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.

answers that can be used to support public policy
I agree, it is vital that we compile all the data and examine everything in minute detail to find out what could have been done better so that we can prepare for future pandemics.
This awful event is also a precious natural experiment and we must not waste a drop of it!

@Derbygerbil it's possible we might be posting at cross purposes here; the 0.02/0.08% calculation I referenced wasn't the deaths across age groups, but the % of people apparently saved (and apologies, @BigChocFrenzy for not having picked up that it was your own post when I mentioned this)

I totally accept that we may have saved fewer had we not locked down - though even that seems to be based on ever-changing and largely unverifiable figures - but my overall point, given the tiny numbers involved, was whether the collateral damage is worth it

This goes a little way towards explaining why US seem less anxious, if one considers most deaths in NY then other places very low:

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-coronavirus-cases-world-map/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=covid_tracker&utm_content=tofu&fbclid=IwAR3JXjn9dsq-2vRCYccAfWhHbffk5bNHpMnKqABIcNXHH0h5Xcs8AX1izfU

If the UK numbers are much worse than other countries, are we getting any inkling of why from the data?
We locked down a week after Spain and Italy but we are more than that behind them in the pandemic progression if I've read correctly so why are people saying we locked down too late?

Our health service hasn't been perfect but wasn't overwhelmed as Italy was in parts.

We have had shortages of PPE but I believe other places have too.
Are we actually worse? Is it likely to be related to population density, international travel, different ethnic mix, all of the above or something else?
I'm loving the data but struggling to see the learning points, are we too soon to see that yet?

@Puzzledandpissedoff

The appropriateness and proportionality of the response is critically important, and I agree that it’s naive and counterproductive to focus policy on the premise that we must do whatever it takes at whatever cost, even if “it saves just one life”.

However, in order to do that, it’s important to base this on the right figures (or as right as they can be).... The 0.08% chance of death for 65-74s you quoted versus the 1.6% chance I believe is more in line with the best current evidence, could lead to very different conclusions regarding this.... (or possibly not, 1.6% still means 98.4% survive!)

In Sweden apparently outside of Stockholm and bigger cities there are a shortage of coroners so deaths are taking longer to be registered correctly - there are also concerns about people using the infection to hide crime (!) according to my brother

That makes perfect sense, @Derbygerbil, and to use your (much better) word it's the proportionality which worries me

Among all the chaos I sometimes wonder if we'll ever know the real story on this, including what seems the crucial difference between dying with the virus or of it. It's really not easy to pick a way between hyperbole and fact, which is one more reason I'm thankful for these threads

@CalmYoBadSelf i am sure there will be a range of reasons others on this thread maybe able to help you. I feel ( i do bang on about it i know) that it is possible that people did not get into hospital early enough. This has only come from looking at hospital nos in France versus the uk.

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

No, it is not obvious that the UK numbers are much worse than other countries.

FT has tried to look at excess deaths for countries who report info comparable to the ONS stats:

www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

So far, numbers of deaths from all causes have gone up by 52% in England & Wales, 56% in Spain, 60% in Belgium, 90% in Italy, 42% in Netherlands, 34% in France, 23% in Sweden, etc.

Of course, some people still compare ONS excess deaths data in the UK with reported hospital deaths in Italy and this is where "we are the worst" sentiment comes from.

That's reassuring, winter. Thank you.

Of course, there are countries that are doing much better than us. The most obvious example is Germany. The key differentiating factor is probably extensive testing and early treatment.

Interestingly, early treatment doesn't equal early hospitalisation. Italian experience shows that Lombardy who tried to hospitalise a lot of C19 patients early did much worse than Veneto who only hospitalised critical cases. It is the "end-to-end" German approach (extensive testing, early oxygen, home treatments, timely hospitalisations, etc) that appears highly effective.

*@camyoself We locked down a week after Spain and Italy but we are more than that behind them in the pandemic progression if I've read correctly so why are people saying we locked down too late?

