There’s significant mounting interest in the increase in detected cases in the UK. However, it’s worth looking at the data to try and understand what is going on.
First, it is essential to analyse cases by the date the specimen was taken, as opposed to reported. The second vital thing to do is to observe this data for emerging patterns, even before looking at the numbers.
If you do this, then the Government’s Staging Data shows an emerging pattern, whereby the number of people testing positive on the weekend is significantly lower than that observed in the week. Furthermore, if you assess the data for the last week, you see this effect is accentuated by the Bank Holiday Monday on 31 August.
This suggests people would rather not come forward for testing on the weekend or, alternatively, the system has less capacity at the weekend, meaning it is more challenging to get a test.
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