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.

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

How could we have done that in late March/early April? If we’d pushed ahead headlong towards herd immunity over this period, it would have been impossible to have prevented it from reaching almost every corner of our residential/nursing homes and all those requiring home care. You can’t protect the most old and vulnerable by simply shutting them away - that’s simplistic and naive. Even with a lockdown, and the chance to get more PPE (even though there may still not be enough).

As for experts... I’m not partial, and have no problem with criticism of IC where it’s warranted. I’ve even done so myself a few posts back.

.... Even with a lockdown, and the chance to get more PPE (even though there may still not be enough) we’re struggling massively.

@Mumlove5

Sweden may ultimately have got a better balance than us. We’ll see. Sweden is socially distancing significantly - despite it not being mandatory - and it’s economy is suffering as a result. It’s not “business as usual” as some with a minimising “it’s only flu” agenda are presuming. It helped that it took measures at an earlier point in its outbreak.

This is a good thread where people post facts and figures in good faith and change their opinons based on the data, rather than cherry picking data to fit with preconceived ideas and prejudices. I thought all the 'just like flu' brigade had fucked off after their uninformed predictions have proved wildly wrong.

No point engaging with people who post in bad faith.

@Mumlove5

I don’t have time to review your reports on the flu in Italy at the moment, but suffice to say, I wonder if you’re brave enough to tell doctors and nurses in Lombardy: “why were you making all this fuss - it’s not really different to the flu you deal with every year!”

Yes, YOUNG adults in Italy do tend to live at home until they go to university or get married. That's STBO (stating the bleeding obvious) surely? And yes, Italians have a lowish birthrate cf population. Because people do tend to wait until they're financially secure before starting a family.

Doesn't change the fact that multi generational Italians are, as the last census shows, just over 1%

Again, apples and pairs. Are you wanting to give data for young Italians still at home with their 50 something parents? Or multi-generational as the term is used? (Two OR MORE generations under the same roof, including grandparents?)

Maybe I misunderstood, I thought you were using the latter to explain the high death rate in Italy in some part, because of course the former has had little or no effect on the Coronavirus spread other than what one would factor in for a student from Milan going south and taking the virus with him etc.

I wouldn't give too much credence to the Local btw. I stopped following the blog, along with many others, when they continued churning out the same, tired old stereotypes.

I can recommend IlSole24, La Repubblica, il Corriere etc for more serious content.

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

It’s easy to criticise with the line that policy wasn’t evidence-based, but actually it’s just a statement of the obvious!.... What policy could possibly and credibly claim to be fully evidence-based given this was a pandemic caused by a novel virus whose characteristics were highly uncertain.

I have looked at the ISS statistics for influenza deaths in Italy.
Between 2007 and 2017 approximately 6,000 in total. It works out at about 600 per year directly attributable to flu. 97% of deaths have an additional co-morbidity. Based on an approximation of how many people contract flu every year it's a mortality rate of 0.1%

Those are the figures for people who die, in Italy from flu.

The ISS and ISTAT also study how many deaths MAY have been caused from complications/co-morbidities CAUSED AS A RESULT of getting flu. These are estimated, for the same 10 year period, to be between 4000 and 100,000 but would never be able to be used statistically as they are not proven. (For example, if someone has flu in January and dies of a pulmonary embolism in March, it is possible that pathology came about due to post-flu morbidities but it could not directly ever be given as more than a hypothetical possibility)

The 2 bodies above track flu from October-April every year.

Full reports take two years to be published although ISS announces flu deaths weekly during the season. 2019-2020 has seen a very mild flu season with fewer than 150 deaths recorded.

The report concludes, quite serendipitously, that comparing Covid 19 with flu has no basis in scientific empiricism.

I'm not sure anyone knows what the correct approach is until we are at the end of this hideous mess.

I agree with Dr John Ioannidis and other epidemiologists who are being silenced. I’m not seeing the numbers supporting draconian lockdowns. These lockdowns are doing way more harm than good. The indirect deaths from these measures are beginning to add-up. One can go on and on and on about the grave consequences from a deep recession or depression, let alone the negative psychological effects from being locked in our homes for weeks.

