Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 6

[Barracker]

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.

What do you wish to happen, mumlove5 ?
All countries in lockdown have a strategy of gradual relaxation - noone is locking down forever

The Uk government is unlikely to use the UK as a giant Petri dish to see what happens when most measures are taken off all at once,
however valuable scientifically it would be for those of us looking on from abroad.

MumLove the estimate was revised with the restrictions put in place. So no you won’t see those numbers now.

^Cluster of COVID-19 in northern France: A retrospective closed cohort study

This is a COVID epicentre, with a high % of infected, 25.9%
BUT
only 17% of these had no symptoms
This is lower than some other studies, but maybe a significant % people with partial innate resistance spend several weeks in the "Pre-symptomatic" stage before having symptoms ?^

To clarify - 25.9% tested positive for antibodies - not necessarily the total who were 'infected'. Innate immune response could mean more were exposed and 'infected' but didn't go on to develop antibodies and were asymptomatic.

The problem is, how do scientists estimate the % with Innate immune response

For this to be useful to government strategy, rather than just to academics,
this estimate needs to be within say the next couple of months and backed up by evidence,
with broad agreement among epidemiologists and virologist

Scientists could test a hypothesis of what could cause this
e.g. as in HIV, a mutation of the gene encoding CCR5 - obviously won't be that, but may be something detectable
Unfortunately, the cause may not be testable and it is currently unknown

Or they could estimate retrospectively, after a year or two, after knowing how many in a population didn't test positive for antibodies or infection
as at least some of these would presumably be those with innate immunity, at least partial
However, that would be too late to be helpful in the current crisis

There is no way 250,000 thousand people would have died from this Virus with the social distancing measures that were in place before the lockdown.

That model was beyond inaccurate. Grossly overestimating the deaths, it was not peer-reviewed and was based on old calculations on influenza from 13 years ago. Neil Ferguson said the code is “all in his head” and has not released it to the public.
Plus, his past models were very wrong during BSE and H1N1.You can look those up.

What I’m saying is social distancing was enough without draconian lockdowns, due to the natural progression of virus’s. Less restrictions slowed the spread. The NHS was never breached.

Thread from someone interviewing a head of a major COVID programme in Milan:

Their data suggest that young people are the major reservoir of virus, and old folks are the major targets, as seen elsewhere.

They have been employing many therapies, including HCQ, remdesivir, as well as in some cases anti-IL-1 and steroids. Clinical observations don't suggest that any clearly beneficial, also not surprising based on lack of RCT's and much anecdotal observations.

Why so bad in Lombardia region? He is quite sure these were key factors: 1. initial infections coinciding with flu caused confusion; 2. initially no PPE employed in hosps; 3. super-spreader events from football games & partying; 4. initial nosocomial spread by health workers.

Initial spread to older health workers/MDs led to over 150 deaths.

Importantly, since end of Feb when his unit became involved with COVID units and ICUs, he says no MDs or nurses have been infected, as they employ proper PPE.

Milan currently has 63% increased total mortality vs prior years. He believes 2/3 is from COVID deaths, and 1/3 from deaths brought on by patients with other disorders, like MI's, not going to hospital.

Their ICUs exceeded capacity at key moments. They decided to intubate younger vs older patients when confronted by this horrible choice.

The following Padua study in Vo, Italy provides a 'snapshot' of infection (based on swab nasopharyngeal testing over 2 weeks). 2.6% of population had positive tests, with 43% asymptomatic and very few positives amongst children for which various reasons are suggested including innate immunity and perhaps cross immunity from other vaccinations.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157v1.full.pdf

@Mumlove5

I don’t understand the Israeli professor’s logic at all. Suppose he is correct, and that the virus does peak at 40 days whilst rapidly declining whatever measures we put in place, surely lockdown is a good thing, as it would save 100s of thousands of lives in somewhere like the UK. We just emerge in a couple of months and we’re back to normal... the virus having naturally gone through its cycle.

The other problem with the theory is that the virus has been circulating for a lot longer than 70 days in the world and shows no sign of dying out naturally.

There is no way 250,000 thousand people would have died from this Virus with the social distancing measures that were in place before the lockdown.

I don’t know how you can be so sure,
especially as the same model indicated 20k with lockdown, a figure that is clearly a
significant underestimate.

You’ll need to look at each individual country as far as the peak and dying out in 70 days. I believed he looked at data from other countries and compared the results, which led to his conclusion.

This virus isn’t deadly enough to kill hundreds of thousands. New antibody results are saying the death relate is between 0.1 - 0.5%. Around the rate of severe seasonal flu.

The flawed imperial model based on unreliable data was of course a hypothesis. This model created panic.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/neil-ferguson-scientist-convinced-boris-johnson-uk-coronavirus-lockdown-criticised/

These questions do need to be asked among others

www.spectator.co.uk/article/six-questions-that-neil-ferguson-should-be-asked

When the recommended measures are taken, of course the predicted worst cases don't happen - that is the whole point

Rather like the Y2K bug - no there wasn't a disaster .... because of all the billions and years spent working to avoid it

The spectator and the telegraph have a political angle
They are not reliable sources of scientific analysis

These are not politics threads

If you are now claiming the COVID is no worse than bad flu, I won't be engaging further

They are not reliable sources of scientific analysis

Are any newspapers? Genuine question.

Some newspapers are particularly bad at grabbing hold of bad science to support the political or business agenda of their owners
The Telegraph is an egregious example of a once great newspaper that has been ruined as a news source

In all cases however, newspapers or TV should only be pointers for us to check the original data or scientific papers quoted

I made a heat map showing relative death rates

arcg.is/1H0Sun

It's the free version so not what it could be, i.e. there's a maximum of 250 records so I chucked out Wales, London and the lowest LAs (around about 1/4 of the expected death rate).

The white areas therefore have extremely low death rates.

An interesting contour map, shoots

With the record limitation, might I suggest also, separate contour plots of
London & SE only,
then UK - or just England - without those areas
(apologies for suggesting additional work !)

@BigChocFrenzy

Where is the evidence that lockdowns are 100% working?

How many people did H1N1 kill globally in the year 2009?

If the death rate is between 0.1 - 0.5% how is this not comparable to a severe seasonal flu season?

Many epidemiologists and scientists are saying the imperial model calculations are wrong.

Please stop @ing me.
I am not engaging further with you or reading your psost

You’ll need to look at each individual country as far as the peak and dying out in 70 days. I believed he looked at data from other countries and compared the results, which led to his conclusion.

I can understand that the virus could have a c.70 day lifespan in a population that it’s allowed to rip through. That’s in line with the IC paper that you’ve been maligning. The virus runs out of its “oxygen” but at a huge cost... I can also understand that it could have a 70 day life if quashed utterly ruthlessly with draconian lockdowns or rigorous contact tracing, but given the virus has survived very well for more than 4 months, and given a virus won’t care or know what country it’s in (obviously) it makes no sense that an outbreak has a 70 day lifespan in a particular country irrespective of social distancing / lockdown arrangements.

Can’t answer the questions?

If the death rate is between 0.1 - 0.5% how is this not comparable to a severe seasonal flu season?

NY is already above 0.1% and rising, that’s with a heavy lockdown. Also, the 0.1% flu figure is based on symptomatic cases and at the high end of the spectrum (2009 Swine flu pandemic was 0.01-0.05%). Finally, the ONS “death spike” in early April is a world away from what the flu does, and that’s with a lockdown! So whereas this isn’t the bubonic plague, it’s not the flu either!

@Mumlove5 - try reading the thread. It's different from a seasonal flu season. This has already been discussed. Please read before posting.