Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 12

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 12 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Slides & data UK govt pressers
UK dashboard sub-national data, local authorities
Beta Uk dashboard deaths, cases, hospitals, tests, partially sub-national
UK stats updated daily by PHE & DHSC
ONS UK statistics for CV related deaths, released weekly each Tuesday
PHE surveillance report infections & deaths released every Thursday with sep. infographic
NHS England stats including breakdown by Hospital Trust
FT Daily updates
HSJ Healthcare updates
Worldometer UK page
Plot FT graphs compare countries deaths, cases / million pop. / log / linear
Covidly.com filter graphs compare countries
Plot COVID Graphs Our World in Data

We welcome factual, data driven, and civil discussions from all contributors 📈📶👍

@yummyoldbag Deaths in hospitals are reported by place of usual residence. There are some clusters round care homes (which are people's usual residence) but not hospitals. There was previously a map you could see that had deaths at census output area (which is how I could see them clustered round a couple of local are care homes) Maybe someone can provide you the current link?

Thanks for all these very interesting thoughts.
If anyone else like me watching like a hawk the Wales data after some outbreaks last few weeks it would appear that finally things are heading in the right direction nationwide.
Just 16 cases nationally yesterday

public.tableau.com/profile/public.health.wales.health.protection#!/vizhome/RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary

Yes. The air con could be a spreading factor in these places. If people are not distancing and then working under air con.

Lancet paper finding that 44% of London HCW had been infected by Covid.
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31484-7/fulltext

44% of 200 care workers.

"we enrolled"
how was the sample selected
and was it in any way representative of the country as a whole
or just that pocket of London

Appendix to The Lancet study says -
"We enrolled HCWs at University College London Hospitals between 26th March and 8th April 2020. Eligibility criteria were being asymptomatic at time of enrolment and working in one of five clinical
areas: Accident and Emergency (A&E), acute medical admissions (AMU), COVID-19 cohort
wards, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and haematology ward"

So it would appear it was a self selecting sample and not weighted/representative.

Overall, 44% at some point either tested positive for current infection or had a positive antibody result indicating past infection.

Interestingly, 25% already tested positive for antibodies at the start of the study - March 26.

I thought this was useful for UK admission, number in hospital & critical care beds occupied. The absolute change numbers are interesting.

www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-uk-hospital-admissions/

It was updated yesterday.

I cant remember if health care staff were being tested at the time but almost certainly not unless symptomatic.

It wont have been a representative sample but still interesting. Of course it's not possible to say if they were infected in or out of hospital but it does show how vital it is to test frontline staff and test them often.

but it does show how vital it is to test frontline staff and test them often.
Except that people who have had it are flushing the antibodies from their systems
immunity may last only a few months
and we still have no idea how many people are catching it, never falling ill and clearing it.

We have to learn to live WITH COVID
as we have done other infectious diseases

Measles has only been a human disease for 800 years after all

@ListeningQuietly

but it does show how vital it is to test frontline staff and test them often. Except that people who have had it are flushing the antibodies from their systems immunity may last only a few months and we still have no idea how many people are catching it, never falling ill and clearing it.

We have to learn to live WITH COVID
as we have done other infectious diseases

Measles has only been a human disease for 800 years after all

If staff are tested regularly using PT/SCR for current infections, then they cannot transmit to patients who maybe elderly, immuno compromised or whatever co-morbidity, I think that is the crucial issue.

Eventually we will have to live with it/vaccinate like the flu but until we have vaccinations we have to do our best to protect the vulnerable.

Analysis from one of Milan hospitals that also seems to suggest the severity of COVID in hotspots might have reduced over time without significant changes to patients age.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20477724.2020.1785782

In our institution, the proportion of patients requiring ICU decreased over time from 17% to 7%, without significant changes in patients’ age, suggesting a decreased severity of clinical presentation and progression.

And here is similar analysis for the UK (the breakdown by age group is very helpful):

www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-declining-admissions-to-intensive-care-units/

Stats today in UK: 48 deaths, 512 cases. Last Friday: 137 deaths and 544 cases.

Just seen the data for today.

512 cases and 48 deaths. At least deaths seem to be heading downward now. Last Fri was 519 cases and 136 deaths.

Msn news seem to suggest the r rate may have increased slightly from 0.7-0.9 to 0.8-1. I suppose that could be due to local outbreaks e.g. Leicester because everything else says/shows cases are going down.

Is that not also due to the much better understanding of the fact that CPAP and oxygen and anti inflammatories started right away stops people ending up on ventilators ?
The disease is still a bugger
but its being controlled much better

@PatriciaHolm you have the correct cases from last fri -think I looked at the wrong day

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.haaretz.com/amp/israel-news/.premium-second-coronavirus-wave-seems-to-be-making-israelis-less-sick-doctors-say-1.8983740

This article on the situation in Israel attributes the lower fatalities in their second wave to a combination of lower age, better treatment as Listening suggests, as well as the more vulnerable taking more precautions. They regard changes in the virus itself a less likely explanation.

Agree today’s figures all in the right direction. 7 day rolling average now 74 I think.

Just done a quick calculation and in the last 7 days, average cases is approx. 548 per day.

The 7 days prior to that is approx. 688 per day.

So a decent decrease overall.

AprilLady
The really cool thing about the CPAP and steroids combination
is that it looks like it will work against any flu / pneumonia combination
which means LOTS of people will be saved from the agony of ventilators
as well as the cost .

CPAP machines can be taken off and the patient can explain how they feel and their family can talk to them - aiding recovery in itself

Ventilators are a different matter

Thanks @BigChocFrenzy.

Can someone please explain the R rate please and why we don't automatically need to be alarmed that it seems to be increasing?

@popfizz I think some of the alarm over the R rate increasing is that it doesn't really matter much if it bobs up and down a bit. If it stays under 1 on average cases will go on coming down. If it goes above 1 and stays there cases will increase. The increase will be - in mathematical terms "exponential" - but an r rate of 1.1 will not lead to what people really think of when they say something is increasing exponentially. Exponential is often used colloquially to mean "rapid and uncontrolled" And that was what we saw in early March when the r rate was over 3. But an r rate of 1.1 means cases increase at round about 12% per week - it would take many weeks of r staying at this level for them to go up substantially, and there would be time to intervene and tackle the causes. So there's nothing really critical about the R rate tipping above 1 from time to time or in one area and not others. Once cases are low, the r rate is likely to bounce up and down a lot if you look at it locally.

@PopFizzClink

Thanks *@BigChocFrenzy*.

Can someone please explain the R rate please and why we don't automatically need to be alarmed that it seems to be increasing?

R rates can also swing wildly at low infection rates. If you get a local hotspot and say, you go from 5 infections to 10, that suggests your R is 2 (very simply) - but it's a tiny fluctuation and doesn't necessarily mean anything at all.

Germany's Robert Koch institute calculate R on a daily basis, and it went to 2.88 in two days towards the end of June, driven largely by one abattoir outbreak. It fell again just as quickly.

Anyone have any ideas what is happening over in Spain?. I know they have had a few localised outbreaks which I'm sure they will get under control. But looking on worldometer they have had over 800 new infections.

the daily growth rate is still negative too -5% to -2% per day (last week it was -6% to 0%, so more negative this week!).