UK COVID data, week starting 27th February

Over the Hills and Far Away

(9am 2/3/23) A very short one this week again. First just to say that Numbercrunch is out today. I’m very proud of it, and would like to give profound thanks to all the people who encouraged me during the writing process and everyone who has ordered it already. I’ve done a few interviews and longer pieces of writing associated with it - keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks!

On the COVID front, not a huge amount is going on still. XBB.1.5 continues to slowly grow in market share, for what it’s worth ZOE incidence still seems to be flat or falling. A lot of the discussion at the moment seems to be in rehashing old issues (lockdowns, lateral flow tests, lab leaks, masks), which is probably as good a sign as any that this stuff is fading into the rear-view mirror, and that I may not be doing these weekly updates for so much longer.

In terms of the new hospital data, there’s a clear sign of a peak (though as usual probably worth waiting a week longer to be sure)

And you can see that reflected in a drop below 1 in the admissions ratio chart.

(4pm 2/3/23) This sense of having peaked carries over into the case numbers as well (though as I’ve said before this may not be such a huge surprise that cases and admissions tend to move closely together now that a bigger fraction of positive cases are found in hospitals, due to less testing elsewhere).

(I would have done Long COVID numbers today, but the ONS release was cancelled until 4 weeks’ time)

(1pm 3/3/23) ONS lags a bit behind as usual, and isn’t yet showing a peak on the weekly headline figure at least - though will be interesting to see next week’s numbers.