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 📈 📉 📊 👍

@alreadytaken

So children were not getting tested in any number - and as more get tested more positives are found. That means that hotspots need to be encouraging the testing of children, even if not showing symptoms, since we dont really know how much they transmit infection.

Agree. Especially as schools open.

We have an opportunity for this to work. But we need the right action from above and sensible thinking.

A bit late to comment really, but just noting that “factual, data driven” is not the same as “factual data”. BCF is nothing if not precise in her written communication.
Sorry that I don’t have a more pertinent contribution to add.

@borntobequiet

A bit late to comment really, but just noting that “factual, data driven” is not the same as “factual data”. BCF is nothing if not precise in her written communication. Sorry that I don’t have a more pertinent contribution to add.

Agree totally. The thing I've loved about this thread is it's just pure data.

And it's not political or view point driven.

And that's why we ask each and discuss what we think it could mean and link to a wide variety of report that show various view points.

It's the one place I feel like I actually get figures without it being a selling point!

*alreadytaken
So children were not getting tested in any number - and as more get tested more positives are found. That means that hotspots need to be encouraging the testing of children, even if not showing symptoms, since we dont really know how much they transmit infection.
Agree. Especially as schools open.

We have an opportunity for this to work. But we need the right action from above and sensible thinking.*

Agree.

My ideal world would see spit tests on site in schools and freely available for children.

I'm concerned that I'd really struggle to get ds 2 tested properly. He's 2 and we couldn't get a decent swab for scarlet fever. Even the eldest might be a struggle. Certainly a large number of the children I teach with Sen, mostly asd, it would be impossible to get a test.

I remember the week before lockdown we had a very poorly child, high fever. He'd been sent in all week but hadn't been eating (they come via taxi) we couldn't get parents to keep him off or come and collect when his temp spiked and he was very uncharacteristically lying in the floor and seeking cuddles. (He's nearly as tall as me now.)

He wouldn't take calpol. He might spit but when unwell might not. He's got limited speech so couldn't tell us the issue.

I suspect it was tonsillitis as staff in his class were off and also several staff in neighbouring classes (the joke was we were all hand washing like billio!) but for some children they will have to self isolate with family due to difficulties with testing.

Locally, children were being tested as part of a study via swab and spit test. I've tried to see if I can find more info, couldn't but found this:

www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-19-paediatric-surveillance

Most of it is ongoing research in sept.

@BigChocFrenzy

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 ?

My own lea/ school say that they will be coordinating with PHE on decisions re closures of bubbles or whole schools. PHE have the final say our head said. They have had a lot of input from PHE already as we are a complex school.

I imagine it's also going to depend on any other local schools where there are siblings, which is why they need access to real time data and who is positive where. It seems the local schools have been working together in terms of planning / coordinating / risk assessments and also with local union reps; it was my local rep, obviously also a teacher, who gave me a lot of info on this (and was genuinely working with the schools to make sure they opened safely.)
That's just my LEA though.

I am.wondering whether academies will have to close if LEA schools do. My trust usually goes it's own way at the best of times and we don't follow LEA guidance for anything else. Or the Burgundy book. Most of my local area is now run by a combination of two trusts.

What would be interesting is analysing the hotspot reports to see if the ones that are not getting on top of this quickly are also the ones not finding many positive children. Just looking at the first one - Blackburn and Darwen either were not testing children or were not finding the positive ones. Now they are. Leicester has been finding positive children for longer, Leicester is declining. However Bradford has been finding positive children for a while and it isnt declining.

Doesnt look like untested children are driving increases but places like Tameside, who are not finding positive children, need to test children too.

And does anyone know why Wigan is in the surveillance but Hackney apparently is not?

That's what I'm worried about Phleb. If so, despite impact on staff and pupils, also means there isn't the control from the local PHE and council that they'd like.

Is anyone aware of where we can find updated data about the outcome of "outbreaks"? The comment about schools leading to only a small number of confirmed cases, with others being other respiratory illnesses makes me wonder about care homes. 115 is still a very high number of outbreaks. Is this because anyone with pneumonia is inspiring a load of checks, or is there still a massive infection control issue? (And if so, what are the studies on this?)

As a side point, @wintertravel1980' s report was interesting some pages back about care homes. 3.8% positivity but only 3.3% symptomatic - so what's happening with those death stats given that a proportion of those residents would have died too, is that included in PHE's reporting review?

@alreadytaken

And does anyone know why Wigan is in the surveillance but Hackney apparently is not?

I think this is down to Wigan being within the Greater Manchester conurbation, so all the GM councils are covered

Wigan is part of Greater Manchester. Wiganites have been complaining they shouldn't have been included in the new restrictions but Àndy Burnham (GM mayor) has said you can't trust Wigan differently as people don't isolate on individual boroughs but cross borders multiple times a day.

