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.

Jean page hadn't refreshed before I read rest of your posts. Old people have a very different mindset. Right? Probably not. But I know by 89 by nan has had enough and was ready to go. This was after breaking her hip and losing her independence. She lived to 98.
She'd have rather lived her last few weeks and days as she chose and not in a care and then nursing home for 9 years.
I get why you're angry. And yes it's selfish to infect people. But I'm not always entirely convinced elder people understand the 21st century and the world media etc. They grew up in times where you literally only knew what was happening on your doorstep.

if it's true why is the death rate so high in other countries (and rising quickly here) if these people were going to die anyway. Basically you can't say that this many people would have died anyway.

I interpreted it as they would have died sooner rather than later over a longer, more drawn out period of time, but catching the virus dramatically accelerated that process sadly.

Which govt experts? They don't all concur. Many different studies are being produced - Imperial College seems to offer different interpretations than thw group at Oxford. Statistics are not always as clear cut as they first seem. Differences in recording and methodology have an impact, as we have discussed on this thread.

I very very much hope that the curve flattens.

"why is the death rate so high in other countries (and rising quickly here) if these people were going to die anyway."

Just on the question of why the death rate is rising quickly in the UK. I think we don't know yet whether the total number of deaths is rising quickly in the UK; or indeed whether the total number of deaths from respiratory disease is increasing in the UK. What we do know is that the number of people dying who have tested positive for cv is increasing quickly here. But might that be because it is becoming increasingly likely that any individual will test positive, as cv infection becomes more widespread? I don't know the answer.

I appreciate the position may be (is?) different in other countries although I haven't looked at their figures.

Sorry for your loss Jean

@tanqueray10 asked about the low percentage of total tests showing a positive result .My understanding is that all hospital admissions with respiratory issues are being tested ,not just those with symptoms compatible with Covid19 .

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eTKeK9vRxgw0KhvKxPCaDrfaHnxQP-n9TsLzsEymviY/htmlview#

But is that right ?

But might that be because it is becoming increasingly likely that any individual will test positive, as cv infection becomes more widespread? I don't know the answer.

I don’t think so - I don’t think the disease is that widespread yet, but that’s just my personal opinion. I think catching the virus is what killed these people. Yes many of them had underlying health conditions, but if they hadn’t had CV I’m sure the vast majority of them would still be with us now.

I think given the CSO has said if we see under 20,000 COVID-19 deaths that this would be deemed a good outcome (in terms of managing an epidemic, obviously not the deaths themselves) then surely it is quite likely we will see high daily numbers of deaths like we are seeing in Italy and Spain in a couple of weeks time. Which is horrendous, nobody wants to see it but it's probably realistic.

However I think the fear of tracking the same as Italy is more to do with how overwhelmed their healthcare system became and the horrifying cases of doctors having to choose who gets a ventilator, who doesn't get a chance to live, so some of the people who have died may have been saved if there had been enough resources. The fear is we are going to end up in that same situation but the number of deaths alone can not tell us this.

For example if two countries both record 900 deaths in a day each, it may be one country all patients were given the best of care (for example Germany have 25,000 ventilators so could be possible there) but sadly they couldn't recover from the disease despite all interventions. Whereas another country may have the same amount of deaths in a day but if 400 of them could have been saved if there had been enough resources.. then this is different situation isn't it? Because they were possibly preventable deaths? Hope this isn't too garbled and makes some sense.

So what I'm trying to say is, at the moment I don't think having similar numbers as Italy means we will end up in the same situation as Italy's healthcare system. There's too many variables even if the figures stay the same.

I know our baseline number of ventilators is smaller than Italy which is worrying but there are massive efforts going on to increase this and the huge field hospitals being built are quite incredible. I don't know how this compares to Italy but these are the kind of things that will vary country to country and I think this may be why we can't just compare two numbers being on the same trajectory to mean we are going to see the same horrifying scenes of Italy.

I understand the fear though, I am worried too. And my heart sinks every day as the number increases even though I know it's just going to get worse.

I'm losing all patience with the ploppers who drop into civil and informative threads to announce that anyone projecting numbers or analysing stats in a way they don't like or want to hear are willing the UK death rate or wishing people would die.
It's an abominable thing to suggest.
Fucking evil.

