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.

36 year old nurse from Walsall who died from coronavirus here - unfortunately I would probably describe her as morbidly obese;

That's quite the talent from a face photo of someone exclusively pictured in loose clothing.

Morbidly obese would be >100kg/16 stone for someone of 1.6m/5'3".

That graph is age-specific / pop but it does illustrate the difference in risk levels of the very elderly to everyone else

even a higher proportion of BAME deaths could not significantly distort the total deaths in the Uk or its regions

I posted this earlier today -

"I think we were only discussing possible reasons why ethnic minority groups might be disproportionately affected by coronavirus, not that they accounted for the majority of the excess deaths in the UK."

We're not discussing only what you said, Clavinova

but also the claims on threads elsewhere that the UK or London has such a large number of deaths because of a higher % of BAME in the UK population

We had NHS hospital tables of ages with BMIs, that seemed fairly typical of the UK population

I can't find that now

==> does anyone else have the link ?

"but also the claims on threads elsewhere that the UK or London has such a large number of deaths because of a higher % of BAME in the UK population"

That's ok - I just wanted to clarify that I had not suggested that BAME deaths accounted for the majority of excess deaths.

BigChocFrenzy I have tried to make the argument for extremely low risk, with that graph, on other threads. I am afraid we seem to have got to the point where the response is "one death of a child, is one too many". You can then go on to discuss the death rates for children and young people for other types of common illnesses, chicken pox for example, but it just doesn't seem to resonate. The main issue with Covid is that it is "new" and "unknown" and parents in particular, which I do understand, need an historical evidence base to rely upon, ie: approx. 20 deaths per year for chicken pox, which seems to be an acceptable risk, which of course we do not have for Covid.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52731506/losing-a-beacon-of-light-of-the-uk-s-ultra-orthodox-community-to-coronavirus

This was the video piece I noted upthread. Notable yet again, is that the very nature of being a Jew, particularly Hasidic, is the social and closed nature of the community. One reviewer noting that this should have been recognised earlier, and that they should have socially distanced in advance of anyone else, as with care homes.

=> does anyone else have the link ?

www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports

Clearly, Walsall is an ethnically diverse area - all 3 men in their 60s below lived in Walsall and all 3 regularly prayed at a mosque - they died end of March/early April.The press obviously reported these deaths because they were among the first in that area; "As of Monday only two coronavirus deaths had been confirmed at Walsall Manor Hospital."

www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/walsall/2020/03/25/walsall-man-basharat-hussain-dies-from-coronavirus/

www.expressandstar.com/news/health/coronavirus-covid19/2020/03/31/father-of-three-dies-after-positive-covid-19-test/

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-52216046

I know some are a bit annoyed with the constant vit d suggestion, but I know the area of Jewish area Gateshead quite well. I've always been struck by the very strict dress code; both sexes completely clothed all year round as especially for women, forearms and legs must be covered. Unless they do have a concerted awareness and effort to supplement and monitor, that could be another possible factor. Families always look very large with elderly gp living with them too. The mothers always have their own mother helping with the children.

Thanks for the link, Shoots

I agree Neurotrash Dress code is likely to be one of the factors in certain ethnic groups.

There is strong evidence from hospital analyses that low Vit D is significant,
especially in those people who seriously deteriorate after a week or so due to cytokine storm

imo although Vit D supplementation can help, it is no substitute for almost complete absence of sunshine

@Clavinova the problem is that to whatever extent ethnic minorities do different work to white people (and they certainly do), and hence have a higher death rate, this is a zero sum game to a large extent in that in other areas or countries with fewer minorities then white people will necessarily be doing the work, and will die to much the same extent.

For example in certain areas of the country you will find certain jobs are rarely done by white British people, but if you visit a very white area from a more diverse area then you might be surprised to see white British people doing jobs that they don't do in say London

So if nurses in Walsall are disproportionately ethnic minorities (and they will be) then clearly dead nurses are inherently more likely to be of ethnic minorities than the population.

especially those MNers who seem terrified because they or their child has asthma, obesity, diabetes etc - the young are still at v v low risk.
There are comparatively few people who actually need to keep their kids off school, as distinct from want to.

I don't think it's useful to lump 'they or their child' together.
DD, 13, has asthma - not worried about her risk.
DH, 62, has chronic hypertension related to longterm kidney issues along and previous ministroke - very worried that DD will bring it home from school.

VitreousHumour I separated them according to the health condition, which is in the "vulnerable" category that about 15 million share,
not the shielded 1 million or so.

An adult family member with those vulnerable conditions - unless they are say 70+, which is a whole higher risk in itself -
won't be at sufficiently serious risk to outweigh the benefits to the child of attending school

However, someone who is shielding because of more serious conditions might reasonably decide the risk is too high

The country can afford to support 1 million to stay at home, until a vaccine if need be
However, the 15 million merely vulnerable do need to quickly get back to work / school

@Clavinova Unless they live with their parents of course. Many Solihull residents (and Bromsgrove residents - also on your list) will probably work at Birmingham universities, Birmingham Airport and the NEC or simply travel from Birmingham Airport and visit shopping centres in Birmingham. On my list? What list is that then?

Plenty of people in Solihull probably do work at Birmingham Airport and the NEC as they are both in Solihull not Birmingham. I can confirm that Birmingham University and Birmingham City university are both in Birmingham.

I wonder what percentage of Birmingham universities' students come from Solihull and live at home and how many of them are Chinese? I think you might be stretching it a bit. From the university site there are 1337 Chinese students at Birmingham university, I would guess many of them live in halls or in the traditional student areas.

There is also Aston University in Birmingham.

Bromsgrove isn't very diverse, I used to live there and visit frequently.

If looking at the impact in the Watford area - they played Liverpool at the end of February. It was before Liverpool's home match against Atletico Madrid that probably spread the virus in Liverpool but the first leg was 11 days earlier and how many Liverpool fans went to Spain for it?

I’ve followed these threads from the beginning and they have been very informative but I think posting links to pictures of people who have died and trying to work out from the picture whether they are obese or not is absolutely disgraceful!

Thank you HawkinsLab - I agree and wish those casually discussing the deaths would at least try to remember for each death there are likely to be several people grieving. It's more disgusting when it's an essential worker.

It's more disgusting when it's an essential worker.

^why?

I find this attitude more distasteful to be honest. Either all lives are valuable or they are not.