I don't know if this has been shared yet. Govt report about airborne transmission, the benefit of masks and advice to change the guidelines for hairdressers to wear face masks as well as visors.
t.co/WOdKqHAaIa?amp=1

treat not trust!

[quote JulyBreeze]Residents of East Northamptonshire towns told to socially distance etc, and multi team tournaments stopped :

www.northantstelegraph.co.uk/health/coronavirus/local-lockdown-risk-corby-kettering-and-wellingborough-if-residents-do-not-follow-extra-rules-officials-warn-2936432[/quote]
Northampton has been problematic for a while (and on the watched list), Kettering has also been up and down a bit; certainly some upward direction in the eastern side of the County, although interestingly it was only a few weeks ago that Corby recorded no cases for two consecutive weeks.

a slight aside in terms of getting on top of things (or not). Looking at specimen date, calculating the grouped seven day rolling average for the current watched councils, then a separate group for every other English LA, and then indexing this back to a start point we can see the gap growing in terms of the impact, in terms of cases, from a relatively small number of council areas. Plus as the PHE LSOA maps shows increasingly within those limited number of council in many it is a further relatively limited number of LSOAs driving the numbers.

I might actually ask my union where academy staff stand if LEA have ordered shutdowns but academies carry on, as ours doubtless will. We currently don't have the benefits of LEA transport either so naturally all the bus kids are crammed on as usual come September in both my primary and my own kids secondary as they won't and an't pay for extra buses, apparently. Maybe if the trust head sold his Merc.....

So I get why Wigan is in the list - but why is Hackney not in there too?

boys3 Your graph could be interpreted as locking down some areas actually has more impact on the places that are not locked down - since other areas started to decline when restrictions were re-imposed elsewhere.. So Wigan shouldnt be included, just be told it will be the moment tests rise there .

@alreadytaken

So I get why Wigan is in the list - but why is Hackney not in there too?

boys3 Your graph could be interpreted as locking down some areas actually has more impact on the places that are not locked down - since other areas started to decline when restrictions were re-imposed elsewhere.. So Wigan shouldnt be included, just be told it will be the moment tests rise there .

Because as a "stand alone" it doesn't warrant it, in the same way that if Wigan was a town/ borough not attached to a lockdown area it wouldn't warrant it either?

Hmm.

School outbreaks have to be notified to local public health, who will advise what needs to be done, regardless of whether the school is an academy or not:

Prevention Section 8

Where I think thigs are more murky is in the event of local lockdowns - Contingency Planning for Outbreaks in the same document

"If a local area sees a spike in infection rates that is resulting in localised community spread, appropriate authorities will decide which measures to implement to help contain the spread. The Department for Education will be involved in decisions at a local and national level affecting a geographical area, and will support appropriate authorities and individual settings to follow the health advice. We will provide more information on this process in due course."

The advice was, by the way, updated yesterday according to the new date stamp. As it is never revision marked (and the list of what has been updated has remained as far as I can tell the same since the 27th July update), I have no ideas what has changed.

Hackney has more positive tests than Wigan, they are not dropping off much and they dont do any testing at all on some days. coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases?areaType=ltla&areaName=Hackney%20and%20City%20of%20London

It's not sufficient excuse to say it's not part of a bigger problem.

Hackney's 7 day rolling "7 day incidence per 100,000" seems to be pretty stable between 18-20; so higher than some on the watch list, double the England average, but not increasing. It may be that the local authorities have a clear idea where the occasional cluster is coming from - looking at the low level map, it would appear Stamford Hill and around account for half or so; which makes it likely to be an continuing cluster around a specific community, which is where it was in end July (Hasidic Jews).

Where did you get that they aren't doing any testing on some days? It can't be inferred from that table and I don't think we have it for Hackney, because they are not on the PHE watch table.

@already - I think you're getting cause and effect back to front in interpreting @boys2's graph - the places she's showing on the blue line were only placed on the watch list quite recently (most of them at least) So the fact that rates are going up in these areas whilst other areas flatline or fall is the reason they are on the watchlist, not the result of being in it.

What strikes me about your chart though @boys2 is that the watchlist and non-watchlist LAs were very much in sync during June - falling at the same rate. Then at the start of July something changed in some areas causing cases to rise and them to be put on the watchlist. Could be pubs, some workplaces, places of worship (all opened start of July) or a cultural failure to go on with social distancing. But whatever they are doing wrong recently in those places is new - they weren't doing it during June.

Hackney cases have dropped this week. Could it be that they were connected to the big illegal rave, and therefore "known" transmission?

I tried looking up any other local outbreaks and found this spectacularly shit idea. Please note the next big outbreak location, a fucking over-65s choir: www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/hackney-social-club-reopens-for-summer-1-6783429. What area that thinking????