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.

Antibody test results (one from NY) are showing this is more widespread and less deadly. I’m sure more testing will prove this.

I’m not saying it’s the flu but it’s just above the death rate of a severe seasonal flu.

We didn’t lockdown over past influenza outbreaks. Yes we don’t have a vaccine but now many people get the flu vaccine every year? It’s not always effective either.

I’m not seeing evidence that lockdowns are working. Given the fact that a) the virus has been spreading for months b)majority have mild or asymptomatic symptoms c) the UK, Italy, Spain and US locked down too late

time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/

Italy will be unlocked almost totally by the 17/5.
Possibly because lockdown has worked.

Oh dear, a rise for deaths today. 711 in England.

Going up again!

Mumlove,

I think the questions the Spectator article you linked to regarding the Imperial model re Covid are fair. Going back to predictions he made re Swine Flu and Foot and Mouth seem to be a bit ad hominem.

In addition, he does need to warn against worst case scenarios. We cannot ‘take a punt’ on his best case scenario, as the consequences on being wrong would be disastrous.

However, this will not be like a bad flu season as no one has immunity, so based on it infecting 40 million odd people over a short time horizon, 0.5% fatality rate would give circa 200,000 deaths and many many more hospitalisations.

I suspect, were hospitals to become overwhelmed, we would be looking at far more than 0.5%.

Where I do somewhat agree with you is the government do seem somewhat overreliant on Imperial. It would be far better to be listening to a range of advice.

But those that are most vulnerable to complications from flu do get the vaccine in general so it prevents a significant number of deaths. That is just one reason why you can't compare Covid19 to flu.

I don’t understand why it isn’t coming down?! We’ve been locked down for ages 😩😔 I cant see an end.

How is the lockdown in Italy working if there are still hundreds of deaths?

People are now saying because there are many multi-generational families living together, the lockdowns brought the virus inside their homes.

Patrick Valance has said several times that he would expect the numbers of deaths to remain high for some time yet and that the deceleration of the curve is much more gradual that the acceleration. I’m not sure anything is happening that is not expected.

Have the numbers for Scotland/Wales been reported yet?

NHS England: deaths by ethnicity

"Deaths of patients who have died in hospitals in England and have tested positive for Covid-19.
All deaths are recorded against the date of death rather than the day the deaths were announced"

74% white - with 8% ethnicity not stated & 2% no match
82% white (about same % in the population) excluding the unknowns - but should we ?

< 0.5 % "mixed race" - there were 2.2% in GB in the last census
(Being of mixed race myself) I wonder if this is statistically significant when dealing with such a small %

Does this data overall indicate that the much higher BAME risk is only for NHS staff, not patients ?
OR
could the missing ethnic data account for this discrepancy ?

@larrygrylls

Thank you. Yes, understood.

Because it can take up to 21 days for incubation and another 3 weeks to die as an "extreme" figure. Italy has been in lockdown for 48 days today (nationally) but (obviously) no lockdown is total, people go to supermarkets, pharmacies.

The people saying it's multi generational living are wrong.

Mummypig, look at the weekly pattern of rises and falls. It is always highest on Friday and Saturday. Last weekend's highest was 888. A high number today is consistent with a slow fall, which is what we are expecting.

Is it possible that the mixed race population skews younger, Big Choc?, given attitudes towards race 70+ years ago when our highest risk population was born?

I think stats would be more useful if they were by age and ethnicity rather than just population of a particular group as a national percentage.

Looking at today yesterday and Tuesdays days of report compared to every other day and a considerable number of deaths are from pre April the 9th ( today 190) so todays figures when looking at the last 5 days looks similar/ coming down.

It would be interesting to know if the uplift in deaths appearing in the figures at the end of the week is due to anything in particular or if it’s purely behavioural. If someone dies on a Monday or a Tuesday I wonder if people feel they want to get it reported officially that week rather than have the requirement hanging over then over a weekend.

Italy doesn't have that many more multi generational households than other European countries these days. Also lockdown would not possibly have increased numbers of cases in hospitals.as normal non- lockdown living would have been sufficient to infect household members anyway.

...and the first death recorded as Covid was 10 March...

And now the latest NHS numbers (that include results of post mortems) show there were 5 COVID related hospital deaths on March 3 (3 in East England, 1 in Midlands and 1 in South East). It is highly likely we missed a number of "patients zero " across the country.

I think it has been well explained by several posters (Barracker and Big Choc spring to mind) that the deaths announced occurred days ago, in some cases weeks ago (some were from March yesterday).

The case numbers, as well, are unreliable as we are testing more and more of the less sick.

The most reliable data we seem to have are the hospital admission numbers which the FT ‘Statsgeek’ seems to publish every evening.

In these, all of the U.K. has now peaked, with London having peaked well over a week ago.

I think it suits the government to have lagging data, though, as there is less pressure to ease the lockdown.

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

The researchers in Padua took all sorts of variables including familial relationships and living conditions. You cited another piece of research from Wuhan that stated similar findings of children not becoming positive to tests. There will be many more researchers doing same sort of studies. As you know with sufficient data one can work out variables - for example the probability of a child in a household being exposed but not developing a detectable viral load or anitbodies ie having innate immunity.

Italy has a high elderly population many with co-morbidites, the highest pollution rate in Europe, and of course multi-generational families(which has not been debunked), amongst other reasons for the higher death toll.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285

In the winter seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17, an estimated average of 5,290,000 ILI cases occurred in Italy, corresponding to an incidence of 9%.

•
More than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics were estimated in the study period.

•
Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries. especially in the elderly.

@Mummypig2020 the deaths reported on the day haven't always occurred on that day.
If you use a 7 day rolling average of the figures (sorry I forget where I read to do that) it is actually coming down. But it will be a lot slower coming down than it was going up.

Re ‘innate immunity’ I thought this had been discounted by scientists because it is a completely new virus? Or is it still being debated?

mumlove re ‘the NHS’ was not breached, I would suggest you put that to the staff at Northwick Park Hospital where the situation was dire. Also central London hospitals which have essentially turned every other ward/treatment area into ICU’s and stopped almost all other procedures.

Mumlove if lockdowns are not working could you explain why the exponential rise in cases and deaths has stopped?