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Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 9

975 replies

Barracker · 23/05/2020 10:40

Welcome to thread 9 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.Flowers

OP posts:
Thread gallery
78
Jrobhatch29 · 31/05/2020 12:57

Does anyone have information on the mortality rate for different age groups when based on estimated cases/antibody testing?

B1rdbra1n · 31/05/2020 13:04

Health rationing
that's a very useful phrase!

Prokupatuscrakedatus · 31/05/2020 13:07

"Dark matter" does indeed sound woo, but of course, being in Germany I would welcome this hitherto unknown part of my immune system.
Perhaps the old saying "Dreck reinigt den Magen" (dirt cleans your stomach) has some truth in it and we humans as a whole need exposure to all sorts of viruses and bacteria.

BigChocFrenzy · 31/05/2020 13:09

"the average German is less likely to get infected"

This is due to mass testing followed up by mass contact tracing, testing

  • and then mandatory isolation, with monitoring and serious penalties for leaving the house

This significantly reduced the spread of infection.

German public health warned in early April when the number of cases was several thousand,
that they were undoubtedly missing increasing numbers of new cases because of contact tracing staff being overwhelmed.

however, they still significantly reduced the rate of increase in infections during the peak weeks

Big difference with a huge number of trained teams in place being able to contact trace contacts for thousands of cases,
instead of capacity for max 50 cases and abandoning tracing as the UK had to.

btw re mandatory isolation with severe penalties:

The UK govt needs to get tough here

  • people who will lose money are often going to continue work regardless and reportedly their employers are not cooperating in contact deatils either, because businesses would lose out too That's apart from the inevitable selfish sods who would continue going out for pleasure even when infected
oralengineer · 31/05/2020 13:47

Why has testing slowed down in Germany?

Prokupatuscrakedatus · 31/05/2020 13:54

I just had a look at what I need to do if I develop symptoms: I stay home and phone a hotline and my GP - they guide me through the process.

They also issued a reminder, that all other surgeries are working and not to delay to see a specialist when I need one (gyn, eyes, back etc.) - unless I had C19-symptoms, of course.

BigChocFrenzy · 31/05/2020 14:35

"Why has testing slowed down in Germany?"

afaik a mixture:

Tackling the large backlog of non-COVID tests
Taking cancelled vacation
Antibody testing

Inniu · 31/05/2020 14:39

I think giving up on test, track and trace couple with late lockdown have been big failures in the U.K.
I don’t understand why more effort was not put in to test, track and trace earlier.
The government seemed to want to go straight to antibody testing.

Ireland didn’t have a system in place but used lockdown to get one set up.

BigChocFrenzy · 31/05/2020 14:51

Currently, 1.5% of tests in Germany are positive
This is down from the peak of 9% reached in April

With such a low % of positives and the epidemic apparently winding down atm,
the RKI made the decision that some lab capacity could be allocated to the other tests listed.

The test capacity is currently over 1 million per week, but only 345,000 were performed in week 21 and 435,000 in week 20.
However, if positives or cases rise again, then tests could very rapidly be ramped up again

whatsnext2 · 31/05/2020 15:42

They have also realised that only about 10% of infected people are responsible for about 80% infections. It is the big crowds, crowded public transport etc that are the most risky. Maybe they are getting more efficient at identifying these spreaders?

Derbygerbil · 31/05/2020 15:48

With t-cell immunity, the questions for me are:

  1. are t-cells ever sufficient on their own to fight an infection without any antibody production?

  2. if t-cells are sufficient on their own for some people, does that depend on viral load, or are t-cells sufficient to give as effective immunity as antibodies in those people?

alreadytaken · 31/05/2020 19:20

Britain was "never locked down" in the same way as, say, Wuhan. Many people continued to go to work, that was always allowed if you couldnt work from home.

BigChocFrenzy · 31/05/2020 20:01

"only about 10% of infected people are responsible for about 80% infections"

Yes, we know certain situations are high risk - crowds with singing, shouting e.g. carnivals, churches, sports events, shows, funerals, weddings .... -
so it may be as much the event as the particular infected people attending these

It is also likely that there is a certain time window during which virus shedding is at a very high peak for at least some infected people.
So timing is an issue too

In contrast, some other people may infect noone because they are not in a high risk situation during the time they are shedding significantly

Main problem for public health measures is how to cope with people being infectious for several days before symptoms, or possibly even without symptoms

Mandatory masks are one measure to help avoid spread

  • some countries take temperatures before allowing entry to work, shops, school, events -... but that only detects people with symptoms
Musicforsmorks · 31/05/2020 20:10

BogChoc, thanks for the time and energy you put into this thread.
I pretty much agree with all of your observations the situation in the uk.

I wonder how many people here in the uk are aware of these details.

Sadly I also think our media and gutter press are far more dangerous than most oversights made by central government.

We have certainly bred a monster.

