PHE Report into Leicester Outbreak just published

[PatriciaHolm]

Have put this on a couple of threads, but thought it might have wider interest so doing a new thread.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-exceedances-in-leicester

PHE have just this evening published a report into the Leicester outbreak. More up to date data on 7 day infection rate (see attached) shows a decline in 8/10 of the top areas, though only slightly in Leicester. Increases in Doncaster and Bolton but from a much lower start.

Mean age of cases is 40, split 49% male. Ethnicity "likely reflects the local population" (there is a graph)

Locations appear to be around a couple of workplaces, a couple of carehomes, a household , a hospital and a school. With 4 nurseries and a school marked as "exposure/issue/threat".

North Evington ward most significantly impacted.

And this would be why Hancock commented about children -
"The proportion of positive PCR tests (as a proportion of all test) is rising. This is suggestive of a genuine increase in numbers of new infections, not simply an artefact of increasing test rates.

This effect is most marked in the under 19-year-old group where the proportion of test positive cases fell to ≈5% (across all age groups) after the end of the initial epidemic peak, and has climbed back from mid-May to a current value of ≈15%."

Although they note that this pattern is not replicated across the country.

AND they note there has been no increase in hospital admissions, which have been steady at between 6-10 a day for four weeks. So the increase in positive tests is not , at present, leading to more hospital cases.

Conclusions -

1. The strongest evidence of an outbreak is given by the numbers of new infections identified in children and working age people, and rising proportion of positive tests also seen in these age groups, from late May onwards. These are trends not observed in other parts of the Midlands, or related travel areas.
2. Evidence for the scale of the outbreak is limited and may, in part, be artefactually related to growth in availability of testing.
3. If an outbreak is occurring, then care should be taken to ensure that the artificial geographical reporting boundaries do not obscure a problem that may cross the East Midlands and East of England border

to me this is further proof that the overwhelming vast majority of people who become infected only have mild, or no symptoms. It also supports the theory that the potency of the virus is weakening.

I was thinking the same @AlecTrevelyan006

Thanks for this also OP.

I'm not sure we can deduce that the potency of the virus is weakening; people under 50 have always had the disease mildly, as a cohort (of course a small % have been hospitalised).

@IrenetheQuaint

I'm not sure we can deduce that the potency of the virus is weakening; people under 50 have always had the disease mildly, as a cohort (of course a small % have been hospitalised).

Yes - my inference from it was that more younger people had been infected, and all of them it would seem mildly. From this limited data set, I don't think anything can be concluded about a weakening virus.

It does seem to suggest that outbreaks in the wider community may not be cause for any sort of panic, if we can identify and squash them reasonably quickly.

Yes, local outbreaks should be quickly locked down and squashed

Hopefully the public will get used to this and there won't be the same drama as with Leicester

" It also supports the theory that the potency of the virus is weakening"

I've not seen evidence for that

Just that in several countries the average age for new infections has become much younger - going out much more -
while the very elderly are being protected more / staying in more

Hence lower death rate

If Leicester shows anything, it's that we should be much more focused on inspecting factories and ensuring they have safe working practices in place (assuming the media analysis of what's going on in Leicester is correct).

@BigChocFrenzy

" It also supports the theory that the potency of the virus is weakening"

I've not seen evidence for that

Just that in several countries the average age for new infections has become much younger - going out much more -
while the very elderly are being protected more / staying in more

Hence lower death rate

there was a fair bit in the news the other week

e.g.

www.express.co.uk/news/science/1299141/coronavirus-Italy-expert-vaccine-pandemic-infection-science-research

Coronavirus is ‘weakening’ and virus will die out Italian expert says

this was encouraging from a 'learning to live with covid' perspective

"It is important to note that the care homes are much less affected than late March/ early April suggesting that the measures introduced are protecting these settings."

So if schools and nursery’s are contributing to the infection numbers surely it makes sense to offer them some levels of protection to reduce this the way it has been successful in care homes. Rather than offer nothing and they potentially become the hotspots that care homes were previously.

And also factory’s should be routinely inspected to monitor how they are being Covid secure workplaces also.

@starrynight19 - you can’t compare schools with care homes really. PPE was needed desperately in care homes where Covid is life threatening to the elderly residents. Covid isn’t life threatening to 99% of children and rarely life threatening to adults under 60. Of which category most staff & pupils falls into.

It is not realistic for teachers to wear PPE to teach young children. Young kids will not respond well at all. Plus, if you consider that face masks are to protect other people, what’s the point? So teachers are wearing masks to protect the kids? Or actually, should kids all be wearing them to protect the teachers? Potentially secondary school teachers could I suppose, I can’t imagine it’ll be very pleasant or easy trying to teach teenagers in a mask all day!

This shows that the virus has spread widely through society, it can’t not have. The majority of persons will not know they have had it.
I’d hazard a guess that if any large conurbation is tested, seriously and on large scale, that many positive tests will be apparent. The chain to death has been disrupted by the vulnerable withdrawing from common activities.