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.

CDC paper:

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article

I have been following these threads for some time, having watched BBC news now, the followings figures have been given out.
I know the reported deaths are from people who have died in hospital only. My question then, is if more than 89000 have tested positive, 19000 have been admitted to hospital and over 10000 of the hospital admissions have died, then sadly the deaths from out of hospital must be extremely high.

Sorry typo, 84000 not 89000.

@ScrimpshawTheSecond That's pure dead brilliant - thanks.

It's a very sad day when we are looking at 737 and thinking "that's pretty low really" .

I remember when Italy went over 100 in a single day and being horrified. That's such a long time ago now.

@IamHyouweegobshite

Yes, startlingly high! It’s even worse when you think that of those currently in hospital, many won’t be leaving alive.

I had thought most tests were being done on people admitted to hospital? This seems to be fairly common understanding. Am I wrong in this?

And only 1/3 of those tested are +ve for CV... In the early days that wouldn’t have been surprising, but now (bearing in mind most of those tests took place after CV had really started to ramp up ?!

Something doesn’t seem right in those figures. What’s the source?

Or perhaps the hospitalisation figure is based on those who are alive, who have CV and are still in hospital.

And only 1/3 of those tested are +ve for CV... In the early days that wouldn’t have been surprising, but now (bearing in mind most of those tests took place after CV had really started to ramp up ?!

I did wonder if positive is completely reliable three weeks plus after infection. Pocketem iirc had an interesting pp on this. Some initial studies re falling positive rate.

@IamHyouweegobshite, i heard those figures and would like some clarity on that.

Anecdotally though we are seeing people in hospital test negative 2-3 times, have many covid clinical symptoms including radiology and then testing positive-there is still a massive problem with testing reliability...

english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/04/e1808239cc8d-111-in-s-korea-test-positive-after-negative-tests.html

South Korean health authorities on Sunday revealed that among people in the country who recovered from the novel coronavirus, 111 subsequently tested positive again.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said an investigation is underway to determine whether the virus had been "reactivated" in such people, or if they had been reinfected by other people.

Very worrying news from SKorea:

That's not merely people testing negative then positive

That's 111 people who definitely had CV and recovered

... then either caught it again because they had no immunity
... or their CV just went dormant for a while, then flared up again

No chance that it's a failure with the test ?

Can I just raise a teeny thing that I don't understand ?

When numbers are discussed why aren't they quoted as a percentage or as a "per million " of a countries population ?

England's pop.isn't the same as Germany/France/spain/Italy so it why compare our total with their's ?

What have I missed ?

Bigchoc,

Re South Korea:

This is out of 10,000 positive tests, so 1%.

There are more questions than answers there, though. As in, do weak infections guarantee immunity? Were the second positive test symptomatic or merely weak positives? And, of course, how reliable the tests are.

@peridito the population sizes are quite similar

@peridito

Worldometers site shows numbers per million alongside absolute figures.

There is a lot of anecdotal information about multiple negative tests. What exactly does the test look for? Is it detecting the virus, or antibodies to the virus? And if it's antibodies maybe the sickest people will be the ones who test negative as they aren't producing antibodies.

Just searched on my iPhone, there's an oximeter app in the App Store for £4.99, it uses the flash somehow. Obviously I don't know how reliable it is but thought it might be useful.

Re: early intervention being more successful bit journalists just focusing on ventilators, are there journalists we can email/tweet asking them to investigate?! Not sure how many people read this thread but there are quite a few regular posters, if we mobilised could we get someone's attention? I could be really naive though thinking journalists are allowed to ask what they actually want though!

There was a 'day in the life' of a NY paramedic in the guardian a couple of days ago. 10 calls, attended 10 patients with Covid symptoms. All died at home. None were tested, none will be included in the covid figures. Tragic, and also I find worrying. How inaccurate are our figures?

Barely anybody is being tested. The tests are unreliable. I don't want to sound alarmist, but I'm finding it hard to know how close any of the figures are to the real picture.

I'd be very very happy to be reassured that our stats are roughly correct.

The Guardian has a graph at 15:21 of his live coverage today, peridito.

The UK is not in the top of the tables.

This is from the 6th February. I think China were acknowledging drawbacks in the nucleic acid test even back then:

Computed tomography (CT) imaging has also been added as an auxiliary testing method in Hubei, according to the latest diagnosis and treatment plan by the National Health Commission released Wednesday.

This suggests that the diagnosis of the novel coronavirus in the province will no longer be solely dependent on nucleic acid test results.

"The nucleic acid test result is the gold standard for the final diagnosis of novel coronavirus infections, but those who have a negative nucleic acid test result may see positive CT imaging results," said Zhang Xiaochun with the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University."

Are you talking about deaths per million ChardonnaysPetDragon? The UK is 9th. And that’s with SAN Marino, Andorra and Sint Maarten ahead of us due to their tiny populations. Realisitically, in terms of large countries, we’re 6th.

And although we’re much lower down for cases per million, there’s an even larger number of tiny countries ahead of us. We really cannot compare ourselves to them.