I'm going to report to @MNHQ any further posters who insinuate or outright suggest that anyone here wants more deaths.

Zero tolerance for nasty goaders from this point on.

It seems to me that we are only treating people in hospital once they are so ill that they are likely to die . I thought that the received wisdom from other countries was that early treatment can save lives, so why aren’t we doing it ?

I understand that Blossom, but as I understand it, the Italian health service is generally better/better resourced than the uk. So, if theirs is overwhelmed then similarly high death rates in a short period of time will overwhelm the NHS in the same way.

Can I encourage others to report to MNHQ any posts which might break talk guidelines by insinuating that any mumsnetter gains 'joyfulness' out of people dying, or in any way is 'willing' the deaths of others?

It's a reprehensible suggestion and noone should have to read such hatred.

Yes I've heard that about Italy too, however that was pre-epidemic and I don't know the details of what additional things Italy put in place to increase their resources, if they have done similar to what we are doing now.
I don't think it would be easy to compare, which is why I think it's not necessarily a given that even if the daily numbers are tracking the same it means we are going to be overwhelmed in the same way.

Obviously it's all horrendous but I'm really, really hoping that if the NHS Nightingales are properly resourced and managed that even if we can't avoid high numbers of deaths that we can at least avoid preventable deaths (due to lack of resources).

This thread has lost the plot. If you have to state you’re ‘intelligently discussing’ something you’ve already lost your argument. And calling for support to report people to MNHQ? LOL do your work yourself.

I will report any post that suggests others are wishing or taking joy in deaths.
I won't be the only one doing it.
Have some respect.
There's at least one poster on this thread who has lost a family member to this virus.
Think before you post.

There's no place for hatefulness here.

You’re calling people ploppers and nasty goaders and asking people to think before they post? If you want to report people just do it, you don’t need to tell anyone you’ve done it or goad (in your own words) anyone else into doing the same. One report is enough. You’ll have your whole thread taken down if too many reports occur which would be kind of counter productive.

Ive been lurking on this thread a few weeks and just wanted to say a thankyou to everyone who has been analysing the data.

I've done some data mining on the ONS website. So attached is all deaths due to respiritary disease for Weeks 9-17 (Which covers all of March and April) for the last 3 years.

As an interesting aside, ONS state the data in each week (ending on a Friday) are compiled at the end of the following week. The latest release was Tues 24th March. It contained all data for Week 13 except total number of respiritary deaths.

Given that I have never tracked this spreadsheet before, I've no idea if it is usual for specific data sets to be unavailable straight away. But seems ominous given that COVID-19 will (I think?) come under respiritary diseases.

I should add the caveat that this data is England and Wales only.

Thanks PheasantPlucker1. Hope it's helpful.

That's interesting Fate. Even if you took an average of previous years and added the additional COVID-19 deaths, you wouldn't really notice any difference yet if you were purely looking at the stats. Which sounds awful given every day we feel such despair at the increasing numbers.

However you can see in previous years at a glance, the numbers generally reducing as you go into April, assume this improves further in the summer months and might be due to winter flu related deaths easing. And we are going to see increases with COVID-19. So I think we will potentially see additional deaths quite clearly here in the weeks to come then. (If this is the category they are recorded in).

All scientific papers and evidence is peer reviewed. You cannot set up an analytical thread without accepting some form of scientific mathematical critical review. Failure to do so invalidates your whole thread.
As other poppers and spoilers have suggested reviewing the morbidity figures for covid in isolation of co-morbidities, age and multiple other factors is just not productive.
You can prove or disprove anything with statistics.
What you should be looking at is infection rate because this gives a fuller picture.
A more scientific method would be to use the death rate from a country that is doing the most testing but is using the same method of control. This would give you a better picture of infection rate which is really what is important.
The infection rate determines whether we will have enough ventilators to treat critical patients. If infection rate exponential is very steep then critical cases will outstrip ventilators leading to more deaths that are preventable.
Currently the death rate is not effected by ventilator availability.

And Jean please accept my apologies at this point. I lost my mum when she was quite young. You must be devastated by the loss and my heart goes out to you. My mum would have been 80 next year and I would have been terrified for her & my dad had they still been with us.

Thanks fate - that's very interesting. As blossom says, a pattern may emerge in future weeks (or even the one just gone, once the numbers are available).