Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 10

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 10 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

We welcome factual, data driven, and civil discussions from all contributors 💐

There was some discussion about Spain and slightly ...unusual counting practices...earlier in the thread. Attached a news story from Catalonia- although clearly not an unbiased source when it comes to the Spanish Government. I think the FT did a report but I can't find that, sorry.

www.catalannews.com/society-science/item/why-is-spain-as-a-whole-reporting-fewer-new-covid-19-deaths-than-catalonia

rolling average is already lower than 200+/- 20, hospital deaths are reducing more quickly. I don't think it's being wildly optimistic to hope they will continue to fall overall.

I don’t know why we would expect it to stick at 200 when it has been consistently falling and the rolling 7 day average is nicely below that!
Cases seem a bit stuck at 1500-1000ish but I am hoping that’s the effect of contact tracing on who gets tested. In any case the estimated infection numbers from other sources are going down.

Comparing countries who also include care home deaths,

the UK deaths have has been declining to a much lower level than the peak in early April,
just not as quickly as elsewhere

Cases in those countries are mostly declining slowly too atm
except for Sweden which has rising cases - maybe due to more testing ?

@BigChocFrenzy

Cases in those countries are mostly declining slowly too atm except for Sweden which has rising cases - maybe due to more testing ?

Apparently so -

"Karin Tegmark-Wisell, the director of the agency's Department of Microbiology, said during a Thursday news conference the increasing case numbers were the result of expanded efforts to test Swedish residents throughout the country, including those with mild symptoms.
"It has been a slow upturn, but now it seems that the effect of increased testing is becoming clear," Tegmark-Wisell said, according to a news conference transcript translated by Reuters."

just not as quickly as elsewhere

Interesting isn't it. Could be the impact of things like VE Day, Cummings, nice weather - whatever. People keep going on about 'do you think there will be a spike?', erm, no - the 'spike' was the big thing on 8th April. Issues with adherence to lockdown or 'fuck it' attitudes are more likely to have slower declines or rumbling numbers of deaths. I think.

Interesting isn't it. Could be the impact of things like VE Day, Cummings, nice weather - whatever. People keep going on about 'do you think there will be a spike?', erm, no - the 'spike' was the big thing on 8th April. Issues with adherence to lockdown or 'fuck it' attitudes are more likely to have slower declines or rumbling numbers of deaths. I think

You may well have a point. But if you look at the death settings, the NHS deaths in hospital continue to fall significantly, suggesting that spread within vulnerable people in care homes is still the problem ( although the figures are falling). These deaths are unlikely to be linked to Cummings, VE Day, shops or anything else as visitors are still restricted/banned.

Thank you cathyandclare

suggesting that spread within vulnerable people in care homes is still the problem ( although the figures are falling). These deaths are unlikely to be linked to Cummings, VE Day, shops or anything else as visitors are still restricted/banned.

^that's the point I was trying to make when I said hospital deaths were falling more quickly. The situation is care homes is the greatest failing of the UK response & the constant tabloid-esque droning on about "covidiots" obscures & deflects from that.

There has been a flare up in my area (almost quarter) a housing community seemed to have had a get together. Now the whole block of flats is in lock down. At least they won't be bored or alone.

On my way home I went to a DIY-shop + garden center. Lots of social distancing and all adults and children in masks and in the parking lot a football coach waiting for his goaly to arrive.
It felt great!

@ohthegoats
I think 200 or round abouts is still high at this stage and I'm concerned. I would have expected us to be in the double digits by now.

The situation is care homes is the greatest failing of the UK response

I thought that, until I saw a video on the BBC from the Chelsea Pensioner Hospital. They closed down really early, mid Feb. They had full PPE and military organisation of distancing and control. They had an infirmary on site. Even so, with all the benefits they had, they have still had deaths from Covid. The military man they spoke to was, in classic military speech, speaking about the invisible enemy who breached our defences. It was interesting anyway, in that it demonstrated how hard it is to protect these very vulnerable communities.

Hospital death trends for England continue to be positive. As an example, London has been reporting single digit numbers since June 1.

Unfortunately, even hospital deaths are likely to plateau before they drop to zero. Based on ICNARC report, as of last Friday we still had 886 patients in ICU. The longer people stay there, sadly, the less optimistic is the prognosis. The new treatment should help but it is not clear how impactful it might be for patients who have already been on ventilation for the extended period of time.

