Week 16: Variations for Covid-19 within England: still plenty of room for a second wave!

The Covid-19 Infection Survey 2^nd July 2020, Office of National Statistics

 

An estimated average of 25,000 people (equivalent to 1 in 2.200 of the population) will have had Covid-19 at some point in the past.

In the past 2 weeks there have been five new COVID-19 infections / 10K at risk. (Seropositivity is dealt with below by Public Health England). There is not enough evidence to say that there is a difference in infection rates between regions of the country – but for what it is worth the highest regions were  East Midlands, London, East England and Yorkshire, and the lowest was South East. In the previous 2 weeks about 25K people became newly infected, or 3,500 per day. The number of death registration decreased from 1,114 in the previous 2 weeks to 783.

 

Coronavirus and the Social Impact on Great Britain: 3 July 2020,

Office of National Statistics

 

Travelling to work: 49%  said they had travelled to work at some point in the past seven days, up from 44% last week and 41% the previous week.  Adults working exclusively  at home, has dropped to 29%  (from 33% last week).  

Face covering: 43% of those who have left their home have worn a face cover, and 91% of those who used public transport in England have also done so.

Paying bills: 5% reported that they found it difficult or very difficult to pay bills before the epidemic, this has risen to over 11% by July 2020.

Leaving home: 91% of adults said they had left their home for any reason in the past week, most often to buy essential food, but only 83% of those aged >70. Travelling to and fro work, and taking children to school, have become more probable.

Repairs at home: 51% said they felt either very comfortable or comfortable having someone come into their home to carry out an emergency repair such as fixing a boiler, or electrics.

Back to school?  40% of those with children reported that they had been asked to send their children back to school, with 68% saying that their children were now attending school some or all of the time (32% in the previous week).  For children still being home-schooled, this week they spent on average 11 hours learning.  62% said their children were struggling to continue their education at home.

Effect on well-being: 69% said they were very or somewhat worried about the effect that the coronavirus (COVID-19) was having on their life now, which has increased when compared with the previous week (64%). Another 45% reporting they felt bored, 34% said they were spending too much time alone,21% reporting there was a strain on personal relationships, and 13% finding working from home difficult.

Finances: 11% of adults reported that they have had to borrow more money or use more credit than usual since the coronavirus pandemic,  5% reported that they found it difficult or very difficult to pay usual household bills prior to the coronavirus pandemic . Since the pandemic, this has risen to 11% of adults.

The Public Health England (PHE) website

Fewer cases were detected in Week 26 than in the previous week (4,100, against 5,800) – 1,700 fewer. Over 75% of cases are now detected through testing outside of hospitals. These figures are both very high, but PHE makes no comment about this. At a local authority level, activity remains highest in Leicester, though the weekly incidence of confirmed cases has stabilised since week 25. Emergency department attendances with a COVID-19-like diagnosis and hospitalisations and critical care admissions for confirmed COVID-19 continue to decline slowly.  A total of 1,501K have been tested in hospital settings, and a further 243K have been confirmed positive for COVID-19 in community settings. In these settings, the patients are generally younger with a marked female preponderance. Superimposing rates on a map of England shows the lowest rates in the South West, and slightly higher rates in Norfolk, East and West Sussex, and Bristol. Rates for Acute Respiratory Incidents peaked in Care Home in weeka 15 and 16, but again no explanation is offered.

Seroprevalence Estimates: These are based on samples provided by healthy blood donors, aged 17 – 69 years.  Approximately 1000 samples from each of 7 different regions of England are tested with the Euroimmun assay, between weeks 13 – 26. The rate was highest in samples from London, varying from 14.9% and 13.2%. Rates were lower in other regions, including the South East, South West and North East regions. In data from weeks 25-26, adjusted prevalence amongst donors in the South West has plateaued at 3.7% and 3.4%. In the North East of England prevalence was between  6.3% and 7.0%. These estimates are lower with increasing age of the blood donor.

Conclusions: the falling death rates are of course still too high for comfort, and only economic considerations will make the governent’s early release of lockdown comprehensible.3,500 people are newly infected by the virus each day. If only 1 person in every 2,200 people had had the virus, it is clear that 2,199 people have not (so far) been in contact with it.

The figures about the social impact of the virus describe a population slowly becoming more active, although undoubtedly now taking increased risks. Financial problems which are already being described, are likely to become much worse as unemployment becomes more widespread, The effects on people’s sense of well-being indicates that even this long-suffering population is beginning to feel the strain (Blog 8).

The low rates for sero-positivity indicate that the great majority of the population has not been exposed to the virus. Other data confirms that where many people are crammed into poor accommodation, and poverty limits what a family can achieve, rates for new cases will be much higher. Areas where people are generally adequately housed and food is available from the land are likely to have low rates for new cases. Even in London, 87% of the population has not yet been exposed to the virus. There is still plenty of opportunity for a second wave.