Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 9

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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.

from another thread

www.echo-news.co.uk/news/18489316.southend-saw-big-spike-confirmed-virus-cases-bank-holiday-beach-visits/

www.northwaleschronicle.co.uk/news/18472271.dozens-coronavirus-cases-confirmed-north-wales-second-county-sees-weekend-spike/

www.carlowlive.ie/news/home/547030/latest-spike-in-positive-covid-19-cases-in-carlow-over-the-bank-holiday-weekend.html

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52942329

Anecdotal report of increases in Dorchester hospital.

Impossible to say without the hospital admissions data if there is any significant going on or if these are relatively small outbreaks.

CMMID (Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)
database of COVID-19 clusters / transmission settings around the world:

http://bit.ly/3ar39ky

Clusters around churches (singing ? elderly people more likely to have symptoms ?)
also meat processing plants (seem higher than any other type of plants)
sports, schools etc

To be clear:

There have been few covid-19 deaths in North Somerset
They tested staff en masse in a small hospital.
Many turned out to be infected
This caused a local spike in cases, which didn't necessarily mean there were any more infections , merely that they successfully identified and tested a specific building with mass transmission.

There is absolutely no reason to link this to beaches or anything else, since covid-19 is everywhere in the UK except possibly the Scilly Isles. We don't know if we went around to Shithole-on-no-tourists Hospital and randomly tested everyone then we would find similar results.

Even if we did similar testing in hundreds of hospitals and Weston was unique, which I doubt, it wouldn't show us that the cause was people going to the beach, since we have no data to compare with before people started going to the beach.

It does not seem that the hospital was in fact overwhelmed at all. Rather we know hospitals across the UK are VERY empty, and having found that there were high infection levels in this hospital, it makes sense to close it under the assumption that other hospitals are better. This assumption might be wrong, but when your only information is that W definitely for sure has high infection levels and B MIGHT do, then it makes sense to close W. Especially when it will likely be closed down permanently in the long term anyway.

www.echo-news.co.uk/news/18489316.southend-saw-big-spike-confirmed-virus-cases-bank-holiday-beach-visits/

Who are these utter arseholes?

The data analysis company DeckZero looked at daily lab test results and claimed that Southend had 24 confirmed cases on May 25 – up from the peak in April when there were 19 recorded cases.

The company claims this means Southend’s R-number, which indicates how quickly a virus is spreading in a certain area, is now above 1.6, which means the number of cases is increasing exponentially.

I mean seriously. Who the fuck are they?

It is not possible to trace what may have prompted the increase but one significant factor could be that testing was made available just one week earlier and testing centres operate just two days a week, with results taking 48 hours to be obtained.

Lol. So positive tests go up after they started testing people, and before they tested anyone the numbers were zero.

What a surprise. Seriously!?

The councillor responsible for health in borough, Trevor Harp, dismissed the research claiming it is inaccurate and goes against official data from Public Health England.

A council briefing sent to councillors over the weekend explains the R-number is currently 0.6 for the East of England as of May 30, with potential for that to vary between 0.5 and 0.8.

That doesn't really account for Bedford though, also in the East.

Ok so it's the journalists who are arseholes here

DeckZero is a noname computer programming site

But they say if you use their numbers like the Southend Echo did you are a total arsehole

www.deckzero.com/forum/content-discussion/a-message-about-our-covid-19-portal

And as a result of arsehole clueless journalists abusing their data, which they stated to be only meaningful when taken in proper context, they have taken the data down.

Because it was being abused by journalists to draw conclusions that couldn't be supported or refuted by their data

In Germany,
new cases (low hundreds daily, in clusters)
and deaths (double / single digit)

continuing to decline, despite major relaxation of measures over several weeks:

Slight relaxation end April
then from about 4 May we've had:
schools reopened pt, shops < 800 m2

then from mid-May:
all shops, gyms, hairdressers (with mask), distanced outdoor tables at restaurants, family visits, travel

and about a week ago:
distanced indoor tables at restaurants, some swimming pools
childcare, nurseries, kindergartens etc open and can run ft as normal through the summer vacation

Measures we still have:

Mandatory masks in shops, taxis, public transport
1.5 m distancing except for family
Large events / gatherings banned (but some tolerance for demonstrations)
Foreign travel - but this will be allowed to / from certain countries from mid-June
Schools only pt, but probably ft from late August, after summer vacation

btw, I'm fully in favour of schools going ft - the importance to education, welfare & economy justifies the v small risk
but
I'm slightly concerned about foreign holidays, especially flights / airports,
which imo are higher risk but v low gain - except politically.

@Stircrazyschoolmum i wouldn't believe the numbers published in brazil, it has been reported that they are under called.

www.itv.com/news/2020-05-29/sao-paulo-digs-mass-graves-as-virus-death-toll-soars-in-brazil/

www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/brazils-coronavirus-death-toll-worlds-fourth-highest-200531063925932.html

www.ft.com/content/7b46b8c3-b395-45ba-af68-50280cfeed47

Reports on positive tests have been stupid from day one. We were told that there was 8% fatality rate based on only the most ill people being tested. This was idiotic.

Now we have more tests, we must remember that raw counts of positive tests don't mean a damn thing

What we must consider is:

The % testing positive - up or down?
And the testing cohort - is it a random sample?
Statistical significance - if we've gone from 2 out of 100 RANDOMLY tested being positive to 20 out of 100 then that's a serious issue. But if it's 16 out of 100 Vs 24 out of 150 for example, that's the same thing. And 2 out of 100 Vs 3 out of 100 (when 100 is the actual number tested) is not a statistically significant increase.

