There was a question to the Health Secretary about a week ago along the same lines, so why do the hospitalisation figures not distinguish between those admitted for covid, and those admitted for other reasons but who are found to have covid. The Health Secretary agreed it wasn't distinguished in the figures but would look at doing it. So I agree there is something in it.

I’m glad you posted this, as someone who didn’t react at all to either of my AZ vaccines, I did wonder whether they had worked.

We had asymptomatic side-effects ;)

Now 4 days after 2nd Pfizer for me. My arm still hurts when I raise it above my head. Headache lasted 72 hours but only needed paracetamol for 36 hours.

I may have had the disease in Feb 2020 but it was only a cough and doubt I got it since then (of course it's possible I have been lightly infected in the past few weeks having spent a bit more time indoors near to strangers)

Well, yes - I too felt slightly miffed a sailing unscathed through two hypodermic assaults. I'd hoped to generate at least a measure of sympathy from friends and family. I wasn't shy in showing the pin-prick scar, and there was certainly some redness around it, but I feel my courage and suffering were not fully acknowledged.

The ONS is reporting their estimate that 1 in 65 people in England had COVID-19 last week, with 1 in 30 people estimated to have had it in the North East. I can understand with these numbers there will be some people hit by a bus who test positive for COVID-19 when they get to hospital, but I doubt it is a significant number.

Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...hts#infections

Also interesting is 9% of 16 to 29 year olds isolating last week, as well as 95% of all people wore a face covering last week.

Daily data:

Cases 29,622 (36,389 last Friday)
Deaths 68 (64)
Patients admitted 927 (870 on the 19th)
Patients in hospital 5,916 (5,058 on the 22nd)
Patients in ventilation beds 869 (699 on the 22nd)
People vaccinated up to and including 29 July 2021:
First dose: 46,775,525
Second dose: 37,962,407

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 36.1% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 25.1%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 71.9 today.

ONS data lags a long way behind. After developing symptoms, you remain PCR positive for quite a while at an average of 16-24 days (different studies have different numbers), even though average recovery is ~10 days.

So now it’s nearly August and a decent chunk of the people showing up in this ONS report as positive actually contracted Covid in June.

Daily data:

Cases 26,144 (31,795 last Saturday)
Deaths 71 (86)
People vaccinated up to and including 30 July 2021:
First dose: 46,811,298
Second dose: 38,126,702

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 33.0% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 9.2%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 69.7 today.

That 9.2% is the smallest increase since 5 July, there are some signs that the death rate may reverse in the next few days. There have been some recent data corrections from Scotland which makes it difficult to be sure.

On infections, the number of cases continues to fall at a fast rate.

7 days per 100k population = 287.8 (last Saturday 429.4)
14 days per 100k population = 717.2 (last Saturday 879.0)
7 days over 14 days = 40.13%

Percent of tests proving positive (positivity rate) has fallen to 2.7% from a peak of 4.3% a couple of weeks ago.

Do you have any predictions for the weeks ahead? Especially as the ONS predicts that cases are actually growing 14%. Are we over the line now barring some new variant, given vaccination rates are only going to get better? Has July 19 escaped the doom everyone predicted or is it still too early? Thanks

I see the US is talking lockdowns again. Are we one of the only countries on earth that can live almost completely free now given our extremely high numbers of people with antibodies? Are some countries ever going to get there given they won’t get the vaccine numbers and level of cases we have?

The ONS report of 30 July said cases were rising in the week ending 24 July, compared to the week ending 17 July - they swab a sample of the general population and it takes a while to do this and then report back, hence a delay in reporting. And that is exactly what the daily stats were showing at the time, the peak days being 20/21 July, so the same ONS week, when the 7 day rate was 499.78 per 100k. It's now down to 287.8.

Are we over the line? No, too soon to say, but the figures are going strongly in the right direction. Is there going to be another bad variant - almost certainly. But Delta appears to have some weaknesses to it, I don't think it's all down to vaccines. The impact on 19 July will take another 10 days or so to appear but actually in my view the changes on 19 July weren't that significant. Many pubs and cafés have kept their tables well separated, outdoor life continues (maybe not today!).

A number of countries have better vaccination figures than the UK, notably Canada and Israel. As far as I know, no other large country is doing longitudinal antibody surveillance on a daily basis.. Spike Protein antibody presence has now hit 95.5% of the UK population as of 16 July, up about 11 percentage points in a month, with no measureable decline in those aged 70 to 84 years old, despite the fact they were vaccinated back in January + March. They mainly got AZ. In those aged 20 to 29%, who mainly got Pfizer, the Spike Protein antibody coverage is increasing very sharply, thanks to both vaccination and infections, and as of 16 July it was 87.4% for that age group, when it was only 51.0% a month previously. I'm nearly certain this is explaining the UK figures, however antibody presence is only a subset of immunty, it's just the bit we can count easily.

The situation in the Netherlands seems quite similar, and their Delta surge had a similar timing, but a lower peak. So Delta can be beaten, it's just that vaccinations are the cheapest and fastest way to do it.. Those countries with lower vaccination rates will just take somewhat longer.

One other figure to highlight. The death rate from Delta during July 2021 was 1,484 people for the whole month - a total figure that will unfortunately increase into August. However on 20 January 2021 1,820 people died in just 24 hours during the peak of the Alpha surge.

Is that July 2021? Not 24 I’m assuming? Not intentionally knit picking.

I will cry if we are still aggressively and openly worrying about Covid in 2024 and reporting on FT about it!

The Times reporting this today:

The rest is paywalled. The story can be found here if you have access: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/r...ions-jvfwf3dgr

Later on the story suggests that ministers want the delta variant of COVID to be downgraded form being a 'variant of concern' since it is dominant in the UK. And one other bit of good news in there, it mentions data from Ontario province in Canada which says the AZ jab is effective against beta. You can just about read the full story here:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...ytimes1aug.jpg

Sky News also have it.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-...ggest-12369622