The Office of National Statistics are now publishing statistics that look at the numbers of us UK Citizens who “have Covid-19”. That of course means different things to different folks, watch the video at the end of this blog for Chris Whitty’s explanation of what “being infected might mean to you”.

The ONS’ report focusses on infection at large (not what’s going on within hospitals and care homes where infection rates are much higher). They’re talking about “everyday” chances of getting the infection.

This thread takes you through the report in the ONS’ own tweets. I think this form of publishing is now standard and I hope that the number of blogs I’m publishing consisting of these threads is convincing sceptics of the value of twitter (used wisely)

Today, we’re publishing the first regular release of results from the pilot phase of England’s #COVID19 infection survey alongside our partners from @PHE_uk, @OfficialUoM, @UniofOxford and @wellcometrust https://t.co/rR03myFmas pic.twitter.com/mLEnDqFcGJ

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 14, 2020

We estimate that 0.27% of people not in care homes, hospitals or other institutional settings in England would test positive for COVID-19 from 27 April to 10 May 2020.

This equates to an estimated 148,000 people in England https://t.co/iggx2aIOC8 pic.twitter.com/cDRa1tZYBK

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 14, 2020

For individuals working in patient-facing healthcare or resident-facing social care roles, 1.33% tested positive for COVID-19.

Of those reporting not working in these roles, 0.22% tested positive for COVID-19 https://t.co/7FLhQpuuxj pic.twitter.com/QEcbkINU1m

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 14, 2020

There is currently no evidence that age affects the likelihood of being infected with COVID-19 https://t.co/IeLllf7vGc pic.twitter.com/FXl747Q67X

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 14, 2020

Our analysis is based on the results of swab tests collected from 10,705 individual participants in the coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey in England over the period 27 April to 10 May 2020 https://t.co/tHFk0IUt7X

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 14, 2020

These early results are only a small part of the planned testing work. Alongside our partners we will be looking to analyse more results to get a fuller picture of the spread of COVID-19 throughout the country over the next 12 months https://t.co/52tC6AjgIc

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 14, 2020

Comment

Hi Jennifer, Blood samples are being collected as part of this study which will help us understand this. Once ONS has received sufficient data to calculate good quality estimates of antibodies in the population, we will add this into these weekly bulletins. ^Joe

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 14, 2020

Further watching

Our understanding of what happens when we get infected is clearly improving. This speech from Chris Whitty was delivered in Gresham College two weeks ago . If you feel you want to know more about the impact of infection, watch it.