Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 6

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Welcome to thread 6 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.

Definitely anecdotal rather than scientific evidence but I live in zone 2 and we know so many people who have had cv (or as sure as they can be), including us.

Speaking to a friend who works at a v large professional firm, she thinks maybe 1/3 senior staff have had it whereas a much lower proportion of more junior staff. To me that can’t be the actual reality, the junior staff are more populous and in closer contact surely they would also be infected but asymptomatic?

To me it feels closer to 20% infection rate in London than the 4% that has been suggested. But of course this thread is about data not feelings

sleep One reliable method of confirming more serious cases - with pneumonia - is lung X rays,
because COVID shows very distinctive "ground glass" characteristics of lung damage

I don't know whether these are done much for UK COVID patients,
but I heard German hospitals did these early on to help assess patient condition

I don't find anecdotes about friend's mothers-in-law, senior Vs junior staff etc particularly useful.

and you don't have to read them

US exceeds 50,000 official deaths

but care homes would add to this
Up to half of deaths in Europe were in care homes and the CDC said there are outbreaks in over 400 US care home

www.newsweek.com/half-all-coronavirus-deaths-some-european-countries-are-happening-care-homes-data-suggests-1497631

We normally show log graphs for exponential growth,
but it is instructive occasionally to remind ourselves of the linear curves:

The average life expectancy of a care homes resident is 1 year (residents stay an average of 2 years, so the average resident is halfway through their stay). It is sad that they are dying, though really tragic that they can’t have their family with them but the high numbers of care homes deaths, don’t give a good indicator of how dangerous the disease is for the general population.

Actual reliable true data

Thanks bigchoc, I had read that medics were preferring clinical diagnosis using lung xrays to reliance on swab test results too.

shootsfruitsandleaves that’s fine, I’m just commenting on the reliability of the data from test results. Obviously it’s the best there is to work with, I just (unhelpfully I realise) find it frustrating that there are so many question marks around the infection rate in particular.

EyeWhisker Do you have official stats for care home life expectancy ?

it depends on whether they are in a nursing home - much shorter life expectancy -
or a care home for those who need some help, or for the very elderly / dementia,
or indeed a care home for the much younger who cannot live independently

inpatients are being X-rayed and treated presumptively on X-ray findings- and sometimes on CT results which are also characteristic and pretty accurate one study

The Royal College of Radiologists recommended CT as a rapid way of testing people that need emergency abdominal surgery for CV.
www.rcr.ac.uk/college/coronavirus-covid-19-what-rcr-doing/clinical-information/rcr-position-role-ct-patients

So far we've had 17 deaths in NZ. 10 of those are all from the same care home. Which is a small scale example of how much damage this virus does in care homes, and the effects this has on the total deaths.

sleepwhenIdie

I also live in zone 2 and agree with your instinct re. infection rates. I know one person who has died and one person (a lady of 85 in a care home) who has been in intensive care with it but has remarkably recovered and is now back on a general ward and will be discharged shortly (!! hooray for some great news).

But I know of scores of people who have had all the symptoms, including two of my immediate family. The other two of us (all living in close quarters in an average London house with one bathroom) have been largely asymptomatic.

I just can't see how, when we were all travelling round on buses and the tube until 20th March, the infection rate can be any lower than 20%.

It is so important to have a proper grip on this elusive statistic.

@BigChocFrenzy This study finds that the average stay in a care home is 26 months. It really should not be controversial that the life expectancy of a care home resident is lower than that of another individual of the same age.

www.pssru.ac.uk/pub/3211.pdf

cathyandclaire do you know if those people with a clinical diagnosis (as opposed to test result) would be included in the figures that we are given for ‘tests’ and ‘positives’? And if death sadly follows, where there was a negative test but clinicians believe cv based on symptoms/xrays etc, what would be recorded?

Statistics always have to be considered in relation to the groups they apply

The government of a country looks at the entire population (particularly those who vote the most !) in balancing the risks and deciding strategy

They cannot ignore high deaths whether among elderly, vulnerable, males or BAME groups,
whereas an individual will consider primarily the risk to themselves and immediate family, vs their personal financial risks.

Rather like those of us who paid higher rate of tax for decades,
to support the 50% or so of the population who are a net financial loss to the exchequer their entire lives.
Even the most charitable of us would not do so voluntarily, but we were required to do so for the good of the country, against our own personal interests.

eyewhisker I merely wanted actual numbers, rather than questioning the premise of lower life expectancy

chicchicchic re the tube, I agree. That must be a massive concern when it comes to releasing lockdown, how to control numbers on trains, social distancing surely impossible. Travelling petri dishes

A reasonable measure for public transport is to legally mandate masks on entry, whether disposable or homemade

This looks likely to reduce the amount that people infect others

I have seen simulations of aiirflow with / without masks,
but no actual studies with figures on how much this could reduce infection spread in mass transport, shops, parks etc

==> Does anyone have studies with data ?

Sleep I understand that CV would be on the death certificate but not on the numbers of positive cases.

@Eyewhisker 🤦

If the average stay is 26 months, then life expectancy is also 26 months. You don't just divide it by 2...

We know that the flu tends to kill the very old. We also know that covid-19 is trending MUCH lower than the flu in age at death, while still being a more geriatric condition than say suicide, or road traffic accidents.

We have a study saying average lost years of life is 10 years. It is likely that this is accurate

We know from the ONS stats show that deaths are 8,000 (80%) above normal, while care home deaths only make up 2500 of that total.

So the idea of covid-19 as merely ulling those who are at death's door is very plainly wrong. Yes, like most causes of death the risk grows exponentially with age and illness, but it is taking more years of life away, per victim, than flu, and that's one of the reasons it's so much worse than seasonal flu.

I just can't see howwhen we are all travelling around on buses and tubes until the 20th of march the infection rate can be any lower than 20%
I agree with this but what does it mean to say that someone is infected?
The term asymptomatic infection has often been used, but for many people the idea of having an infection but not having symptoms seems counterintuitive, is it more helpful to talk about people who are exposed to the virus but do not go on to develop the illness?
Otherwise we were talking about people who have an illness and yet are not ill with it, perhaps it would be more helpful to think of these people as carriers who are resistant to the pathological effects of the virus?

"We also know that covid-19 is trending MUCH lower than the flu in age at death"

Good clear post, shoots

That is a key point:
we tend to use flu assumptions & references, because those are the recent (much lesser) epidemics we have experienced in the West

However, several key differences:

• age profile,

the infectious period of several days before symptoms, probably higher R0 than flu, much longer period of illness and, if hospitalised, of times in critical care longer recovery period higher chance of longterm conditions, no vaccine or effective meds so far -

mean this crisis is both far more serious and also has different characteristics

Hence the years of life / economic cost calculation is different, as the national & global strategies must be

Shoots. That would only be correct if you assessed life expectancy on the day everyone checked in. If you are looking at residents there, you would assume a normal distribution where some have just arrived and others have been there a few years. Assuming a normal distribution the average remaining life expectancy for existing residents would be 13 months.

Is covid really trending much lower then the flu for age at death? The ONS data has covid with a very similar profile to age at death from all causes - i.e. risk of dying from covid is the risk of dying within one year at any age.

I don't find anecdotes about friend's mothers-in-law, senior Vs junior staff etc particularly useful

Agreed, there's plenty of other threads for the anecdotes and people's gut feelings, let's allow this one thread to stick to the data.