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 💐

Interesting to look at the data table here
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsinvolvingcovid19bylocalareaanddeprivation
and see what proportion of deaths in any area were Covid / non covid
it puts things into perspective again

Do we know why some people infect many others and others don't?

Some people gesture widely, are very tactile and "spray-talk" droplets widely, I'd suppose they'd infect a lot more people than "church mouse" types who talk quietly and keep themselves to themselves.

@RapidRainbow

Does anyone know where I can find daily new cases by area? It all seems to have switched to overall cases

You can find it on here. news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-uk-tracker-how-many-cases-are-in-your-area-updated-daily-11956258

@InMySpareTime

Some people gesture widely, are very tactile and "spray-talk" droplets widely, I'd suppose they'd infect a lot more people than "church mouse" types who talk quietly and keep themselves to themselves.

DH has a thunderous voice even when talking to someone close by. I suspect he’s probably the superspreader type which is why I’m glad he’s wfh and not unleashed onto the world.

173 deaths today, great majority in the care setting. NHS England figures were only 46.

169,600 tests were carried out or dispatched, with 1,346 positive results

Hmm the confirmed cases really do seem to be plateauing.

Slow decline rather than plateau.
Dido Harding said on the briefing the other day that she is the only person who doesn’t want to see positive tests going down as she wants the tests to capture an increasing proportion of actual cases as test & trace improves its effectiveness.
It would be nice to think this is what is going on and it may be as the ONS and Zoe estimates seem to be going down faster than the positive tests.

The number of positive tests announced is really rather meaningless unfortunately, as we don't know how many people it relates to or when the positive test was taken. If, for example, we are steadily increasing the number of people tested (likely) and the tests are mostly from days ago, that says infections are falling; if we are testing a steady or declining number and tests all from the past day or so (unlikely), that's a very different story.

Other stats out today say infection rates are falling between -1 and -4% a day, so a slow decline as Countess refers to.

My biggest worry about the test results is that its known that the test gives up to 29% false negative in hospital
and its likely to be higher than that with self testing as people will not make themselves gag

Dido Harding said on the briefing the other day that she is the only person who doesn’t want to see positive tests going down as she wants the tests to capture an increasing proportion of actual cases as test & trace improves its effectiveness

Let's hope she was being ironic, but what's the bit about "actual cases" meant to mean?
Whatever the issues around her pet project, f the tests aren't capturing actual cases, what the hell are they capturing??

They’re capturing a proportion of the cases out there and she wants the proportion to rise. Nobody is under the impression that the tests are picking up every single infection. I obviously haven’t conveyed her meaning very well, for which I apologize, but I can’t think how else to explain it.

Dido Harding is useless
and has bollocksed up most of her previous jobs
sadly once you are "in the loop" reward for failure is the norm

Perhaps I should have said ‘the actual number of cases’ rather than ‘actual cases’ if that’s where the confusion is coming in.

I would interpret that as an acknowledgement that the "actual number" of positive cases per day are somewhat higher than the number of positive tests per day, which is true, and she wants those numbers to get closer - to be capturing a higher percentage of the new infections, in order to be able to trace more contacts and be surer of the real picture of infection.

If the tests aren't capturing actual cases, what the hell are they capturing??

They are capturing a percentage of active cases.

According to both Zoe app and ONS, we are now running at around new 3,600 cases per day. If the testing only picks up 1,300 of those, we are still missing a meaningful proportion of infections.

Ideally you would like the two numbers to converge but it will not be possible due to fully asymptomatic cases.

Thanks, everyone - that makes more sense now and is why I like these threads for providing rational answers. No need to apologise either, Countess; goodness knows it's all confusing enough and the fault was probably mine for misunderstanding

Yes she wants the number of positive tests to rise to better match the number of estimated cases (Zoe & ONS surveillance) so that they can increase the proportion of cases being identified for contact tracing.

On the news today they mentioned the apparently disproportionate effect on Jewish people. I haven’t looked at the data, anyone knowledgable on this? It’s been mentioned before I know - could it simply be down to a large Jewish population in London, which was obviously hit hard by the virus?

@BovvyDazz

Also... I’m not sure how much we can trust the data by local authority; as it appears that most cases are now being identified through commercial labs (pillar 2 in green on the attached) rather than via the government testing (which are not included in the figures by region/local authority)? Or has anyone found data for cases (by day) by local authority including the commercial tests?

I'd also like to know if this data can be found anywhere?

Another question from me - people are referring to the Zoe app - the only one I have is the Symptom Tracker - is there another app with actual data on? (or is it on this app somewhere?) I had actually assumed when I downloaded it that it'd give some basic data in return for me tracking my symptoms etc!

The Jewish thing has definitely be highlighted in the French media, tho' haven't seen it here.

Click on 'research updates' on this page

Thanks Summer but I don't even see that page! I'm on Android. Yours says Symptom Study and mine says Symptom Tracker... perhaps they're separate.

Just updated the app and now it's Symptom Study and looks like I need to create an account etc (can't remember if I did before) - serves me right for getting it right at the start of all this!

Mine if the Covid app on apple. It references a website too so you could search for that maybe? 🤷‍♀️