UK Government Data: More Cases of COVID amongst Vaccinated in England

Nov 20, 20211 min read

The UK government releases reports regarding COVID-19 cases in England. The data is presented in tables with breakdowns into age groups and vaccination status.

Even at a glance, one can see that in recent weeks the number of cases (and rates) for fully vaccinated (>=14 days after the second dose) is greater than unvaccinated except for the age group of <18 years. Vaccinations for this age group did not start until recently. Deaths are relatively low across the board.

Table 3: COVID-19 cases by vaccination status between 2021 week 42 and week 45. (UKSHA, assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034383/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-46.pdf)

Table 6: Unadjusted rates of COVID-19 infection, hospitalisation and death in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations between between 2021 week 42 and week 45. (UKSHA, assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034383/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-46.pdf)

The Risk Ratio (RR) shown below is calculated from the data taken from the past seven reports, from week 40 to week 46 inclusively. For each report, the data covers the three previous weeks; for example, the report for week 46 is for week 42 to week 45 and I have simplistically labeled the data from the week-46 report as week “45”. As such, consider the plot as a general indicator.

According to the CDC: RR = Risk of disease in group of primary interest / Risk of disease in comparison group.

In this case: RR = Risk of COVID amongst vaccinated / Risk of COVID amongst unvaccinated.

If RR = 1.0, then the risk is equal. If RR > 1.0, then the risk is greater for the vaccinated. As one can see, only <18 and 18–29 have a RR consistently less than 1.0 although both are getting worse.