ZOE COVID Study

Daily COVID Infections Report

02 January 2022

Analysis by ZOE and King's College London

covid.joinzoe.com
Contents
• 1. Incidence estimates
◦ 1.1. Incidence map and headline figures
◦ 1.2. Daily new cases in the UK by vaccination status
◦ 1.3. Daily new cases in England
◦ 1.4. Daily incidence rates by nation and administrative region
◦ 1.5. Daily new cases of people living with Long Covid
• 2. Prevalence estimates
◦ 2.1. Prevalence map and headline figures
◦ 2.2. Prevalence rates by sociodemographic characteristics
◦ 2.3. Daily active cases by nation and administrative region
◦ 2.4. Daily prevalence rates by nation and administrative region
◦ 2.5. Daily prevalence rates by age group
• 4. Local authorities' watch list
• 5. Non-COVID respiratory illnesses
◦ 5.1. Cold-like illness incidence estimates
• 6. Raw figures
◦ 6.1. Number of users logging feeling well/unwell
◦ 6.2. Location of positive PCR tests results
• 7. Changelog
 Incidence estimates
(based on 2 weeks up to 31 December 2021)
Daily new cases of symptomatic COVID
We estimate there have been 205235 daily new cases of symptomatic COVID in the UK
on average over the two weeks up to 31 December 2021. This is based on the number of
newly symptomatic app users per day, and the proportion of these who give positive
swab tests.

Daily new cases of COVID per 100,000 (31 December 2021) [1]

Daily new cases per 100,000 R

East Midlands 272 - 318 1.1 (1.0 - 1.3)
East of England 292 - 326 1.1 (1.0 - 1.2)
England 302 - 341 1.1 (1.0 - 1.2)
London 417 - 454 0.9 (0.8 - 1.0)
North East 248 - 319 1.3 (1.1 - 1.5)
North West 388 - 435 1.2 (1.1 - 1.5)
Northern Ireland 241 - 391 1.2 (1.0 - 1.3)
Scotland 183 - 222 1.1 (1.0 - 1.3)
South East 255 - 279 1.0 (1.0 - 1.1)
South West 195 - 224 1.1 (1.0 - 1.2)
Wales 250 - 302 1.2 (1.1 - 1.4)
West Midlands 262 - 306 1.2 (1.1 - 1.4)
Yorkshire and The Humber 293 - 341 1.2 (1.1 - 1.4)
UK 288 - 331 1.1 (1.0 - 1.2)

[1] Please refer to the publication by Varsavsky at al. (2020) for details on how R values are calculated
Daily new cases in the UK by vaccination status

Daily new cases in England

Daily incidence rates by nation and administrative region
Daily new cases of people living with Long Covid
This subsection includes estimates on new daily cases of people living with Long Covid.
This estimate refers to the number of people in the UK who fell ill on a specific day and
are predicted to have COVID-like symptoms for more than 12 weeks [2].

[2] Please refer to the publication by Thompson at al. (2021) for details on how long covid rates in the population are modelled
Prevalence estimates
(up to 01 January 2022)
Daily active cases of symptomatic COVID
The COVID active cases (prevalence) or Symptomatic COVID estimate is based on the
most recent report for each contributor that logged during the previous 7 days.

Average estimated rate of people with Symptomatic COVID over the last week
Prevalence rates by sociodemographic characteristics
Prevalence rates by nation and administrative region

Rates (cases per 100,000

Cases Rates (1 in X people)
people)

East Midlands 146278 3072 1 in 33

East of England 229705 3744 1 in 27
London 607598 6863 1 in 15
North East 72421 2749 1 in 36
North West 285608 3950 1 in 25
(*) Northern Ireland 56160 3009 1 in 33
Scotland 122535 2275 1 in 44
South East 316987 3507 1 in 29
South West 138108 2496 1 in 40
Wales 88135 2835 1 in 35
West Midlands 177225 3030 1 in 33
Yorkshire and The Humber 154533 2845 1 in 35
England 2128463 3837 1 in 26
TOTAL 2395292 3639 1 in 27
(*) The number of respondents in Northern Ireland is low to generate a good estimate.

Prevalence rates by socioeconomic status (IMD)

Rates (cases per 100,000

Cases Rates (1 in X people)
people)
LOW (1st - 3rd decile ) 842224 4233 1 in 24
MEDIUM (4th - 6th decile) 766532 3822 1 in 26
HIGH (7th - 10th decile) 786536 3040 1 in 33
TOTAL 2395292 3639 1 in 27
Prevalence rates by age group

Rates (cases per 100,000

Cases Rates (1 in X people)
people)
Age 0 - 9 229494 2850 1 in 35
Age 10 - 19 221017 2940 1 in 34
Age 20 - 29 645532 7406 1 in 14
Age 30 - 39 540041 6113 1 in 16
Age 40 - 49 335907 3953 1 in 25
Age 50 - 59 223326 2491 1 in 40
Age 60 - 69 113526 1607 1 in 62
Age 70 - 79 60202 1098 1 in 91
Age 80 - 89 26248 972 1 in 103
TOTAL 2395292 3639 1 in 27
Daily active cases by nation and administrative region
Last 3 months

Last month
Daily prevalence rates by nation and administrative region
Last 3 months

Last month
Daily prevalence rates by age group
Last 3 months

Last month
Local Authorities’ Watch list for Active Cases of COVID-19
The following are UTLA regions with the highest estimates of prevalence rates averaged
over the past week. Note that the local authorities' watchlist is intended to be an early
indication system of areas where cases might be rising, but local authority-level
prevalence estimates might be volatile due to the limited amount of responders and
positive cases in the area.
Rates & 95% CI
Last Week # of App
(cases per 100,000
Trend Users
people)
region UTLA region
East of England Southend-on-Sea
▲ 5753 (4788 - 6897) 1882