Our health service hasn't been perfect but wasn't overwhelmed as Italy was in parts. *

Italy was overwhelmed because it was taken somewhat by surprise by the outbreak as the first country in Europe to have one and because it was heavily concentrated in Lombardy.

The UK Gov saw the Lockdowns in Italy - local, regional and then national - and watched the official death toll climbing to 900 plus a day (and that excludes care homes which should have been realised) yet still sat on its' hands and waited for two weeks while the UK outbreak was seeded by ongoing community transmission including at huge public events. Football eventually locked itself down and cancelled games before the gov took any action.

If UK cases were allowed to double over 3 days then, assuming a constant death rate, that means UK deaths were allowed to double by waiting those 3 days.

The UK saw what was happening in Italy and had a choice: be like Italy or lockdown early like NZ etc. They chose to be like Italy despite knowing the state of the NHS, the care sector, the PPE stockpile etc. That's scandalous.

I think there needs to be more attention on Eastern Europe’s response to Covid. Compared to Western Europe it has largely done phenomenally (with the exception of Russia that seems to be becoming a hotspot).

Take Croatia. Geographically very close to Italy, and yet has “only” had 67 deaths. Albeit it only has a population of 4 million, but even so, the deaths per head of population are tiny in comparison with Western Europe. What can we learn from them?

This goes a little way towards explaining why US seem less anxious, if one considers most deaths in NY then other places very low

I’m not sure you can draw that conclusion. Even if you except NY, there are 12 other US states with deaths above 1,000.... and there are only 17 other countries in the world with deaths above 1,000.

The excess of 90% for Italy is of course only for the hardest hit area, not the whole country, which according to the Istat figures (only available at the moment from Jan-end March) is just over 20% higher than usual (cf 2014-2019 figures)

I was reading also that Italy has an odd way of collating death stats generally...75% of towns count non physically present residents who are registered as homeowners/taxpayers etc whilst 25% don't. (Eg a guy who owns a house in my town but lives in Belgium and dies in Belgium figures in my town's death statistics)

Italy's number of infections has gone up today, due to massive testing going on. We've also heard that trains coming down from the north as of the 4th are almost all fully booked so yay! More Covid coming our way.

@Derbygerbil I was referring to the first graph which gave deaths per million (not sure if uk care home deaths included); but US is 176, Uk 332, Spain 450. I agree still worse than most places in world as far as we know at the moment.

445 England

choux I agree the uk government action was scandalous but I would have thought that the genie was too far out of the bottle 2 weeks before lockdown for the approach of NZ to be taken. As I understand it there would have been many, many more infected individuals in the UK (in a much more densely populated area) by then than there were in NZ? I think NZ found it a massive challenge to achieve what they did, so for the UK would have been virtually impossible?

@picklemewalnuts
That Euromomo chart isn't easy to interpret but I don't think it shows England doing really badly compared to other UK countries, it just looks that way because England is bigger. If we assume that deaths were up 50% in each area (just as an illustration) that would be easier to explain as random variation for smaller areas than larger ones. Or put another way, the standard deviation of numbers of deaths will be higher relative to the mean for small countries than larger ones.

There you all are !! Glad I found 7

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall (BBC Newsnight)

NRS says 338 of the 656 deaths recorded in Scotland 20-26 April were in care homes, so just over 50%.

Of the 2,272 deaths in Scotland since the crisis began, 39% have been in care homes.

Well, that's an interesting testing strategy:

Coronavirus: Matt Hancock invites Tory members to apply for test as ministers struggle to hit target

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-test-matt-hancock-conservative-party-email-tory-members-a9490261.html

@TheCanterburyWhales, your comment about trains being full from the north, are people not restricted to staying in their own regions?

Not from Monday if they are rejoining family or going to their second home.
So of course, everyone is remembering their second cousin twice removed who they need to visit or simply moving to their holiday homes.

They are supposed to promise to isolate for two weeks. Can't see it happening. Five deaths only in my town, each with a contact who came down on 7/3.