Well it might start to drop a little as they use dex? On new admissions. That could cut several off the daily deaths.
I think china was originally trying several things like antihistamines and antibiotics etc.
Also other countries having identified their people when contagious know who to look to for plasma antibodies. Though uk would have more antibody donors than many other countries.

Could inhaled asthma steriods help too as theyve removed some asthmatic people from shielded etc?

Yoy can see on the slides that care homes are still an issue but what is Other? Workplaces ?
I imagine they are leaving contagious people in care homes so it just continues to spread so wont stop until everyone in the home has had it?
Have they tried giving the vax to care home staff too as they have included hcp in the trials.
Also im interested as Bristol was a vax trial area whether they vaxxed the staff at the hospitals and whether that has helped. As NSomerset is still growing but Bristol isnt as much

Surely maybe part of the reason blood clots so much is that the o2 level got so low. So taking people in early for oxygen or even trying them on other asthma meds like ventolin could help.

I think uk need to invest in some isolation places. I mean when we brought people back from China we put them all in one building next to a hospital and they were i think wheeling food to them but some people were mixing.
Bringing people back from tennerife among other passengers.
I would really like to see the actual data for where people were infected from. I guess that will come out in the next 50y.
As it seemed like USA infected themselves in Washington? when they werent careful bringing people back.

Cases in those countries are mostly declining slowly too atm except for Sweden which has rising cases - maybe due to more testing?

Sweden is now a real anomaly in Europe it seems (excluding Russia). Whereas the U.K. has a notably higher infection numbers than the other European countries, Sweden appears to be in another league.

Assuming that Sweden’s testing regime is not significantly more developed than the UK’s (and for all it’s faults early on, the U.K. is now testing extensively), it’s infection rate in proportion to its population is about 5 higher than the U.K.! No wonder the Danes and Norwegians won’t let them into their travel club!

Apparently - ""Other" includes counts from England, Wales and Northern Ireland for Hospices, Communal Establishments (except for Hospitals and Care Homes), and deaths that occurred in settings other than Homes, Hospitals or Care Homes. It includes counts from Scotland for institutions excluding Care Homes and Hospitals.)"

So would include prisons, for example, I think.

Rolling average on deaths is down to 155, down almost a quarter from this time last week.

Rolling average on England admissions is also down almost a quarter on last week.

Re Sweden, the WHO representative on the BBC News Special the other day (maybe Friday?) put the Sweden rise all down to increased testing.
I hope he’s right.

(Preprint) Cremation based estimates suggest significant under- and delayed reporting of COVID-19 epidemic data in Wuhan and China

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.28.20116012v1

The implied starting time of the outbreak is October 2019

Under the assumption of the official 3.14% death rate and doubling time of 2.54 days (which was derived based on Chinese official data),
the infection cases reached 2.2 million on February 7.

The estimates of cumulative deaths,
based on both funeral urns distribution and continuous full capacity operation of cremation services up to March 23, 2020,
give results around 36,000,
more than 10 times of the official death toll of 2,524.

Re Sweden, the WHO representative on the BBC News Special the other day (maybe Friday?) put the Sweden rise all down to increased testing.
I hope he’s right.

Yes, I hope so too, but even if it is, it demonstrates they have far more infection per head than other European countries. It’s equivalent to the U.K. having 6-7,000 daily cases!

Baaaahhhhh I agree to a certain extent - even with the best will in the world bad things will always happen but I think Neil Ferguson's testimony was damning ... how can it be okay to base protection of absolutely the most vulnerable group on an "optimistic assumption" that they'll somehow be okay? They completely dropped the ball, care homes were an afterthought and all the chatter about queuing for Ikea or whatever the crime du jour is is just virtue signalling while choosing to ignore the real problems.

Under the assumption of the official 3.14% death rate

Why would you believe that ridiculous number?

To be fair if Sweden is perusing herd immunity its infection rate should be high its its death rate that counts if they can infect the less vulnerable and protect the vulnerable they end up witH high infection (And hopefully high immunity) but not high deaths..not saying this is right just that I thought it was the basis of the strategy and that on a death rate rather than an infection rate we were doing worse?

"Under the assumption of the official 3.14% death rate"

That's just the CFR
I suspect the Wuhan figures of total deaths are massively fudged

• their drastic shutdown on apparently so few deaths was always implausible

The count at funeral homes and urns would be a decent metric, if they managed to get reliable data