Daily data:

Cases 30,301 (31,348 last Saturday)
Deaths 121 (122)
People vaccinated up to and including 1 October 2021:
First dose: 48,901,277
Second dose:44,935,470

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 3.1% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 16.9%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 114.3 today.

Daily data:

Cases 30,439 (32,417 last Sunday)
Deaths 43 (58)
Patients admitted 755 (781 on the 21st)
People vaccinated up to and including 2 October 2021:
First dose: 48,928,952
Second dose: 44,969,396

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 1.1% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 18.7%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 112.1 today. I don't want to tempt fate, but with a good few days of data, we do now appear to be on a downward slope for all the main figures. The weekly number of deaths is 785 today. That peaked at >1000 over a week ago.

Nearly, but not quite. The death rate reduction is partly due to the reduction in cases a few weeks back, and partly due the fact that Delta has gone down the age range to younger children, hence a few tragic cases recently. There have been 6 child deaths in the last 3 weeks, and 3 more over the weekend, compared to 1 a week at the start of Delta. Still children are much better placed than adults overall. For infections, the 7 days over 14 days figure is 50.28% where 50% is flat-lining, so the underlying case numbers are rising slightly. Hopefully it will fall to below 50% in the next few days.

Daily data:

Cases 35,777 (37,960 last Monday)
Deaths 33 (40)
Patients admitted 754 (781 on the 21st)
Patients in hospital 6,556 (6,883 on the 25th)
Patients in ventilation beds 805 (878 on the 25th)
People vaccinated up to and including 3 October 2021:
First dose: 48,956,859
Second dose: 44,992,044

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 0.9% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 18.6%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 111.1 today. The daily deaths figure is missing a small amount of data which will be put in tomorrows figure. For the first time in a while the number of cases and deaths is down on the previous week. With the schools back, testing is back at a high level, with around 1 million per day. The only time it has been consistently higher than that was in March of this year when it reached a peak of 1.6 million per day.

Interesting experience with test and trace: I've been pinged as a contact, most likely from my MUC return flight last Monday. I'm double jabbed, so I don't need to isolate, but my employer forces me to declare it and sent me home until a negative PCR test. Back to homeworking for a couple of days then! They did say that 2 LFTs 24 hours apart would also clear me so I'll do another one tomorrow afternoon just in case the NHS results don't arrive by tomorrow evening. The testing centre close to Canary Wharf had slots all day so that was quickly dealt with.

Have many companies implemented things like that or is this an outlier?

Mine has said the same.

My employer* never really went back to the office and has declared hybrid its long term preference.

* Well, my new employer, since the old employer took the business unit down t'market and sold it off.

My employers have too, but you would expect that I think! Strangely it's not a formal policy, I've not seen a document on this yet. I did get my most recent PCR through to a result in around 24 hours, and that was with the Royal Mail sending the kit and collecting it on a Sunday.

Same here with an in-person test, a tad under 22 hours and negative.

Daily data:

Cases 33,869 (34,526 last Tuesday)
Deaths 166 (167)
Patients admitted 642 (723 on the 24th)
Patients in hospital 6,747 (7,000 on the 27th)
Patients in ventilation beds 769 (831 on the 27th)
People vaccinated up to and including 4 October 2021:
First dose: 48,994,530
Second dose: 45,021,381

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 2.3% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 15.5%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 111.0 today.

I'm going to try a conjecture here, but reports are that loads of school kids are isolating due to having covid or suspicion. That data is from last week, so I'm going to guess that the first mixing of schoolkids was behind the recent hikes in numbers of cases, but because they're less susceptible to go to hospital or die, we're seeing healthcare data stay reasonably flat.

With delta "running out" of kids to infect, we could see a better trend until it gets really cold? I mean at some point everyone will have had it, symptomatically or otherwise.

Woohoo! I’ve been waiting to see the 45m mark. It’s been slow coming! Now for the 50m first dose!

Very similar. My old employer was in the travel industry, so half of us were laid off. My new employer has gone for a 1-2 days per week in the office approach, and are in the middle of converting it from desks to pretty much pure meeting space. And a very nice space it is too.

There's no specific requirement around testing yet, but it very much expected that you'll do the right thing with LFTs and that you won't come in for the isolation period if positive, regardless of government requirements.

I did have reason to get a PCR test the week before last, and it was... Quite something. In a car park, under a part derelict motel, part homeless hostel. No signage or directions, just a couple of people with hi-vis and a grabber, sat by a trestle table. But it worked, and I got my negative result less than a day later.

Here in Scotland the schools returned about three weeks earlier (mid-August) and added to an already developing spike. However, cases are now dropping pretty quickly. Interestingly, in the Scottish statistics, at least, the 0-14 age group has the highest number of positive cases over the past week, followed by the 15-19 year olds.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profi...43010/Overview

A fourth colleague (again with children at school) is now awaiting the results of a PCR test and none of us will be the least bit surprised if he's missing the Friday night out with the rest of us this week. Schools seem to be the last of the super spreaders (mega spreaders? hyper spreaders) at the moment.