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 📈📶👍

[quote whatsnext2]@PatriciaHolm thanks

Does that make death rate at low numbers almost meaningless statistically then?[/quote]
It essentially means, if true, that the PHE numbers will, eventually, cover everyone who has ever tested positive! All 300,000 or so people so far....

So it means that the PHE numbers are, and will continue to be, potentially quite a lot higher than they should be, especially as the pandemic progresses and we have more and more people who have positive tests.

Of course, it's hard to untangle how many people this might cover - people who died in non-hospital settings of something that wasn't Covid, but with a positive test. Realistically, I think most of these people would already have been ill, and died of that rather than covid (the actual number of people who died in an accident with a Covid test in the past 3 months will I suspect be low).

One way to weed some out would be to exclude anyone whose test was, say, more than 3 months ago.

@theinvisablewoman no need to apologise!
Everyone is guessing really. Most of the virus show seasonal fluctuations but it’s useful to know why in terms of strategy and behavioural change.

Hello, I had a fascinating conversation during a children SD meet up with a scientist who mentioned the virus has been about for a while and has been dormant, something I'd read / heard briefly but can't remember where.

Does anyone have a link to more info on that please?

I think that relates to this -

www.spectator.co.uk/article/studying-sewage-could-help-solve-a-coronavirus-mystery

the suggestion being that traces of CV found in sewage from late last year suggests it might be a mutation of an existing virus and not something brand new that originated solely in China.

Interesting - I have been wondering about the high numbers of "deaths in community". They stopped making sense several weeks ago.

If PHE includes everyone who has even been tested positive for COVID, the reporting is clearly misleading.

Does anyone have a link to more info on that please?

Here is an article from New York Times that discusses similar hypothesis:

www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/health/coronavirus-spread-united-states.html

Coronavirus Epidemics Began Later Than Believed, Study Concludes

In Washington State and Italy, the first confirmed cases were not linked to the outbreaks that followed, the analysis found. The epidemics were seeded later.

The first confirmed coronavirus infections in Europe and the United States, discovered in January, did not ignite the epidemics that followed, according to a close analysis of hundreds of viral genomes.

On Jan. 20, a woman who had traveled from China to Germany met with her colleagues at an auto supply company. She didn’t realize she was sick, and infected a man at the meeting.

Scientists gathered that virus’s genetic signature and called it BavPat1. That virus spread to 16 people in the company — but then disappeared.

At the end of February, Italy saw Europe’s first outbreak. The coronaviruses there were genetically very close to BavPat1, scientists found, leading to suspicions that a German traveler had brought the virus to Italy.

That’s not the case, according to Dr. Worobey’s analysis. According to the computer simulations, another introduction of the coronavirus from China probably was responsible, and it may have arrived in early or mid-February.

“The lineage just happened to get into Europe and run wild,” Dr. Worobey said.

"dying with COVID"

is actually the standard way of counting deaths that all countries should be using

I've posted before that an article in Germany explained why the RKI (public health) include any death in Germany with a positive test,
even for victims of accident, suicide, murder

Looking at the excess deaths graph, once the COVID peak went down, so did the excess deaths

The Uk officially has 45k COVID deaths, but 65,000 excess deaths

Total deaths for the UK - and all the other countries with v low COVID deaths now - went back to normal levels
and this was before most lockdown measures were lifted, so it's not because lockdown itself was causing a significant number of these deaths.

Belgium officially counts deaths even without a test, if the doctor suspects COVID
and they are about the only country with high COVID deaths where this is about equal to the excess deaths

Public health officials and government ministers - including in the UK - say that excess deaths are the best measure of deaths during a pandemic,
including for comparisons between countries

Some of those who died would have died within a year of other ailments,
but as shoots, the ONS and various cctuaries have explained,
many others who died would normally have lived on average several years longer.
Not all the elderly vcitims were frail care home residents

An 80-year-old woman has 10 years life expectancy; a man has 9 years.

We will get a more complete picture when we have the total deaths for the full year 2020,
or maybe for a full year after the epidemic started

"dying with COVID"

The thing is PHE numbers seem to include people dying without COVID. It is a relatively recent phenomenon.

If anyone tests positive at the time of death (irrespective of the cause), it would be standard to count this death as COVID related.

If anyone who tested positive back in March and recovered dies in July from other causes, they still seem to be reported as COVID death in the PHE daily numbers. I would be surprised if any other country is following this approach.

Countries - excluding USA ! - didn't lift lockdown until COVID cases had fallen dramatically
so we can see that the drop in excess deaths - deaths above the historical average of total deaths from all causes for that period -
happens as COVID deaths fall:

@wintertravel1980

"dying with COVID"

The thing is PHE numbers seem to include people dying without COVID. It is a relatively recent phenomenon.

If anyone tests positive at the time of death (irrespective of the cause), it would be standard to count this death as COVID related.

