookback response to a hepatitis C incident was sabotaged for the same pretext by DH officials who lied to Mary O'Mahoney, the then deputy CMO about the reason.
Thanks again 🐈⬛
Thank you for doing this, it's really valuable.
I'm sorry if this seems like nitpicking, but you write: "it is important to remember that the risk of hospitalisation from Covid infection increases significantly with age and for those immunocompromised", and indeed, these are the people eligible for the Spring booster, however it seems unfortunate that you don't mention here that the acute illness is also a serious danger to a larger group, those that may be eligible for treatments because, NHS Inform (Scotland) states, we are "at highest risk of becoming seriously ill from coronavirus".
For those of us in this group, life is difficult enough without most sources failing to recognise that we are out here, mostly not recently boosted, having to navigate a world that largely seems to think that Covid is no big deal. It would be great if in future you could remember that there are still a lot of people who are still at high risk who now have less protection and who would appreciate your help in remaining visible to larger society!
But genuinely thank you for what you do.
Would the UKHSA report that wasn't published this week have been published normally? Or is it a deplorable result of pre-election "purdah"?
Peter -- no it is nothing to do with the election.
Before Covid the UKHSA report typically moved to reporting every two weeks during the period mid-May to September and was published weekly between October to mid-May. This was because pre-Covid the report was focused mainly on Flu and the other seasonal 'Winter' respiratory illnesses so there was not much to report.
From the start of the Covid epidemic it was published weekly throughout the year, but UKHSA announced that they were reverting back to reporting every two weeks from mid-May back in April (pre the election announcement).
Effectively they are now treating Covid as a seasonal virus from a publishing point of view. Wrongly in my opinion.
Thanks for clarifying that for me, Bob! In HPA days we dealt with a measles outbreak in Surrey during purdah. It was actually much wider than Surrey. When we, as an HPA health protection team, asked about this, HPA Colindale told us that they were not permitted to tell us during the purdah period. And previously in the early 2000s, a lookback response to a hepatitis C incident was sabotaged for the same pretext by DH officials who lied to Mary O'Mahoney, the then deputy CMO about the reason.