Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 13

[PatriciaHolm]

Taking the liberty of starting a new thread as we've just bust the old one, with much thanks to @BigChocfrenzy and I will copy her header..

Welcome to thread 13 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 📈📶👍

@cantkeepawayforever indeed it's heartbreaking to think that some of the most deprived children in the country, for whom education and advice/support about applying for colleges/apprenticeships etc. is a real chance to improve their life chances will be the most affected.

As a teacher. I'm furious things weren't done sooner. We have a chance to be in a better position by September to actually make school work and I don't feel the government are taking that seriously.

Children and women and those in care homes have been especially done over by this government throughout this.

While the USA has seen an increase in cases in states that were only mildly affected earlier in the year,
Europe's increases seem in areas previously hit hard

John Burn-Murdoch@jburnmurdoch (FT)

Important:

This is not a second wave, it’s a resurgence of the first wave, which is precisely why it "appears strongest in initially hit regions".

See e.g Leicester, whose rate never went down, it remained high and then went very high.

A second wave is something very different

Spain has nearly 2,000 new cases daily
France nearly 1,000

Germany nearly 600
7-day incidence has increased to 4.8 /100,000
R0 is 1.01 (4-day) / 1.17 (7-day)
A lot of cases are from returning holidaymakers

Simce this is no longer a "novel" Coronavirus, the public health authorities in all countries are very aware of its exponential growth in clusters and via superspreaders.

Hopefully they can take targeted measures to bring it under control - before exponential growth really takes off again and buggers up school returns.

The problem is that returning holidaymakers - and also people having parties & ignoring SD - can spread the virus in hundreds or thousands of places,
whereas before the holiday season, the authorities just had to deal with 1-2 local problem areas at a time and could lock them down if need be.

Higher community levels would mean more class bubbles sent home and more teachers off sick too
So we need to get this back under control and infections lower within the next few weeks

So we need to get this back under control and infections lower within the next few weeks

However, that requires the political will and stern-ness to tell people to stop doing things that they now feel they 'deserve to be able to do' now 'Covid is over'.

Useful blog on ONS site explaining measures of excess mortality across Europe

The particular issue the UK had was the "long tail" of excess deaths several weeks after total deaths in other countries had returned to normal or below

blog.ons.gov.uk/2020/07/30/how-does-the-coronavirus-pandemic-compare-across-europe/

We define excess mortality as the number of deaths above what we would expect, the 2015-19 five-year average.
Due to the differing population sizes and age-structure between the countries and regions of Europe, a simple side-by-side comparison of deaths counts is not a useful comparison.

Instead we use a measure called ‘Age-Standardised Mortality Rates’ (ASMRs),
which controls for both the underlying population size – the people who are at risk of dying – and age-structure.
Using this weekly measure, we compare the 2020 weekly values with those of the equivalent week 5-year average and calculate the percentage difference.
.......
The Italian city of Bergamo saw excess mortality peak at 847.7% of the 5-year average.
Of the major cities in Europe, Madrid saw the highest peak of excess mortality peak at 432.7%.
.....
Peak excess mortality reached 357.5% in Brent, the worst hit area of the UK.
Although not the worst hit region of Europe, what happened in Brent - like other areas of the UK - that above average excess mortality continued well into May and June.
In contrast, continental Europe saw excess mortality return to normal levels by May.
....
Throughout most of Europe, mortality rates were lower than expected throughout January and February, resulting in negative rcASMRs.
As the pandemic took hold in Italy, and then Spain, the rcASMR rose to zero and then positive values.

By week ending 8th May, Spain had the highest deviation from normal cumulative mortality rates of any country in Europe at 6.96%.
As Spain returned to below average mortality rates in mid-May, so did it’s rcASMR.

In contrast, due to its long ‘tail’ of excess mortality, the UK saw its rcASMR continue to rise into June.
As a result, the UK had the highest levels of excess mortality by the half-way point of 2020 of any country in Europe.
< in absolute terms, but Belgium is worse in excess mortality / million pop >

So we need to get this back under control and infections lower within the next few weeks

absolutely. New restrictions around Greater Manchester, parts of Lancashire and West Yorkshire coming in from midnight. Although pubs staying open - nothing against pubs but that seems a rather mixed message.

Equally @alreadytaken is completely right to say that we need to get on top of things in local areas before they really catch light. So testing needs to be more proactive, rather than a blitz after the event.

I'm not so sure of things evening out. As the data a few days ago suggested cases in w/e 26th July have, in England, exceeded that for w/e 26th June, and compared to w/e 19th July are up by just over 11%.

7 days w/e 28th June where English LA location confirmed 4411

7 days w/e 26th July where English LA location confirmed 4436 (so far, maybe up another 100 still to be feed through)

The three intervening weeks were 3804 (w/e 5th July); 3746 (w/e 12th July); 3996 (w/e 19th July)

In the current week 1158 cases, as compared with 991 this time last week, so likely cases in w/e 2nd August will be up again.

To maintain context though for England peak week was almost 27,000 cases, and in the final week of May over 9,000 (so more than double last week).

The announcement seems to suggest that they know that it is people meeting inside houses that is causing the rise in cases. I'm not sure how they could know that unless they are really tracking the cases and identifying chains of transmission.

