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.

@Lansinohohoh That is a good point and where the peak hits differently presumably the lockdown will continue everywhere to cover the area that hits last.

Hope your toddler is doing well today.

Yes, it’s the weekend of the sixth they are predicting

I don't know @Bluntness100 - if the Imperial expert has it right then we're looking at the weekend of 11th/12th or 18th/19th April unfortunately

Mind you, I think they are known to err on the cautious side, so I hope your prediction of next weekend is right.

At the beginning, the forecasts were millions of deaths, that was revised to if we get under 20k we are doing well. It was revised again to about 6k.

Do you have a link to these forecasts? I just need some positivity right now.

Also, does anyone know - has Italy peaked yet?? I thought they went into lockdown on 11th March, which is over 2 weeks ago!

@DuLANGDuLANGDuLANG

I was looking at the ICNARC report yesterday too.
Interesting....

70% of ICU patients male.
Few patients with underlying conditions (although the definition of underlying condition seemed quite strict)
Most patients overweight or very overweight (not clear to what extent this is representative of the population in order to see whether this is a risk factor)

Good thread.

@Lansinohohoh How did you find out your neighbour was on the phone to 3000 people I'm intrigued?!

Utterly, to be fair it’s not my predictions it’s imperials. Personally I’ve no clue, just go with what the scientists say, but I do agree I suspect it’s hard to say an exact day to peak accurately. I guess they have more info though than we do, in fact I suspect they have it all.

Italy doesn’t seem to be flatlining at all. As usual with numbers, depending on how you look at it, you can pretty much make numbers say what you want, but the number of new cases indicates to me these were post lock down, Which was three weeks ago, and the over whelming majority is the general population, Ie not health workers. It’s still an enormous spread.

The deaths not so much, as people can be on ventilators for three weeks and more, but the new cases, I think a lot of them were post lock down, which can only mean there is a lot of non compliance in Italy. If they were complying then it couldn’t spread like this.

I guess though they will simply hit a point where so many have had it, that they do have herd Immunity and the disease struggles to spread so declines naturally.

Bluntness - the 6k total deaths figure is just more wishful thinking from the UK govt 'experts'. We are on a similar trajectory to Spain and Italy which are experiencing close to 1000 deaths per day, and we went into lockdown much later so our peak will be much higher

Sorry utterly, forgot to add, I think it’s all on imperials website, they usually post their videos to the select committee and their models. Just can’t be arsed googling right now,,😳

Can anyone tell me how much significance the deaths per 1m population has (last column on the worldometer "list"). I have "friends" telling me how bad our actual death figures are compared to wherever. I don't have the tools (intelligence wise or emotionally at the moment) to discuss it with them, but I keep looking at that column and thinking it isn't so terrible. (I know that's for now). Is that not a very good statistic to check because it doesn't take account of age/health demographic or density of population (or whatever other variable)?

Our death rate will look higher as we are only testing people in hospital. So people who have cv will be much much higher, bringing the %of people dying way down.

Livin is right, the death rate looks high because it’s against those who tested positive, and the only people tested are those who are hospitalised.

The death rate is supposed to be about 1.4 percent, but there is an overlap there too, because that 1.4 takes into account people who were chronically ill and at end of life, and sadly would have died very shortly anyway, as harsh as that sounds.

The actual death rate is potentially much lower. The issue though is not the actual death rate, the issue is if people don’t get the hospital treatment they need, then the death rate could be way way higher, to keep it that low, many many people need hospitalisation. I’ve seen as high as twenty percent. No ability to hospitalise because we are over capacity and people who would not have died, will likely die.

That’s a really really critical factor. The death rate is so low because people who need treatment, oxygen, ventilators, get it. If that stops, then the death rate could soar. Hence why we are in lock down to protect the capacity of the nhs and whilst they build more capacity. They absolutely need to be able to treat the people who need it.

Is the revised imperial prediction of 20k deaths likely to be incorrect then?

Pocket, we aren’t on a similar trajectory to Italy and Spain, you can do the comparison yourself, we are on a similar trajectory to China. At this stage,

Has it not been revised again to about 6k? Or is that a different study?

Bluntness, you are simply wrong there

Interesting thread thank you , this is what I need to see. The facts set out in a way that isn't setting out to scare.

That doesn't mean it is not scary .

Article in today's Corriere stating that hospital admissions in Italy are slowing (red is new cases, blue ICU, black deaths), argues this is more accurate than case numbers.

Another article mentioned that only 3/10 non-hospitalised symptomatic cases in Italy are in quarantine alone, the other 7/10 are in their family homes.

The sooner we reach the peak the sooner this nightmare will be over. But I think it’s more likely to be Easter weekend or the weekend just after isn’t it? The expert from Imperial College said a couple of days ago that it’s two to three weeks away. I think it's going to be later than that. Also everything I've seen suggests the UK tracking Italy and Spain.

I’ve been following the imperial model quite closely. I’ve also built some (toy) models of my own for learning.

The problem with the models is their sensitivity to parameter change. Nothing fundamentally wrong with the models themselves, but some of the key parameters to plug into them are extremely difficult to estimate (particularly in the early stages).

The imperial group has given wildly varying projections on where this goes just over the last two to three weeks, because the models are just so sensitive to key parameters being updated as more info flows in.

So I wouldn’t not rely on any model for anything close to a “prediction”. These models are sophisticated guesses, with some mathematical properties that, in some eyes (eg Nassim Taleb of black swan fame), are actually worse than not having them - they are potentially misleading.

I see the use of the models but from what I read from many top level statisticians, a lot of the epidemiologists don’t understand the limitations of their own models from a mathematical point of view (ie they don’t correctly attach proper uncertainty).

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/uk-coronavirus-policy-scientific-dominic-cummings

Taleb has published papers on the mathematical limitations of this kind of modelling.

Last thing to say about the imperial model - it’s 10k lines of undocumented C code written by mostly one man (Neil Ferguson).

That’s a dangerous source of potential error just in itself.

Though I do not for a second undervalue Neil Ferguson’s expertise.

@hope40 he told him over the fence (2 m away.)

Toddler ok, thanks, still not keen to walk on it yet.

I really don't think anyone can make blanket predictions on all this; if my area is relatively low infection wise, we will potentially rumble on longer than others.

If our local peak is 6 weeks away, there's no way lockdown is going to only last 3 weeks.

I think though as much as we all recognise the limitations on modelling, and accept they are simply predictions based on how the situation is evolving through different countries, we also have to accept the even bigger limitations on our own knowledge.

Bob or Doris from down the road, doesn’t have better insight. And it’s wrong to say someone like Ferguson is doing it alone, he’s doing it with a team of scientists. Many other scientific teams are also working it. Most come to the same conclusions within a limited corridor.

For me, it’s better to take that knowledge, understand it’s limitations, but place more faith in it that some random on mumsnet giving their opinion. Based on nothing more than they saw it on Facebook or they have a gut feeling.

bluntness 100% agree with your above post.

I’m not saying prioritise some randoms opinion over the modelling. I’m simply saying recognise the limitations of the modelling.

The modelling also told us a herd immunity strategy was advisable, until it didn’t.