Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 5

[Barracker]

Welcome to thread 5 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
Google mobility stats

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

@BigChocFrenzy The BBC would be careful writing a report like this

Oh come on. The BBC has gone into wartime propaganda mode, basically acknowledging that their current mission is to amplify government messaging. The fact that they've got you believing that we are doing better than Japan when that is directly against verifiable facts is evidence of their success with twisting the truth.

Also your statement that They should have used the time to build up hospital capacity v quickly too, as e.g. the UK did,
but if so, it was obviously not enough is laughable when you consider the factual position.

Japan has nearly quadruple the number of hospital beds per person than the UK has. And it has 3.5 times the number of ventilators despite only having a population 1.5 times the size of ours. They've got absolutely nothing to learn from the UK and our failing health system, regardless of what our state broadcaster says.

these could be led by public health staff, local environmental health officers etc, of whom there are several thousand that could be pulled in for this emergency

In my trust this is where we are starting to see re-deployment. I am in a "cold" (not London) specialty we have basically all sat twiddling our thumbs for a month, having endless crisis meetings while A&E was empty. Now they are calling for people to join the teams to get community testing off the ground. Less heroic but as important.

I’m interested to know if the amount of people testing positive over the last week or so is misleading. We weren’t testing enough people before. We still aren’t but the amount of tests per day increased a lot around a week ago - yet the figures haven’t changed that much. Does that mean that the rate of new infections is actually dropping? Because more testing is obviously going to mean more positives?

I saw a drive through testing station being set up nearby yesterday, in a post office car park.

Not sure who it's going to be for.

I imagine nhs?

I imagine nhs?

One in town near me is for all “critical” workers. In addition to NHS that includes social care workers, children’s home workers, police officers etc.

We've had a drive-through test centre set up (Milton Keynes). It opens tomorrow. At present it's NHS staff only. According to our MP it's a pilot scheme and if it's successful, they'll expand testing to carers and emergency services. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be successful unless he means only three people a week are going to be tested or something similar

@Broadwayb the rate of new infections is generally stable.
I always look at the blue column at the press briefing as that shows the tests carried out on the public needing medical help.
The increased testing of professionals will inflate the new infection rate as they are people that more than likely will have covid but wouldn't have been tested previously.
Eg, a few weeks ago a nurse starts showing symptoms, she is sent home to self isolate. She probably has covid but is only mildly ill so sent home to isolate, no test.
Fast forward to now, nurse shows symptoms, tested, positive for covid positive test gets reported.
So the number as a whole will be inflated by the new pillar of testing but looking at the tests for pillar 1 gives a more consistent figure.
But unfortunately they are not broken down in the stats, just at the daily briefing.

It's a re purposed std unit.

What bemuses me about the uk figures is that it appears that hosptial addmissions are going down ( which on the face of it is great ) but the death no.s arent coming down significantly and the downturn is not apparent really. I track france and their hospital admissions only declined yesterday or very recently and took some time after the downturn,

Not in the spirit of the thread - but anecdotally (from people that work in ITU) ITU admissions are falling- but I think it takes a while for people to recover enough for discharge. So , there will be a lag.

That's from big city centre hospitals outside London

I too would rather see hospital admissions going up, as the strict entry criteria is relaxed slightly to include people earlier, using the (currently unneeded) Nightingale hospitals for early oxygen or CPAP treatment.

Hospital admissions isn't a good indicator IMO given so few people are being accepted to hospital, and can't get through to 111, then possibly dying at home.

Pear a terrible outcome, yes better to get there early.

Agree they should change the 111 criteria- but still a drop in ITU admissions is good news

definately agree with relaxing 111 admissions - just today read another thread where basically the woman's 9 year old child was told that unless his mum had blue lips and a lolling head, nobody was coming for him

Nettle god that is awful, this is our biggest failing amongst many

The problem is that clinically evident cyanosis typically happens at an oxygen saturation of 85% or less. Whereas NICE say that when pulse oximetry is available use oxygen saturation levels below 92% on room air at rest to identify seriously ill patients- unless they have COPD in which case the figure is 88%.

There's reports that with Covid some patients feel OK with oxygen levels that would floor them with other pneumonias- the 'happy breathless'

Cathy very useful, thanks.

Yes, that coupled with the fact that when people with Covid go downhill it happens very quickly, means that people should have their oxygen saturation levels tested earlier, and be given oxygen treatment earlier.

Surely if that avoids even a few deaths, but more importantly avoids many people getting so ill they need ICU treatment, it's worth doing.

I've said this before some smart phones have an oximeter (to measure oxygen) . Really useful as clinical cyanosis (going blue) is not a great predictor of oxygen levels, is a late sign and can be misleading in both non white skin and aneamia.

Here is some data from france
Numbers in hospital - 79203 - total ( around 30,000 are still in hospital now and i think this no. Only started coming down yesterday)
No,s who died - 11825 deaths in hosptial ( many more outside)

What are the hosptial no.s in the uk? Something does not seem right to me.

It appears to me and hopefully someone can clear this up for that there was never more than 30,000 patients in hosptial with this in the uk. I used the graphs from the gov that Chaz links to quesstimate this. Maths is not my thing so feel free to tell me i am an idiot. This seems wrong when you compare to france.

I saw that but forgot hopeful - is that already on an iphone or is it via an app. Google suggests DigiDoc Pulse Oximeter. If it works I'll get my mum to get it.