Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 4

[Barracker]

Welcome to thread 4 of the daily updates.

Resource links:
Worldometer UK page
Financial Times Daily updates and graphs
HSJ Coronavirus updates
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre
NHS England stats, including breakdown by Hospital Trust
Covidly.com to filter graphs using selected data filters
ONS statistics for CV related deaths outside hospitals, released weekly each Tuesday

Thank you to all contributors for their factual, data driven, and civil discussions.

If she had a post mortem they would’ve found evidence of something underlying? Very few sudden deaths in adolescents and adults remain unexplained (5% according to this: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_arrhythmic_death_syndrome )

A coroner’s post mortem is looking for evidence to ascertain if a sudden death is natural or suspicious (a hospital requested post mortem is a bit different) so perhaps saw no reason to suspect accidental death or criminal activity, they just went with the positive test? Would be surprised if they didn’t at least look for the characteristic lung damage but it could be due to virus control efforts.

www.rcpath.org/discover-pathology/what-is-pathology/information-about-post-mortems-for-friends-and-relatives-/types-of-post-mortems-.html

The above is for ChicChicChicChiclana

Here is a link to the secondary care PPE guidance that was published last week.

General ward staff are almost certainly caring for patients who are covid 19 positive, but not identified as such. Likewise (and I know I'm being repetitive) staff working in hospices, care homes and other non hospital settings.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/879107/T11posterRecommendeddPPEforrhealthcareworkerssbysecondaryycareclinicallcontext.pdf

baaaahhhh I do find it useful to get some perspective. Thank you for those stats.

Thank you DuLANG. It's shocking because so close to home, in more senses than one.

@Al1Langdownthecleghole I saw a carer going into a house yesterday, using alcohol gel on her hand, plastic apron & that was it, not even a surgical mask. These poor people going into multiple houses a day with so little protection

Do we have any data of how a low BMI below 18.5 would affect outcomes with Covid?

Anyone know whether more localised figures are published by NHS trust or local authority? I can't find any proper breakdown anymore though it was available during the early days of the virus in the UK.

Try the HSJ who regularly publish these figures. University Hospitals Birmingham is highest number of deaths as of April 8, then a number of London trusts:

www.hsj.co.uk/news/coronavirus-deaths-mapped-the-south-west-keeps-fatalities-low/7027212.article

But obviously that might be down to better reporting by those trusts.

Any stats on UK traffic deaths for March ?
Even with only a couple of weeks, we might see the difference, judging by France

Traffic fatalities down nearly 40% in France compared to last March

Commercial vehicle fatalities about the same as 2019 though,
as # of those journeys have not changed much

www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/france-traffic-deaths-down-40-during-virus-confinement/1799344

I've tried to post a few times about PPE, but I keep losing them. The gist of it was that my understanding is that PHE's guidance is aligned with that from the WHO. So FFP3 masks are reserved for staff caring for suspected or confirmed covid-19 patients undergoing aerosol-generating procedures. It is very understandable that staff in other situations would feel safer with them rather than surgical masks, but that is outside of the guidelines and will inevitably use up stocks more quickly.

Just looking at New Jersey (USA) figures... 251 deaths out of a population of just 8.8m. That’s equivalent to 1,868 deaths in the UK - basically double our awful numbers!

That’s 251 deaths reported today.

Browsing on the HSJ site I found this interesting article about relative pressure on specific NHS trusts due to lack of critical care beds:

www.hsj.co.uk/quality-and-performance/revealed-the-hospitals-facing-most-pressure-to-meet-coronavirus-demand/7027354.article

Wow, Derbygerbil!

"It is very understandable that staff in other situations would feel safer with them rather than surgical masks"

The staff with lower protection seem to be the ones catching COVID, so no wonder they feel unsafe

Geek heaven - you might especially enjoy this, Barracker 🆒

RKI (German public health) has an excellent dashboard,
which lets the user dig down and select one of the 16 states or 401 administrative districts to get statistics, plus age and death charts

experience.arcgis.com/experience/478220a4c454480e823b17327b2bf1d4/page/page_1/

(Germany is a federal republic consisting of 16 states, each with their own Parliament and leader.
The country is also subdivided into a total of 401 administrative districts, mean population 200,000)

Here are screenshots of the whole country, then Hessen - one of the 16 states - then one of the 401 administrative districts.
With my English annotations

@BigChocFrenzy 2 porters who have died in the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, I bet they weren't given much in the way of PPE either

medium.com/@wpegden/a-call-to-honesty-in-pandemic-modeling-5c156686a64b
An interesting article regarding flattening of the curve. Perhaps our government are looking at flattening the curve slightly less than other countries whose knee jerk reaction is just postponing the inevitable.
The rapid building of Nightingale Hospitals suggests that they are hoping to keep the infection rate at a level that will avoid a massive second wave during the winter months.

Apologies - I've just discovered this thread and haven't followed all the info on it (and previous ones) yet, so forgive me if I'm repeating a theme that's already been covered.
Re: the daily UK death tolls and how they're calculated - friend is in the fire service in a N. London station. It has fallen to the fire brigade to collect bodies of people who have died at home from Corona. This one station is collecting between 6 and 8 bodies each shift, so up to 24 per day. One fire station, in one city. None of them will be included in the published statistics each day.

• • • DAILY UPDATE * * * Saturday, APRIL 11th

Total UK cases: 78,991
New UK cases: 5,234
Total UK Deaths: 9,875
New UK Deaths: 917

The PPE advice is changing all the time. A suspicious person might think the advice was, as itsgettingweird said, changing according to what was available rather than what was required.

So in dd's hospital, before the shit hit the fan, anyone positive for covid was treated as a certain level infections disease, requiring full protection (mask, sleeved robe, apron, eye and head covered etc). On Monday 16th March a new directive said that Covid had been downgraded so a different level of PPE required (surgical mask and apron only). Then it changed to mask and apron for confirmed cases only (everyone else nothing), then to mask and apron for suspected cases, now full PPE for aerosol procedures and ICU only.

Whatever they are provided with now, it certainly wasn't enough at the start.

angelina That is a shocking total for one fire station
Do they normally collect bodies from homes - if so, what is the figure vs 18-24 daily now ?

"Covid had been downgraded"

Why on earth could it be thought less dangerous than before ?
It's setting the danger level to the amount of PPE they have - which is arse backwards

oralengineer, that Medium article is interesting. It appears to say that slowing the epidemic is doing just that; slowing it, not reducing it.

It will be interesting to look back in six months' or a year's time and see whether those countries that successfully slowed things down, flattened the curve, get worse second waves than those who let it run a bit, and had more initial deaths but also more immunity in the population.

For example Ireland has flattened the curve hugely - it had to be done in order to give the health service time to build up resources. The lockdown is severe - much more so than in the UK, the daily death figures show all deaths both inside and outside of hospital. On paper it looks pretty good - but now the great fear is what to do when lockdown in over. If there is an invasion of tourists (Irish coming home or not) after May 5th there is little protection and a second wave/second lockdown is inevitable.

The UK may get it all over and done with in one (awful) go over a period of 6-8 weeks, rather than multiple waves over a year or more.