Latest Covid situation in England 13 Jan 2024
(temporary?) dip in cases, but prevalence remains high
When the latest Covid variant to take the world by storm (JN.1) reached dominance in England just before Christmas, on top of already increasing cases and hospital admissions, I fully expected a continuing significant increase in Covid prevalence into early January. Flu admissions were also rapidly increasing, leading to worries I highlighted about a repeat of last year NHS emergency care crisis. The very good news is that I was wrong. To the surprise of - I think it’s fair to say - most people, prevalence has declined a bit since Christmas, hospital Covid admissions are flatt(ish) and flu admissions have come down in the most recent week. It is likely that we will avoid (thankfully) the NHS worst ever winter crisis of last year. That said, there is plenty of scope for a bump in cases and admissions in the second half of this month as people return to work and school. And there will also likely be a significant sting in the tail of this large wave in terms of new Long Covid cases, although unfortunately the ONS is no longer measuring Long Covid prevalence.
Latest data on infections (ONS prevalence)
The latest data from the ONS winter infection survey (based on random testing) shows that while prevalence in England remains high (over 3%), it is lower than it was just before Christmas where it reached a peak of about 4.5% (almost 6% in London). The previous ONS infection survey data happened to come out bang in the middle of the biggest increase, making me sure that we were about to exceed, or already had exceeded, July 2022’s BA.5 peak of 5.8%. That did not happen, and this is wave currently ranks as the 4th biggest behind the 3 big Omicron waves of Jan - July 2022.
Looking at prevalence by age, infection is highest in younger adults, lowest in children. Older age groups rose later than other groups and have stayed flatter - perhaps a sign of the impact of increased inter-generational mixing over the Christmas period. The lower attack rates in children might be reversed once they return to school this month.
Hospital admissions
Admissions with Covid have been flattish over Christmas, likely due to infections staying high in older age groups. That said, admissions have remained significantly lower than a year ago.
Flu admissions have been higher than Covid admissions over Christmas but also reduced in the previous week and have been much much lower than last year’s flu peak. RSV (not shown) was about the same pattern and size as last year.
This means that, thankfully, NHS pressures from a dual waves of Covid and Flu have been significantly lower this year. Early data of ambulance response metrics confirms this. This isn’t to say that the NHS has had an easy winter - far from it - but it could have been a lot worse. It’s also not over yet, and we shouldn’t be complacent over what the coming month has in store.
The next ONS infection survey data comes out next Thursday - that will give us a clearer picture on where this wave is going, although it will still be too early to see any impact from return to school and work. For that we have to wait for the results from the end of January.