Covid-19 Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread

[Barracker]

I thought some of us might find it useful to have a Mumsnet thread specifically dedicated to tracking, discussing and analysing the national and global Covid-19 data.

Direct sources of data include:
The UK govt daily update
and
worldometer global data

Today's UK figures have not yet been released. Yesterday was as follows:

UK
March 14th 2020:
Cases: 1,140
Deaths: 21

This is similar to Italy's figures on the date February 28th/29th.
Their March 1st data= cases:1577 deaths:41

I'll add today's numbers when they are released.

How is the curve flattening when basically no action has been taken? Why hasn't the curve flattened more in places like Spain and Italy where they are taking dramatic measures?

I think it just shows how little we know about this virus. It has spread like wildfire in some areas, yet hardly at all in places where you’d expect.

I think it just shows how little we know about this virus. It has spread like wildfire in some areas, yet hardly at all in places where you’d expect.

I also think it’s too early to say the curve is flattening in the UK after just four days. Yes it’s encouraging, but we need to wait another week or two to see the full picture.

Have just stumbled across this thread during the night feed. Shamelessly place marking to digest properly tomorrow when I have a little more energy.

That apparent flattening does seem encouraging. Obviously still too early to read too much into it, but let’s hope that trend continues.

Cold windy weekend = not many out and and about vs peak ski season in Italy.
Also about then people stopped shaking hands.

How is the curve flattening when basically no action has been taken?
Action has been taken though. People started washing their hands, self isolating if they had symptoms, cutting back on travelling. It doesn't have to be a full lockdown to have some effect. That's just the extreme.

utterlybutterly8

*Italy on 11th March: 827
UK on 25th March: 465

Our death rate has climbed at a demonstrably slower rate than Italy’s over the past four days, despite lots of people saying we were on a similar or worse path than Italy a week or two ago.*

this seems like excellent news to me. we are at half italy's numbers, despite everyone saying/predicting we would be the same or worse.

To those asking why Italy is taking a bigger hit than us, a big reason will be the average age. 23% of Italians are over 65 - they're the oldest nation in the world after Japan. Here's a good article on some other reasons www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/italy-coronavirus-fatality-rate-high-200323114405536.html

What about Spain? So they also have an older population?

In tbe nicest possible way, the Spainish health care system is pants and an awful lot of Spainards smoke.

You can only compare the two countries if the testing criteria is the same. UK are only currently testing patients in ICU. The medical staff coming in contact and treating these patients are not being tested. Several doctors I know who think they may be infected are not being tested. The cases will be many more than the UK are stating. Cases are also taking several days to be added to the system. I can see absolutely no reason why the UK should buck the trend of the rest of Europe.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/uk-woman-21-with-no-health-issues-dies-from-covid-19-family-say

So it is not true that everyone who dies in the UK and has corona is being recorded as a corona death. 18-year old tested positive but recorded as died from other cause.

Spain's healthcare system is rated as slightly better than ours.

www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/244836/Health-System-Performance-Comparison.pdf

There's a lot of different potential factors.
Let's be honest here, quite a lot of British people already are 'socially distant', I know I am. People in Italy, France and Spain tend to be physically closer, elderly people are more closely integrated into family life and society, all these little social and cultural factors make a difference.

I think it’s too early to judge. Incubation time is what, 2-3 weeks? So maybe these deaths are ones from cases in early March.Theres also a general time lag from when death has happened. I hope I’m wrong, but why would the govt build a makeshift hospital at EXcel for 4000 beds? If they’ve done their research and are “following the science”- I don’t get it.

I'm talking about deaths. Absolutely correct that total number infected is nonsense and can't easily be compared across countries. Number of deaths though, should be more comparable.

Depends how they are being recorded

Why would the govt build a makeshift hospital at Excel for 4000 beds?
Because they want to be able to treat patients instead of leaving them at home to die. They have done their science, they can't eradicate the virus at this stage they (we) can slow down the curve by reducing the opportunities for transmission.

despite everyone saying/predicting we would be the same or worse

But muh ‘we’re two weeks behind Italy!!!!’ that went around. I mean, maybe but not necessarily. It defies all prediction.

Italy has an older population so I would expect a higher rate of mortality. But I do wonder if the UK is recording accurately.

So someone with heart issues catches corona and is hospitalised. While on a ventilator they have a heart attack. Sounds like the UK may be recording this as death by heart attack. Although true, the person would probably have been alive if not for corona.

But the premise is simply wrong. A recession – a short-term, temporary fall in GDP – need not, and indeed normally does not, reduce life expectancy. Indeed, counterintuitively, the weight of the evidence is that recessions actually lead to people living longer. Suicides do indeed go up, but other causes of death, such as road accidents and alcohol-related disease, fall.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/there-is-no-trade-off-between-the-economy-and-health

But muh ‘we’re two weeks behind Italy!!!!’ that went around. I mean, maybe but not necessarily. It defies all prediction.

Well we were exactly two weeks behind Italy in terms of numbers of deaths for quite a while. But over the last four days of comparison, their number of deaths accelerated at a quicker speed than ours.

I take the point that different countries record deaths in different ways, but at the moment the death toll figure is the best we have to go on.

So someone with heart issues catches corona and is hospitalised. While on a ventilator they have a heart attack. Sounds like the UK may be recording this as death by heart attack.

But a lot of people reported to have died of CV have also been said to have “underlying health issues”. To me that suggests we are including those deaths in the CV figure, but I may be wrong.

An 18 year old was recorded as dying of other causes and had corona.

The Spanish health care system has an excellent primary care system and more hospital beds in relative terms than the uk. Also the rate of elderly in the population is only 1% higher than the uk. Spain is not an elderly country in the way Italy is.

It's not that simple.

The Department of Health and Social Care late on Wednesday evening confirmed a total of 97,019 people have been tested with found 87,490 negative.

I thought these figures were interesting (source: Daily Mail). Does this mean a lot of people display the symptoms of CV, think they have it but actually don’t? Or are they just testing lots of people in hospital with no symptoms as some sort of precautionary measure?