corporate-wage-slave

That's the biggest one day fall in infection numbers in the history of the pandemic, both in absolute and relative terms, when looking at the rolling figures. As the regulars will know, one way to look at the data, without being so much disrupted by one off events like a lab breaking down or some other data outage, is to divide the 7 day over the 14 day rolling data. If it's 50% then the data is pretty flat. Today's figure is 38.25%, which is the lowest figure since September 2020, when testing became more reliable and widespread. Even more remarkable was that the two other times when the number was 38% were in late July 2021 (38.54%) and early April 2021 (38.81%) when we were getting to the end of the Delta and Alpha waves - these periods the total number of cases and tests involved a much lower amount of data. Now admittedly there is a some impact from tests results being backlogged in early January which then pushed up the end of the 14 day period. But that apart we can leave this as something suitably sugarcoated, it's good news.

TSE

Nice to see the 100 million mark being reached at last for first and second doses!

Misco60

But the number of doses being given daily is extremely low: yesterday there were 25,880 first doses, 39,709 second doses and 92,623 third doses/boosters. Excluding Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day, that's the lowest number of boosters given since 3 October.

The Guardian reported that hundreds of thousands of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines will have to be thrown away because uptake is so low.

Covid booster jabs in England to be thrown away as demand falls | Vaccines and immunisation | The Guardian

enviroian

So it appears Omicron is fizzling out, or at least on a huge downward trend, no?

nk15

There are probably various reasons for that, such as that you cannot maintain the earlier pace as you get to the last, less motivated quartile of first and third dose eligible recipients, but some of the premature rhetoric that the pandemic is almost over may be contributing to those 30% cancelled appointments... Some people probably start thinking that they do not need the vaccine or the booster any more...

corporate-wage-slave

The latter is in my view supported by the evidence, the downward trend is much more pronounced than Alpha or Delta at the same stages.

The first point, no, Omicron is some way off from fizzling out. For much of the summer of 2021, right up to 1 December, the UK rate per 7 days was around 300 to 400 cases per 100,000 population. Quite a bit higher than our European neighbours, but the UK was testing more. We are still on 1100 cases per 100k per 7 days, still testing 10 million people a week, but essentially 3 times as many cases as the summer. We need to get some way further down the slope yet and unfortunately a 38% figure won't hang around for long. What we don't know is whether we have a nice long consistent exit like Alpha, or a more infurating bubbling along at a relatively high level - which is what Delta gave us. But by the end of this month, when HMG is due to review next steps, it's looking more optimistic than it has been for a while.

wilsnunn

My cousin, who is in the army, is managing a major vaccination site in the South of England. He was initially told that he would be posted there until end of March has been told to expect end of Feb as the end of his posting now. Apparently the numbers coming through don’t warrant the army’s presence any more and the whole vaccination site may end up being significantly downsized due to lack of demand. A slightly more distant relative in a lower army rank is posted at another vaccination site in the North of England and he was told the same thing too.

PxC

Does anyone know how many of the current ICU patients are Omicron?

corporate-wage-slave

Almost all of them, well above 90%. Ditto for deaths too.

DaveS

Daily data:

Cases 84,429 (142,224 last Monday)
Deaths 85 (77)
Patients admitted 2,357 (2,350 on the 4th)
Patients in hospital 19,345 (18,741 on the 7th)
Patients in ventilation beds 746 (840 on the 7th)
People vaccinated up to and including 16 January 2022:
First dose: 52,117,863
Second dose: 47,963,133
Booster: 36,473,316

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 41.7% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 38.7%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 263.1 today. A move upwards for cases, presumably some weekend backlog. Yesterdays cases and deaths have been revised with the missing Scotts data and becomes 75,031/91.

corporate-wage-slave

Scotland is dropping almost all COVID restrictions from Monday 24 January, and England will almost certainly announce something similar later this week (Thursday afternoon?).

As far as I can make out the only restrictions in Scotland from Monday will be
- requirement to wear a face covering on public transport and indoor public locations, unless exempt
- remaining international travel restrictions (day 2 Lateral Flow test only if vaccinated and PLF)
- requirement to self isolated if infected with COVID-19 - from day 6 if two negative tests with day 0 being symptom date or initial test positive date.

KARFA

Well it is good news, but just to add that people are still being asked to work from home and to take lateral flow tests before meeting with others, and vaccine passport remain as currently applicable but will not be extended for the moment.

DaveS

Daily data:

Cases 94,432 (120,821 last Tuesday)
Deaths 438 (379)
Patients admitted 1,892 (1,993 on the 7th)
Patients in hospital 19,450 (19,918 on the 10th)
Patients in ventilation beds 713 (820 on the 10th)
People vaccinated up to and including 17 January 2022:
First dose: 52,133,611
Second dose: 47,989,635
Booster: 36,546,583

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 38.9% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is up 14.7%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 272.0 today.

corporate-wage-slave

So to add on to the above, the 7 day infection case rate per 100,000 has now fallen below the 1,000 mark today, it's now 991 per 100k based on WHO population numbers. This is almost exacty half of the peak date, which was reported on 5 January at 1884 per 100k, so the case rate has halved in 13 days, which is fast. Alpha took 18 days from its peak to reduce by 50%. I wish I could say something about Delta, but unfortunately frrom the peak day, 21 July, it never did halve.

Deaths remain high, with high rates in London and the North West of England. London seems to be slowing down, North West is still rising.

HB7

CWS - do you think that total case numbers now will continue to decrease in the coming weeks to a point where we will see only single-digit thousands (similar to May/June 2021)?

Secondly, with a good chance now that over 95% of the UK population having either three doses, recovered, or both - where do we go from here? And what I mean by that is, do we abandon all restrictions and effectively move to normal life (or as normal as possible/new normal)? Almost everyone has had the chance to get three doses, millions have been infected, what is the logical next step here?