TAC: 98% of positive cases and 98% of contacts reached by Track Trace Protect teams

Welsh Government has published more of the scientific and technical research, and evidence they have received to form a response to the pandemic in Wales.

The latest advice document from the Technical Advisory Cell (TAC) has been published, although public on Friday the document itself is as usual several days old and is dated April 30th. The Technical Advisory Cell (TAC) is a conduit and interpretation group, interpreting UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) outputs into a Welsh context, relay relevant information and questions from Welsh Government to SAGE as well as feed the information to groups such as Local Resilience Fora.

Compared to documents just a couple of months ago it makes more positive reading, with keynotes:

• Case numbers continue to decrease at a national level with a 26.5% reduction to 10.8 cases per 100k population, bringing Wales into the lowest case threshold. There is considerable variation at a regional level, although generally at a low level of incidence.
• As reported by PHW, as at 30 April over 1.8 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccine and over 0.7 million second doses have been given in Wales. This means that around 80% of the population of Wales has now received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
• As at 30 April, Variant of Concern “VOC-20DEC-01” remains the dominant variant in Wales, with 11,604 (+186 since last report) cases detected to date (B.1.1.7, first identified in Kent).

It notes others had been detected, including variant VOC20DEC-02 (B.1.351, first identified in South Africa), variant VUI-21FEB-03 (B.1.525, first identified in Nigeria), variant VUI-21JAN-01 (P.1, first identified in Brazil via Japan) and variant VUI-21APR-01 (B.1.617, first identified in India) – but no additional cases of any of those had been detected during the 7 day period ending 30 April.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) report on both suspected and confirmed COVID-19 deaths using data available on completion of the death registration process, and the TAC reports their findings, noting a possible five week lag, “In Wales, the number of weekly registered deaths involving COVID-19 decreased by 26% from 19 to 14, accounting for 2.2% of all deaths compared to 3.3% the previous week. The total number of deaths registered in Wales decreased from 644 to 616 in the week ending 23 April. This remains below the five-year average for Wales (6.8% below the five year average).”

The TAC explains possible future risks, “The main issues that could cause a significant resurgence of COVID-19 harms are: widespread transmission of a vaccine escape and/or immune escape variant; a breakdown in social distancing behaviour; or to a lesser extent, a change in vaccine supply or significant drop in vaccine uptake. New variants also need to be monitored for differential impacts, for instance on transmissibility in children.”

The TAC has council based data, however it is now around a week or two out of date, Wrexham’s benchmark rate is currently 15.4 per 100k, with the below being the recent case / test data for the council area.

That data in context of the second wave is graphed below:

The TAC explains due to low cases, the incidence changes between weeks will be more variable, as a result of the impact of outbreak clusters against a background of low cases.

Locally we have seen an issue in Bala affecting the health of people in Wrexham.

Track Trace Protect stats are also referenced including that in the week ending 24 April of the 405 positive cases that were eligible for follow-up, 397 (98%) were reached and asked to provide details of their recent contacts. Of the 1,250 close contacts that were eligible for follow-up, 1,222 (98%) were successfully contacted and advised accordingly, or had their case otherwise resolved.

The total contacts through the pandemic so far note of the 175,116 positive cases that were eligible for follow-up, 174,583 (99.7%) were reached and asked to provide details of their recent contacts and of the 402,209 close contacts that were eligible for follow-up, 382,142 (95%) were successfully contacted and advised accordingly, or had their case otherwise resolved.