Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 8

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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.

Delatron, that may have made people take it more seriously in those areas?

Thanks for this. Super interesting.

This chart is another indicator the UK isn't testing enough

• not the worst, but nowhere near the better performers

It's not just tests / million pop that count, but tests per confirmed case
i.e. what % of tests are positive

Sorry to be a vitamin d bore, but I do wonder if the difference between the Lake District and the south coast has anything to do with the difference in hours of sunshine.

What date does the uk figure refer to? Single day or averaged over some time? It's just I saw today over 100,000 ( 120000.) tests and around 3500 new cases which isn't 6.5 tests per case?

Spanish Health Ministry study of blood samples

www.newindianexpress.com/world/2020/may/14/five-per-cent-of-spains-population-contracted-covid-19-health-ministry-2143313.html

MADRID: Approximately five per cent of the Spanish population has developed antibodies for COVID-19,
according to preliminary findings of a large-scale study conducted by the country's Ministry of Health
that were announced on Wednesday.

The first results of the study, which involved the testing of roughly 60,000 people across the entire country from late April, was conducted to ascertain the full scale of the outbreak in the European country.

Marina Pollan, director of Spain's National Center for Epidemiology at the Carlos III Health Institute,
which is leading the study,
confirmed that antibody prevalence among the sample was five per cent and, as a result, no level of herd immunity has been reached.

Health Minister Salvador Illa added that this would indicate that more than two million people had contracted the disease.

"The study shows that five per cent of the Spanish population had contact with the virus, a little over two million people,"
the health minister said at a press conference.

According to the study, more than 10 per cent of people in the cities of Madrid, Segovia, Cuenca, Soria, and Albacete have antibodies against the disease.
In some regions of the country, less than one per cent of people tested have antibodies.

In total, 14.7 per cent of those who displayed more than five symptoms of COVID-19 and 43 per cent of those who complained of a loss of smell have antibodies,
the study found.

Antibodies were found in 2.5 per cent of asymptomatic participants.

Spain has become one of the epicentres of the global COVID-19 outbreak.
According to data released by national health authorities, Spain has confirmed the fourth-highest number of cases, 228,691 in total, of any country in the world.

I think we're still playing catch up with our numbers. Current figures we're testing many, many more people per positive test. At the peak we were level with countries like Turkey, now we are slowly catching up with many other countries and have done double Turkey's - not saying that's great obviously, just that we are doing better now.

"What date does the uk figure refer to?"

Looks like those numbers are the total since the epidemic began
So tests / cases are presumably increasing in all those countries, as infections reduce

I wonder if alot of the cases in sunderland are in care homes. I actually gave birth at sunderland hospital last week and the midwife told me the hospital had closed many of the covid wards

Just spotted this on my Twitter feed, and thought I would share.

It seems age makes no difference to your chances of catching CV, just to the likely severity of your symptoms. So, it is unlikely that children do not sores at least as much as adults.

Thanks, that's a really interesting map of infection rates. It's astonishing that Cumbria has an infection rate 4 times that of Devon or Cornwall. I had thought maybe there's a high number of retired (therefore older) people in Cumbria, but surely that would also be true of Devon and Cornwall.

"That doesn't sound particularly likely. Salford 3.3% Jewish. Not all Orthodox. That's far too small a % of population to inflate death rates as we saw already weeks ago."
I don't know for sure of course but it is true they the heavily orthodox Jewish area of the city has been worst hit. There may be other factors that are causing it ( not everyone in general keeping to lockdown rules ? They certainly aren't in supermarkets.) We also have high levels of deprivation but these are spread more widely across the city.

@attackedbycritters it says in the title the last 10 days
@bigchocfrenzy that graph is a little misleading in that if few people are infected then you have no positive tests at all, and it follows that if almost no-one is infected then testing isn't particularly the point. the graphs would make sense more if you looked at the % positive over time AS WELL as the test count.

the problem in the UK was that the NHS is apparently completely shit at responding to a developing situation and scaled up its testing incredibly slowly and this killed thousands of people. this was known weeks and weeks ago. recall that in early March covid-19 test counts were reported daily on the government website with the daily positive count, before we had daily death spreadsheets.

I posted about the test counts here in March: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3863339-Stay-local-to-exercise-is-rubbish?pg=6&messages=100#prettyPhoto/0/

Tests per positive is a daft measure as I observed in that thread, the number of positive tests is meaningful only if you have a consistent testing policy.

In the UK TODAY we had around 5% positive. www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public That is 3,446 out of 71,644.

We have three different reasons for testing which are different from those in March and far more being tested, which makes it difficult to compare results with ourselves let alone other countries.

However our Pillar 2 are something like 3-4% positive, and Pillar 1 5-7%.

