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UK coronavirus live: 6% of people in England may have had Covid, study finds - The Guardian

UK coronavirus live: 6% of people in England may have had Covid, study finds - The Guardian

UK coronavirus live: 6% of people in England may have had Covid, study finds - The Guardian
Aug 13, 2020 6 mins, 48 secs

App to be trialled on Isle of Wight and in Newham; 1.85 million people waiting longer than 18 weeks for routine hospital treatment amid coronavirus delays.

It included 46,471 deaths of people in England between March 7 and June 12, using a model that also took into account factors such as pre-existing health conditions and smoking rates.

The early link between exposure to dirty air and Covid-19 deaths appears to be partly down to the outbreak in London, where pollution levels are generally higher than the rest of the country, the ONS said.

As the virus spread and deaths became more evenly distributed across England, the correlation between air pollution exposure and Covid-19 mortality decreased, the study found.

But if ethnicity is factored in, air pollution exposure has no statistically significant impact on Covid-19 deaths, it said.

BAME people are more likely to live in inner city areas that are more polluted, but dirty air is just one of the many factors that could be driving the worsened death rate for minority ethnic groups, the ONS said.

The ONS said the study’s findings were inconclusive, and understanding the role of pollution would require analysis of the individual details of people who died from the disease.

Private hospital owner Spire Healthcare has said it is now available “to support the NHS to reduce waiting lists” after helping the health service during the pandemic.

Spire said in a statement to shareholders:.

NHS England has signalled that it expects to conduct a procurement process to tender for providers to help reduce the NHS waiting list, which Spire Healthcare expects to participate in.

Since the launch of NHS test and trace, 214,890 close contacts of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 have been reached through the tracing system and asked to self-isolate, according to official figures.

This is 81.5% out of a total of 263,515 people identified as close contacts.

The remaining 48,625 people (18.5%) were identified as close contacts, but were not reached.

The weekly figures show that 74.2% of close contacts were reached in the week ending 5 August, up from 72.4% in the previous week, but down on the 90.7% reached in the first week of test and trace, on the week ending 3 June.

The NHS test and trace figures also show that for cases handled by local health protection teams 97.9% of close contacts of people who tested positive for Covid-19 have been reached and asked to self-isolate.

By contrast, for those cases handled either online or by call centres, 56.7% of close contacts have been reached and asked to self-isolate over the whole 10-week period of test and trace.

Residents of the Isle of Wight, the London borough Newham, and NHS volunteer responders across England will be part of a new contact-tracing app trial, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has said.

Trials will start from Thursday on the Isle of Wight and with NHS volunteer responders across England, followed shortly by Newham residents, as part of the country’s NHS test and trace service.

“There is no silver bullet when it comes to tackling coronavirus,” said Dido Harding, executive chair of the NHS test and trace programme.

The new service will log the time and distance a user has spent near to anyone, even if they don’t know them, so it can alert them if necessary if that person later tests positive for Covid-19.

NHS staff have worked around the clock to treat 108,000 people for coronavirus since the pandemic escalated in March, including record numbers getting help through NHS 111, whilst also providing nearly 10 million urgent tests, checks and treatment for non-Covid issues, and 85,000 treatment starts for cancer patients, in a safe way.

The UK’s largest charity supporting people with arthritis, Versus Arthritis, has said that those with the condition have “borne the brunt” of disruption to treatment during the pandemic.

The figures reveal the stark reality for millions of people with arthritis who have borne the brunt of disruption to treatment during the pandemic.

Without this, people with arthritis will be left feeling that their pain is being ignored.

In the UK, more than 10 million people have arthritis or other similar conditions that affect joints, according to the NHS.

Sara Bainbridge, head of policy and influence at Macmillan Cancer Support, said that the 21% drop of urgent cancer referrals by GPs suggested “an alarming backlog of undiagnosed cancer” as well as a growing number of people yet to start treatment.

We are particularly worried by the ongoing crisis in accessing diagnostic tests with the total number of patients waiting six weeks or more from referral for one of the 15 key tests at 540,600 - 47.8% of the total number of patients waiting - which, given the target is 1%, is scandalous.

With NHS waiting lists are now the longest since records began (see 10.34am), more than half a million patients in England had been waiting more than six weeks for a key diagnostic test in June 2020, after having been referred by a GP.

The equivalent number waiting for more than six weeks in June 2019 was 40,099.

NHS England also said this was likely to be a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak, with A&E attendances at hospitals in England down 30% last month compared with a year ago.

NHS England, which published the figures, said “significantly lower” attendances compared with the previous year were “likely to be a result of the Covid-19 response” - suggesting that people are still staying away from A&E departments because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The number of people waiting longer than 18 weeks for routine hospital treatment in England was more than 1.85 million in June - the highest since records began in August 2007

New data from NHS England shows the number of people waiting more than 52 weeks to start hospital treatment in England rose to 50,536, up from 1,089 in June last year, and the highest number for any calendar month since February 2009

The number of patients admitted for routine treatment in hospitals in England was down 67% in June compared with a year ago

NHS England figures also show that a total of 153,134 urgent cancer referrals were made by GPs in England in June 2020, down from 194,047 in June 2019 - a drop of 21%

This is the number of people referred to a cancer consultant by a GP for a first appointment

More insight into the study of 100,000 people that found just 6% of people in England have probably had Covid-19

Prof Graham Cooke, the research professor of infectious diseases and research lead at Imperial College, said the data would have “important implications” as decisions are taken to ease lockdown restrictions in England

The study tracked the spread of infection across England after the pandemic’s first peak, with volunteers testing themselves at home between June 20 and July 13

Around 2.8 million people live in Greater Manchester’s 10 boroughs, but rates vary wildly

Welcoming the government’s recent decision to give power contract tracing powers to local authorities, Harrison says the national system just wasn’t good enough, with just three contacts recorded per positive case in Blackburn

The positivity rate is the percentage of all those getting tested who test positive

With only 54% of the contacts being traced – even at a rate of three per case – this suggests a large number of residents will have a higher and un-notified risk of being positive for Covid-19 in the borough

Talking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Spiegelhalter discussed how misleading Public Health England’s “daily dashboard” — which listed the number of positive cases and deaths in each area — is

Asked whether the previous figures unnecessarily scared the nation into staying at home and not wanting to go back to work, Spiegelhalter said: “I do think on the whole people are rather too cautious, rather too fearful, and the communication hasn’t helped in that.”

Around 3.4 million people in England have been infected with Covid-19, a figure far higher than previous estimates, a study suggests

For any one individual, the result isn’t 100% accurate – actually no test is – but for this one it will miss some people who have had the infection and will give false results in some people who haven’t

So in terms of individuals who have done this test we say: even if you are antibody positive you may still be at risk

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