Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 8

[Barracker]

Welcome to thread 8 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.

Excellent thread. Thank you. If anyone missed it, the independent sage meeting was very informative last week:

Thank you Barracker, I really appreciate these threads. Numbers and facts keep me sane.

Thanks for the new thread Barracker!

Thank you Barracker - been watching these threads each day but not posting due to some excellent contributors posting better than I can! The daily data, volcanoes and graphs are the posts that have helped me the most so thanks.

Thankyou. Following these threads helps me mentally somehown

Thanks Barracker. Need some calm rational analysis after the gibberish of Boris' briefing tonight.

Thanks Barracker and hope you are ok.

Thanks for the new thread, been watching and reading a while now

following. Thank you!

Thanks Barracker - looking forward to more of your volcanoes!

Can I ask a stupid question.......It’s being suggested we (UK) have one of the highest death rates. Are the numbers proportionate to population size? Numbers alone with no context not really helpful.

Does anyone know where we can see the data of NEW hospital admissions?

Following.

Can I ask a stupid question.......It’s being suggested we (UK) have one of the highest death rates. Are the numbers proportionate to population size? Numbers alone with no context not really helpful.

check the worldometer. You can sort it by death rate per million. We are not the top there but still pretty high up.

Thanks

Does anyone have any data (charts) about deaths and cases in under 14s and 15-44? I found a good graph on the ONS but it didn't say how many had underlying health conditions.
Its all kicking off about kids being Guinea pigs in my area 🤦🏻‍♀️

I'm getting a little worried by anecdotal information about children, including the fact that many may not be counted in the official Covid figures as they aren't being tested as quickly (because they take longer to deteriorate) and so are coming up as negative on testing, despite the fact that presentation indicates Covid, if that makes sense.

Presumably eventually ONS data will show excess deaths (if any) for under 25s, though this may be skewed by reduction in deaths from road accidents etc during lockdown.

I still think the UK government announcing only deaths following positive tests for Covid (rather than Covid on death certificate or probable Covid diagnosed by, for example x-rays) is keeping the numbers lower than they probably are.

Many thanks for new thread, Barracker

It looks like the UK after lockdown would follow (Merkel's) strategy of local lockdowns for local outbreaks.

The question arises as to whether there can then be more tolerance of a national R0 - which includes these new cases - exceeding 1.0

.... the German national R0 rising to 1.1 has had almost no political impact here, on the public's impatience to end lockdown and "follow Sweden"

So much demand that Merkel has had no practical choice but to allow this

• and presumably to hope that the admittedly excellent mass testing and contact tracing here can cut off exponential growth before it roars out of control

imo, this is a gamble:
a Northern / Central European country of 83 million may not behave epidemiologically like a quite different Scandi / Nordic population of 10 million

re German Vit D levels:
not clear if significantly different to UK's, but certainly much worse than Sweden's

R0 calculation - RKI (German Public health) staying out of political controversy:

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/NeuartigesCoronavirus/Situationsberichte/2020-05-10-de.pdf??__blob=publicationFile

The reproduction number, R, is defined as the mean number of people infected by a case

R can only be estimated based on statistical analyses such as nowcasting and not directly extracted from the notification system.

The nowcasting analysis and the R-estimate are based on all COVID-19 cases reported to the RKI with an illness onset up to 3 days before data closure.

Cases with a more recent illness onset are excluded from this analysis since their as yet low number would lead to unstable estimates.

The number of incident cases estimated using the nowcasting approach is presented as a moving 4-day average to compensate for random effects of individual days (Fig. 5).

With this approach, the point estimate of R for a given day is estimated as the quotient of the number of incident cases on this day divided by the number of incident cases four days earlier.

The current estimate is R= 1.10 (95% prediction interval: 0.90- 1,34) and is based on electronically notified cases as of 09/05/2020, 12:00 AM.

Today’s estimate of the reproduction number R is above 1.

Any interpretation of this number needs to take into account that the estimate is linked to a degree of uncertainty that is reflected by the prediction interval published daily alongside the actual number.

A low number of case reports could increase the statistical variation.

Thus, it is too early to infer whether the number of new infections will continue to decrease as in passing weeks or increase again.

The increase of the reproduction number R necessitates a close monitoring of the situation in the coming days.
< no kidding ! >

Thanks for new thread from an avid lurker.

It seems the thing to watch is hospital admissions - I know someone linked those before, but I'm not sure where.

If hospital admissions go up a week from today, that's a sure sign that R is increasing. Going by a rise/fall in positive tests isn't such a good indication, as testing criteria haven't been consistent.

BigChoc, are the German people (in general) in favour of a return to normal even if it means an increase in infection? I know there is a visible minority protesting, but is the silent majority for or against easing restrictions?

Interesting ONS pilot study on infection rates:

mobile.twitter.com/NickStripe_ONS/status/1259772726593626112

Not sure what the implications are, any wiser posters have any views?

If hospital admissions go up a week from today, that's a sure sign that R is increasing.

True though I am a bit suspicious of the variation by country in deciding when people get admitted to hospital - and the impact on death rate.

Will feel better when we have antibody tests available.

Thanks Barracker, hope all is ok

Lumene, it will be a while before that study shows any useful results because the important data isn't the percentage who actually test positive (0.24% in the period 26th April to 8th May), but the percentage showing that they have at some stage being infected and developed an immunity.

They state: "Adults from 2,000 households will also provide a blood sample taken by a trained nurse, phlebotomist or healthcare assistant. These tests, the results of which are not yet available, will help determine what proportion of the population has developed antibodies to COVID-19." So they have no antibody results yet, and there doesn't seem to be an indication of when they will have them.