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.

Really interesting article on BBC news 'Is R number balanced on a knife edge?' - thank god at least the BBC can write intelligently about a complex subject (I'm not an expert at all, but hate badly written sensationalist stuff).
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52944037

Cambridge / PHE England study & estimates of regional R0:

imo, a plateau of 250 daily deaths from a population of 67 million is acceptable to restart education and the economy.
The only issue will be whether that remains a plateau, or cases & deaths start climbing significantly
==> reliable monitoring systems must be in place

Overall IFR = 0.88%

https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/

Findings
1 We estimate that across England there are 17,000 (11,000–25,000, 95% credible interval) new infections arising each day
2 We estimate that the number of deaths each day is likely to fall to between 100–250 by mid-June
3 We believe it is probable that Rt is below 1 in all regions of England with the exception of the North West and the South West
4 In the South West, although Rt is around 1, the numbers of new infections occurring in the region on a daily basis is relatively low
5 There is some evidence that Rt has risen in all regions and we believe that this is probably due to increasing mobility and mixing between households and in public and workplace settings
6 An increase in Rt will lead to a slowdown in the decrease in new infections and deaths
7 There is evidence, from the forecast of deaths for the whole of England, that the increases in the regional reproductive numbers may result in the decline in the national death rate being arrested by mid-June

Note: that overall IFR = 0.88% is massively affected by age 75+
It is max 0.36% for population of working age

No. 7 is very worrying.

Plateau at that level is imo acceptable; rising again would be very concerning

Does 7 mean that regional increases will result in deaths going up again?

I read it as the death rate would stop going down not start going up. It will reduce to a point and then remain fairly constant.

Yes, my understanding of this prediction is that daily deaths would reduce until a mid-June plateau,
at which they would not reduce further.

The concern would be if they then rise again, not about staying on the plateau

As with all predictions, even by experts ... they are assuming certain behaviour and there is a substantial standard deviation
Also, unexpected events could render any forecast invalid

Another paper linking adipose fat to Covid risk:

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.05.20122226v1

I think I was the first to mention the Brazilian data, and I apologise for setting the cat amongst the pigeons. I'm not expert in statistics and certainly nowhere close to some of the regular posters on this thread to whom I am thankful for their data and commentary. I am aware, and read over and over, of the importance of not directly comparing to any one country due to differences in available data, obviously in addition to differences in socio-economics, demographics etc.

As I understand it, we won't ever have a true perfect picture of infection rates in the UK because not everyone will be tested, nor death rates because not all deceased are tested and there is some variance in terms of what is recorded on death certificates (granted this is anecdotal though). Therefore until long term excess deaths are known, data from other countries can help give us some context? And even then we will never truly know how many were directly Covid and how many indirect due to medical or social reasons?

With regards to Alzheimers and the high excess deaths.

I do think its a mixture of both. The effects of Lockdown are severe for this group.

But also how easy would it be to do a test on someone with advanced Alzheimers? Could that also account for some discrepancies . If you can't perform the test correctly then its more likely not to be positive.

Yes I watched the training video for care home staff yesterday and it's I wan't impressed - shows a completely compliant and non-distressed subject sitting patiently upright in bed, no gagging etc. I had to self administer a test this week and I certainly gagged! (The tone is quite patronising too, I thought.)

*"Only 10 per cent of people who are infected with the coronavirus develop antibodies, a professor claims.

Professor Karol Sikora, an advisor to the World Health Organisation, said the majority would have a negative result on an antibody test, even though they have had the coronavirus."

If this is true we could be massively underestimating how many people have had the virus?

Even if we were massively underestimating the number of people who had CV, there's no data or proof that without antibodies, people are immune from reinfection. People who have tested positive but do not develop antibodies may have used T-cells to fight infection, or might have had a low enough viral load that antibodies were not necessary to recover. There is a lot we don't know about this virus, its transmission mechanisms, its effects on humans, how people recover.

It would suggest the IFR is potentially miniscule though. The article I read suggested people were using T cells instead to fight off Covid. Anecdotally, if you go on the antibody test thread on here there are lots of people who had positive swabs but a negative antibody test. Its definitely interesting

77 deaths First day below 100

Does that mean they can get it again, as badly, worse or with no symptoms?

Ah T cells are different aren't they!

First day below 100 deaths and a relatively low number of cases (circa 1300). I know it's weekend so reported deaths may be lower but that's the lowest weekend figure we've had.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the number of cases seems to be decreasing as well.

NHS staff are being tested

Not where I work

@AnyFucker nor the nurse daughter of another poster who's been working with covid positive patients for 3 months

@Nquartz same

First day below 100 deaths and a relatively low number of cases (circa 1300)

Surely that's just hospital deaths though? (Although it's lower, even for weekend figures)
What's happened to the community deaths report today?

@Puzzledandpissedoff, I'm not sure. The figure has included deaths in all settings for several weeks now.