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 📈📶👍

This blog: www.actuaries.org.uk/news-and-insights/news/what-difference-word-makes explains from an actuarial point of view why the “deaths just brought forward” concept is incorrect.

The explanations in the blog definitely apply to people in the community (e.g. self-sufficient 80 and 90 year olds) but they do not necessarily reflect the situation in care homes.

As I mentioned above, the average life expectancy for a care home resident appears to be somewhere between 26 and 30 months:

www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2017-09-05/8937

www.pssru.ac.uk/pub/3211.pdf

An average resident who has already spent some of the time in a care home will have somewhere between 13 and 15 months to live (assuming normal distribution).

In other words, some of COVID deaths will indeed be brought forward and would have happened within the same year.

Shoots (one of the posters on this thread) previously ran an interesting analysis of years of life lost due to COVID. The numbers clearly illustrated why "COVID is not just a flu" but pretty much all the "years lost" related to deaths in the community.

Has anyone found anything that supports a much higher, earlier peak than the 'known' UK Peak? I've made this (very) rough diagram that explains visually. The idea that the peak was actually just the point our testing capability hit the number of cases which may have actually alraleady been dropping.

Is flu "just" a flu?

(the green line should really cross at the named peak!)

@RapidRainbow

Well, we know that to get tested in late March,
you needed to be hospitalised, and the vast majority of those with Covid symptoms were told to isolate. Even healthcare workers weren’t tested which is shocking looking back on it!

Yes, trying to deny COVID has been a 1 in 100 year pandemic is as perverse as claiming it is our Doooom

Also, as it's not the fucking flu, it shouldn't have a fucking 2nd wave unless governments are grossly incompetent

Public health experts now have a pretty good idea of the strategy necessary to combat clusters and avoid superspreading events

I expect several local outbreaks in most countries, but if these are not contained from national spread,
then the responsible government deserves a good arse-kicking

MN Webchat tomorrow (Wednesday 9:30 am) with Jenny Harries, Deputy CMO

Focus on shielded children

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnetlivee_events/3961337-Webchat-with-Dr-Jenny-Harries-Deputy-Chief-Medical-Officer-for-England-on-shielding-children-Wednesday-at-9-30am

You're in a fighting mood tonight Bigchoc😮
and rightly so✊😊

mary I can't decide whether the Denialists or the Doomsters exasperate me more - both are madly distorting the stats.

Then I realise that the fear and anger from both are just filling the vacuum where the government should be

@BigChocFrenzy there certainly seems to be quite a polarisation of views. This one, along side the one About R I posted the other day supports second wave
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31482-3/fulltext?utm_campaign=tlcoronavirus20&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

However other studies seem to be suggesting that herd immunity might be as low as 20% as cases seem to drop off once that level is reached.

In addition I guess we have to keep perspective on the relative risk from Covid as opposed to cardiovascular, cancer and Alzheimer’s

What does a 1 in 100 year pandemic mean?

Is it a scientific term with a clear definition, or a political term intended to frighten people?

There have been multiple pandemics in the past century. Why is this "1 in 100 years"?

(Other than the global response. Which will be 1 every 2 or 3 years if we apply the logic of this lockdown to all viruses.)

What does a 1 in 100 year pandemic mean?

It’s just saying that Covid-19 is the most significant pandemic to effect humanity since the Spanish Flu (which happened to occur almost exactly 100 years ago).

Is it a scientific term with a clear definition, or a political term intended to frighten people?

It’s a term to identify it’s unusual nature, along with its severity and gravity. That may be frightening to people, but we shouldn’t walk on eggshells in case people get scared... a little bit of fear’s not a bad thing. Clearly it’s a problem when the fear becomes disproportionate and phobic.

