DaveS

Daily data:

Cases 58,899 (84,053 last Friday)
Deaths 193 (254)
Patients admitted 1,395 (1,607 on the 31st)
Patients in hospital 12,753 (14,687 on the 3rd)
Patients in ventilation beds 430 (478 on the 3rd)
Vaccinated up to and including 9 February 2022:
First dose: 52,480,344
Second dose: 48,693,091
Booster: 37,684,442

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 28.7% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 22.5%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 195.4 today. Cases continue to fall and the figure would be better by at least 4,000 today if Scotland had not added rapid tests to their figures from yesterday. It is a moth since the 7 days average for deaths was below 200 per day.

Tomorrows update may be absent/late because of travelling.

corporate-wage-slave

Just some more interesting things under today's data. It looks like tomorrow Oldham and perhaps Rochdale will become the first bits of England to fall under the 400 cases per 100k threshold. This is when they go blue on the map on the daily COVID dashboard, but it's also the point when the NHS is unlikely to have a problem locally, since 400 cases becomes only a handful of cases that need hospital admission, typically around 2 to 8 admissions daily, on a typical hospital estate of 500 plus acute beds. Today's Oldham's case rate is 417.5, and Rochdale is 435.0. Manchester City is 469.3, Liverpool 547.3, Birmingham - the UK's largest local authority in terms of public health - is 539. All of these could go below 400 in the next few days, along with a long list of sizeable towns that surround them. The significance of this is that in the early days of the pandemic Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton all suffered terribly from Alpha and then Delta, among the worst impacted places in Europe, but they do have reasonably good vaccination rates taking demographics into account, so the local levels of immunity must be quite good. But these are the places to watch over the next week or so.

What could go wrong? BA.2 hasn't been much of a factor for these locations, and I guess it's only a matter of time before BA.2 overtakes BA.1 However people who have had BA.1 don't appear to be able to get BA.2, so with any luck the BA.2 event will be downplayed by the a general lowering of infections overall. But BA.2's impact in the north is still a risk factor here.

Much of Wales is well below 400, and so was Scotland, until they started to include unconfirmed lateral flow test results into the statistics. Scotland isn't including re-infections yet either, so that suggests Scotland's rate is about the same as northern England overall. Northern Ireland is seeing some reductions lately, but still their infection rate remains very high.

DaveS

Much of London is around the 6-700 cases per 100k mark with rapid falls in the last week. I hope the 400 mark is less than a week off there.

corporate-wage-slave

And yes it has happened, two of the places in Europe with terrible experiences with COVID-19 are now among the lower incidence locations.

Oldham 379.6 cases per 100k (the lower area below)
Rochdale 397.0 per 100k.

Lots of other places in the area are showing improvement, and Blackburn, which also struggled with infections early on, only just missed out, today they are on 401.3

DaveS

Yesterdays delayed daily data:

Cases 46,025 (60,578 last Saturday)
Deaths 167 (259)
Vaccinated up to and including 11 February 2022:
First dose: 52,491,142
Second dose: 48,718,497
Booster: 37,724,528

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now down 30.1% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 26.2%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 182.3 today. Another big fall in cases, 9,000 of which comes from England. The Welsh do not report on Saturdays but that is offset by the addition of rapid tests in Scotland. The daily average for cases has dropped below 60k for the first time since mid December.

under2100

Thanks DaveS! I think this also marks the first time during the Omicron wave that the rolling weekly average of cases has finally dipped below the previous local maximum, which I think hit about 430K/week during end 2020/start 2021. (Yes I know there are a lot of footnotes that should be attached about different methodologies, etc, but we need fun on Sun)

USA_flyer

I went into town yesterday to run a few errands. It really felt like life was back to pre-pandemoc levels of business. I went to Pret for a coffee and it was so busy I ended up having to sit on a stool at the bar. The only difference was 40% to 50% of people were wearing masks although obviously not in Pret when eating/drinking.

I am starting to feel positive that we are starting to come out of the worst of it.

paulaf

I think we are way past the worst of it, the only visual reminder is people wearing masks still outside - why?

ringingup

Because everyone processes risks in different ways.

paulaf

These same people didn't wear masks in flu season previously.

KARFA

maybe they will now? Tbh I agree I don’t see any sense in it, but equally I don’t really care if that’s what certain people choose to do. I wouldn’t look to tell people to remove them.

corporate-wage-slave

I think we all know a lot more about viruses now don't we? In a good way, we are all better educated. I fully accept that people will reach different conclusions about the implications, but we could have saved many lives in previous flu epidemics simply by people being better informed. Simple stuff like not going to see granny when you aren't well. Omicron is still killing people at an elevated rate, more or less at influenza levels, but there has been no sign of influenza for 2 years now since the measures taken against COVID-19 are even more effective against influenza. I just hope that we get some really good and well received guidelines on 24 February when we will probably officially end all restrictions in England.

paulaf

I wouldn't tell people to remove them, I read an article today written by a doctor who also sees no sense in wearing them outside and removing all visual reminders is good for our mental health too, so we can try and put it behind us. Was in a indoor shopping centre yesterday and it was great to see 90% people without them, no social distancing and only a couple of shops with hand sanitiser on display.

paulaf

If all restrictions do end on 24 Feb, do you think HAL will remove the need for masks in the airport? I think I read they're not mandatory in Manchester airport, but maybe Heathrow think its different as its more of an international hub, but what law can they use after this date, just a condition of entry? Seems a bit OTT if you don't need them say in hospitals here after this date.
Another question for you, when realistically do you think masks will become voluntary on flights, say just on UK airlines? This year or will it hang around for years like the liquids rule?

Kgmm77

For a start, I wouldn’t presume what is good for other peoples mental health.