Those who support draconian measures deem to be morally superior than those who do not. Also saying those who don’t support it are “right-wing”, and that we don’t read valuable sources because it doesn’t fit a certain ideology. We who don’t support it have our moral reasons as well.

www.wsj.com/articles/the-bearer-of-good-coronavirus-news-11587746176

“In a March article for Stat News, Dr. Ioannidis argued that Covid-19 is far less deadly than modelers were assuming. He considered the experience of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined Feb. 4 in Japan. Nine of 700 infected passengers and crew died. Based on the demographics of the ship’s population, Dr. Ioannidis estimated that the U.S. fatality rate could be as low as 0.025% to 0.625% and put the upper bound at 0.05% to 1%—comparable to that of seasonal flu.

“If that is the true rate,” he wrote, “locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.”

• • • DAILY UPDATE * * * Saturday APRIL 25th

Total UK cases: 148,377
New UK cases: 4,913
Total UK Deaths: 20,319
New UK Deaths: 813

Just wanted to pop my head in to say thank you for the information in this thread. I have been reading, although not commenting. I appreciate seeing the data and the discussion that’s reasonable and measured.

@Mumlove5 - why don't you start your own thread?

I don't think the epidemiologists are being silenced are they? The fact you are posting links to them mean they are able to have their say.
Maybe it is just that a greater number of epidemiologists and other scientists disagree.
I originally thought that the Swedish type approach was better but I have changed my mind as time has gone on.

Someone made an important point a while ago that one of the key reasons (possibly the most important reason) that the NHS hasn't been overwhelmed is that pretty much all routine or 'non-urgent' treatment was postponed.

This included surgery for cancer and IVF.

It's not viable or ethical to suspend these treatments and others like them for months and months, but if they hadn't been suspended, the NHS would likely have been overwhelmed.

Early intervention with oxygen therapy wasn't really being talked about in the UK in March/early April, when the emphasis was on upscaling the number of ventilators and staff who could treat patients on them.

Cancer patients are vulnerable to CV19, I would expect these decisions may have been taken on basis of vulnerability rather than capacity. Perhaps a medic can confirm or not.

It is better when these threads are fact based, rather than agenda laden, and I am grateful to the posters who keep it that way.

@Mumlove5

I’ve just reviewed your Italian flu figures and they illustrate very clearly that CV is substantially more severe.

The study states there have been 68,000 flu deaths in Italy over the four year period of the study, so 17,000 per year on average.

Lombardy, a region of 10 million, approximately 1/6th of Italy’s population has recorded c.13,000 Coronavirus deaths over the past seven weeks, which without the lockdown would almost
certainly have been even many more!

Scaled up, that’s the equivalent of 78,000 deaths over Italy... 460% more than rate for the flu! Without lockdown, it’s hard to see how the figure wouldn’t have been higher still!

The evidence that you present only weakens your case!

The volcano

As observed yesterday, there is again a significant backlog of old data now being included in today's report. 69 of the deaths reported today occurred in March. That's nearly 10% of the reported deaths today being over 4 weeks late.
I anticipate seeing a few more of these sweep-ups of old data finding their way into the figures.

If you look at April 4th, 5th 6th, you can see it is still continuing to rise a fair bit even now, when it previously looked complete. (See the recent dark blue layer of lava: this is data added in the last few days).

Today's figures are very good as usual for London, well-down for England.

There were 407 deaths from the last 3 days announced today, vs. 571 7 days earlier. This is a big improvement, clearly.

The big number of old deaths being published now doesn't seem particularly important to the context of the effectiveness of the lockdown (i.e. yes)

Thanks Barracker and Shoots for the excellent graphs and the calm analysis. It mss as he's such a difference.

This is what I mean. The spread of today's data shows a little surge of older data being swept up now.

why don't you start your own thread?
Mumlove5 has a thread here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3889609-These-are-the-doctors-that-need-to-be-heard

@Derbygerbil the point I discussed earlier in the thread is that covid-19 mortalities have a similar profile to all mortalities, whereas flu mortalities tend much older. This means that 20,000 covid-19 deaths is much worse than 20,000 flu deaths, while 20,000 breast cancer deaths are worse still (because more years of life are lost).

www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/03/urgent-next-steps-on-nhs-response-to-covid-19-letter-simon-stevens.pd

The postponement of non-urgent treatments etc was based on capacity, rather than patient vulnerability.

Although the letter from Sir Simon Stevens, NHS Chief Exec says that cancer treatment shouldn't be affected, there was an article in The Lancet that explained how patients should be prioritised in terms of expected outcomes.

www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/03/urgent-next-steps-on-nhs-response-to-covid-19-letter-simon-stevens.pd

Not offering an opinion or political take on this; but it does explain why the NHS hasn't been overwhelmed by CV19.

I’m just getting forbidden pages on those links Bflat