Deaths were running below the 5 year average at the start of the year because we had fewer respiratory deaths in the winter. Lockdown has resulted in cleaner air across the uk and therefore probably fewer deaths from respiratory issues other than Covid all year. On the other hand I expect deaths from heart attacks and strokes at home to have increased. Some of these will be covid deaths and some will be reluctance to access health care/ difficulty in getting to hospital deaths. Lockdown brings gains as well as losses.

It will take a lot of careful analysis after the event to determine how many deaths were saved and how many lost in lockdown.

The statistics are generally pretty good news now. There is still the potential for this to go massively wrong quite quickly - so fast and accurate reporting of new cases and complying with at least the sensible restrictions are still essential.

I'd actually expect fewer flu deaths this winter without vaccination. All the things being done to keep Covid under control will also help avoid other infections. If this year's vaccination round goes well the NHS might be able to do a lot to eat into the backlog of other health work. If people would start wearing masks before winter that could help even more.

@whatsnext2 There seems to be a clear scientific consensus that the proportion of most populations with antibodies is less than 10% and that this is significantly short of levels that would provide natural herd immunity. Only wild optimists/denialists are really saying otherwise. But this is quite different from saying that there will be a second wave because some people went to the beach, etc. A second wave would occur if we went back to how things were in February with no masks, crowded trains, pubs, etc, and - most significantly - no mass testing or ability to isolate just the sick. Getting better at identifying those who have it and isolating them and their close contacts, whilst continuing to prevent potential super-spreading events looks to be a viable way forward.

@Derbygerbil

What does a 1 in 100 year pandemic mean?

It’s just saying that Covid-19 is the most significant pandemic to effect humanity since the Spanish Flu (which happened to occur almost exactly 100 years ago).

Well then "worst pandemic in 100 years" would be clearer.

"1 in 100 year pandemic" suggests inevitability and rarity.

It might be an actuarial or statistical term, but if not I'm surprised to see it used on this thread.

There are people who believe that every century or so we will definitely get a pandemic that will kill as many people as the Spanish flu.

Amusingly, many of the "it's not 'just' flu" advocates very much believe that this is a second run out of the Spanish flu, which is why they insist children are vectors, young people are disproportionately affected, and there will definitely be a second wave that is worst than the first.

I know this is a figures thread, but clarity of language is important when establishing statistical facts.

The AIDS pandemic has killed 32 million people. On what grounds are we saying a few months in that Covid is worse than that?

sorry, should have said without massive vaccination.

On the topic of herd immunity - the areas that were hit first and hard would benefit from more detailed study. I'd like to know the antibody levels for the London boroughs that were hit badly early on, anyone know if that is available and can be compared with current infection rates in those areas?

The AIDS pandemic has killed 32 million people. On what grounds are we saying a few months in that Covid is worse than that?

Fair point re AIDS... I’d argue that was a worse pandemic than Covid (to date at least), though very different in nature, with the response needing to be very different as a result.

[quote Firefliess]**@whatsnext2* There seems to be a clear scientific consensus that the proportion of most populations with antibodies is less than 10% and that this is significantly short of levels that would provide natural herd immunity. Only wild optimists/denialists are really saying otherwise. But this is quite different from saying that there will* be a second wave because some people went to the beach, etc. A second wave would occur if we went back to how things were in February with no masks, crowded trains, pubs, etc, and - most significantly - no mass testing or ability to isolate just the sick. Getting better at identifying those who have it and isolating them and their close contacts, whilst continuing to prevent potential super-spreading events looks to be a viable way forward.[/quote]
@Firefliess I think the theory was that for 50% of population there is some innate immunity via Tcells whether crossover from previous Corona, BCG or whatever, but at max places like NYC and London , once new cases had reached approaching 20% gave enough total resistance in population

@Derbygerbil

What does a 1 in 100 year pandemic mean?

It’s just saying that Covid-19 is the most significant pandemic to effect humanity since the Spanish Flu (which happened to occur almost exactly 100 years ago).

Some research suggests that the 1951 flu was worse than 1918 in U.K. and Canada.

