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.

This is pretty stark.

Sweden

I've been particularly hoping their strategy works out to an "acceptable" death toll in the end,
because - even if lockdown turns out to be the only was to control cases -

all European countries may end up having to copy this by EOY to avoid utter economic catastrophe

However, even normalised wrt population, which is the most flattering comparison for Sweden, as the largest Scandi pop,
their death rate is high multiples of their neighbours who locked down and peaked long ago, with v low death levels

Now, doctors in Sweden won't put anyone over 80 on a ventilator, or anyone over 60 if they have a comorbidity

That would be acceptable if it were done on medical grounds, in the light of experience

.... but it has been decided because the health system is running out of capacity to fully treat the most serious cases in ICU and is having to prioritise patients

https://www.dn.se/sthlm/lakare-vi-tvingas-till-harda-prioriteringar/?fbclid=IwAR3YgZoFabFIYGuaYwYG89JiCWy356YVIkOV1lXgmylXpxs7QN-4VBKzhrs

Following

"the correlation between risk factors eg smoking, comorbidities and obesity and deprivation"

The nearest stats I can find are for each age, the expected years remaining in good health / poor health
(before COVID came along)

You can also input your postcode for average male / female expectations in your area:

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthinequalities/bulletins/healthstatelifeexpectanciesbyindexofmultipledeprivationimd/2016to2018#life-expectancy-and-healthy-life-expectancy-in-england-by-the-index-of-multiple-deprivation

Bcf that's more or less the graph I posted above.

Here is an interesting Irish Times article about early intervention; the new system seems to be much more like the German model, watching for "silent hypoxia".

www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/coronavirus-irish-doctors-devise-early-warning-system-1.4239065

We are back to whether the high death rates in the UK are due to number of cases (we don't know, there is little testing), or saving the NHS by not admitting people to hospital early enough.

Very interesting about the new Irish system for being alerted to silent hypoxia, though it looks as though it's specifically for use in hospitals, after patients are admitted. Which wouldn't help in terms of making sure that patients are admitted early enough.

Smoking and deprivation
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/drugusealcoholandsmoking/articles/likelihoodofsmokingfourtimeshigherinenglandsmostdeprivedareasthanleastdeprived/2018-03-14

Pressed post too soon
People living in the most deprived areas of England were more than four times more likely to smoke in 2016 than those living in the least deprived areas. - ONS

Looking again at Sweden, I posted these figures a week ago exactly.

Deaths per million population - Sweden 192, Denmark 66, Norway 35, Finland 27.

Tests per million population - Finland 13,000, Norway 27,000, Denmark 20,000, Sweden only 9,000.

An update of those figures today is even more stark (figures from Worldometer, so usual caveats apply:

Deaths per million population - Sweden 263, Denmark 79, Norway 39, Finland 39.

Tests per million population - Finland 17,600, Norway 32,000, Denmark 35,600, Sweden only 11,600.

In one week, Sweden's death rate has almost doubled, whereas testing in Sweden has hardly changed. Surely they must realise this is a dangerous route to follow.

JaneTheObscure, they are moving people to hospital much earlier - any elderly person I know with Covid has been moved to hospital, apart from those in care homes who are being medically monitored in the home.

Here are the obesity stats
“ Obesity varied by area deprivation, with those in the most deprived areas having the highest mean BMI and highest prevalence of obesity. 35% of men and 37% of women living in the most deprived areas were obese compared with 20% of men and 21% of women in the least deprived areas.
Waist circumference was also associated with area deprivation, with the highest likelihood of very high waist circumference in the most deprived areas; 38% of men and 59% of women, compared with 29% of men and 40% of women in the least deprived areas”
files.digital.nhs.uk/52/FD7E18/HSE18-Adult-Child-Obesity-rep.pdf

@ newaccount i believe the testing in France has been at a similar ( possibly even lower) than the uk. I believe the survival rate in france is much better than the uk ( around 15 percent from the figures i think). Many many more appear to have gone into hospital. The uk figures for hospital shock me. I will attach data (french sorry).

In short 15,244 died in hospital
91,6150went into hospital

www.santepubliquefrance.fr/maladies-et-traumatismes/maladies-et-infections-respiratoires/infection-a-coronavirus/articles/infection-au-nouveau-coronavirus-sars-cov-2-covid-19-france-et-monde

newaccount Sweden may have passed the peak, as since a week ago more people are now leaving hospital than entering.

They have not yet started to see reduced deaths, which their neighbours have been doing for some time now;
hence the widening gap

With lower overall admission, it is possible that their problem with ventilators is the number of earlier admissions whose condition has worsened

A country's strategy depends on the "acceptable level" of deaths for a country and how many years lost per death,
as well as the economy, the capabilities of the health system

• and the specific "vulnerability" of its population to COVID

For a Scandi country, avoiding lockdown may be a reasonable gamble / balance
since the death rates within that whole region are so much lower - with comparable measures - than in most of the rest of Europe

However, as I posted, I suspect that most countries will probably end up with similar policies to Sweden by EOY,
whether or not lockdown has worked well enough to enable this...

simply because the economies will otherwise collapse after a certain point
which would cause worse carnage and high risk of dictatorsips etc than the worst case COVID scenarios

If the average age of death were say 8 / 18 / 28 instead of 80+, then countries would make very different choices
but no reason to think that COVID would mutate in that way.

The only thing with looking at the stars and when lockdown occurred with deaths is you then exclude population numbers. Spain for example has a 20m less population than uk and Italy. So their deaths per mil were higher when they locked down if if they did it earlier in the curve iyswim?

Chas is right above. We can take a set of statistics and manipulate it to show whatever bias we sit on.

I was very sceptical of Sweden’s approach a few weeks back, but whereas their numbers are much higher per head of population than their Nordic neighbours, they remain lower than many other European countries, including the UK, who have had been under lockdown. Sweden’s approach was never going to be as good as countries like Denmark’s in terms of suppressing deaths, but numbers seem nonetheless to be on the way down, and shows that you don’t need a lockdown to keep R0 below 1 (which is the logical conclusion). Of course, Sweden is far from business as usual and it’s economy has taken a big hit, but sensible measures that stop short of the extreme seem to be able to keep a lid on Covid growth. It’s a really good news story I think and gives us hope.

@BigChocFrenzy

I think other Nordic countries have done better than others such the UK, Spain and Italy as they took action early, rather than any special about them being Nordic. With a R0 of 4 (which I believe is understood to be a current estimate before action is taken), even a delay of a few days can be devastating.

Does anyone know numbers for today?

England only = 352 hospital deaths. Still quite a few cases (25) going back to March.

Has the daily rate been released yet? I can't seem to find it anywhere online?

352? That's today's rate?

Where did you find that if you don't mind me asking? Because I failed on my daily mission.

the gaurdian has it

"NHS England has announced 352 new deaths of people who tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 20,483.

The 352 patients were aged between 30 and 103 years old, and 18 of them (aged between 43 and 98 years old) had no known underlying health condition.

Of the 352 new hospital deaths announced today by NHS England:

• 70 occurred on 30 April
• 148 occurred on 29 April
• 39 occurred on 28 April

The figures also show 70 of the new deaths took place between 1-27 April 1 while the remaining 25 deaths occurred in March, with the earliest new death taking place on 16 March."

and "Today’s figures published by NHS England show 8 April continues to have the highest number for the most hospital deaths occurring on a single day, with a current total of 863."

Thank you. I will check the guardian next time.

Where did you find that if you don't mind me asking?

I usually check directly on the NHS England website (the link is also in OP):

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