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 📈📶👍

Can anyone advise where to find hospital admissions data? The dashboard has said 183 for the last 4 days so must presumably not be updated.

For admissions you have to look at English data alone because Wales and Scotland are slow to update. The last figure is 13 on 1.8.20.

If you look at the individual nations healthcare data it's much more up to date.

Yes 938 is high, been looking under the LA - they're arranged by day of specimen not day of reporting. Bradford look high as do some of the NW areas in lockdown so could be picking up more random testing. But I'd guess we'll see an upturn before it (hopefully) goes down

It's a bank holiday in Scotland and I think they don't do the updates on weekends (nor bank holidays).

The COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group have death trajectories for several countries of interest,
plus some US states,

each normalised / 5 million population
and with different shaded circles indicating 2 and 4 weeks earlier

Brazil & S Africa are of clear concern, as well as Texas, Florida, Arizona, California

Too early to see the effect of the recent cases spike in Europe

Just posted this on the second wave thread but relevant here I think; the last time we had a number in the 300s was 398, on the 14th.

Then, 7 day running average of P1 & P2 tests was 103k/day with a 7 day running average of positivity of 0.58%.

Today, we have a seven day running average of P1&P2 tests of 136k, and a 7 day running average of positivity of 0.58%.

I would really like to know where those tests are being carried out, because I think it's entirely possible that all the observed case growth at present is coming from increased testing in concerning areas.

Interestingly, the Covid Zoe app stats appear to have stabilised over the past 10 days after a slight rise.

Thank you for the updates and explanations on his thread. Really helps to make sense of the confusing data.

@PatriciaHolm
I think it's entirely possible that all the observed case growth at present is coming from increased testing in concerning areas

Thats what I think too. Isnt it just a handful of areas that have most of the cases?

@PatriciaHolm that's what I strongly suspect having observed Luton and anyone with an LU postcode can get a test, symptomatic or not. Which covers a MASSIVE area when the cases they were concerned about were just one road in inner Luton! They want anyone and everyone tested.

Cases are going to increase because none are being missed.

@PatriciaHolm

Just posted this on the second wave thread but relevant here I think; the last time we had a number in the 300s was 398, on the 14th.

Then, 7 day running average of P1 & P2 tests was 103k/day with a 7 day running average of positivity of 0.58%.

Today, we have a seven day running average of P1&P2 tests of 136k, and a 7 day running average of positivity of 0.58%.

I would really like to know where those tests are being carried out, because I think it's entirely possible that all the observed case growth at present is coming from increased testing in concerning areas.

Interestingly, the Covid Zoe app stats appear to have stabilised over the past 10 days after a slight rise.

Absolutely, knowing where the testing volumes are would provide some really useful and important context.

Today's reported case number for England (856 from the geography confirmed download file) covers in terms of specimen date:

2nd August - 13 cases
1st August - 314 cases
31st July - 193 cases
30th July - 107 cases
29th July - 118 cases
28th July - 31 cases
27th July - 10 cases
1st to 26th July - 71 cases
31st Jan to 30th Jun - net reduction of 1

The seven day rolling average is up again of course, now almost 30% higher than the low achieved only a few weeks ago. However unless hospitalisations start to increase as well - arguably the lag time for that is not yet fully played out - then whilst we'd all love to see the case numbers reducing it is any increasing concern needs to remain proportionate to the wider picture.

If hospital admissions are going to follow the upturn if figures when should that happen do you think?

I'm feeling worried now.

Bit confused... what are the numbers today? A few been floated on here and I can't find anything in the news.

A good twitter thread discussing the rise in cases

twitter.com/stevebrown2856/status/1288763251161997314?s=21

@ChristmasinJune

If hospital admissions are going to follow the upturn if figures when should that happen do you think?

Well - cases by number have been growing for more than 3 weeks. Average time from infection to hospitalisation is about 7-8 days I think? So we should have started to see indications by now.

However, it could be the case that any increase (and indeed current cases, even if no increase) are/have just been, so far, in the young and relatively healthy. The issue will come if they manage to spread it amongst the more vulnerable again (say, by someone taking it into a care home, which appears to have accounted for some of Scotland's slight rise in the last week).

So, keep your eyes on schools then I guess!?
However, it could be the case that any increase (and indeed current cases, even if no increase) are/have just been, so far, in the young and relatively healthy. The issue will come if they manage to spread it amongst the more vulnerable again

If younger people are catching the virus (because they are more relaxed about being out and about while many older people are still being cautious) then infections could increase quite a bit without necessarily being reflected in greater hospital admissions. The danger is that it is impossible to entirely insulate more vulnerable from less vulnerable people. At some point Care home workers pass it to residents, teenagers to parents and grandparents etc. I wish we had more testing so we actually had a better idea of the general level of infection both symptomatic and asymptomatic. I’d like to see mass testing of small populations like they did in Vo, Italy, where they repeatedly tested every person in a small town.

Cross posted with Patricia. I see I’m not the only one worrying about this.

To be clear - I'm not too worried about it right now, as the stats seem to suggest that generally speaking infections are stable right now, have been largely for weeks (maybe a little up a couple of weeks ago but have stablised), which suggests that we have a steady underlying very low level of infection that we are managing (and have managed for weeks) to keep from spreading to the more vulnerable.

But we do need to stay sensible....

Looking at the lag time on specimen date reporting.

Whilst today's reported number is disappointingly big (relative to recent weeks) c.27% of cases added today have a specimen date of day -5 or beyond. Day -1 would be 2nd Aug specimen date; day -2 1st August and so on. Typically for the last three weeks day -5 and beyond account on average for 12% of cases added each day. So perhaps a bit of catching up going on today, although in reality all that has done is slightly suppress the numbers over the past few days.

Tuesday reporting in our effective "Sunday" in so far as its majority components would be cases with a specimen date of the preceding Saturday or Sunday (eg Day -2 and Day -3), leading to the daily cases numbers of a Tuesday usually showing a drop.

This has probably been asked before - but are the new daily cases of X amount the antigen test only ? Or does this cover new antibody tests of past cases which are only now coming to light ?

@boys3 Don’t you think starting the axis of your graph at 500 is a little deceptive?

@Dellow

This has probably been asked before - but are the new daily cases of X amount the antigen test only ? Or does this cover new antibody tests of past cases which are only now coming to light ?

The daily announced cases are just Pillar 1 and 2, the PCR/antigen tests - tests for live infection.

What boys3 showed a page or so back was that there were increases going on in a lot of places now. Fair enough to concentrate on the higher locations but Coventry, for example, has shown growth recently. Hackney, as another example, is showing little sign of any decline in positive tests - so clearly quite a lot to find there. Some - like Swindon - are due to finding contacts after an outbreak and some is just a general increase. We've just stopped shielding people and quite a few of those have jobs to go to and mortgages to pay so I am more worried now than I have been for weeks (and I'm not shielding).

You can not entirely isolate the vulnerable from the young(ish). There are young care home workers, the person delivering your shopping may be young, the supermarket workers certainly often are - and they are not wearing masks when they restock the shelves next to the 69 year old - or the 80 year old who doesnt want to be a bother and shops for themself. In Cornwall the locals are afraid to go out onto narrow streets crowded with tourists who are not social distancing.

I cant believe we have only just started to test waste water.