1951 Influenza Epidemic, England and Wales, Canada, and the United States

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3294686/

"The AIDS pandemic has killed 32 million people"

Several reasons why that didn't have the same impact

• Time period is as important as numbers when it comes to an emergency A catastrophe happening over decades

• and to be blunt the major catastrophe happening in Africa -

does not have the same impact

• The need for sudden hospitalisation of large numbers

It shouldn't be difficult to understand that after the scenes in hospitals in N Italy, that countries couldn't risk their hospitals being overwhelmed
and having to set age limits of 60 or even lower for ICU beds

• Remember that the global ½ million deaths was with lockdown in many countries Compare the deaths / million of Sweden to its Scandi / Nordic neighbours with v similar population deaths and culture Sweden's deaths are 4 x higher

In a densely populated country like the UK, lockdown likely made a bigger difference than in say Denmark

• AIDS can't be caught by breathing in the virus;
  A virus that spreads via having sex or sharing needles does not require lockdowns

• there was a lot of stigma in the earlier decades and still is in some countries,
  of those who caught it
  "the gay plague" etc

The 1918 flu killed about 50 million people from a world population of about 1.8 billion,
instead of the current nearly 8 billion

It killed 670,000 in the USA
The UK and Canada did get off comparatively lightly, but the 1918 flu was a far worse global pndemic than the 1951

In this pandemic, some countries will get off v lightly too
The UK deaths / million is currently one of the highest in the world, along with Belgium and Sweden

[quote Firefliess]**@whatsnext2* There seems to be a clear scientific consensus that the proportion of most populations with antibodies is less than 10% and that this is significantly short of levels that would provide natural herd immunity. Only wild optimists/denialists are really saying otherwise. But this is quite different from saying that there will* be a second wave because some people went to the beach, etc. A second wave would occur if we went back to how things were in February with no masks, crowded trains, pubs, etc, and - most significantly - no mass testing or ability to isolate just the sick. Getting better at identifying those who have it and isolating them and their close contacts, whilst continuing to prevent potential super-spreading events looks to be a viable way forward.[/quote]
I think the problem that the Leicester outbreak highlighted is that where there is a significant amount of people that can’t or won’t get tested because either they are working under the radar or can’t take time off work, plus live and work in overcrowded situations, then difficult to prevent.

People don't carry on merrily going out to work, to restaurants,
buying stuff to keep the economy going when there are a lot of deaths happening

They certainly didn't in N Italy

Even before lockdown, people in the UK drastically changed habits:
people were keeping kids off school, staff staying home, others staying off work,
the hospitality sector hit badly

Lockdown just formalised this

Sweden has suffered a similar fall in GDP to its neighbours - and Germany -
while having 4 x the deaths / million

Even now, in countries like Germany which had low deaths and early release from lockdowns,
many elderly and vulnerable people are staying home much more - and not spending on leisure etc as normal
The young are mostly back to normal - but the important Grey Euro is not

This wilfully stupid "it's no worse than flu" doesn't consider the reality of a pandemic particularly on behaviour in Western countries,
where people are not used to large numbers of deaths over a matter of weeks

It also makes the anxious even less trusting now to go back to school and work
Denying there was ever a problem just makes them turn more to alarmist sources

We need to accept there will be local outbreaks, but that with the tools we now (hopefully in the UK) have,
these are manageable, no longer a national crisis

Going by Germany, most outbreaks can be handled by just shutting down the affected business or sealing off the care home
Sometimes by sealing off a small area

BUT
it depends on following the rules and business owners especially, not being fucking irresponsible idiiots

The recent big outbreak in Germany - and sealing off ½ million - was caused by the arrogant owners of a meat plant not following SD rules because "it's just flu"

Such meat plants were perfectly legal in normal times, unlike the situation in Leicester,
but broke the current SD rules

• for which they are deservedly facing very severe penalties