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.

Blood types are "based on the presence and absence of antibodies and inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells"

which could maybe affect the creation / effectiveness of other antibodies against some diseases ?

We all learn about ABO blood groups, (and Rh+ and -) but there are more, less common groupings which appear to be categorised in different ways. We know that blood groups are genetically determined, so presumably it's not a stretch to think that immunity or lack of it is also genetically determined.

I expect politics does play a part in not wanting to "other" different races and thus research into this might be problematic. A bit like all medical research being aimed at male as the norm, and female the afterthought, I suspect most research is aimed at white as the norm and everyone else somewhat overlooked.

There was some talk about the virus having mutated into a few slightly different strains, of which Scandinavia had a different version to the UK? Could that be a factor?

There was a website tracking the strains way back on the thread. I’ll see if I can find it.

nextstrain.org/ncov/global

This was the website. It seems Sweden has the same strain as UK, but Norway, Denmark and Iceland have a slightly different one?

Scientists working on vaccines have said that the various strains are not significantly different in their effects
and that the same vaccine would work for all

No eviidence so far from reputable sources to the contrary

American study on Blood groups and C-19

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20058073v1

"There was some talk about the virus having mutated into a few slightly different strains, of which Scandinavia had a different version to the UK? Could that be a factor? "

Research indicates two strains: The first three months of the COVID-19 epidemic: Epidemiological evidence for two separate strains of SARS-CoV-2 viruses spreading and implications for prevention strategies www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.28.20036715v5

@RedToothBrush there was a lot on that theory on the previous thread.

It looks like a healthy year of life can be valued up to £100k

qna.files.parliament.uk/qna-attachments/64754/original/PQ203081_072_073_074_079%2520-%2520Lib%2520Doc%2520-%2520Report.pdf

Less in tax payer cash, more as of GDP

It is not clear if the measures will end up saving many in nursing homes but if for example 30,000 die then they may be considered as having 1 year of life left before and that year was worth 0.5 QALY, which is 15,000 QALYs

Thus the NHS would spend no more than £300 million to save that life (e.g. in medicine), and if we went to £100k then it would be £1.5 billion

Extrapolating rather a lot (!!!), but if we consider the death risk as halving with each six years, but the QALYs as therefore 4, 11, 16, 21, 26, etc. for each group and then 15,000, 7,500, 3,750, 1875, 950, 475, we end up with something like 250,000 QALYs, which at £100k each (generously!) is only £25 billion.

Which is not that much compared to what we are spending. The problem seems to me that even if we had no lockdown, there would still be economic damage. I.e. Sweden has suffered just as much damage as everywhere else!

I'm not an economist so can't really comment on the effectiveness of what amounts to stimulus spending to keep the economy going and which is largely incidental to the fact of the lockdown....

T cells - on the last thread (or the one before) we discussed the innate response and the inflammatory issues/cytokine storm as compared to adaptive response with antibodies. T cells link the two and are involved in the inflammatory process, but they also help to 'remember' diseases with memory T cells. With HIV - this hits the T cells too, and one way of measuring HIV is to count the CD4 T cells. There is a very complex bit on T cells and C-19 here
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.28.20083089v1

Shoots I was going to post with a question about economic damage in Sweden due to what seems to be semi-lockdown in practice, but then decided maybe that would be silly (after seeing photos of apparently full restaurants!) Businesses must be suffering a lot but I guess the government isn’t throwing the same amount of financial support around though?

apple.news/A4U737hyqTdOd6g6S8eHPFA

This opens up many more questions than answers. Especially about the rate of spread and how long it's been spreading and number of population affected

fullfact.org/health/covid-deaths/

This is an interesting read for those questioning our high death rates.

To understand what’s happened here,” says Professor Heneghan, talking about the UK, “you’d have to ascertain the deaths. So you get the death certificate, but you’d also need to have the medical notes to hand, and coroners’ reports... That is actually a large job. A very big research study.” Still, he thinks it must be done

And for all countries!

"^To understand what’s happened here,” says Professor Heneghan, talking about the UK, “you’d have to ascertain the deaths. So you get the death certificate, but you’d also need to have the medical notes to hand, and coroners’ reports... That is actually a large job. A very big research study.” Still, he thinks it must be done

And for all countries!"^

And even that might not help, my mother died mid February from virus causing chest infection, not helped by antibiotics. She had been suffering from cancer, was immune compromised and had heart failure. Had DNR and wanted to die at home, which she was able to do. However death cert gave cause of death as the cancer. Could it have been Covid? we'll never know …..

Whatsnext sorry to hear about your mum.

Not sure if this has been posted www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52453782

but firstly they used the 2011 census for 2020 deaths, which is going to be bollocks for London

They claim 3.5% 'other', yet the 2016 estimate is 6.1%, and obviously 2020 will be higher still.

Also the black population has fallen.

Note that the Asian deaths are lower than the underlying population.

They don't distinguish white British from other classes of white, even though this is present in the underlying data, and it's a much larger population, and far more deaths

Then there is this from the IFS
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/british-bame-covid-19-death-rate-more-than-twice-that-of-whites
www.ifs.org.uk/inequality/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Are-some-ethnic-groups-more-vulnerable-to-COVID-19-than-others-V2-IFS-Briefing-Note.pdf

I don't agree with their numbers at all, the demographic bar seems to be far too small, at figure 5. Compare my figures here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3887149-Daily-numbers-graphs-analysis-thread-6?pg=8&messages=100#prettyPhoto[gallery95953536]/0/

At figure 6 & 7 they add in care home deaths but they are using the vastly understated covid-19 figures, not the excess, whereas hospital deaths are true in respect of covid-19.

I’m just watching the BBC now.

I thought I’d ask the knowledgable MNers on this thread - could the recent rise in reported deaths be linked to the fact it is 2-3 weeks post Easter and the lovely weather?

I know it took 2-3 weeks for lockdown to take effect, so wondered whether logic could mean that the groups of people sunbathing and visiting people in mid April have have caused this rise? If so, it’s a very good example at proving that we need to stick to advice for long enough in order for this to work.

(Please note I am not saying that all recent deaths are due to people flouting lockdown advice and mean no offence)

Has it not rised because it's Tuesday like it does every Tuesday? It's still less than last week and some other days this week

The numbers haven't really gone up have they? If you look at the rolling average, there has been a slow but sustained fall. There's always a spike on a Tuesday, because of reduced reporting at weekends. However, the numbers are lower than last Tuesday.

Has the numbers been posted for today ?

693

Hospital deaths have been going down very consistently.

The primary reason why UK wide numbers are not dropping as much is because of care homes where outbreaks, unfortunately, may be hard to contain (even in the lockdown).

FT mortality rates updated today for cities & regions:

Useful contour map of lockdown strength around the world, from Uni Oxford: