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.

Now we have returned to stats, could I ask again for opinions on

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
(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 ?

Thanks Bloatstoat that makes sense. Very difficult if it means people are at higher risk of more severe stroke. Hopefully recent messages will start to get through.

A few pages back someone said something about a handful of deaths coming back from early March as covid after postmortem.

@Quarantinequeen
The link is in the OP:

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/

The "total deaths" file allows to identify the peak - it provides the breakdown of total deaths announced in England by date on which they occurred.

The daily file provides the date by date breakdown of deaths announced today.

Thanks @wintertravel I completely forgot the links in the OP

I think the flu deaths do get forgotten. They can be really bad in a year when the vaccine is less effective.

A couple of years ago my mum had an operation postponed because the orthopedic ward was being used for flu patients. I had forgotten that until she reminded me the other day.

When I last looked at the ONS stats I saw that some people had the cause of death as both flu and covid - maybe they were in the community, hadn't been tested, so they didn't really know?

Cheltenham is interesting on that map.... thinking of all the controversy about the races....

The situation wrt delayed / incomplete reporting on deaths can of course be much worse in certain emerging and developing countries,
especially those led by dictators and / or populists

Any catastrophe there may take several weeks before some governments realise / admit the disaster and ask for help

e.g. In Brazil, where the far right leader Bolsonaro mocks COVID as a threat and has sacked his own health minister
There have been several reports of far higher deaths in cities like Manaus (pop 2.2 million) than the official toll, with mass graves being dug:

www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/23/842802500/living-through-a-nightmare-brazil-s-manaus-digs-a-mass-grave-as-deaths-mount

Video footage has appeared online showing the collapse of Manaus' burial services and public hospitals.
In one, corpses lie on beds in a hospital alongside live patients undergoing treatment.
Another shows a line of vans waiting to deliver bodies for burial at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/lula-bolsonaro-brazil-to-slaughterhouse-covid-19-coronavirus

oops, apologies - above post should have gone on Westministenders

The Financial Times free pages (which have proved pretty accurate compared to most media, imo, has an article about Mexico and Brazil - I'm not sure if anyone else has posted it:

www.ft.com/content/7b46b8c3-b395-45ba-af68-50280cfeed47

bigchoc
I asked a couple of hours back if the age pattern of BAME people has been taken into account; for example as the Polish population are by and large fairly recent arrivals of youngish people come to work, they wouldn't necessarily be the same age distribution as white British people; I wondered if the dual heritage population may also skew younger as in the age 70+ group there was more societal prejudice against mixed marriage than now - if so this might explain their relative underrepresentation, might it?

That is a point I had overlooked, callimanco
Being 63 and mixed race myself, I should have realised the consequences of the changed UK demographics over my lifetime - I was the first non-white ever in all my schools

Yes, we may have a lower than average mean age, compared to either white or black people

However, the BAME figure in that chart does not look high.... unless most of the missing 10% are all BAME
Incomplete data is most frustrating

From John Burn-Murdoch@jburnmurdoch (FT)

Sat 25 April update of coronavirus trajectories

Daily deaths - Uk has peaked
Cumulative deaths - UK curve still matching Italy's
Daily deaths cities & reions - London has clearly peaked

and hospitals :

UK: blue bars mean we’re now seeing fewer deaths than same day last week.
Similarly for France, Italy, Germany, Spain
but Russia may be ramping up for a surge in deaths plus possibly the USA, Brazil, Turkey too

ICU:

UK now has fewer people in intensive care beds than the same time last week

Here’s the same thing for Germany, and it’s similarly positive news:
< Germany may still include about 200 ICU patients from France, Italy, NL >

oops I posted the graph of the international cumulative deaths twice
Here are the daily deaths:

When I was in Poland a few years ago in the 3rd biggest city. I saw 2 BAME people in 3 days. One of those was an American on business. I was shocked at how different there demographic was.

Germany has smashed it. Interesting that the US is seeing a decline despite such chaotic leadership.

Going back to people fearing presenting at hospital, I think that hospitals are starting to communicate more with the public but should do this more. Southampton hospital was on local news yesterday saying they had many spare beds, that they'd prepped for the pandemic they feared but now needed to adapt to the pandemic they were facing.

I know that my local trust has allocated one hospital for covid and another as 'clean' and have diverted cancer treatment there, but I only know that because I know people working there, not because they've communicated it.

I feel there's a lot of working out what's going on, the press coverage feels largely 'on message' understandably press being very careful, but government seems super cautious about what they're releasing. But maybe that is because this is all new to everyone, unprecedented in a way we've not known before.

WHO statement:

https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/immunity-passports-in-the-context-of-covid-19

Some governments have suggested that the detection of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,
could serve as the basis for an “immunity passport” or “risk-free certificate” that would enable individuals to travel or to return to work assuming that they are protected against re-infection.

There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.

wonderstuff Seperate hospitals seems essential, to keep a functional non-COVID NHS running as well for the next couple of years

Obviously there is the problem that infection will still spread because people will be infectious for a week or more before they have symptoms

I crunched the numbers on the BAME deaths.

Firstly I couldn't find up-to-date population pyramids for BAME. The most recent is 2011. See attached chart. Essentially Irish is the oldest and has higher than average risk as a result, and non-British white..

I then divided the ethnic populations of each local authority by the total population, then multiplied by the number of deaths in that LAW and by the race/age factor above .

I then compared the % of deaths by race reported by the NHS by ethnicity with the % predicted by the data above.

Note that the NHS deaths according to ONS are only 80% (but probably less) of the total, and the care homes presumably are overwhelmingly white British. So nothing surprising there.

Most races around double expected, but Asian not in excess of predicted at all, despite supposed cultural practices, Asian doctors, blah blah blah.

sorry I should say, 'not other white'. Only Irish.

The individual US states have considerable independence to manage things like epidemics by themselves

So Trump can muck up / withhold federal PPE stores on a spiteful whim;
he can suggest ingesting bleach (!)
he can fire federal public health officer
.... but he can't interefere officially in a state e.g. can't forbid lockdown

The early US epicentres have been mostly in cities like NYC, more urban and mostly with Democratic mayors or governors in charge

and in that LA, not LAW.

I’m anticipating that longer term there will be a quick/instant test for COVID and that everyone who goes into hospital will be screened on entry and then daily during their stay.

I'm not particularly enamored by theories about vitamin D and skin etc. It seems there are about double the number of white eastern Europeans (?) dead as should be expected. Seems employment, housing etc is likely to be far more important.