Encouraging high infection rate

Most people in England have been naturally infected. Link to free download of my 2 textbooks

22 April 2022

27th April 2020 to 11th February 2022

70.7% in England are estimated to have had COVID-19

The estimated percentage of the community population

(those not in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings)

that had COVID-19 was:

70.7% of the population (38.5 million people) in England

56.0% of the population (1.7 million people) in Wales

72.2% of the population (1.3 million people) in Northern Ireland

51.5% of the population (2.7 million people) in Scotland

27 April 2020 to 11 February 2022 for England

30 June 2020 to 11 February 2022 for Wales

27 July 2020 to 11 February 2022 for Northern Ireland

22 September 2020 to 11 February 2022 for Scotland

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey technical article: Cumulative incidence of the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19, UK: 22 April 2022

Number of people who have had at least one episode of coronavirus

27 April 2020 until 11 February 2022

N = 535,116 people in the UK

Aged two years and over and were living in private households

Each participant was regularly tested during the duration of their time in the study.

Swabs were tested using polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

We take all positive and negative tests in the survey and apply statistical modelling techniques to estimate the number of people who have had COVID-19 in the population,

in each of the four UK nations for the duration of the survey.

Daily prevalence and incidence estimated

Incidence estimated from prevalence

We do this using both positive and negative swab results

Positivity (prevalence) from "first infection" episodes

a new positive test occurs 120 days or more after an individual's first positive test in the survey,

and their most recent prior test result was negative

or,

last positive test has been followed by four consecutive negative tests

Incidence methodology

Duration of testing positive varies from person

Incidence and duration can be used to give prevalence

Reinfections

We retest the same people, regardless of whether they have symptoms,

we can identify both infections and re-infections,

and our data includes asymptomatic cases.

Cambridge University modelling

20th February 2020 to 10th February 2022

Estimates 40.2 million people had COVID-19 in England

30% of all infections are re-infections.

The risk of re-infection was approximately 10 times higher in the period when the Omicron variants were most common, compared with when the Delta variant was most common