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Is the pandemic over?

Leave a reply Christopher Roberts

England’s approach to COVID restrictions this January is very different to last January. It’s also worlds away from how European neighbours are reacting.

Many countries are now imposing tighter travel restrictions, and implementing lockdowns, while England (and to some degree the UK) is moving in the opposite direction.

For example, the “red list” of countries has been scrapped, as has the need to get a pre-departure test when travelling. Isolation periods have also been reduced and were masks not mandatory in indoor public spaces, you could be mistaken for thinking the pandemic was over.

England’s libertarian approach comes as the country’s infection rates hit an all time high. One in 15 people in the UK had COVID in the last week of December. Not since the pandemic started, or in the last year, in the last week! 🤯

So why is the UK making these decisions?

Do the statistics offer any justification for these changes?

Last year I posted several articles looking at the UK’s COVID-19 data and exploring the effectiveness of vaccination. Things have changed a lot since, so here’s an update.

UK COVID-19 Stats

The UK is now 90% vaccinated. Nine in 10 people aged 12 and over have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Around 80% are “fully vaccinated” having had two doses, and around 60% have also had a booster (or third) jab. 💉

While hospitalisations started to rise quite rapidly at the end of the December, they’re also still nowhere near to the 40k numbers we saw last January.

Why is this?

There are many reasons, but the two biggest seem to be: Vaccinations and Omicron.

Vaccinations

Vaccination has undoubtedly helped to weaken the link between infections and deaths. Despite there being around 3 million more infections in December 2021 than January 2021, there were around 30k fewer COVID related deaths.

This chart shows that link between cases and deaths.

December 2021 COVID-19 cases aligned to deaths

You can see last year in weeks 44 and 45 (January 2021) cases and deaths hit their peak – I’ve used this as the baseline maximum, 100%. Until week ~60 (May 2021) cases and deaths were fairly well aligned, cases went up, deaths went up. However that link has been slowly weakening. Since May 2021, cases have risen and fallen, with deaths hardly moving, and that’s in no small part thanks to vaccinations. By May 2021, around 1 in 3 people were fully vaccinated and 2 in 3 had had at least one dose.

In week 95 (the last full week I have data for) deaths were around 11% of January 2021 levels, while cases were almost 190%. The virus no longer has the same ability to kill as it once did.

N.B. Cases shown aren’t positive tests, but the ONS infection study estimates. Deaths are those within 28 days of a positive test, by date of death. Deaths have been moved forward by one week, to better align them to cases.

Omicron

The other contributing factor is Omicron. In the last month, UK COVID cases have been rising exceedingly fast. This is in part due to the more infectious Omicron strain of the virus.

5th of January 2022 COVID-19 variants by countryAt the start of December 2021, around 1% of UK cases were the Omicron variant, with Delta making up the vast majority of all cases. Last week, 96% of all cases were Omicron. That’s insane growth! Omicron took over as the dominant strain in around 2 weeks, almost wiping Delta infections out in the space of a month.

You can explore this more with this fantastic tool by Our World In Data – the University of Oxford.

Omicron appears to be easier to spread, more dominant, but less deadly. The levels of Omicron in the UK are surely also helping to keep deaths low – compared with if all cases were the Delta strain.

Do the statistics justify fewer restrictions?

So do the statistics give us confidence that England’s approach at the moment is well founded? To a degree, yes. It’s unclear if the decisions have been made based on science, or politics, but so far at least, England’s libertarian approach looks like it offers a good balance between freedom, autonomy and safety.

The more cases there are, the greater the risk of mutation. That could be seen as a concern, but mutation lead to Omicron defeating Delta, which (so far) hasn’t turned out to be a bad thing.

Is the COVID-19 pandemic over?

With more global cases than ever before, it’s undeniable that COVID-19 is still very much a pandemic. But, if we’re able to live with the virus in general circulation, without mass deaths or hospitalisations (just like we do with flu each winter) there is hope, that we may be nearing the beginning of the end of the period where COVID ruled our lives.

Live in hope. ☺️

Do COVID-19 vaccines work?

1 Reply Christopher Roberts

Israel is currently leading the way with COVID-19 vaccination; 62.5% of people have had at least one dose of vaccine. The UK isn’t far behind, with 1 in 2 people having had a COVID-19 jab. Given the UK is only vaccinating adults, it’s actually vaccinated 2 in 3 people. That’s a substantial proportion of the population, with all vulnerable adults having been offered a jab. 💉

Thanks to a lockdown and vaccinations, positive coronavirus tests and related deaths have been falling since January in Israel. The UK has a population of 68 million people, much larger than Israel’s 9 million, so how are things working out here?

Has the UK beaten coronavirus?

The UK went into a lockdown at the start of January. Schools re-opened in March, with restrictions gradually easing since then. Around the same time, testing capacity was dramatically increased, improving detection of asymptomatic cases. On one day in March nearly 2 million coronavirus tests were conducted! Despite this, the number of positive tests still continues to fall, as does the number of people in hospital with coronavirus and COVID-19 related deaths.

