Imperial College London
Alternate

Steven Riley

Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health

Professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 2452s.riley

 
 
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Location

 

UG8Medical SchoolSt Mary's Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@unpublished{Riley:2021,
author = {Riley, S and Eales, O and Haw, D and Walters, C and Wang, H and Ainslie, K and Atchison, C and Fronterre, C and Diggle, P and Ashby, D and Donnelly, C and Cooke, G and Barclay, W and Ward, H and Darzi, A and Elliott, P},
title = {REACT-1 round 10 report: Level prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 swab-positivity in England during third national lockdown in March 2021},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/87351},
year = {2021}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - UNPB
AB  - BackgroundIn England, hospitalisations and deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 have been falling consistentlysince January 2021 during the third national lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. The firstsignificant relaxation of that lockdown occurred on 8 March when schools reopened.MethodsThe REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission-1 (REACT-1) study augmentsroutine surveillance data for England by measuring swab-positivity for SARS-CoV-2 in thecommunity. The current round, round 10, collected swabs from 11 to 30 March 2021 and iscompared here to round 9, in which swabs were collected from 4 to 23 February 2021.ResultsDuring round 10, we estimated an R number of 1.00 (95% confidence interval 0.81, 1.21).Between rounds 9 and 10 we estimated national prevalence has dropped by ~60% from0.49% (0.44%, 0.55%) in February to 0.20% (0.17%, 0.23%) in March. There weresubstantial falls in weighted regional prevalence: in South East from 0.36% (0.29%, 0.44%)in round 9 to 0.07% (0.04%, 0.12%) in round 10; London from 0.60% (0.48%, 0.76%) to0.16% (0.10%, 0.26%); East of England from 0.47% (0.36%, 0.60%) to 0.15% (0.10%,0.24%); East Midlands from 0.59% (0.45%, 0.77%) to 0.19% (0.13%, 0.28%); and NorthWest from 0.69% (0.54%, 0.88%) to 0.31% (0.21%, 0.45%). Areas of apparent higherprevalence remain in parts of the North West, and Yorkshire and The Humber. The highestprevalence in March was found among school-aged children 5 to 12 years at 0.41% (0.27%,0.62%), compared with the lowest in those aged 65 to 74 and 75 and over at 0.09% (0.05%,0.16%). The close approximation between prevalence of infections and deaths (suitablylagged) is diverging, suggesting that infections may have resulted in fewer hospitalisationsand deaths since the start of widespread vaccination.ConclusionWe report a sharp decline in prevalence of infections between February and March 2021.We did not observe an increase in the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 following the reopening ofschools in England, although the decline of p
AU  - Riley,S
AU  - Eales,O
AU  - Haw,D
AU  - Walters,C
AU  - Wang,H
AU  - Ainslie,K
AU  - Atchison,C
AU  - Fronterre,C
AU  - Diggle,P
AU  - Ashby,D
AU  - Donnelly,C
AU  - Cooke,G
AU  - Barclay,W
AU  - Ward,H
AU  - Darzi,A
AU  - Elliott,P
PY  - 2021///
TI  - REACT-1 round 10 report: Level prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 swab-positivity in England during third national lockdown in March 2021
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/87351
ER  -
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