Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 14

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 14 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Uk dashboard deaths, cases, hospitals, tests - 4 nations, LAs, English regions
Slides & data UK govt pressers
[[https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavi
rus-covid-19-information-for-the-public UK stats]] list of reports added daily by PHE & DHSC
PHE Surveillance report infections & deaths released every Thursday with sep. infographic
ONS England infection surveillance report ONS UK statistics for CV related deaths, released weekly each Tuesday
Daily ECDC report UK & EEA
Worldometer UK page
Plot FT graphs compare countries deaths, cases, raw / million pop
Covidly.com world summary & graphs
Plot COVID Graphs Our World in Data additional data

We welcome factual, data driven, and civil discussions from all contributors 📈 📉 📊 👍

That watch list is quite scary.

Some areas look like they are almost to same case levels as they were at peak.

Observations are that it appears to be a much younger population but the graph does 18-64 so it's not very representative of age groups (20-30's is very different activity wise to 50-60) and will also have differences in whether they have doing children etc.
That it's hot spots now rather than the seeding events we had at beginning of pandemic hitting U.K. which I assume means it's easier to control and hopefully those measures will contain?

But then again I question how contained when hotspots are cropping up all over. That must be related to people travelling and questions whether travel restrictions need to be also brought in?

But I also think once summer holidays end there will be less travel, probably less people out and about and this could have an impact in community transmission.

But that heavily relies on the assumption the government have that schools won't cause mass outbreaks.

@PatriciaHolm doesn't surprise me Luton is 10x the amount of testing

There is a whole other borough between me and Luton and yet I can still get a test if I want one with no symptoms and being actively encouraged to. Based on my postcode

@itsgettingweird Remember that at the peak of the epidemic though hardly anyone could get tested - only those in hospital at one point. So if positive test numbers get back to what they were at peak, that's still a much, much lower rate of actual infection.

@itsgettingweird

That watch list is quite scary.

Some areas look like they are almost to same case levels as they were at peak.

Observations are that it appears to be a much younger population but the graph does 18-64 so it's not very representative of age groups (20-30's is very different activity wise to 50-60) and will also have differences in whether they have doing children etc.
That it's hot spots now rather than the seeding events we had at beginning of pandemic hitting U.K. which I assume means it's easier to control and hopefully those measures will contain?

But then again I question how contained when hotspots are cropping up all over. That must be related to people travelling and questions whether travel restrictions need to be also brought in?

But I also think once summer holidays end there will be less travel, probably less people out and about and this could have an impact in community transmission.

But that heavily relies on the assumption the government have that schools won't cause mass outbreaks.

That's based on significantly more testing, remember. There would actually have been far far more cases at peak than we were identifying.

The pattern I'm noticing in the new data is that quite a few areas of concern dont initially have many under 18s testing positive but then they pick up. So maybe there is an initial reluctance to get children tested but as cases pick up people are more likely to test children. Or perhaps as community transmission rises adults infect their children. Some areas dont seem to have many children testing positive at all.

It would be useful to know if there were child tests initially and they were negative - or if children were not initially being tested. They have rather different implications for schools. They also potentially have implications for eliminating the spread of the virus.

IceCream that report is a bit long in my general summer toasted state. So I don’t think I can do it justice atm. But I did scroll back to this

Yes this bit I do find disappointing - many schools seemed to have increases ‘at the same time’ in Israel and I thought that there were few or no other factors they could pin the increase on? Other families being infected ‘at the same time’ may just show that children were asymptomatic.

If contact tracing meant a child’s contacts were tested then if it came back negative it would mean either they are negative or tested too early? The T cell issue only impacts antibodies. Asymptomatic still tests positive?

So if 13% of children tested positive but each had very low contacts testing positive then perhaps we are underestimating how many people are asymptomatic. However this isn’t the first group tested this way, so probably wouldn’t be different to a cruise etc

I’m just putting things out there, not saying I’m right, others can correct as I’m interested too.

