Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 7

[Barracker]

Welcome to thread 7 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.

There's a slight difference between 3654 and 47k

In Ireland they are reporting all deaths outside hospital that are "likely" to be related to Covid. So Covid doesn't have to be cause of death, and no positive lab test is required; if the patient is assessed to "probably" have had Covid they are included in the stats.

Sorry @Humphriescushion if that’s the case, I misunderstood. How many care home deaths will have been tested? Must be a small proportion.

The 47k includes the 26k.

As in it’s the estimated deaths to date. Sorry I thought that was obvious from Chris Giles’ tweet.

It’s those that had a positive test only that are included MillicentMartha

Belgium includes any death that a doctor thinks "might" be COVID, even without a test

So difficult to compare countries properly
We can probably only look at the form of the curves, to get an idea of how deaths in the UK or another country might change, after taking similar actions to those other countries

I too am concerned about the seemingly variable guestimates of R0 in many reports from various countries. I accept a lot of what I'm reading is small studies or (worse) google translated media, but R0 is obviously so dependent on so many variables that it becomes meaningless.

One reply on the ChrisGiles twitter thread is pointing out that the government has chosen "positive test" whereas they could have chosen "Where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate”.

In a country where testing is minimal the former is going to produce much lower figures.

And R0 must be affected by population density, number of people coming into contact and numbers of infected people in an area.

For example. If 1 person was infected in say London, that person travelled daily by tube and worked in a supermarket surely they will infect a greater number than say a person rurally who travelled by car to a small local store. (I'm talking people who aren't symptomatic obviously or they shouldn't be out!)

Sorry Martha,of course. Still a difference between 3654 and 21,000 approx.

OND figures include where covid is mentioned as covid deaths doesn't it?

the government has chosen "positive test"

Yes, a significant choice, NewAccount
If the UK had an adequate testing process, that would merely be removing false positives
As it is ....

Thank you to all who replied earlier!

I really do think the KEY PHRASE was TESTED care home deaths. Pretty easy to have kept that lie wasn't it. Tell them they don't need to test 🙄😫

It's feeling very much like all of the figures are just lies.

Might swim to NZ.

I think they do, itsgettingweird.

It still seems to me (looking from the outside) that the British Government is trying as hard as it can to minimise the numbers. They have actively avoided testing people, actively avoided hospitalising people, actively avoided having Covid on death certificates and actively avoided giving the complete picture to the general populace.

My apologies, this is a FACT thread, I will keep my fury for elsewhere [sigh]

In my school on rota currently we use 3 classrooms with about 12 students in each plus 2 staff. We are not spaced all at 2m at all times - to go to the loo you have to pass someone, the kids forget and cluster through doors and at the printer etc.
This almost 2m spacing is achieved by being in the newest block with the biggest classrooms.
My normal classroom is tiny - I squeeze in 4 rows of tables to seat 32 and you have to turn sideways down the middle aisle and cannot pass behind students going along a row. I have one class of 34 and so also have 2 pop up exam desks that get squeezed in.

If we all had to be 2m apart I could possibly get 8 students in? Maybe?

I agree @newaccount, using positive tests only is surely going miss those earlier on in the very least. There has been little testing in care homes up to now. I understand maybe this thread is not about this but i wanted to check if i had heard correctly.

Sorry, posted to soon.
This cramped situation will be the same in many schools. Every school will have a different circumstance. One type of phased return will not work for all.

@MillicentMartha no i was not sure that was what I had heard in the update and just wanted to check. Unfortunately i appears to be the case. It must be a smaller proportion i agree. I will stop ranting about it here now but wanted to know i had not misheard.

New stat in the guardian (sorry havent had time to look up the stats at source) that 33% of those admitted to hospital die.
Anyone know what they are in other countries?

It’s a bit shite if it’s only those positively tested. They’d better make good on their promise to test everyone in care homes. The excess deaths seems the best guide but it’s got the biggest lag.

If the UK numbers are much worse than other countries, are we getting any inkling of why from the data

I imagien people will be analysng the data for years to answer that question.

But we have an unhealthy obese population, we have a health system that is excellent once you get into it but keeps you at bay for as long as possible and in this case it is too long, hence why the death rate is so high once you are hospitalised, and then you can argue over when lockdown happened, football matches, pop concerts, even weddings allowed to happen too late etc.

Agree we can learn from Eastern Europe - I think someone on here said they wheeled out their old Warsaw Pact disaster plans, is that right (not sure Croatia/Yugoslavia was a Warsaw Pact country but the same principle applies).

Hi, I just wanted to ask the knowledgable people on this thread if anyone knows why (according to worldometer) there was such a big jump in Spain’s new cases today?

@puffin

Blaming obesity is a cop out.

Puffin I posted some threads back that I had read in an article that as soon as it was realised COVID could be a danger,
the former Communist bloc countries had dusted off their Cold War biological warfare contingency plans

However, I don't have the link, so cannot now assess how reliable the report was

Most do seem to have reacted quickly, in comparison to most Western countries

However, the Russian response under Putin has looked slow and disorganised,
maybe concentrating too much on stirring up trouble abroad to look after his own country