U.K. tests more than any Country in Europe

Whitewavemark2

I also believe that there are supply issues.

People in the know have been saying that for ages.

The UK ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTEch vaccine and they've been used or kept in reserve for second doses.

Only mRNA vaccines (currently Pfizer and Moderna) are recommended for younger people. There are reports that people under 18 with health issues have been having problems booking jabs.

When he was Health Secretary, Matt Hancock said the the UK had secured additional Pfizer doses "in the autumn", but refused to commit to an actual date.

Despite the PR about younger people not needing to be vaccinated, there's now thankfully been a U-turn, but it's been obvious for ages that the reason they weren't offered jabs was because of shortages, not safety concerns. Unfortunately, that's meant there's been a cover up about how serious Covid can be for younger people. It's not really surprising that they don't know who to believe.

Listened to LBC this morning. There seems to be a supply issue with the Pfizer vaccine. There were a couple of nurses saying they were having to cancel vaccinations because they had not received a supply for booked vaccinations. As the younger generations are not being given the AZ vaccine and we have a shortage of delivery drivers, this could account for some younger people not being vaccinated.

I wonder if the sort of propaganda put out by the government leading up to July 19th contributed towards the young thinking it was all over bar the shouting and therefore no urgency to get vaccinated?

I also believe that there are supply issues.

Vaccine rates have slowed down because our generation have almost all been vaccinated by now and the younger generation think that it’s an old people’s disease and are not queuing up for it.

I have noticed that too WW.

Why have our vaccine rates slowed down so much?

I don't think those differences in incidence rate could just be down to testing.
And I do wonder why we, double vaccinated and from an area with an incidence of 14 per 100,000 are not allowed into the UK to see our family without the need to quarantine. Many reports in the papers now about the double vaccinated being allowed into mainland Europe for holidays - time for a bit of reciprocity maybe?

This is interesting.

Thank you for your patience, I am trying to find a clearer picture of the graph.

I have just seen these figures on Twitter number of patients admitted to hospital yesterday 259, overall total in hospital 1795, patients on ventilators 287, it looks like that although the link between disease/hospitalisation/death hasn’t been totally broken, the vaccines have definitely reduced severity of symptoms.

GrannyGravy13

It’s the one in the OP Alegrias1 , I think my hay fever medication has rendered me incapable today.

That first graph was too small for my old eyes GG13

But I think it says Daily Covid Tests? So we could be far ahead on numbers of tests but the ratio of tests to population could be larger in countries with smaller populations?

I think the broader picture is basically about trends, so in France as in many other European countries you can see the downward trend in case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths as the success of the vaccine programme has kicked in. This mirrors what happened in the UK a couple of months earlier.
Then Delta arrived in the UK and pushed (some) numbers back up again.
The French health minister has just said that Delta has now gone up to a third of all cases from 20% 5 days ago. Case numbers are still low at the moment.
I think we are going to see these fluctuations everywhere, but if vaccines are minimising serious illness and protecting the vulnerable then I think governments should learn to manage the testing / isolating / quarantine more effectively.
I hope so!

It’s the one in the OP Alegrias1 , I think my hay fever medication has rendered me incapable today.

Can you post the ONS chart GG13? Is the difference between absolute number of tests and tests per million?

Alegrias1

Sorry, I know I'm a pedant....

Nine places have higher rates of testing per million people than us. Including Denmark (nearly 4 times as many) and Austria (twice as many).

Sorry Alegrias1 I have obviously got my dunces hat on today, as I cannot understand how Denmark and Austria can test more but are behind us on the ONS data chart?

I am just trying to assimilate what data/figures are correct, I am not the one with the science brain in my family.

I have never seen you being dim on here Casdon so I decline to believe it now

Yes, I think what you have written is true. I wasn't commenting on incidence rate, only testing rate per million.

I’m being dim Alegrias1, if we have a lower testing rate than Austria and Denmark, but a higher incidence per hundred thousand of positive tests then that doesn’t preclude us having a higher incidence than those countries, it still suggests we have doesn’t it?

Oh, I think we still have a high rate of testing growstuff, it doesn't change what you posted.

I didn't realise that. In that case, I don't know what the issue is.

Sorry, I know I'm a pedant....

Nine places have higher rates of testing per million people than us. Including Denmark (nearly 4 times as many) and Austria (twice as many).

It has been government policy to test frequently rather than insist on harsh lockdown measures. It's the positivity rates, hospitalisations and deaths which really matter.

Have a look at the Worldometer data, we have a figure of 3,129,022 per million for tests, which is a great deal higher than any other country. We also test for variants more than most countries.

I agree with you Casdon. The UK's positivity rate is increasing, so the higher numbers aren't just because we test more.

www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea
Here’s the latest EU data, the positive Covid test rate per 100,000 is higher in some regions of the UK, so it would be fair to say that it’s not just because we are testing more than some other countries that our rate is so high. If we were testing a higher number of people every week, but the percentage positive rate was low, as it was a few weeks ago Europe would be much less worried about our citizens going there.

This is the yesterday's data.
covidtracker.fr/
You will see that Les Landes is the only département which is orange; it has the highest incidence of Delta. The hospital admissions are in the départemental data.