Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 11

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 11 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Slides & data UK govt pressers
NHS England stats including breakdown by Hospital Trust
ONS UK statistics for CV related deaths outside hospitals, released weekly each Tuesday
Financial Times Daily updates and graphs
HSJ Coronavirus updates
Worldometer UK page
Covidly.com to filter graphs using selected data filters ONS statistics for CV related deaths outside hospitals, released weekly each Tuesday
Plot COVID Graphs Our World in Data

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

Shops here have air con as well. Might get quite hot in the gym I expect.

How can we know that lung damage found after a positive Covid test in an asymptomatic person was caused by Covid?

There a very distinct look on a lung CT scan from Covid 19. From what I've read it's only ever been seen as a result of Covid 19 so it should be quite easy to know?

nihiloxica Doctors report that the kind of damage caused by COVID - for the unfortunate 1 in 20 - is very distinctive, particularly for lungs - ground glass effect - blood clots etc

Someone with no previous symptoms catching COVID and then suddently having these symptoms,
which cause doctors to carry out scans and find organ scarring and other damage,
with no other explanation for why this person suddenly suffered all this.

It takes wilful denial to just claim these are coincidences

One of the roadblocks in persuading the nervous to return to schools etc

• the wilful denial and minimisation of what has happened:

It just makes the nervous even more determined not to listen or cooperate.

Much better strategy is to explain the v low infection rate and hence v low chance of becoming infected
and the economic necessity of returning to work to pay for public services and everything else we need.

@itsgettingweird

How can we know that lung damage found after a positive Covid test in an asymptomatic person was caused by Covid?

There a very distinct look on a lung CT scan from Covid 19. From what I've read it's only ever been seen as a result of Covid 19 so it should be quite easy to know?

Interesting, thanks.

Distinct even from SARS or MERS?

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/england25june2020

It's apparently flattening off, the decrease. But I think that could partly be due to the small study and now quite tiny number of positives? Only 14 were found and they equated that to 4 in 10,000 down from 5 in 10,000 last week.

"Distinct even from SARS or MERS?"

That's really clutching at fantasy straws, to claim COVID damage is really from them

There were only a few thousand cases in the world of those viruses which didn't reach the UK

• with the v high death rates they had - about 35% CFR for MERS - we'd notice immediately

and yes, doctors said COVID lungs "ground glass" is unique, no mention of looking anything like SARS or MERS

On Tuesday Patrick Valance said they believe the number of cases to be decreasing by 2-4% per day.... do we know what figures this is based on? Is it the same as the ONS data above?
I’m assuming (hoping!) it is based on something better than this small study...?
(And also hoping therefore that it’s true and that cases are not actually levelling off!)

@TeaInTheGarden

On Tuesday Patrick Valance said they believe the number of cases to be decreasing by 2-4% per day.... do we know what figures this is based on? Is it the same as the ONS data above? I’m assuming (hoping!) it is based on something better than this small study...? (And also hoping therefore that it’s true and that cases are not actually levelling off!)

That's from here -www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-number-in-the-uk

and has been updated today, and stayed the same.

Its drawn from a wide combination of sources - the ONS sampling, NHS data on 111 phone/online, admissions, deaths, other surveys. All of which individually have their flaws, but taken together show a bigger picture.

...do we know what figures this is based on?

Most likely, he has been referring to the SAGE estimates that have been updated today:

www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-number-in-the-uk

ONS results do feed into SAGE data but SAGE also looks at hospital admissions and other factors (e.g. calls to 111, etc).

Intuitively though I would expect cases to level off (at least, for a time being) on the back of the BLM protests. The reality is they were ideal superspreading events and they could've pushed up the transmission rates (hopefully, temporarily and, hopefully, not significantly).

Thank you both that’s so helpful, just what I was looking for.
Is this updated weekly?

Is this updated weekly?

It used to be updated each Friday but this week they were one day early.

if we look at the trend of the 7-day rolling average for new cases, the UK has continued downward

However, other countries have plateaued after relaxing a lot of measures,
so very likely the UK will too, soon after 4 July

Maybe a bit earlier if this is widespread ...

news.sky.com/story/major-incident-declared-in-bournemouth-as-thousands-of-people-flock-to-beaches-12014686

"A major incident has been declared in Bournemouth after thousands of people descended on the area's beaches as temperatures soared.
....
Bournemouth Council said people had "defied advice to stay away" and left services struggling to cope."

