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.

"I don’t understand why it isn’t coming down?!"

It is coming down if you look at the overall deaths data.The graph is at a peak on 8th April and has been coming down since then.

Just over 1% of Italians live in multi generational households (Istat census 2016) compared to 1.3 million Brits.

Or, all things being equal, factoring in population differences...virtually the same number.

(Apologies to regulars of this thread, I bet you were wondering when I'd be back with my debunking of the living-with-granny myth again)

@Mummypig2020, as an example, the number reported in England today includes 69 deaths from March (with one of the cases going back to March 11).

ShootsFruitAndLeaves maintains very clear graphs that show that (1) whole of the UK peaked on April 8 and (2) London peaked either on April 4 or April 8 (the numbers for those 2 days still keep changing by 1s and 2s).

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

Not really... It didn’t show up anything especially startling given the extent of the infections and deaths. The study estimated 2.7m NYers had been infected. Given recorded deaths are a little over 21,200, that’s a death rate of c. 0.8%.

0.8% applied to the UK is c. 520,000.... significantly higher than the IC 250,000 ‘flatten the curve’ scenario that you’re determined to decry.

You seem to be “sure testing will prove” the NY study, which is in itself an unscientific approach and would appear to belie your hidden agenda to belittle CV but, with majestic irony, if you’re proven right, you’ll have proven the very thing you’re so keen to disprove!

"the government do seem somewhat overreliant on Imperial. It would be far better to be listening to a range of advice"

Larry The government have a very wide range of advice on SAGE
Ferguson of Imperial is an important adviser, but only one of many

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-a-former-member-of-sage-explains-how-the-science-advisory-group-really-works-134077

"SAGE pulls in expertise from around the country
including, in the case of something like COVID-19, epidemiologists, clinicians, virologists, behavioural scientists, systems scientists and engineers"

The original herd immunity plan in fact came from Imperial and SAGE,
but Imperial were using the (massaged) Chinese figures,
so the predicted outcomes changed when they put in the Italian data

DIfferent advice

They received this detailled advice last year, signed off by the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance - but chose to ignore it

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-government-warned-pandemic-action-plan-cabinet-office-a9483291.html

The 600-page National Security Risk Assessment (NRSA) reportedly warned that a new pandemic virus could "both highly transmissible and highly virulent",
with even a mild outbreak leading to tens of thousands of deaths and costs running to more than £2 trillion.
......
cited the need for stockpiling of personal protective equipment (PPE), advanced plans for contact tracing and proposals to manage a surge in the death rate.

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

One has an innate immune response to everything foreign that enters the body - it is a non-specific immune response that involves the inflammatory process. Adaptive immunity involves the production of specific antibodies to a new pathogen.

The hospitals in the south west are empty. You can get an Xray done and results sent over in hours.

The peak around the 8th is actually getting bigger with all these older deaths being added.
The week leading up to the 8th every day in double figures today but the week after easter in single figures, something seems to have changed or administration wise they are just starting to catch up with the period that was the worst?
69 of todays report are March deaths!

@sleepwhenidie

I know this. However, during a severe flu season, it’s not unheard of. The hospitals were never breached beyond capacity. The Nightingale Hospitals only had 19 patients over Easter Break which was right after the peak. The ICU units in hospitals were not fully full.

If you read this article below, a similar situation happened in the US during their 2017-2018 flu season. No lockdowns.

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

“The 2017-2018 influenza epidemic is sending people to hospitals and urgent-care centers in every state, and medical centers are responding with extraordinary measures: asking staff to work overtime, setting up triage tents, restricting friends and family visits and canceling elective surgeries, to name a few.

“We are pretty much at capacity, and the volume is certainly different from previous flu seasons,” says Dr. Alfred Tallia, professor and chair of family medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “I’ve been in practice for 30 years, and it’s been a good 15 or 20 years since I’ve seen a flu-related illness scenario like we’ve had this year.”

Tallia says his hospital is “managing, but just barely,” at keeping up with the increased number of sick patients in the last three weeks. The hospital’s urgent-care centers have also been inundated, and its outpatient clinics have no appointments available.

MORE: Here’s Why the Flu Is Especially Bad This Year

The story is similar in Alabama, which declared a state of emergency last week in response to the flu epidemic. Dr. Bernard Camins, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says that UAB Hospital cancelled elective surgeries scheduled for Thursday and Friday of last week to make more beds available to flu patients.” ......

I'm not sure I trust anything coming out of SAGE now we know Dominic Cummings sits on it.

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

Larry This data would always lag because of the system of certifying, recording & notifying deaths which can take weeks,
whether the govt wanted to accelerate it or not

The NHS are not deliberately slowing it down somehow to help the govt

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

That makes as much sense as saying “Seatbelts clearly don’t work as people still die in car accidents!”

@Derbygerbil

I posted scientific data about previously.

@Mumlove5

Sorry, but about what!

?

@Derbygerbil

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

@Mumlove5

Hospitals ramped up their ICU provision significantly in anticipation. They reorganised their wards significantly to enable this. This was far more than they do in the flu season. The Nightingales were an extra buffer.

Assuming a R0 of 2.5 over a 5 day period, if we’d waited just 5 more days we’d likely have had 2.5 times the number of patients, and the Nightingales would absolutely have been massively needed.

You’re comparing apples and pears.

@Mumlove5 You say "The hospitals were never breached beyond capacity. The Nightingale Hospitals only had 19 patients over Easter Break which was right after the peak. The ICU units in hospitals were not fully full."

You do know, don't you, that hospitals have increased critical care capacity by repurposing other areas such as operating theatres. For instance, before the COVID outbreak, Guy's and St Thomas' Trust in London had 48 intensive care beds - by 7th April those hospitals could treat between 150 and 200 ICU patients.

Cross posted with Derbygerbil.

Why is this expert not credible?

Is it because he’s not on the Imperial College team?

unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/

UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based

The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only

This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”

The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better

The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact

The paper was very much too pessimistic
Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway

The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown

The results will eventually be similar for all countries

Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.

The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%

At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available

Italy does NOT have a high number of multi-generational families.
Do you speak Italian Mum? I can send you the census if you do?

@Derbygerbil

The hospitals did the same exact thing in the US during the 2017/2018 season!

The NY IFR cannot be used for countries with universal health care. A significant portion of 21k deaths (11k in NYC) will include disadvantaged people with no/limited access to medical treatment.

Imperial used IFR of 0.9% and there are reasonable arguments (based on European studies) that this number might have been overstated.

@TheCanterburyWhales

Italy had a struggling economy before this. Many people ages 18-35(at least) still live with their parents because of the low job rate and cost. They also have a low birth-rate because of this.

www.thelocal.it/20180627/italy-declining-birthrate-population

In Italy, 66.1 percent of young people aged 18 to 34 years lived with their parents in 2018. More specifically, 61.4 percent of them were females, whereas the share of males living with their parents was higher, reaching 70.7 percent as of 2018

www.statista.com/statistics/578476/young-adults-living-with-their-parents-italy-vs-europe/

It is still being debated!
www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/world/europe/adults-parents-home-coronavirus.html

@Mumslove5

And yet they managed without a lockdown... If New York hadn’t have acted when it did and waited, say, a week, it’s swamped hospitals would potentially have had 3-4 times the number of patients (assuming a basic R0), exceeding its capacity well beyond breaking point.

@Derbygerbil

I disagree. The NYC field hospitals were not used either.

Less restrictions would have had a similar outcome. Countries who didn’t lockdown are proving this. You can compare Norway to Sweden... not a drastic difference to warrant draconian lockdowns.