Study showing ‘out of control’ virus rebuffed
King’s College says its app shows Covid case rise is far lower than suggested by earlier Imperial report
‘While cases are still rising across the UK, we want to reassure people that cases have not spiralled out of control, as has been recently reported from other surveys’
COVID rates are not surging, researchers at King’s College have said, after results from their symptom tracker app showed a far less deadly trajectory than an assessment by Imperial College.
Earlier in the week, Imperial released interim data from its React-1 study which showed there are now nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day in England, and that nearly a million people are currently infected.
The Imperial team said that rates were doubling every nine days, and warned that it was a critical time to lower the R number.
However, King’s College, which has been monitoring the symptoms and test results of millions of people through an app, said that it was not seeing such alarming numbers. Its app found 43,569 daily new symptomatic cases on average, and calculated that doubling was happening every 28 days.
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College, said: “While cases are still rising across the UK, we want to reassure people that cases have not spiralled out of control, as has been recently reported from other surveys. We are still seeing a steady rise nationally, doubling every four weeks, with the possible exception of Scotland which may be showing signs of a slowdown.
“With one million people reporting weekly, we have the largest national survey, and our estimates are in line with the Office for National Statistics survey. We can’t rely simply on confirmed cases or daily deaths without putting them into context. Hospital admissions are rising as expected, but deaths are still average for the season.”
New figures released by the ONS yesterday also put the number of daily infections far lower than Imperial’s figures. The ONS estimates that 568,100 bling time is still between 12 and 14 days, far less than Imperial’s rate.
Likewise, the latest data from Cambridge University’s MRC Biostatistics Unit estimate that there are 55,600 new daily infections, while Sage believes the figures are between 50,000 and 63,000.
There is also widespread disagreement on the R rate, with Imperial suggesting it is around 1.6 for England while King’s says that it is closer to 1.1.
Sage also believes the R number is between 1.1 and 1.3. The figures, produced by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, are lower than last week, reported as 1.2 and 1.4.
A source close to the government science team said that the lower rates could mean that some of the new restrictions are having an impact. However, they also said that the virus was continuing to grow at an alarming rate.
“The numbers are still headed in the wrong direction,” said a source. “It still means everything is growing. It probably implies some of the measures are having an effect, but this is far from a shrinking epidemic.” Commenting on the disparities between the groups, Prof James Naismith, of the University of Oxford, said it was difficult to determine which group’s figures were the most accurate.
“We can’t simply average or say one is right,” he said. “They are all well planned, and carried out by experts. They all measure slightly different things, and therefore have uncertainty.
“What is concerning is the numbers and trajectories reported by these three surveys, differ significantly from the average of 18,000 detected by the track and trace system.
“The data also help understand why track and tracing has not worked. Using the ONS data, we would estimate 330,000 new cases for week ending Oct 21. This means – assuming the contact numbers per person are right, which is a big assumption – one million people need to be contacted.”
On Friday positive cases rose to 24,405. However that is still half the number predicted on Sept 21 when Sir Patrick Vallance said cases could hit 50,000 by mid-october.