So how does this relate the the vaccine roll-out, what were the key milestones?

The UK split its 53 million adult population into three categories:

  1. Priority cohorts 1 to 4 – 15 million people
    • This group included over 70s, the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (those shielding), as well care home residents, and those who work in care homes, health care and social care
  2. Priority cohorts 5 to 9 – 17 million people
    • This group included over 50s, as well as anyone deemed to be at risk due to their job or social circumstances
  3. General population – 21 million people
    • Everyone else

Cohorts 1 to 4 account for around 88% of all COVID-19 deaths, while groups 1 to 9 account for 99% of all deaths. So once 32 million people have been offered a jab, there will be a significant reduction, near elimination, in the likelihood of deaths from COVID-19.

That’s huge!

So where are we at? Currently, around 35 million people have had a first jab, 16 million of which have also had a second. That’s a mix of the AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna vaccines.

That means all the most vulnerable groups (accounting for 88% of deaths) are fully vaccinated – bar those who’ve refused a vaccine.

Here are some charts showing the UK’s progress. The delivery forecast is based on the 90-day average of vaccinations administered.

The data is all going in the right direction, and I feel quite confident in saying: yes, COVID-19 vaccines do work and the UK is beating coronavirus. Vaccinations are effective at reducing hospitalisation, death, but also at reducing virus transmission.

Points to consider

The more people who catch COVID-19 (globally) the greater the risk of new variants or strains, these could potentially be more harmful, transmissible and vaccine-resistant, but they could also be more benign. Until we’ve stamped out COVID-19 globally, there will be a risk that even a highly vaccinated country could go backwards.

There are also ethical questions around vaccine supply. The UK provided funding and support to multiple vaccine programmes very early on, helping it to secure supplies of several vaccines. Now it’s vaccinated it’s most vulnerable, is there a case for it to gift or sell on doses to other countries with fewer supplies and higher need? Countries like India, which is struggling with the pandemic at the moment. A vaccine given to a not-at-risk adult may stop 1 death in 100,000 in the UK, whereas if given to someone at risk in India right now, it could save 1 in 1,000. It could also free up health care capacity, to support others who haven’t been vaccinated yet.

Wherever you are in the world, there is cause for optimism.

Vaccines work and we are turning the tide on COVID-19! 😊

The UK is going greener

1 Reply Christopher Roberts

Electricity usage has been falling in the UK since 2002. Meanwhile, the grid has been getting cleaner by the year.

Wind, solar and hydro made up 27.5% of the UKs energy mix in 2020.

Go back 10 years to 2010 and that figure was only 6%.

You can take a deeper dive into the data by exploring the UK Electric Insights – provided by Drax.

The Dumbest Experiment in Human History

We’re using less energy and burning fewer fossil fuels, which is definitely a good thing! Every kilowatt-hour (kWh) of clean, renewable energy generated is a step in the right direction and a step away from what Elon Musk coined “the dumbest experiment in human history“.

Even today, we still burn a lot of fossil fuels and other carbon emitters. Given climate change is now more pressing than ever, the drive for efficiency has never been more important.

So the scene is set: every kWh of consumption we can avoid is positive for the planet.

Energy Labels

From March 2021, you’ll start to see changes to appliance energy efficiency rating labels in the UK – and also across Europe. The old label will be phased out, being replaced with a new simpler one, aiming to promote higher standards of efficiency.

Each appliance type has its own label with additional info. For example, the TV label includes screen size, and the energy consumption of HDR mode. The label for fridges has a decibel rating (so you can compare noise levels) as well as the storage capacity.

The most noticeable difference is in the efficiency ratings. These have been simplified to an A to G scale. Before the range was A+++ to G-, which added complexity – especially as not all the labels were displayed on the chart!

Old UK Energy Label
The old UK energy label
New UK Energy Label
The new UK energy label

The new A to G label also has significantly stricter criteria – as it should if we’re to achieve our climate targets!

With every year, technology develops and efficiency improves – appliances need less power to do the same thing. As such we need to hold appliances to a higher standard. It’s worth remembering, this isn’t only good for the planet, it’s also good for your pocket. Buying a more efficient device which uses less energy will also save you money on energy bills!

If you bought a fridge in 2019 with an A+++ rating, that’d now be rated a B or C in the 2021 label.

If everyone stopped buying G rated products, manufacturers would stop making them. If more people buy A rated product, manufactures will put more research and development into making their products even more efficient – maybe forcing another label change! 😂

Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose, Recycle, Replace

You can help by knowing and using your “Rs”!

  • Reduce usage where you can – turn off the TV instead of leaving it in standby mode
  • Reuse your existing fridge, TV or washing machine – if you don’t need a new one, don’t buy one!
  • Repair what you’ve got before looking for something new
  • Recycle or Repurpose the appliance you have so it can have a second life – upcycle where you can
  • Replace it with an energy efficient one – and only if you can’t do the other “Rs”

So next time you need a new appliance, check the “Rs” to see if you really do need a new one, and if you do, look out for the new energy efficiency label and use it to help you pick the most efficient one 🙂