And the Covid wave in England continues...

The Covid summer goes on.

Current levels of Covid

Sadly, the current Covid “FLiRT” variants aren’t relaxing their grip.

According to the latest UKHSA data, hospital admissions with Covid decreased very slightly in the previous week but admission levels remain high.

Ideally we want to know prevalence - how many people are infected - not just hsopital admissions. The closest we can get to prevalence in England (and it’s not that close) is wastewater monitoring in Scotland. Wastewater monitoring cannot be directly related to overall prevalence because how much virus is picked up in wastewater depends a lot on individual people’s responses to infection and the variants involved. Basically, some people just shed a lot more virus than others and some variants might make it more likely for virus to be excreted out. All that said, wastewater monitoring is the best we have in the absence of a random infection survey, as it does not depend on testing or being sick enough to need hospital.

So - what does it show? Well, Scotland shows an enormous July spike - the highest we’ve seen since the first year of Omicron in 2022! Even if there is not an exact correlation with prevalence, I think it is unarguable that Scotland is seeing a very large Covid wave and, very likely, England too. The question is what happens when people return to school and work in September in England and life moves back indoors?

It’s worth noting that Edinburgh Fringe Festival is about to start for the whole of August, and schools go back in Scotland in a few weeks. Both will create excellent conditions for Covid to spread. If you’re going to the festival, please consider wearing a good mask at shows - and if you feel ill or test positive for Covid, then try to avoid contact with others.

The most recent week of the wastewater data does show decline (see below) - but I was too optimistic about the fall in June so I’ll wait for another week or two before being confident of a peak - especially given the festival.

If you feel sick with cold or flu symptoms, it’s probably Covid.

While Covid is going strong, UKHSA reports that other respiratory viruses remain at low levels. There is some rhinovirus circulating (causes a common cold), but honestly, if you have cold or flu symptoms then it most likely to be Covid. If you feel ill, please consider testing and/or restricting your activities until you feel better or test negative. Also, it’s important to rest to further reduce your chances of developing Long Covid.

Prof Trish Greenhalgh has just written a brilliant substack summarising the latest research on Long Covid and I’ve snipped a bit below:

Covid is causing less harm than it did during the pandemic’s height, but it still causes harm and people are getting ill more often than they used to, with consequent disruption to their lives. This is both because we’ve added a new disease to our population and because Covid is stubbornly not seasonal and is still creating several waves a year. Research into broader, longer lasting, Covid vaccines continues - I believe this should be a prioritised research effort so that we can really give the virus a kick in the teeth.