Update on Covid providing information on positivity and hospital admissions for England and its regions. This post is best viewed using the browser or Substack app.
"Considering the increasing Covid levels, the notable decline in vaccine efficacy after 15 weeks and the emergence of a new variant, a successful Spring 2024 booster campaign is important to protect the most vulnerable populations."
Would you able to post any more information/ data or links to research that cover this is more detail?
UKHSA published a report on incremental vaccine efficacy based on data from the 2023/2024 Winter Infection Survey. The report can be found at the following link.
Is there more detail from the Winter Prevalence report?
You state that ‘Covid levels are rising particularly in the older age groups’, but is that conclusion based on hospital data alone? I would expect them to be more likely hospitalized, but not necessarily to be more susceptible to catching it due to their higher vax rates and maybe reduced contact numbers.
Generally it would be very interesting to know who exactly is catching Covid now, is it random or appearing more in certain sub-populations (say, by age, sex, occupation, vax status etc.)?
Is there good data from other (W European) countries that are comparable to UK?
Unfortunately the Winter Infection Survey (WIS) that reported on prevalence stopped on March 6 and the only data available at present is hospital admissions and test positivity, which is also derived from hospital testing.
As you say, UKHSA reports based on this survey did confirm that older individuals were much more likely to get hospitalised even when vaccinated. I covered the main points from the report in a previous post which can be found at the following link.
In another article, I compared prevalence in the general population reported by the survey with daily hospital admissions and found that they followed the same trend with hospital admissions peaking some 10 days after prevalence hit its peak. This gives me confidence that the recent increases in hospital admissions are a good indicator that prevalence has increased in the general population, even considering the greater admission rates for those over 65 years old.
During the time I made the comparison, prevalence was highest in the 18 - 44 year olds and I would think that is most likely the case now. The link to that article is here:
As far as I can see there is even less data available for other comparable countries.
The limited data we have at the moment makes it difficult to provide all the information that you have asked for, but I think that it's safe to say that Covid prevalence has been rising over the past few weeks albeit I think that its unlikely to reach the levels we saw over this Winter.
Please keep up the excellent work.
"Considering the increasing Covid levels, the notable decline in vaccine efficacy after 15 weeks and the emergence of a new variant, a successful Spring 2024 booster campaign is important to protect the most vulnerable populations."
Would you able to post any more information/ data or links to research that cover this is more detail?
UKHSA published a report on incremental vaccine efficacy based on data from the 2023/2024 Winter Infection Survey. The report can be found at the following link.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/662a43ed55e1582b6ca7e5ec/Vaccine_surveillance_report_2024_week_17.pdf
I covered the main findings in last weeks post which can be found here.
https://bhawkins3.substack.com/p/covid-situation-report-may-2-2024
Hope that helps.
Again many thanks for this very useful report!
Is there more detail from the Winter Prevalence report?
You state that ‘Covid levels are rising particularly in the older age groups’, but is that conclusion based on hospital data alone? I would expect them to be more likely hospitalized, but not necessarily to be more susceptible to catching it due to their higher vax rates and maybe reduced contact numbers.
Generally it would be very interesting to know who exactly is catching Covid now, is it random or appearing more in certain sub-populations (say, by age, sex, occupation, vax status etc.)?
Is there good data from other (W European) countries that are comparable to UK?
Glad that you find the reports useful.
Unfortunately the Winter Infection Survey (WIS) that reported on prevalence stopped on March 6 and the only data available at present is hospital admissions and test positivity, which is also derived from hospital testing.
As you say, UKHSA reports based on this survey did confirm that older individuals were much more likely to get hospitalised even when vaccinated. I covered the main points from the report in a previous post which can be found at the following link.
https://bhawkins3.substack.com/p/covid-situation-report-mar-14-2024
In another article, I compared prevalence in the general population reported by the survey with daily hospital admissions and found that they followed the same trend with hospital admissions peaking some 10 days after prevalence hit its peak. This gives me confidence that the recent increases in hospital admissions are a good indicator that prevalence has increased in the general population, even considering the greater admission rates for those over 65 years old.
During the time I made the comparison, prevalence was highest in the 18 - 44 year olds and I would think that is most likely the case now. The link to that article is here:
https://bhawkins3.substack.com/p/covid-situation-report-apr-4-2024
As far as I can see there is even less data available for other comparable countries.
The limited data we have at the moment makes it difficult to provide all the information that you have asked for, but I think that it's safe to say that Covid prevalence has been rising over the past few weeks albeit I think that its unlikely to reach the levels we saw over this Winter.
Hope that helps.
Many thanks!