Lots of people are looking to blame BLM protestors, the government for opening schools, people on the beach, etc. But such conclusions require evidence.... This thread is for that . And if the evidence is missing it will be called out.

But we cannot discount the impact of changes to normal routines for vulnerable care home residents following lockdown

BigChocFrenzy Agreed. This is not being acknowledged enough. DM's care home, which is Covid free, was a vibrant busy community, people in and out, lots of entertainment, lots going on. Over the past few weeks, the community has retreated to their rooms. A few weeks ago they all came down for lunch and dinner, my dear old mum is now eating alone downstairs, the rest are staying in their rooms. It is really very, very, sad and depressing. These are all very old people, with varying levels of illnesses, but their reasons for living have been taken away. DM is trying to "escape" back to her home, they are not allowing it. It sounds funny, but actually it isn't.

Dementia increases are so sharp it’s implausible that they are unrelated to COVID Agree and disagree. Do they mean actual infection with Covid, or because of Covid restrictions. Due to above, I would suggest the latter.

To be clear - Weston is not closing permanently and even the a&e department is planned to reopen at present www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/weston-general-hospital-coronavirus-update-1-6685677

There are likely to be asymptomatic staff at all trusts, that is why many (I dont know if all but probably) are testing staff as soon as they can get their hands on tests.

We need actual data to know what is happening - and especially that data the government has stopped releasing at weekends.

If test are increasing after the rush to the beaches that is not necessarily a major problem. The virus is unpleasant for those who get it but if the rush to the beaches was young people few will die as a result. We need to know if relaxing lockdown is increasing the number of severe cases.

Pretty sure this has already been posted but obviously overlooked - evidence of a gene that predisposes to Alzheimers but also to Covid-19. So those with Alzheimers dying may well be dying of Covid-19 but we will probably never know for sure. www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/alzheimers-risk-gene-link-to-covid-19-risk/

With v small numbers of cases, standard deviations are huge and general R-numbers may be of only academic interest

We need to see precisely where these new cases are, in the community or in institutions & factories etc

Institutional transmission means infection procedures must be tightened up and with far more targeted testing
There need to be more resources invested in protecting these vulnerable residents, e.g. full sick pay for staff, adequate PPE
We have known for several weeks how vulnerable the residents are and it is absolutely shameful if obvious measures are still not in place as standard everywhere.

However, with very localised lockdowns, such outbreaks need not affect relaxation - e.g. reopening schools - in the wider community.

But we cannot discount the impact of changes to normal routines for vulnerable care home residents following lockdown

Very much agree. My great uncle died a few weeks ago with dementia.

He went into a severe decline after lockdown. Back in March he was still well enough to go out for lunch once a week with family. (He still lived at home.)

After lockdown his whole routine and all his social interactions ended.

I can't say that this is why he died, but the decline was marked.

To be clear - Weston is not closing permanently and even the a&e department is planned to reopen at present

Yes it's open now.

However Weston NHS trust merged with Bristol and the long-term trend is to close and merge smaller hospitals. As a small hospital with a part-time A&E the Trust may well be looking to close it down long-term anyway.

DM's care home, which is Covid free

How do you know?

ShootsFruitAndLeaves No deaths, no staff absence, closed down early, full PPE from beginning, hasn't accepted any new residents, all tested negative. It's a good home........although now struggling financially. So, we know as far as we can know......

"Dementia increases are so sharp it’s implausible that they are unrelated to COVID

Agree and disagree.

Do they mean actual infection with Covid, or because of Covid restrictions"

I respect the ONS analysis, which is that a significant number have undiagnosed COVID as the main or a contributory factor,
but that there are other causes too.

We should not let prejudices either way affect acceptance of facts and expert analysis

The capacity of the NHS to manage pandemics (we can not expect this to be the only one) might need to be reviewed at the public enquiry that should follow this.

Other hospitals may have had capacity to deal with a temporary closure (although I'd like to know how far patients were sent and if any didnt get treatment), it does not follow they will do so permanently.

Is there anywhere which is releasing local data on infections and deaths/R numbers. I know there are the daily figures by authority but it's a pain to have to analyse this and work out 7 day averages etc

In Germany, from early on, there have been massive restrictions and changes in routine in care homes, to enable infection control

Even more likely to increase disorientation:
all those discharged from hospital were tested first and if infected were put up in hotels (govt paid) staffed by new staff in full PPE

However, care home deaths total only about 3,000
This is a significant % of the total 8,500 deaths in Germany,
but
if disorientation and disruption was causing significant numbers of deaths rather than COVID itself,
then I would expect this to be multiples higher

The government keep saying there is loads of testing capacity, so why aren't they using it for front line hospital staff? Why aren't all nurses and doctors tested once a week? Ditto for care staff in homes - surely the capacity is there to test weekly?

Exactly, newaccount
The testing capability - supposedly 200,000 - should be used to the full and targeted for the greatest benefit
which is care home staff and frontline NHS - spare testing capacity, if genuine, should be utilised

I wouldn't so much expect that disorientation and disruption to cause death this quickly, more that it will bring about severe decline in capacity that will never be recovered. So people with dementia will have far less pleasant lives, even if they live just as long.

I know that's a different data point entirely, but it's interesting.

My DSis was tested by her NHS trust last week. My trust is testing all "green" staff weekly. NHS staff are being tested.