In doing some digging, it does appear that they’ve done some surveys that were more randomly selected, and at least one, REACT 2, appears to have overcome a lot of the issues of other survey methods. I’m not sure I buy 95% without really diving into the REACT 2 methodology, but it certainly appears to have taken the necessary precautions to overcome the majority of my objections with methodology of most other seroprevalence studies.
I got that figure from the Guardian. They don’t give the source for it, but a quick search brought up this page from the UK Office for National Statistics:
The presence of antibodies to COVID-19 suggests that a person has previously had the infection or been vaccinated. In the week beginning 15 November 2021, the percentage of adults that would have tested positive for antibodies is estimated to be:
- 95.3% in England
- 93.9% in Wales
- 91.6% in Northern Ireland
- 95.0% in Scotland
They give further details about their data and sources.
I think it’s that omicron is less biased towards the elderly, not that it’s biased towards the young.
I’m not just being a home team player here but it is generally accepted that the UK is pretty solid on the data it collects on various pandemic metrics, seroprevalence included.
The interconnected nature of the NHS and its associated data has been a big help in this, the same is true of covid genome sequencing in which the UK is pretty much the world leader.
The UK stands out as the only country that has a high caseload and is still able to sequence a high proportion of its samples – 13% in the past month and on average during the pandemic.
This site shows an estimated two dose vaccine rate of 91.8% in England, which seems high to me and isn’t even close to any official reporting, but if that is so, reaching seroprevalence of 95% would be easily feasible.
I don’t know that I fully trust the numbers still (and they can’t seem to agree internally), but they are definitely attempting to do things right so I’ll drop it.
Today - three days after Boris Johnson reported the first UK omicron death, but with absolutely no details - I found a couple of sites (not especially prominent, well established sources) reporting on it. It appears that someone rang in to the radio station LBC claiming to be the stepson of the deceased.
According to his stepson, the first person in Britain to die from Omicron was an unvaccinated pensioner who refused to leave the house after being brainwashed online and believing the life-saving vaccine was part of a Government conspiracy to control the population…
…Boris Johnson announced his death earlier this week, but the lack of transparency surrounding the UK’s first Omicron death sparked outrage, with critics including senior doctors urging the government to release more information to avoid ‘unnecessary alarm.’
Health officials have yet to provide any additional information four days later.
I’m actually inclined to believe these reports. I won’t labor the point too much, but whilst talking up the ability of Omicron to kill/harm may be an effective way to frighten people and thus protect the health services in the immediate short term, keeping relevant information from the public will only further erode the government’s credibility and will be counterproductive in the longer run.
j
Here’s the original press release of that data, by the way:
The researchers caution that
‘It is important to note that the severity of disease in humans is not determined only by virus replication but also by the host immune response to the infection, which may lead to dysregulation of the innate immune system, i.e. “cytokine storm”,’ said Dr Chan. ‘It is also noted that, by infecting many more people, a very infectious virus may cause more severe disease and death even though the virus itself may be less pathogenic. Therefore, taken together with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant can partially escape immunity from vaccines and past infection, the overall threat from Omicron variant is likely to be very significant.’
Still, this is good news. It’s biological support for the notion that this might be a milder disease – after all, if it start out by growing rapidly in the upper airways, where it does little damage, that may give your immune system time to mount a good response before it gets into the lungs or other organs (like the blood vessels) where it does a great deal more damage.
How are UK hospitalizations trending? There still doesn’t seem to be a huge increase in hospitalizations in South Africa, which is promising. But South Africa has a young population and a high rate of prior infection.
A summary of yesterday’s stat’s are listed here:
Of note:
A further 78,610 confirmed cases were announced on Wednesday, the highest number of daily cases since the pandemic began.
I think that’s up about 20 000 on the previous day (!) I’ll look out for today’s stats later and post them.
j
BBC reports:
- A further 88,376 Covid cases have been confirmed in the UK - another record high as the Omicron variant drives a spike in infections
That’s a 10 000 increase on yesterday. This is in a BBC rolling news feed - I’ll post the full story when available.
j
South Korea:
You may have missed the info a few posts up that the UK has a higher rate of prior infection than SA.
The 91.8% figure is for adults, not the population as a whole and it agrees fully with all official figures that I’ve ever seen.
The UK may have buggered several things up but the figures are very trustworthy.
Today’s stats for the UK.
Yep, same page as upthread - it looks like they update the page each day rather than publishing something new.
In any case, for the second day here has been a BIG increase in case numbers; and a modest drop in the number of people in hospital. I assume this is just the sort of lag we’ve seen before, and hospitalizations will start to rise in a week or two.
j
Potentially good news, everyone!
A handy visual almost-year-end synthesis of information in Nature relating to covid vaccines. Not breaking but useful context for many of the discussions in this thread.
The CDC (US Center for Disease Control) predicts that the number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths will likely increase over the next 4 weeks, with 8,900 to 15,600 new deaths likely reported in the week ending January 8, 2022. The CDC recorded 8000 covid deaths in the prior 7 days. This could be about 2000 COVID-19 deaths per day.
Well, at least you didn’t start that post with a “Good news, everyone!”
273,218,485 total cases
5,352,581 dead
245,296,117 recovered
In the US:
51,435,652 total cases
824,520 dead
40,406,796 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Denmark: