Updated findings

1. Our current estimate of the number of infections arising each day across England is 3,200 (1,700–5,800, 95% credible interval).
2. We predict that the number of deaths each day is likely to be between 47 and 91 by the end of the third week of August.
3. We estimate it is very likely that Rt is close to 1 in most regions of England.
   1. The South West is the region in which it is most likely that Rt is above 1, with a probability of 60%, although the number of new infections is very low.
   2. The probability of Rt exceeding 1 is less than 20% for London and the South East and is less than 5% in the East of England.
4. London, followed by the North West continues to have the highest attack rate (16% and 10% respectively), the proportion of the population who have ever been infected. The South West continues to have the lowest (3%).

Interpretation

• The estimated epidemic growth rate for England of 0.0 (-0.02–0.03) indicates a plateau in the number of new infections. This is supported by the estimated level of infections remaining around 3,000 per day for the last three weeks.
• The central estimates for incidence (infection rates) in each region are less than 800 infections per day, a substantial proportion of which will be asymptomatic.
• In the regions where the central estimate for Rt is greater than or equal to 1, the estimation is uncertain and the number of daily new infections is low. These two factors combined indicate that there is no particular public health concern for any of these regions, though the situation should be monitored closely.
• Only one region, the East of England, can be said with any certainty to have a value of Rt that is below 1, indicating a continued decline in transmission.
• The deaths data used are only weakly informative on Rt over the last two weeks. Therefore, the now-cast for current incidence and the forecast of deaths are naturally quite uncertain. At present, this uncertainty is increased by the current low levels of mortality.

Model and report changes

Our real-time model has been further updated to allow for uncertainty in the sensitivity and specificity of the serological testing. The modelling focuses on regional data and we do not report an estimate of Rt for England. This is better provided through the modelling consensus statement supplied by SPI-M and SAGE.