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 📈📶👍

I live in Hereford and the jump of 56 cases is concerning. There is speculation that it is a reporting error as no one seems to know anything about it, the local Facebook groups are having a field day.
Anyone know ant more about it yet?

56 cases is likely to indicate an outbreak.

Starting from July 6, PHE/government rolled out monthly testing of all care home residents. Previously surveillance tests focused on care home staff:

www.gov.uk/government/news/regular-retesting-rolled-out-for-care-home-staff-and-residents

If there are no known outbreaks in the community (e.g. at work places) or in hospitals, it is possible the new cases were picked up through the care home surveillance program.

A question about the Zoe App if anyone knows the answer please 😊 ...where it says active cases, is that people logging symptoms or people who have tested positive?

@GameOfToastie ; I agree its a bit out the blue given the single figure case numbers from the previous weeks. As they are focused on a single day you do wonder whether it is a specific or very limited number of workplaces where something has arisen.

I think it has been mentioned several times on these threads but if the local PH teams are not getting the P2 information - which I'd wager most if not all the 56 fall into - then the first they will know about it is when it appears on the daily national dashboard.

I still think although detailed info might be starting to get through to local teams it is on a weekly not daily basis - so effectively next to useless.

Error is not beyond the realm of possibility either - PHE have form for that too.

Given it seems ever more likely that face coverings will be required in more indoor public places in England, does anyone know of any research comparing social distancing with masks.... e.g. is the risk of transmission at 2m without a typical face covering the same as the risk at 1m with one?....etc.

royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/set-c/set-c-facemasks.pdf?la=en-GB&hash=A22A87CB28F7D6AD9BD93BBCBFC2BB24

Personally I'd like to see more research on face shields. You can make them from old lemonade bottles, they are clear so easier for the deaf and probably more effective than masks at protecting others if they come down over the mouth. -

I don't think personally face shields alone are enough in certain circumstances. I saw a hairdresser leaning over a customer and due to the angle it would have channeled all her exhaled breath into the face of the customer. A lot seem quite short and not to wrap around the face well. www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200430/face-shields-a-more-effective-deterrent-to-covid this indicates that they need to cover ears, come below chin and have no gap at the forehead. I am not sure all the ones I've seen meet those criteria.

Interesting article in the Graun / Observer today

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/11/revealed-20-areas-at-most-risk-of-local-lockdowns

scroll down a bit in the link for the table and data which I'm struugling to save as a picture

I agree that more research on face shields would be useful. They have a big advantage over masks for anyone trying to speak and be heard in an environment that's the slightest bit noisy. I've been helping out at a local food hub lately and would say the background noise is less than your average supermarket, but still everyone who tried wearing one ended up slipping it down over their chin (rendering it of course useless) so that people could hear what they were saying - you rely more than your realise on lip-reading when you speak with people in an environment with background noise. Whereas I went to my local pub garden yesterday (first time!) and the staff there were wearing shields which didn't seem to be a problem for hearing. I'd like to know what designs work best and whether it's possible to do something about that gap at the bottom (agree there may be an issue with hairdressers who do approach people from unusual angles). They don't need real world clinical studies - just some more simulated experiments to get fast results.

Confirmed that Herefordshire figures represent an outbreak amongst seasonal workers on a farm:

www.herefordtimes.com/news/18577391.coronavirus-outbreak-confirmed-herefordshire-farm/?ref=nab

Strangely enough, I haven't seen anyone here with a visor;
it's masks everywhere - shops, restaurants, hairdresser, even dentist ....

Visors would be useful for teachers in junior school, so maybe there will be some there after the vacation,
but it seemed to be masks at secondary school

if you can get hold of the right sort of bottle your face shield will curve under your chin. You need very sharp scissors, my attempt at cutting up a bottle was pathetic.

[quote cantkeepawayforever]Confirmed that Herefordshire figures represent an outbreak amongst seasonal workers on a farm:

www.herefordtimes.com/news/18577391.coronavirus-outbreak-confirmed-herefordshire-farm/?ref=nab[/quote]
Oh thank you for that @cantkeepawayforever, very helpful. I see it's now finally made the BBC as well!

@boys3

Interesting article in the Graun / Observer today

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/11/revealed-20-areas-at-most-risk-of-local-lockdowns

scroll down a bit in the link for the table and data which I'm struugling to save as a picture

Hmmm I can't help thinking this is essentially barely any better than that ridiculous chart the DM did which was screaming about 200% !!!! increases from 1 to 3 cases...

This seems to be a list of the areas with the top 20 7 day daily incidence/100,000, the data of which seems to be over a week old already. Understandable since they are claiming it comes from a meeting last Thursday, but not very helpful in terms of figuring out actual issues. And flagging it as "top areas at most risk" suggests something much more dramatic than it is. Many of those areas don't look concerning at all.

