Covid Situation Report: Mar 21, 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 weekly Covid Situation report was originally posted on my substack ‘Seeing the Forest for the Trees’ where I publish articles on Covid and other topics. You can access my substack at the following link.
The report is part of a weekly series that I will publish during the Winter 2023 / Spring 2024 season to provide an overview of the current Covid situation in England and its regions. I use a standard set of interactive charts to present the data. For those who want more detail I do a deeper dive on topics of interest each week. This week, I look at the most recent data on Covid deaths and the correlation between reported Covid cases and prevalence.
Summary
This week's news continues to be positive, with all Covid metrics indicating that the winter surge has ended. However, Covid has not disappeared, as we are still seeing stable, albeit low, levels of hospital admissions.
The positivity rate for Flu increased very slightly this week whilst the rate for Covid remained broadly unchanged.
Weekly hospital admission rates to hospitals for Covid and Flu remained largely stable and at low levels. Admissions for Flu continue to be higher than for Covid.
The latest daily Covid hospital admissions and number of occupied beds also remained stable confirming the trend seen in the other metrics.
Deaths due to Covid in England and Wales have fallen in the past four weeks which is consistent with the recent decrease in prevalence and hospital admissions.
Covid cases mirror the pattern of Covid prevalence from the Winter Infection survey showing that they would be a reasonable indicator of prevalence when other metrics are no longer being available.
A final reminder that the risk of hospitalisation for those infected rises markedly with age, with individuals 75 and older having a 1 in 30 chance of being admitted to the hospital upon infection.
When we have symptoms of a respiratory illness like COVID-19, we should do our best to limit our contact with other people, especially those who are more at risk. This will help to keep rates low and protect ourselves and those around us.
Status of main respiratory diseases in England
The chart below displays the positivity rates for the primary respiratory diseases in England, namely Flu, Covid, RSV, and Rhinovirus.
The positivity rate for Flu rose slightly and increased by 12% this week; however, the rates for Covid and the other respiratory viruses remained broadly unchanged.
The following chart shows hospital admissions per 100,000 people in England for the main respiratory diseases.
The weekly admission rates to hospitals for all major respiratory viruses have remained stable and at relatively low levels for the past three weeks
Once again, the positivity rate and weekly hospital admissions for Flu remained higher than for Covid. The chances are that if you are showing Covid-like symptoms you are more likely to have Flu than Covid.
Covid hospital admissions and bed occupancy
This section looks in more detail at the latest daily data on Covid for hospitals in England. When reviewing the dashboards, it is important to consider that as the absolute numbers decrease, the weekly percentage change in the data may seem disproportionately large.
The following dashboard of key Covid metrics saw daily hospital admissions increase slightly whilst beds occupied by Covid patients continued to fall.
The next dashboard gives the Covid hospital admissions per 100,000 by region.
The hospital admission rates for most regions remained largely stable. However, there was an increase in the South East albeit from relatively low figures. Once again, the daily hospital admissions for Covid are in line with the data presented in previous section.
Covid deaths
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes weekly reports on deaths attributed to Covid in England and Wales. These reports detail the number of deaths registered each week where Covid was recorded as the primary cause. The following chart compares the weekly deaths in 2023-24 due to Covid with the previous year.
Nearly every week, the number of deaths in 2023-24 was significantly lower than in 2022-23. Furthermore, deaths have declined over the past four weeks which is consistent with the recent decrease in prevalence and hospital admissions.
Correlation of Covid cases with prevalence
Last week’s situation report highlighted changes to the availability of Covid data used to write this report. The Winter Infection Survey, which provides prevalence data, has closed and the publication frequency of the data on daily admissions and bed occupancy will move from weekly to monthly from April 4.
These changes mean looking for alternative sources of information that, hopefully, will continue to be published on a weekly basis. One such data source is the daily cases published each week on the UKHSA Covid dashboard. The following panel chart compares the daily Covid cases with prevalence rates from the ‘gold-standard’ Winter Infection Survey.
The charts indicate that daily Covid cases mirror the pattern of Covid prevalence from the Winter Infection survey. Both metrics reach their peak at about the same time, although the case numbers exhibit a double peak, which is likely due to the effects of the Christmas holiday.
While not perfect, case counts can serve as a reasonable indicator of prevalence, and I will resume reporting case numbers when the present data sources are not available.
In conclusion
This week's Winter Infection Survey shows that the prevalence of Covid in England is broadly stable, with relatively low levels across all regions.
While the numbers are low, hospital admissions for the flu continue to be higher than those for Covid.
As always, if you have any comments on this Covid Situation Report or suggestions for topics to cover, please post a message below.