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.

Very interesting map

I was watching sky news earlier and a reporter said 10% of london have antibodies and 3/4% of rest of country. Has this actually been proven or is it speculation?

That map shows us the same ‘strength’ as Spain etc-they have been in with children unable to leave the house for weeks, haven’t they? How have they judged the strength?

Comprehensive summary of COVID studies and esimated infection rates

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-24/is-coronavirus-worse-than-the-flu-blood-studies-say-yes-by-far

..... But just as with the coronavirus,
testing has shown that many people infected with influenza viruses develop no flu symptoms.
....
University of Oxford infectious disease epidemiologist Christophe Fraser estimated that the actual infection fatality rate (... IFR) of seasonal influenza is 0.04%
....
the range of [COVID] IFRs derived from these surveys so far is 0.12% to 1.08%,

and the latter result should probably be given much more credence than the former
both because of the false-positives issue described above
and the seeming flaws in the calculations used to arrive at 0.12%.

The most exhaustive and up-to-date pre-serology-survey estimate of Covid-19’s IFR that I’m aware of, from a peer-reviewed article in Lancet Infectious Diseases by a group of researchers at Imperial College London, is 0.66%

If the IFR of the seasonal flu is 0.04%, these blood surveys show Covid-19 to be anywhere from three times deadlier to 27 times deadlier

• and given the incompleteness of current death counts, the true range seems likely to be higher than that.

With regards to N. Ireland, there are around 663 excess deaths. This works out about half the England & Wales total, per capita. Scotland has around 3100 excess deaths, to 20 April. This is 83% of the E&W total.

I have seen the EuroMomo website, but it's a bit unclear. It notes that Ireland does not have timely statistics on deaths.

Does anyone have raw death numbers for Belgium?

Sweden's death stats are quite nicely done

www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-composition/population-statistics/pong/tables-and-graphs/preliminary-statistics-on-deaths/

See Table 8 in particular - the 27th April release includes data to 24 April, and the 22,23,24 April data are just a fraction of the true total.

The graph shows there was normal daily noise until 19th March, and a peak between 8 and 16 April (the latter peak, but largely noise)

The peak was nothing whatsoever to compare Great Britain. Here deaths started to grow in the week to 20 March.

Week 10: normalised to Sweden population daily 255
Week 11: 250 (still normal)
Week 12: 266 (elevated)
Week 13: 321 (to 27 March)
Week 14: 419 (to 3 April)
Week 15: 516 (to 10 April)
Week 16: 484 (to 17 April)

It would seem that we started to experience extra deaths on EXACTLY THE SAME DAY as Sweden. Meanwhile because of our lockdown we peaked on 8 April in hospitals, later in care homes.

And Sweden has only 2500 excess deaths, equivalent to under 15k on a population-equivalent basis.

So we can conclude:

1. Sweden did nothing, relatively, speaking, but got away with far fewer deaths
2. Doing nothing would not have helped!
3. Sweden had a longer peak but a much shallower one
4. It is not necessarily possible to blame the government in that whatever models they had would not necessarily have shown that we would suffer so badly relatively and despite taking harsher action from the same starting point suffer more death

It is not particular obvious that Sweden is less urban in that almost 40% of the population live in three metropolitan areas, which is more than live in London/Birmingham/Manchester as a % of GB.

There does seem to be something different about the Scandi / Nordic countries
e.g. Norway, next door to Sweden and v similar ethnically:

Norway pop. 5.4 million
Total COVID deaths (with lockdown) only 215 !^
That's only 40 deaths / million pop.

Norway is another who probably didn't need to lockdown

• if their population is as compliant to govt advice as their neighbours

(historical background:
In the 1814 Treaty of Kiel, the King of Denmark-Norway was forced to hand over Norway to Sweden.
Norway gained its independence from Sweden in 1905)

"Does anyone have raw death numbers for Belgium?"

@ShootsFruitandLeaves This has xlsx or txt

"Number of deaths per day, sex, age, region, province, district" for 2009-2020

https://statbel.fgov.be/en/open-data/number-deaths-day-sex-region-age

Belgium Overview

All possible COVID deaths included in total - hospital / care home / home / anywhere, even without a test

@ShootsFruitAndLeaves

The key question for me is when Sweden and the UK started to take effective social distancing measures, whether formal or informal. The data indicates that Londoners took steps of their LD volition earlier than other places in the UK that anecdotally felt less under threat from Covid. If Swedes similarly took voluntary measures earlier, this could explain why their peak was lower.

LD = own (no idea how that happened).

As for data regarding Londoners, I’m referring to other data, not what you posted.

It is not particular obvious that Sweden is less urban in that almost 40% of the population live in three metropolitan areas, which is more than live in London/Birmingham/Manchester as a % of GB.

It may be as urban proportionately, but are it’s urban areas as densely packed. I don’t know Sweden well so I may be wrong, but I don’t believe Stockholm has a densely packed underground/subway system like London/NYC.

I wonder what's going on here:

Coronavirus: Prof Neil Ferguson quits government role after 'undermining' lockdown www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52553229

@GlassOfProsecco his married lover came to his house twice!!

Proving that the Grand Panjandrums are no better at resisting temptation than the rest of us !

He deeply regrets it, because the twat was caught. What a hypocrite he is.

Oh dear at Ferguson

Merkel is urging caution, but some leaders of the 16 German states are pushing ahead quickly with relaxing social distancing measures to restart the economy and schools

(Germany is a federal republic and the 16 states have considerable autonomy, each with their own Parliament and PM)

It is difficult for her to resist, because Sweden is much talked about here too
and total deaths (= hospital and care homes) in Germany have been below 100 a few times over the last 2 weeks:

this last Saturday and Sunday had only 76 and 54 deaths respectively
and yesterday didn't spike much after the bank holiday weekend lull, just 127

Epidemiologists and virologists advising the German govt have warned
that a 2nd and 3rd wave could happen if too much is relaxed too soon

So, if Germany finds it can't be "Sweden" ...
that massive spare hospital capacity may be needed.
The UK will presumably be watching this Swedish experiment v closely.

Merkel is expected to call on the leaders of the 16 German states to agree on a threshold which would trigger a new lockdown if necessary, according to Bild Daily.

Is that true Daisy? if you know it, I wonder why the BBC wouldn't report it.

The Fail has
Another bloke who lets his dick get in the way of his life

Thanks! I thought he'd been fiddling the figures (based on the headline) - not another woman!

OMG how could he be so stupid/arrogant to think he would get away with that

Anyone seen this?

apple.news/AFJOrTrGIS-241ufENEjfxg

And this is interesting commentary on comparison of numbers between of countries. More reason why excess deaths have to be the measure...apple.news/A_-pQ-a56RQehnipho7pMYA

That paper has been widely discredited disorganisedsecretsquirrel

Sleepwhenidie that's worrying