On the flip side, the fact that they (being PHE) seem to have figured out what was going on in Herefordshire and acted quickly is reassuring.

It seems as though outbreaks are occuring at similar places all over Europe. We've had care homes (obviously), and now we are getting back to work, meat plants, clothing factories, seasonal harvesters. It would make sense to roll out targeted testing in these environments too. I would like to know whether it is directly linked with the working environments, or the living conditions of those working there. With the fruit pickers, it is unlikely to be the work which is outside, and more likely to be their living conditions. I believe the living conditions of the workers in the German meat factory were terrible, as well as those in Italy and Spain.

[quote alreadytaken]if you can get hold of the right sort of bottle your face shield will curve under your chin. You need very sharp scissors, my attempt at cutting up a bottle was pathetic. [/quote]
The style where it curves under your chin looks perfect⭐
it seems too good to be true that you can make something so effective from a cheap throw-away thing, much better than wearing a mask surely 🤷‍♀️

flagging it as "top areas at most risk" suggests something much more dramatic than it is

Par for the course with the media, wouldn't you say?

@Valambtine

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

Anecdotally - I live in a city outside of London.
My friend was ill the last few days of Feb, she had a routine hospital procedure a few days later (end of Feb) which kept her at home afterwards for a few weeks
She lives with her mother who was told to shield and so was also at home during this period , first looking after my friend as she recovered from the procedure and then as a shielding person

Neither of them left the house for 14 weeks except to go in their garden.

Both are positive for antibodies and friend is certain that the sickness/breathlessness/cough she had in late Feb was covid

At the time we officially had no cases locally and she had not travelled to Italy etc.

Is there any stronger evidence now for when community transmission began in earnest in this country?

Antibodies increase with disease severity and decline within a couple of months. This makes any assessment of infection in a population after a couple of months, especially when a large proportion are asymptomatic almost impossible. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.09.20148429v1

@Baaaahhhhh

It seems as though outbreaks are occuring at similar places all over Europe. We've had care homes (obviously), and now we are getting back to work, meat plants, clothing factories, seasonal harvesters. It would make sense to roll out targeted testing in these environments too. I would like to know whether it is directly linked with the working environments, or the living conditions of those working there. With the fruit pickers, it is unlikely to be the work which is outside, and more likely to be their living conditions. I believe the living conditions of the workers in the German meat factory were terrible, as well as those in Italy and Spain.

Great idea but in all reality can you see a sweatshop that is paying its workers £3.50 an hour want to see any kind of officialdom?

@PatriciaHolm I probabl should have italicized interesting, it was not intended to imply approval of the content! :)

I'd largely concur with what you are saying, although I think equating it to the DM is going a tad too far.

But on a more serious point, interesting in the sense of:

• Local PH teams still not getting timely information; the article refers to weekly info rather than daily - I did rather suspect this was the case. That surely must change, and will they get information from outside their boundaries - eg particularly in terms of travel to work areas?

• the 50 cases per 100,000 threshold; few if any of the Councils listed are anywhere near that level (and most do seem to have a downward trajectory); and as the quote in the article from a DoPH makes clear local knowledge is paramount. The case in Herefordshire, at a single and presumably highly controllable location, makes clear a one size fits all approach simply does not work whatever Whitehall may think 50 per 100,000 may be a good potential trigger but needs sense applied to it; hence likely to work well in a devolved, federal structure in Germany, but less so in ultra centralised command and control England.

although I think equating it to the DM is going a tad too far - that said the headline, and more so the sub header in the printed edition do give the worst tabloid excesses a run for their money.

650 cases, 21 deaths. It was 516 cases last Sunday and 22 deaths so not great. Hopefully it is due to more testing in areas with outbreaks.

@boys3 Ah yes, honestly I did rather assume you meant "interesting" in a "curious" sort of way not an agreement way!

And yes; postcode level data on a weekly basis is useless at this point. It's one of the key tools we have to squash local outbreaks at source.

@FurForksSake where is the first place these figures come out now? I think I’m looking at the wrong thing. Thanks!

" I believe the living conditions of the workers in the German meat factory were terrible"

The tower blocks where they live are bleak but legal - typical low income high rise we'd see in the Uk

The conditions in German meat plants seem to have been legal too - before the pandemic -
and no worse than other hard manual minimum wage jobs

The problem is that the bosses were of the "it's just flu" tendency, so did not implement social distancing in the work place
i.e. they broke the SD rules out of arrogance and for v slightly lower costs

There is a video before the outbreak showing the plant and workers complaining there is no system for distancing