Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 May 31;15(1):4633.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47199-3.

The real-time infection hospitalisation and fatality risk across the COVID-19 pandemic in England

Thomas Ward  1 , Martyn Fyles  2 , Alex Glaser  2 , Robert S Paton  2 , William Ferguson  2 , Christopher E Overton  2   3
Affiliations

The real-time infection hospitalisation and fatality risk across the COVID-19 pandemic in England

Thomas Ward et al. Nat Commun. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to 231,841 deaths and 940,243 hospitalisations in England, by the end of March 2023. This paper calculates the real-time infection hospitalisation risk (IHR) and infection fatality risk (IFR) using the Office for National Statistics Coronavirus Infection Survey (ONS CIS) and the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission Survey between November 2020 to March 2023. The IHR and the IFR in England peaked in January 2021 at 3.39% (95% Credible Intervals (CrI): 2.79, 3.97) and 0.97% (95% CrI: 0.62, 1.36), respectively. After this time, there was a rapid decline in the severity from infection, with the lowest estimated IHR of 0.32% (95% CrI: 0.27, 0.39) in December 2022 and IFR of 0.06% (95% CrI: 0.04, 0.08) in April 2022. We found infection severity to vary more markedly between regions early in the pandemic however, the absolute heterogeneity has since reduced. The risk from infection of SARS-CoV-2 has changed substantially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic with a decline of 86.03% (80.86, 89.35) and 89.67% (80.18, 93.93) in the IHR and IFR, respectively, since early 2021. From April 2022 until March 2023, the end of the ONS CIS study, we found fluctuating patterns in the severity of infection with the resumption of more normative mixing, resurgent epidemic waves, patterns of waning immunity, and emerging variants that have shown signs of convergent evolution.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declares no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. The Infection Hospitalisation Risk for England.
A The posterior estimates of the median infection hospitalisation risk for England, based on the combined REACT and ONS sampling, with 95% credible intervals. B Posterior estimates of the median infection hospitalisation risk for England, based on REACT sampling, with 95% credible intervals. C Posterior estimates of the median infection hospitalisation risk for England, based on ONS sampling, with 95% credible intervals. Not all estimates derived from the ONS CIS study have been plotted. The data for the figure are provided as a Source Data file.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. The Infection Hospitalisation Risk by Age.
The posterior estimates of the median infection hospitalisation risk by age group, based on the combined REACT and ONS sampling, with 95% credible intervals. The data for the figure are provided as a Source Data file.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. The Infection Hospitalisation Risk for the Regions of England.
The posterior estimates of the median infection hospitalisation risk for the regions of England, based on the combined REACT and ONS sampling, with 95% credible intervals. The data for the figure are provided as a Source Data file.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. The Infection Fatality Risk for England.
A The posterior estimates of the median infection fatality risk for England, based on the combined REACT and ONS sampling, with 95% credible intervals. B Posterior estimates of the median infection fatality risk for England, based on REACT sampling, with 95% credible intervals. C Posterior estimates of the median infection fatality risk for England, based on ONS sampling, with 95% credible intervals. Not all estimates derived from the ONS CIS study have been plotted. The data for the figure are provided as a Source Data file.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5. The Infection Fatality Risk by Age.
The posterior estimates of the median infection fatality risk by age group, based on the combined REACT and ONS sampling, with 95% credible intervals. The data for the figure are provided as a Source Data file.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6. The Infection Fatality Risk for the Regions of England.
The posterior estimates of the median infection fatality risk for the regions of England, based on the combined REACT and ONS sampling, with 95% credible intervals. The data for the figure are provided as a Source Data file.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Our world in data. “Coronavirus(COVID-19) Deaths.” https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths (2022).
    1. Grint DJ, et al. Severity of severe acute respiratory system coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Alpha Variant (B.1.1.7) in England. Clin. Infect. Dis. 2022;75:e1120–e1127. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciab754. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ward T, et al. Growth, reproduction numbers and factors affecting the spread of SARS-CoV-2 novel variants of concern in the UK from October 2020 to July 2021: a modelling analysis. BMJ Open. 2021;11:e056636. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-056636. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ward T, et al. Bayesian spatial modelling of localised SARS-CoV-2 transmission through mobility networks across England. PLoS Comput. Biol. 2023;19:e1011580. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011580. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sheikh A, McMenamin J, Taylor B, Robertson C, Public Health Scotland and the EAVE II Collaborators. SARS-CoV-2 Delta VOC in Scotland: demographics, risk of hospital admission, and vaccine effectiveness. Lancet. 2021;397:2461–2462. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01358-1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed