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The government have released the latest figures for cases and deaths from COVID-19 in the UK.
Dr Julian Tang, Honorary Associate Professor of Respiratory Sciences at the University of Leicester, said:
“Don’t forget that this rise in the COVID-19 case numbers today will be from exposures/infections acquired from last week – i.e. before Tuesday’s new restrictions – given the SARS-CoV-2 average 5-7 day incubation/latency period.
“We will only see any impact from these new restrictions realistically from next week and the several weeks after this. So the numbers of cases may show further rises over the next few days.
“Also, if you see ~6000 new cases today that you know about, there may be an additional up to ~12000 other cases that we haven’t identified yet, based on this recent REACT-1 study findings, where up to two-thirds (60-70%) of COVID-19 cases may be asymptomatic (1). So the symptomatic cases that go for PCR testing may only constitute just one-third of COVID-19 cases.
“In addition, from the REACT-2 study, antibody surveillance results up to end June 2020, indicated that there were ~3.4 million COVID-19 cases with antibodies to the virus in the community (2), when the PCR-based testing only showed a total of ~280,000 cases in the UK (3).
“Hence just based on these REACT studies alone, there are many more COVID-19 cases in the community, not being tested by PCR acutely, that can be spreading the virus.
“This is a very worrying trend, and it remains to be seen how the BAME populations are going to be affected (though likely in a similar way). So the more people that can comply with the all the restrictions the better we will control the virus.
“Although the younger population (who are getting more frequently infected now) are more likely to have milder disease, unfortunately, with so many of them working in the vulnerable hospitality/service sectors, they are also the ones most likely to suffer economically from widespread local or a national lockdowns. So we are really relying on them to help us control this virus better – both for their sake and everyone else’s.”
References:
2) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.12.20173690v2
3) https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said:
“Today has seen another large increase in the number of new reports of COVID-19 cases being reported, 6178 cases. This is the second highest daily report of cases across the UK the highest being 6199 on the 5th April. The 7 day rolling mean of new case reports is currently 4501 cases per day compared to 3286 a week ago, a 37% increase.
“The rapid increase in cases is now also being seen in the increase in hospitalisations and sadly deaths. The latest 7 day rolling mean for reports of deaths is 25.4 still relatively low but a 98% increase on the same figure from a week previously.
“Given that testing capacity in the UK during March and April was poor it is likely that a rather greater proportion of cases were not being diagnosed then compared to now even with the current problems with testing. It is doubtful that we will never know for certain how many cases were actually occurring at the peak in March/April. However, with the rapid increase in cases over the last few days it is likely that the coming peak in cases will soon dwarf that in spring. Hopefully however, death rates will not climb as high as they did in April.”
Dr Simon Clarke, Associate Professor of Cellular Microbiology at the University of Reading, said:
“This is a very worrying increase in diagnosed coronavirus infections. We’ve not seen such a large increase since May and while it’s true that there are many more tests conducted nowadays, it is clear evidence of an accelerating spread of the virus. As the world approaches the grim milestone of a million Covid19 deaths, we can expect to see an increasing burden placed on our hospitals and a consequent increase in deaths.”
Prof James Naismith FRS FMedSci, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and Professor of Structural Biology, University of Oxford, said:
“Today’s spike in positive covid19 case is very unwelcome news. It is part of a trend and there is no doubt the virus is taking off again. However, there are some important things to note:
“(1) The sudden jump is likely to reflect issues in the testing system reporting. It seems very unlikely we are back to a doubling of cases every 3 to 4 days. We will need to see a few more days of data to judge how fast case numbers are doubling.
“(2) Using “near record” to describe covid19 case numbers is misleading. We can only guess how many people were actually infected with covid19 at the height of the pandemic, but it seems certain to have exceeded 100, 000 per day. We were blind to cases in March, we have a good view of them now.
“(3) Sadly, the increased numbers of positive cases will in time translate into serious illness and death. Medical and scientific advances will significantly reduce this toll compared to the height of the pandemic, provided that hospitals are not overwhelmed by excessive numbers of cases.
“(4) We are not spectators, by isolating when ill, washing our hands, masking and distancing wherever possible we will all help reduce the toll.
“(5) Whilst no one is absolutely safe from serious illness, the risk of Covid19 is predominantly faced by the elderly and vulnerable.”
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www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
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