If anyone who tested positive back in March and recovered dies in July from other causes, they still seem to be reported as COVID death in the PHE daily numbers. I would be surprised if any other country is following this approach.

afaik, other countries still are doing this

Obviously after a certain date this needs to stop, but so far noone has defined it

The reporting quirk in that article is interesting. If accurate it probably would make little difference to the numbers at the peak when most people who died would have had a test relatively recently and therefore covid would likely be a factor (if not necessarily the primary cause of death) and it's probably right to count those in the figures. There would potentially be the odd case where someone may been hit by a car soon after being tested but these are likely to be rare and excess deaths shows us that covid was having an effect on our death rate.

However this way of reporting could well be skewing the data a little now and making it seem the death rate is not slowing as much as should be. I suspect the effect is small at this point but it would be difficult to untangle. It will of course become more if an issue as time goes on and there should be measures put in place to mitigate it if possible. What that is, I don't know. A time limit of test vs death doesn't seem universally appropriate as some people die several weeks later.

"the ONS surveillance program"

I was invited to take part... turned it down bc the test seems too unpleasant to do for mere surveillance, couldn't ask whole household to do it, and I would get stuck with quarantine if any of us tested positive. I wonder who will say yes?

Does seem like there's a very high % of asymptomatic infections.

This shows the discrepancy between PHE (death with a test) vs ONS (death with CV on death cert). At present, a very low differential, but of course that will increase over time as more people who have at some point had a test die than are dying with CV as a actual contributory factor.

Surely when doctors fill in death certificates they use sensible judgement about what's relevant to the cause of death - so I don't see why they couldn't do so with Covid too. Eg if someone had it months ago and was obviously better then it's not a factor. If they spend the last 10 weeks of their life on a ventilator then it is. Or else just put a sensible time limit on it of 3 months or something.

@yeOldeTrout

"the ONS surveillance program"

I was invited to take part... turned it down bc the test seems too unpleasant to do for mere surveillance, couldn't ask whole household to do it, and I would get stuck with quarantine if any of us tested positive. I wonder who will say yes?

Does seem like there's a very high % of asymptomatic infections.

That’s a slightly weird attitude to take! That implies that if you were positive and asymptomatic that you would rather not know and just carry on as normal.....

I would definitely say yes if invited - it’s so important to have a constant stream of data coming in. And we may as well get used to the test - I’m sure most of us will be having to have multiple tests once we get into cold and flu season!

Do they took the people in the surveillance programme if they're positive? I'd rather assumed they wouldn't do so, as one of the things it looks at is transmission within households, and that is obviously going to be affected by even the asymptotic people knowing they have it

That should have read "do they tell the people.. "

Sorry, wintertravel I was cooking and thinking of the 14-day limit

Is PHE really counting even when they are sure the person did not die of COVID and has fully recovered or never had symptoms,
but maybe only tested positive months ago ?

So far, the UK has nearly 300,000 people tested positive

We can get the figures for each month and calculate how many of them statistically would die, if we knew median age etc

However, very crudely
(assuming the 300k are representative of the population, which they may not be):

600,000 die annually from a population of 67 million
==> about 2,700 would die annually for a typical subset of 300,000
==> about 225 per month
==> about 7.5 people per day

OK, I over-estimated a bit, as 300k people has only been reached v recently, but reasonable 1st estimate

That figure matters for countries at v low death figures

e.g. Germany has been mostly single figures for weeks, sometimes literally only 1-2, and counts every death with Covid

• BUT requires a recent positive test or post mortem

as does every country, except Belgium

@NeurotrashWarrior

• ....who mentioned the virus has been about for a while and has been dormant....”

I’d be interested to know how a virus can be “dormant”?

@yeOldeTrout my 5 year old DS was invited for surveillance testing and after discussing with him we said yes. I'd previously done a home test through the Zoe app, the swab test really isn't that bad and my 5 year old was fine with it. You get a text and a letter with the result, the same as you would with a normal test. The only difference to my test was that we had a weeks window to book delivery of the test in rather than them dispatching it immediately. He wasn't asked to give a blood sample for antibody testing though if that's the bit you're thinking of as unpleasant.

patriciaHolme Sorry, I still can't download your link

What may be connected to this statistics question:

The UK is about the only developed country that does not give a "recovered" figure

• presumably does not have the data for some reason ?

but is the UK really classifying anyone who ever tested positive as still an active case ?

Many other countries (e.g. Germany) have an "active infections list" so if someone dies on that list for any reason, they are automatically COVID deaths.

Howeve, other deaths - including on the recovered list - are only COVID if they are tested positive before / after death

.... which seems reasonable
(even though it includes accidents, suicides, murder - too few to matter much)

@BigChocFrenzy I'm not aware that we do have a list of recovered, to be honest. I've never seen one.

The idea of an "active" list to count for deaths makes much more sense.

Looking at dashboards, or worldometers, most countries are able to at least estimate recovered

German figures are that 186,000 of the 202,000 positive cases have recovered;
only 6,000 are currently active / positive
9,000 dead

UK figures of active cases are likely higher, as deaths are not single figures, but
293,000 cases - 45,000 dead = 248,000
the vast majority of whom must have recovered

(I should have used 250k, not 300k in my calculation earlier !)