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.
“Across England and Scotland prevalence continued to fall across all age groups. However, it is highest for those who are school aged (3 to 17 year olds) and they are now the only group where prevalence is not lower than at the start of the survey.” This is worrying - we should be doing our utmost to protect our children, especially from repeated infections. We need much better mitigations in schools - proper HEPA ventilation systems would be a good start.
On the graph showing Scottish wastewater and Covid prevalence (presumably Scotland) can the prevalence for England and Wales be also displayed for the same time period. It will be interesting to see if the E&W prevalence correlates with Scottish prevalence and therefore Scottish wastewater data. Reason: therefore Scottish wastewater data could via a formula act as a proxy for all GB nations all year round; in the absence of the other surveys?
Stephen -- that's a good idea. Just to let you know that I have been looking at the other Covid data that continues to be published for England to see if they can be used. When comparing positivity and cases with prevalence for England I found that the 7-day rolling average for cases correlates quite well with prevalence. So it looks like I will be reverting back to using daily cases in future posts.
Jane -- Just to let you know that the Winter Infection Study is based on testing a representative sample of the population each week so these results are not impacted by any change to testing numbers. This means that the prevalence data charted in the post provides a reliable indication of the situation.
“Across England and Scotland prevalence continued to fall across all age groups. However, it is highest for those who are school aged (3 to 17 year olds) and they are now the only group where prevalence is not lower than at the start of the survey.” This is worrying - we should be doing our utmost to protect our children, especially from repeated infections. We need much better mitigations in schools - proper HEPA ventilation systems would be a good start.
On the graph showing Scottish wastewater and Covid prevalence (presumably Scotland) can the prevalence for England and Wales be also displayed for the same time period. It will be interesting to see if the E&W prevalence correlates with Scottish prevalence and therefore Scottish wastewater data. Reason: therefore Scottish wastewater data could via a formula act as a proxy for all GB nations all year round; in the absence of the other surveys?
Stephen -- that's a good idea. Just to let you know that I have been looking at the other Covid data that continues to be published for England to see if they can be used. When comparing positivity and cases with prevalence for England I found that the 7-day rolling average for cases correlates quite well with prevalence. So it looks like I will be reverting back to using daily cases in future posts.
How can we really know what the situation is when there is so little testing?
Jane -- Just to let you know that the Winter Infection Study is based on testing a representative sample of the population each week so these results are not impacted by any change to testing numbers. This means that the prevalence data charted in the post provides a reliable indication of the situation.
Thank you Bob.I am à live in carer to à 94 year old & have heard of 3 people she knows with "n'as-tu bugs" just this week,hence my concern
Thank you so much again for your really helpful reporting.
Thank you for this helpful post