That's really clutching at fantasy straws, to claim COVID damage is really from them

I'm not claiming anything. I'm asking a question. I thought this was a thread about figures, I didn't come here to expound political theories, and I haven't at all.

Covid is a very close relative of SARS in the virus world. I was wondering if the ground glass effect was also seen in SARS. I'm trying to understand how unique the scarring is, not claim that people who have scarring got it from SARS .

A very quick search around the Internet during a work Zoom has turned up more information:

This is from NPR

Some pull quotes:

""To find so many asymptomatic patients with such significant changes on CTs is quite surprising," says Dr. Alvin Ing, a professor of respiratory medicine at Macquarie University who was not involved with the study."

And later:

"Dr. Jorge Mercado, a pulmonologist and critical care doctor at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn who is not affiliated with the study, says he's seen many instances where a patient has come to the hospital for an issue not related to COVID-19 and tested positive for the coronavirus. "Those patients evolved into what this paper illustrates, which is [their coronavirus infections] causing pneumonia, causing inflammatory changes," he says.

Still, Taylor-Cousar cautions that researchers are studying the new coronavirus more intensively than they've studied other respiratory ailments. "Usually if someone is asymptomatic [with a common cold or flu virus], we would never even see them at all," she says, "and we would never think to get a CT scan on them." So there's no comparable data to say whether the lung abnormalities are specific to asymptomatic coronavirus carriers, or common among respiratory viruses."

Zoe know their demographic and can adjust accordingly.

They are respected by a number of senior decision makers.

True but that doesn't mean their estimate is better than official ones

Over the last 7 days in Germany,
we can see the effect of the major outbreak at the slaughterhouse in Gütersloh
and the much smaller outbreak in Berlin

However, with the overall low number of cases, the R0 which was 2.7 a few days ago has fallen to 0.7

These sharp swings illustrate that at this stage of the epidemic in most European countries - first wave basically over -
temporary blips in a national R0 should not cause much concern - unless / until cases show a steady rise over weeks.

We need to remember this for the UK after 4 July

• unfortunately I suspect there may be some unnecessary panic when outbreaks happen

So we must exude calm and give maths explanations

Highly experienced doctors have repeatedly said that they have never before seen the "ground glass" effect in lungs

• and millions of people over the years have had X rays for respiratory ailments like pneumonia -

but there will always be minority opinions out there (e.g. the 2% of climatologists re manmade climate change)

That a minority of COVID survivors have experienced organ damage and suffer longterm effects seems now established medical science
I hope those sufferers don't come up against disbelief when they seek medical support or try to claim benefits.
However, that is much more likely in the US - because of politics - than in the UK

Does anybody know of a reliable website that provides the daily death rate?

I quite relied on the briefings for that and now I don’t know where to find the information?

Thank you

Lurking and learning here! Thankyou

has anyone seen the Ischgl antibody study?

They tested 1473 out of the 1800 residents - of those 42.4% had antibodies. 85% of the people with antibodies had not previously diagnosed with CV and not aware that they'd had it - I'm not sure how many were truly symptomatic rather than just very mildly affected. They had two deaths in the village which gives an IFR of 0.24%. Only just over a quarter of children had antibodies.

Ischgl was the site of the beer pong iirc!

I am mainly trying to keep an eye on the number of hospital admissions. The slides for Wednesday 24th give an estimate of 318 for the 21st June. There seems to be a new dashboard now which is more up to date. The "daily" figure quoted for 24th June is 482.
coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/

Effect of Dexamethasone in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: Preliminary Report

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.22.20137273v1

Dexamethasone significantly reduced deaths of the most seriously ill patients - those on ventilators
and to a much lesser extent those just on oxygen.

It worsens the risk for those less seriously ill and not on either

No statistically significant benefit to patients aged 70+

• who comprise over 80% of COVID deaths

but helps the minority of seriously ill younger patients

@torydeathdrug the slides with the daily figures are put up here:

www.gov.uk/government/collections/slides-and-datasets-to-accompany-coronavirus-press-conferences

The Department for Health and Social Care also tweet the death rates in all settings and the testing data daily.

@Aubretia25 the latest hospitals admissions on that page is from June 10. Don't know why as the rest is updated. The latest number from the data for England is 215, for England and Wales 283,

.... and including NI 318, which is the number you quoted. An update will come out this afternoon.