Also I’d be interested in how they define contact? Someone you sit near, what about touching door handles etc as you move through school etc

Oh yeah about testing 🤦‍♀️ stand down people - unnecessary panicking

I was wondering that too @alreadytaken about why the children only started testing positive more recently. It could be that during lockdown they were all kept indoors but are not starting to go out more. Especially the 13-17 year olds - I have one if those myself who's now back to large amounts of socialising, albeit outdoors. Or it could be the schools returning in June. You could tell which my looking at the ages of children infected. Age 5/6 and 11 = schools. Age 13+ = increased socialising, much the same as the 18-25 year olds.

Or maybe it's that most don't have symptoms so only get tested via the more blanket approach of recent weeks?

@MarshaBradyo

Also I’d be interested in how they define contact? Someone you sit near, what about touching door handles etc as you move through school etc

.... Contact is normally anyone you were "near" - definition varies between situations and countries - for 15+ minutes So it would be anyone in an office or class, but not someone you passed by in a shop

In the UK, would it also be the local authority, not the school, who decide whether to close a whole school, or just a bubble or some forms ?

I'd presume the local authroity, since they have the public health knowledge
except that the head must also be able to close if the number of absent staff meant the school couldn't be run safely

Close contact definition from the schools guidance

"Close contact means:
• direct close contacts - face to face contact with an infected individual for any length of time, within 1 metre, including being coughed on, a face to face conversation, or unprotected physical contact (skin-to-skin)
• proximity contacts - extended close contact (within 1 to 2 metres for more than 15 minutes) with an infected individual
• travelling in a small vehicle, like a car, with an infected person"

proximity contacts - extended close contact (within 1 to 2 metres for more than 15 minutes) with an infected individual

So likely they tested the class or lunch sitting. But if it spread round the school in another way (by touch) contact tracing wouldn’t pick it up necessarily.

I think it sounds good but still on the fence about what’s really happening.

Right....

By some back calcs using the PHE data, I think I've worked out (rough) number of tests by age....key points being, you can clearly see how 15-44 have grown; (can't break it down more), and the number of tests on the under 15s is growing and has been for a few weeks.

This is data up to end week 31, which was week ending Aug 2.

Factual data!?

You obviously never heard the maxim :

‘There are lies, damned lies, and statistics’.

Data can be presented any way the presenter wants to present it.

The tired old "damn lies" trope has been trotted out so many times as if newly discovered,
often stated by people who don't like facts and prefer fantasy or political dogma

We go to the official source of the data and crosscheck with as many other sources as possible to verify data,
analyse the data ourselves, instead of just listening to politicians of one flavour, or TV's talking heads

@BigChocFrenzy yes you're right, local health authorities decide about closure even if just a year group. But of course heads could close for operational reasons or not enough staff available.

Very interesting age breakdown, Patricia

In Germany, up to week 23, we saw an increase in the % of infections in the 0-9 and 10-19 age groups
and a decrease in the elderly
The red curve in the 1st chart is the total weekly cases

However, there does not seem much change in relative age of infection since then

The average age of hospitalised cases, see 2nd chart, also dropped to late 30s in week 24 and has stayed around that

@Noextremes2017

Factual data!?

You obviously never heard the maxim :

‘There are lies, damned lies, and statistics’.

Data can be presented any way the presenter wants to present it.

🍋

I'll be watching the RKI Tuesday reports over the next several weeks to see if the % infections in children increase significantly,
now that schools are starting to reopen

The accuracy of the rapid swab tests and the saliva tests has not yet been determined by a - published - gold standard study.

So I hope this is being done before the tests are rolled out

If they are sufficiently accurate, they will indeeed be a great help, especially saliva tests for kids

This is the (basic!) equivalent for the PHE data - cases by age as % of the whole. Clearly shows the growth in 15-44, and the younger ones being very steady.

@Noextremes2017

So the “truth” is whatever I want it to be? It seems a number of people have decided that the pandemic is a fake, but then decide to justify that with “facts”.... I don’t know why they bother as they’ve already made up their minds what the “truth“ is.

Why is our death rate still comparatively high in relation to other European countries?

France had 1000 cases too weeks ago compared to 700ish for the UK. But they reported only 11 deaths today compared to almost 100 for us.

My only supposition is that obesity rates factor into things.