ZOE COVID Study

Daily COVID Infections Report

01 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 30 December 2021)
Daily new cases of symptomatic COVID
We estimate there have been 202345 daily new cases of symptomatic COVID in the UK
on average over the two weeks up to 30 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 (30 December 2021) [1]

Daily new cases per 100,000 R

East Midlands 264 - 310 1.1 (1.0 - 1.3)
East of England 291 - 326 1.1 (1.0 - 1.2)
England 298 - 338 1.1 (1.0 - 1.2)
London 439 - 477 1.0 (0.9 - 1.1)
North East 222 - 291 1.2 (1.1 - 1.4)
North West 375 - 422 1.3 (1.1 - 1.5)
Northern Ireland 216 - 363 1.1 (1.0 - 1.3)
Scotland 181 - 221 1.1 (1.0 - 1.3)
South East 260 - 284 1.1 (1.0 - 1.1)
South West 193 - 222 1.1 (1.0 - 1.2)
Wales 234 - 286 1.2 (1.1 - 1.4)
West Midlands 245 - 290 1.2 (1.1 - 1.4)
Yorkshire and The Humber 274 - 321 1.2 (1.1 - 1.4)
UK 283 - 327 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 31 December 2021)
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 140138 2943 1 in 34

East of England 223261 3639 1 in 27
London 605127 6835 1 in 15
North East 63983 2428 1 in 41
North West 268677 3715 1 in 27
(*) Northern Ireland 52854 2832 1 in 35
Scotland 118447 2199 1 in 45
South East 311378 3445 1 in 29
South West 134462 2430 1 in 41
Wales 84220 2709 1 in 37
West Midlands 169350 2895 1 in 35
Yorkshire and The Humber 149275 2748 1 in 36
England 2065651 3724 1 in 27
TOTAL 2321171 3526 1 in 28
(*) 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 ) 811486 4078 1 in 25
MEDIUM (4th - 6th decile) 742746 3703 1 in 27
HIGH (7th - 10th decile) 766939 2964 1 in 34
TOTAL 2321171 3526 1 in 28
Prevalence rates by age group

Rates (cases per 100,000

Cases Rates (1 in X people)
people)
Age 0 - 9 221371 2749 1 in 36
Age 10 - 19 206319 2744 1 in 36
Age 20 - 29 636058 7297 1 in 14
Age 30 - 39 535017 6056 1 in 17
Age 40 - 49 328977 3871 1 in 26
Age 50 - 59 210393 2347 1 in 43
Age 60 - 69 104961 1486 1 in 67
Age 70 - 79 55108 1005 1 in 100
Age 80 - 89 22968 851 1 in 118
TOTAL 2321171 3526 1 in 28
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
▲ 5712 (4753 - 6851) 1891

Thurrock
▲ 7355 (5803 - 9281) 872

London Bexley
▲ 7412 (6432 - 8527) 2408

Brent
▲ 7850 (6630 - 9272) 1598

Camden
▲ 5776 (5037 - 6616) 3364

Croydon
▲ 6065 (5359 - 6857) 3911

Enfield
▲ 5648 (4822 - 6606) 2582

Greenwich
▲ 5865 (5073 - 6772) 2950

Hackney
▲ 9085 (8079 - 10201) 2821

Hammersmith and Fulham

▲ 6600 (5645 - 7702) 2247

Haringey
▲ 6497 (5783 - 7291) 4114

Harrow
▲ 6102 (5122 - 7255) 1945

Havering
▲ 6886 (5896 - 8027) 2178

Islington
▲ 6391 (5619 - 7260) 3422

Kensington and Chelsea

▲ 7127 (5932 - 8540) 1502

Lambeth
▲ 6616 (5949 - 7351) 4841

Lewisham
▲ 6754 (6034 - 7553) 4200

Newham
▲ 6448 (5035 - 8223) 920

Redbridge
▲ 7009 (5956 - 8232) 1940

Southwark
▲ 5893 (5235 - 6628) 4406
 Rates & 95% CI
Last Week # of App
(cases per 100,000
Trend Users
people)
region UTLA region
Sutton
▲ 6232 (5396 - 7187) 2807

Tower Hamlets
▲ 7463 (6418 - 8663) 2112

Waltham Forest
▲ 6498 (5608 - 7519) 2567

Wandsworth
▲ 5700 (5124 - 6336) 5629

Westminster
▲ 6064 (5087 - 7215) 1943

▲ 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 30 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 31 December 2021)
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 27661 2806 9.21 %

East of England 51459 4761 8.47 %
London 54096 5779 9.65 %
North East 12193 1259 9.36 %
North West 34849 4006 10.31 %
Northern Ireland 2567 310 10.78 %
Scotland 26488 2491 8.60 %
South East 95587 7992 7.72 %
South West 52846 4517 7.87 %
Wales 22168 2080 8.58 %
West Midlands 27681 2652 8.74 %
Yorkshire and The Humber 27920 2969 9.61 %
TOTAL 435515 41622 8.72 %
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.