Thurrock
▲ 7214 (5676 - 9129) 869

London Bexley
▲ 7239 (6269 - 8345) 2402

Brent
▲ 7926 (6698 - 9357) 1592

Croydon
▲ 6279 (5560 - 7084) 3902

Ealing
▲ 5657 (4938 - 6474) 3490

Enfield
▲ 6154 (5289 - 7149) 2575

Greenwich
▲ 5955 (5155 - 6871) 2931

Hackney
▲ 9361 (8335 - 10499) 2790

Hammersmith and Fulham

▲ 6714 (5746 - 7831) 2221

Haringey
▲ 6290 (5586 - 7076) 4090

Harrow
▲ 6955 (5904 - 8177) 1933

Havering
▲ 7824 (6766 - 9031) 2166

Islington
▲ 6594 (5807 - 7479) 3392

Kensington and Chelsea

▲ 7442 (6218 - 8884) 1496

Lambeth
▲ 6648 (5976 - 7388) 4790

Lewisham
▲ 6871 (6143 - 7679) 4174

Newham
▲ 7085 (5593 - 8938) 911

Redbridge
▲ 6870 (5826 - 8085) 1933

Southwark
▲ 5914 (5252 - 6653) 4360
 Rates & 95% CI
Last Week # of App
(cases per 100,000
Trend Users
people)
region UTLA region
Sutton
▲ 6353 (5507 - 7318) 2797

Tower Hamlets
▲ 7881 (6802 - 9116) 2089

Waltham Forest
▲ 6790 (5877 - 7833) 2550

Wandsworth
▲ 5768 (5186 - 6412) 5569

Westminster
▲ 6198 (5206 - 7363) 1928

▲ implies an increase in prevalence in the past week

● implies that prevalence has been fairly constant in the past week
▼ implies a decrease in prevalence in the past week
Non-COVID respiratory illnesses
(up to 31 December 2021)
Cold-like illness incidence estimates
This section provides daily tracking of cold-like illness (CLI) in the UK. To be considered
as a newly sick individual for CLI, someone must experience an onset of some of the
following symptoms: fever, persistent cough, hoarse voice, headache, sneezing, runny
nose, severe fatigue, chest pain or shortness of breath over a period of two weeks and be
COVID negative confirmed by a PCR test.

To assess the relative levels of COVID and cold-like illness in the UK, an extrapolated
COVID incidence computed from respiratory symptoms is employed to compare
equivalent estimates.
 Raw Figures
(up to 01 January 2022)
Number of users logging feeling well/unwell
This section reports raw data by day, with no temporal averaging or rebalancing/
extrapolation to the UK population.
# users who logged # users who logged % users who logged
feeling well feeling unwell feeling unwell

East Midlands 26346 2591 8.95 %

East of England 48511 4280 8.11 %
London 50315 5059 9.14 %
North East 11433 1174 9.31 %
North West 32956 3701 10.10 %
Northern Ireland 2472 283 10.27 %
Scotland 24551 2203 8.23 %
South East 89434 7138 7.39 %
South West 49747 4057 7.54 %
Wales 21317 1882 8.11 %
West Midlands 26104 2419 8.48 %
Yorkshire and The Humber 26517 2803 9.56 %
TOTAL 409703 37590 8.40 %
Location of positive PCR tests results
Changelog
• [...]
• 2021-05-12: Changed methodology to adjust for vaccination status (see blog post)
• 2021-05-26: Updated infection report format and included contents and changelog
pages
• 2021-06-08: Incidence figures are now smoothed over a 7-day rolling window
• 2021-06-09: Included UK incidence trend by vaccination status
• 2021-06-10: Fixed bug in the local authorities' watch list which prevented authorities
with rates above 1000 per 100k to be displayed.
• 2021-06-17: Changes in the local authorities' watch list: Included confidence
intervals around the prevalence estimate. Reformatted the table. Extra paragraph
explaining that the watchlist is an early indication system.
• 2021-07-16: Removed incidence graph by vaccination status from the report as
there are very few unvaccinated users in the infection survey, the Confidence
Intervals are very wide and the trend for unvaccinated people is no longer
representative.
• 2021-07-21: Released the latest version of incidence. This new estimate adjusts for
the decreasing number of unvaccinated users in our initial cohort by relaxing the
inclusion criteria of newly sick and incorporating LFTs. An age weighting was also
employed to have a reliable representation of the UK population in our estimates
over all age segments. Incidence figures broken down by vaccination status were
also rolled out. We have written a comprehensive blog on this to help explain this
change further, read more here.
• 2021-07-29: Replaced absolute incidence figures by vaccination status with
incidence rates.
• 2021-08-26: Changed the incidence by vaccination status plot to show estimates
only on the whole and the fully vaccinated populations. Added a plot depicting daily
estimates of Long Covid incidence.
• 2021-09-08: Changed the incidence plot for England to show the rate of new daily
cases rather than the absolute figure.
• 2021-09-14: Added a plot on the daily new cases in England.
• 2021-09-23: Changed the prevalence map and the hotspot table to use 14-days
smoothed prevalence estimates.
• 2021-10-07: Released the latest version of incidence which accounts for the
diminishing number of unvaccinated users across age groups. Read more here.
• 2021-10-14: Fixed a minor bug affecting population figures across vaccination
status.
• 2021-11-11: Added a new Section on non-COVID respiratory illness incidence
estimates in the ZOE COVID Study cohort.
• 2021-11-22: Extrapolated the cold-like and COVID with respiratory symptoms
incidence estimates to the UK population.