I really hope that they are doing that but I'm not completely convinced as yet!

@BigChocFrenzy

While the USA has seen an increase in cases in states that were only mildly affected earlier in the year, Europe's increases seem in areas previously hit hard

John Burn-Murdoch@jburnmurdoch (FT)

Important:

This is not a second wave, it’s a resurgence of the first wave, which is precisely why it "appears strongest in initially hit regions".

See e.g Leicester, whose rate never went down, it remained high and then went very high.

A second wave is something very different

I think the FT jounalist is rather misrepresenting the facts. still never let facts get in the way of a good story or more kindly perhaps data just isn't his thing.

Leicester was up to end April unremarkable in terms of cases per 100,000 - close to the all England rate and largely on the boundary of the second and third quartiles of English UTLAs in terms of case ratio (where LAs in the top quartile have the highest rate, and bottom quartile lowest). Things of course went downhill thereafter, but to suggest that Leicester was high from outset is just plain wrong.

there are a number of problems really - track and trace is not finding everyone, when found they dont always isolate and there is clearly a reservoir of asymptomatic infection in the young that is only noticed when it hits someone (more vulnerable or more responsible) who gets a test. I was looking at Callerdale earlier - not surprised that is frightening the government.

At the moment we are still shielding the vulnerable - but that ends on Saturday so the deaths may start increasing in a weeks time.

Hope people have seen - and are sharing - the treat your masks like your underwear meme.

The Manchester lockdown sounds to me as if it's targeted at Muslims planning to spend Eid with family tomorrow. Hence the timing and also the focus on not visiting other households and not so much focus on pubs (though they have said people shouldn't be meeting other households at pubs or restaurants)

what I would add though in terms of increases being in those areas previously hit harder if drivers such as population density; over-crowded housing; deprivation levels; relative poorer health generally; multi-generational households were key factors in case prevalence then none of those factors have changed in the space of a few months.

What is interesting at the moment in England is that almost all those factors apply to the North East. LAs such as Sunderland, Gateshead, Middlesborough were hit really hard, yet at the moment are maintaining really low levels; 1.1; 1.5 and 4.7 cases per 100,000 last week respectively - unlike broadly similar areas in Yorkshire, the North West and West Midlands.

The North East overall is maintaining a low level of cases; less than 3 cases per 100,000 for each of the past four weeks.

I'm In Greater Manchester and concerned about the new local rules. Nothing seems to have been said about support bubbles. Do these still count as a single household? Does anyone know. I'm due to meet up with mine tomorrow.

large areas of the UK are seeing minimal cases.

This remains true - again last week 50% of cases concentrated in 20 UTLA areas; and 58 UTLAs accounted for 80%; and 45 UTLAs covered the final 5% of cases.

But, and I think the Panorama programme on care homes has put me in a less positive mood this evening an even mix of sadness and anger at what happened, the case ratio per 100,000 at each 10th percentile; along with the 5th and 95th percentile is showing a slight increase at the lower deciles.

I think the FT jounalist is rather misrepresenting the facts. still never let facts get in the way of a good story or more kindly perhaps data just isn't his thing.

I think data is most definitely John Burn-Murdoch’s thing!

Boys Areas seeing a resurgence in other European countries do seem to be those with high cases earlier
Leicester was high in early June and then shot up

Hancock:

"We’re constantly looking at the latest data on the spread of coronavirus, and unfortunately we’ve seen an increasing rate of transmission in parts of Northern England.

We’ve been working with local leaders across the region, and today I chaired a meeting of the Local Action Gold Committee.
Based on the data, we decided that in Greater Manchester, parts of West Yorkshire & East Lancashire we need to take immediate action to keep people safe.

The spread is largely due to households meeting and not abiding to social distancing.
So from midnight tonight, people from different households will not be allowed to meet each other indoors in these areas."

The USA is markedly different to Europe in its current rise, as John Burn-Murdoch stated

There, states in the South & West which had v few cases are now seeing huge numbers,
whereas so far NYC and others hit hard much earlier have few cases

US deaths rising to around 1,500 daily yesterday, official total 155,000
and daily cases averaging nearly 70,000 to reach currently 4.6 million

The Zoe app seems to be suggesting higher infection rates in London than North West? Am I reading it right I wonder?

@time4anothername are you looking at the overall daily infection rate table?

If so, remember there is a very wide range on that data, so much so as to be practically useless tbh. Looking at individual areas suggest some localised areas getting higher in London, but not at the levels of the most concerning parts of the NW.

I think so yes, it's the daily new cases list, showing London estimated 28 - 84 per million and NW 22 - 95. Certainly a wide range but roughly estimating London as high as NW?

@MillicentMartha

I think the FT jounalist is rather misrepresenting the facts. still never let facts get in the way of a good story or more kindly perhaps data just isn't his thing.

I think data is most definitely John Burn-Murdoch’s thing!

Agreed!

Also, I really need to stop crushing on him (intellectually of course).

I'm in the north east.

Numbers are brilliant here. I just checked the bbc who've changed their cases in your area page and my area is 1 in 100,000. I think we had two cases last week. We do tend to lag behind other places though.

Around Tyneside is also a very big university population proportionally; students returning in sept, if they do, could be an issue.

I also know a lot of locals who went abroad when they could so quarantine will be really important!