Changes to the COVID-19 dashboard and COVID-19 vaccination surveillance report

Covid-19 dashboard on laptop

The COVID-19 pandemic led to huge general public interest in data, with unexpected and urgent need to track the virus almost in genuine time. Even though this was a massive challenge for our statisticians, it led to genuine innovation in the way we handle and present knowledge and figures.  

UKHSA’s COVID-19 dashboard has been a huge accomplishment in presenting each day updates on the most current circumstance in relation to infections and vaccinations, and it proceeds to be a vital useful resource. 

Why do we have to have to make adjustments?

Our career as statisticians is to give the most beneficial and related information for the current circumstance. Now that we have moved to living with COVID, we need to review our reporting of COVID-19 figures to be certain that we’re hunting at the suitable metrics for our life now. This has meant generating variations to how we existing knowledge in the COVID-19 dashboard and COVID-19 surveillance statistics, and these variations are summarised below.  

Various measures of vaccine uptake 

UKHSA is now reporting two various steps of vaccine uptake. They evaluate unique matters and should not be utilized interchangeably:

Administrative uptake is an operational measure that studies the complete number of 1st, 2nd and 3rd doses delivered during the total COVID-19 vaccination programme, as a proportion of the qualified population. The ONS mid-2020 populace estimate is applied as a measure of the eligible populace.  

This metric was helpful at the start off of the mass vaccine roll-out as a way of measuring results in providing vaccines. It can also be calculated for all four nations of the United Kingdom and so allows some comparisons. On the other hand, it has come to be considerably less valuable in excess of time: it does not modify significantly 7 days-to-week and it focuses on the primary vaccine programme which is now mostly in the earlier. 

Protection is a considerably a lot more beneficial way of looking at vaccine uptake now that COVID-19 and the involved vaccine programme have grow to be embedded in our way of daily life. This metric experiences the quantity of people today who have been vaccinated as a proportion of the total latest registered populace. Crucially, for protection, the two the amount vaccinated and the size of the population suitable for vaccination occur from NIMS (National Immunisation Management Procedure), a dwell procedure that consists of every person registered with the NHS.

Coverage is the statistic we use in England for reporting on vaccine uptake across all vaccine programmes. It is not feasible to determine this evaluate across all 4 nations that make up the United Kingdom since not all nations have a dwell sign-up this kind of as NIMS. 

The WHO steerage on COVID-19 vaccination monitoring advocates utilizing equally uptake and coverage steps but acknowledges that administrative uptake results in being fewer practical about time. Switching our aim to protection permits precise monitoring in line with the WHO assistance. 

You can study more about the distinctive steps here or in the metrics portion of the COVID-19 dashboard. 

What modifications have we created?

We are making some modifications to the glimpse of the COVID-19 dashboard and the national flu and COVID-19 surveillance studies to target on the vaccine coverage actions. Supplied that immunity wanes more than time, we have also taken this possibility to aim on the autumn booster campaign, as these are most appropriate to knowing the present-day circumstance about COVID-19 vaccination. 

When you open up the COVID-19 dashboard from these days, the very first issue you will see is coverage data for the autumn booster campaign. In the same way, from Thursday 1 December the appropriate part of the weekly COVID-19 surveillance report will be centered on the autumn booster.  

These are the most relevant and handy studies as we shift from pandemic to living with COVID. As potential campaigns get place we anticipate earning comparable adjustments so that we are often reporting the most handy and appropriate stats. 

The administrative uptake data are still available by means of the dashboard API and in the tables that health supplement the COVID-19 surveillance stats.  

What upcoming? 

We are operating on further more developments to the COVID-19 dashboard and the COVID-19 surveillance studies to make certain they stay suitable, helpful and regular with finest practice. We will retain you posted as we progress. 

We welcome your feedback on these improvements, our COVID-19 statistics or our statistical products and solutions additional frequently. Be sure to get in touch at [email protected] isles or [email protected] isles 

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