It follows fairly logically that our current infection rate is likely to be south of 4% for the population as a whole, and insofar as we now have mass testing, a fall in this rate is a good thing.

However I don't think we could argue that it's symptomatic of a current governmental failure that we test 1 in 500 of the population daily, whereas New Zealand has never tested that much of the population on a daily basis.

It's more that the UK government failed completely when its testing infrastructure was pisspoor and utterly overwhelmed by a ludicrous 40% daily positive rate in late-March early/April, when we were testing just 1 in 10,000 of the population daily, while the Kiwis were testing four times as many at the same time.

In particular, their 1 in 2500 of the population test rate was achieved at a time when their daily positive count was only 3%, and they responded by testing even more of the population daily.

We had achieved 3% daily positives a full 3 weeks before they did (which of itself shows that they had a massive time advantage over us), and when we reached 3% daily positive, our tests were only around 1 in 40,000.

The failure to scale up very hard and very fast spoke for us. By the end of March it was far too late, and that 40% daily positive test count spoke to thousands of people who we could do nothing to stop dying.

Recall that because NZ had a MASSIVE time advantage, when they shut the borders on 19 March, as it was essentially within a day or two of the pandemic really starting in NZ. The equivalent would have been locking down around 4th March in the UK, which is before even Italy locked down.

Maybe jrob. A Gp I know there said similar last week. Congratulations!

Thecountess certainly there's enough of a difference between England and Scotland for it to be thought to impact certain disease rates in Scotland eg ms. So it's possible?

Lots of reasons though I expect.

Yeah I do think vitamin D plays a huge role in this and we know NW is worst for sunshine.

Compliance will definitely come in to it too.

This is really nice positive news today. They probably didn't test anyone but long may this continue

I have been lurking, great thread & thank you to all the contributors. I have not really had anything useful to add but there are a few things of interest about the Salford figures.
I live in Salford and I am Jewish though not orthodox. Broughton Park has been particularly hard hit, 15 covid related deaths between March 1st & April 17th. Broughton Park is a majorly Orthodox Jewish Area as is Higher Broughton ranked 3rd in the area (13 deaths).
There was a Jewish Festival around 9th / 10th March called Purim. This involves lots of socialising, gift giving & a carnival type atmosphere with children on floats in fancy dress. I have long suspected this Festival impacted on the situation, I believe Brent saw a similar scenario.
Anectidotely I remember the week before lockdown & first couple of weeks of lockdown hearing ambulances passing my home regularly (main road between Broughton Park and the 2 local hospitals). At the time I put it down to being at home more often, paranoia watching the news 24/7 and more noticeable due to quieter roads, I do wonder now and the sound of sirens has decreased.
Another interesting point about Salford is that Worsley has the 2nd highest deaths in this time period (14 deaths). Worsley is about 10 miles away from Broughton & I can not think of any major connections between these parts of Salford. I would also add that Worsley is an affluent area. Although Salford is seen as a deprived area between it's different parts socio - economics vary. The narrative some are pushing - Salford=deprivation=Covid deaths is far too simplistic.

Yeah I do think vitamin D plays a huge role in this and we know NW is worst for sunshine.

By that logic the Hebrides would have been worst affected, or Glasgow if you want a population centre.

I think it’s probably just bad luck.... The outbreak was more advanced in the NW when we locked down, and the difference in sunlight between regions of the UK, and people’s exposure to vitamin d in those regions. in March would be minimal.

Not everything called Worsley is affluent though. It borders parts of Swinton, Little Hulton and a big estate to the west of Monton and these are all pretty run down areas. Many houses advertised for sale as Worsley, are in fact Little Hulton.

I get where you are coming from about Worsley. Little Hulton is counted separately though at 13 deaths (joint 2and with Higher Broughton) & Walkden, Lower Irlam & Cadishead 10 each.

There's a Facebook message circulating in the Barrow in Furness area in which a healthcare worker states that there was much more testing going on earlier there than in other areas, and that's one reason why so many cases have been identified - only anecdotal, of course.
A hospital porter there told me last weekend that the hospital is now very much quieter than the early days.

Mrswarren thanks for that graph yesterday it's very informative.
I wonder if the decrease in child fatalities is due to lockdown

Figures I'd like (well not like but would be interested in) in death by DV during lockdown. I would be interested in if this has increased substantially.

It's interesting how despite increased testing numbers of positives are still going down. That must indicate a decrease in R rate?

Also with regards people c9ming in from other countries. This isn't statistical as such but does rather lead into data and scientific evidence - but because effectively the country was pretty much in a nation aside quarantine surely the risk of community transmission was low for infected people whereas now community transmission is more likely if infected because restrictions are looser?