Musicforsmorks · 31/05/2020 20:10

BigChoc, sorry 😁

whatsnext2 · 31/05/2020 21:19

@BigChocFrenzy following article explains transmission point better than me: Hope not behind paywall.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/k-number-pins-down-how-the-coronavirus-spreads-lvktrpmfv?shareToken=6388e97d118a3756f80634169bc46711

BigChocFrenzy · 31/05/2020 21:37

Thanks, whatsnext I can read that

BigChocFrenzy · 31/05/2020 21:53

Melinda Mills@melindacmills (Oxford Prof)

You asked for a simple & concrete examples of how our #COVIDー19 network #exitstrategy can move from mathematical simulation models to real life examples
– see https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07052 (pages 14-16)
....
We all need an easy to understand #exitstrategy
to help us gradually return to work and school.

Here is our advice...

https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07052

We propose 3 social network strategies to #FlattenTheCurve for a #COVID19 #exitstrategy:

(1) interact with similar people (homophily),
(2) strengthen community contact (triadic),
(3) repeated contact in closed networks (safe pods)...

In private life when providing care to elderly
it should be:

(1) same person (don't take turns),

(2) who has fewest ‘bridging ties’ (fewer links to other networks), and,

(3) is geographically the closest.....

https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07052

For essential workers
it means keeping composition of work shifts constant over long periods of time
and distributing people on shifts based on proximity and similarity
(e.g., residential proximity).....

https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07052

For workplaces
it means staggered start, break & end times by different departments or units
– keep contact in small groups, but reduce contact between them

https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07052

For schools

  • closed classroom composition,
varied break times, distribution of children to similar groups (e.g., residential proximity), keep contact in small groups, but reduce contact between groups

https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07052

The challenge is to minimize interaction across networks.

If a household of 5 connects across networks they could create infection paths between many unconnected individuals.
@PNAS_News high potential of intergenerational transmission

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/15/2004911117

BigChocFrenzy · 31/05/2020 22:21

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/30/could-nearly-half-of-those-with-covid-19-have-no-idea-they-are-infected

Epidemiological studies are now revealing that the number of individuals who carry and can pass on the infection, yet remain completely asymptomatic,
is larger than originally thought.

Scientists believe these people have contributed to the spread of the virus in care homes,
and they are central in the debate regarding face mask policies

Rein Houben, an infectious diseases researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine.
....
“Almost all evidence seems to point to a proportion of asymptomatic infections of around 40%, with a wide range..

The proportion is also highly variable with age.
Nearly all infected children seem to remain asymptomatic, whereas the reverse seems to hold for the elderly.”

Houben points out that, because most asymptomatic people have no idea they are infected,
they are unlikely to be self-isolating

BigChocFrenzy · 31/05/2020 22:52

BJ announced a 200,000 test target by EOM, but ONS queries meant aides later clarified that target to refer to test capacity not actual tests done.

From the figure for today of 115k tests - which is still a good amount - there seem to be multiple tests per person
Is the data incomplete, or is it really the case that under 20k people were actually tested ?

Is it to tackle the significant % of false negatives ?

  • to counter the risk of e.g. infected health staff returning to duty

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/25/doctors-condemn-secrecy-over-false-negative-covid-19-tests

Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 9
Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 9
Littlebelina · 01/06/2020 07:33

They haven't reported the number tested for about a week, the explanation being that they are changing how something is reported to improve consistency. There were always more tests than people tested (I think for the false negatives like you say BigChoc and also sometimes they don't get another material). Some of the tests carried out refer to tests posted as well (which may not get returned). It's a little frustrating that they've stopped reporting the number of people as seeing an %positive is useful marker to assess if cases are actually going up or down as tests increase. Plus it slows down the conspiracy theories on twitter!

Littlebelina · 01/06/2020 07:34

Enough not another

NeurotrashWarrior · 01/06/2020 08:09

I know this has been asked before; I've forgotten. If you are asymptomatic do you still create antibodies? I'm assuming yes as that's how vaccines work.

sparkle17 · 01/06/2020 08:17

Hi

Can someone help me out here. I'm trying to work out how many cases there are per the total population. Scotland are now getting low numbers and trying to work out if England are as well.
Total cases yesterday were 1936. Out of that it was just 18 from Scotland.
Scottish population is 5.45 million
Total UK population is 66.65 million.
So 1 confirmed case for every 303k people in Scotland
So 1 confirmed case for every 32k people in the rest of the UK.

If my calculations are right - please do check. I'm not very good at them but I am interested in the numbers. I think this shows the different strategies across the UK. I'm quite anxious about restrictions getting lifted..not because I'm worried about getting it personally just I worry we will be in lockdown longer. I'm in Scotland by the way but still worried people are flouting the rules.

NeurotrashWarrior · 01/06/2020 08:19

The bbc used to show cases per 100,000 ( or deaths?) in various regions but seems to have stopped; I'm sure it's elsewhere.