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 📈 📉 📊 👍

All countries in Europe saw an abrupt downward slope after the 1st wave as summer came in

Interesting, has anyone surmised why?

Mainly the effect of all those months of SD, in one form or another
A massive change in social behaviour in all countries

Also, immunity increases in summer, so virus less likely to take hold

Recent rise in so many countries is obviously as SD is reducing, especially among the young and pubs, clubs etc reopened

Yes, a lot of infection occurs in the home,
but ntbo people can only infect those they live with, if they actually have an infection first^
which comes from outside

Also, there must be some effect of infected people having immunity to at least some degree,
which is likely to last for month at least

months

I understand Covid-19 comes under the descriptor of a "Propogated Source Outbreak" It can be controlled, with hand washing and SD, but essentially when those controls are lifted, it resurfaces, and will continue to do so until it burns through the susceptible population, or you get a vaccine......

Good news for children, if BJ sticks to his guns and prioritises schools:

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-pm-says-it-is-a-national-priority-to-get-all-pupils-back-to-school-in-september-12045538

"The PM has been clear that businesses including shops, pubs and restaurants should be forced to close first, with schools remaining open for as long as possible,"

Yes good news indeed.

Yes interesting below, good points.

@Baaaahhhhh

I understand Covid-19 comes under the descriptor of a "Propogated Source Outbreak" It can be controlled, with hand washing and SD, but essentially when those controls are lifted, it resurfaces, and will continue to do so until it burns through the susceptible population, or you get a vaccine......

... It's a sensible strategy, with a "novel" virus, to reduce infections to the minimum early on, to give time for effective drugs & treatments to be developed, as well as a vaccine

The average person will have a better prognosis if they catch the virus now, than they would have had in March / April
and will have a still better chance this winter
(well they would in countries where the health service doesn't risk being overwhelmed every winter)

@wintertravel1980

Strangely no-one discusses Brazil and WHY we'd be like Sweden and not like Brazil.

The thing is there is a major difference between Sweden and Brazil.

Sweden didn't lock down but it introduced sensible high impact measures from early on. For instance, it banned mass gatherings over 500 people on March 11 (i.e. way earlier than the UK). It restricted restaurants and bars to table service and it encouraged social distancing without making it a law.

Based on what we know about COVID now, it is clear we do not need a full lockdown to keep R under 1. The highest transmission drivers are mass gatherings and multi-household interactions indoors.

Brazilian government has been dismissing COVID using the old and ignorant "it's just a flu" line. This messaging is clearly insulting to all the families who lost their loved ones to the disease. However, at the end of the day, Brazil might have had no choice but to "flatten the curve" (instead of suppressing infections). The reality is lockdowns in developing countries are likely to cause many more deaths than COVID. With the average age of 31.4 years in Brazil, the consequences of COVID are likely to be less disastrous than the potential impact of shutting down the economy.

Sweden introduced high impact measures - yes. Sweden has also always had a high proportion of people working from home.

Encouraging social distancing is not exactly working well in the uk even now in parts of the country, the high infection rates show that.

We may not need full lockdown now to keep R under 1 but that probably was not true at the start - not that we ever had a full lockdown anyway. If you dont lockdown early and have high levels of community transmission you need harsher methods to keep r down.

Brazil could have taken other measures, as most countries have done.

@Firefliess

They have allowed bars to reopen in Spain, with not a lot of distancing. I reckon that's a bigger factor than simply having lots of tourists - most of whom are from countries with lower rates than Spain

Did the government cite the high positivity rate as a reason for requiring travellers to quarantine does anyone know?

Plus they have singers performing outside etc.

But I also think some areas are still having low tourists and caution. I read that the aqua park in Benidorm is closing end of August due to low numbers.

@IceCreamSummer20

Bars and clubs do seem to be drivers of infection. It seems a bit crazy that Spain has had rates go higher, when the good weather means that most of these activities can happen outdoors.

My experience of living in Tenerife for a number of years is that (like Florida and southern American states) it's so hot this time of year people go indoors.

Well at least the residents do. The tourists like to sit outside and fry

Sorry my page didn't fully re fresh and I realise I've repeated exactly what fireflies said re Spain.

At least we know it's a good hypothesis though

As for the decline in the summer months - we have been speculating from the start that is partly due to not being vitamin D deficient in summer. A recent study supports that but is not conclusive. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.01.20144329v1

Add to that a lot more time spent outdoors where the droplets of infectious material dry out and become incapable of infection faster.

@BigChocFrenzy *I'm surprised at the obsession to say everyone else was wrong... I'm far more interested in what we do next, rather than this obsessive attempt to rewrite history

Well said. It is strange, I think part of the trouble is actually the daily counts of cases and deaths. People are viewing it as some sort of league table and it gets like a competition, driven by media who have less celebrity gossip to focus on. It gets forgotten that:

1. few countries have accurate case numbers; a few are close who maintained control from the start e.g. NZ, Vietnam, Germany, South Korea; but even they have had some unexpected moments
2. few countries have accurate death numbers; Belgium perhaps the closest, UK might when they get tidied up, though there will be more covid and recession deaths to come that can be retrospectively attributed; if mortality were compared by age then that might also bring up some huge differences
3. that no country has done effective T-cell immunity verification nor knows how long it and antibodies last,
4. that nobody knows the seasonal impact,
5. that nobody knows the future economic impact, which can only be projected; the most common phrases about economic forecasts tend to be statements like "greater than expected" or "lower than expected", and
6. vaccine availability could lead to later large differences in how well countries cope.

Realistically the deaths so far are likely to be a fraction of possible deaths, the next steps each country takes will confirm their futures. Likewise economically, shocks have happened, recovery or further downturns depend upon the steps taken. I'm interested in seeing what goes well or badly in different countries because it's good to learn from early indicators; if every country did the same thing there wouldn't be that opportunity.

Totally agree about it becoming some sort of competitive thing between countries.

When the government announced Spain quarantine and FCo advised against travel their government was saying our cases were higher.

They were about equal at this time.

They also stated our death rate was still much higher. Ignoring differential reporting and the fact cases take weeks before death and age of cases makes a difference.

And when I pointed out on another thread here (someone also saying non travel was stupid as cases and etc) I pointed out that it's cases per 100k of population and is more of a problem as they have a population approx 21 million lower than ours.

The person quoted that and added an 🤔 face.

I've no idea why?! Did they disbelieve what I said or the population data?! Which a quick google would have confirmed

I think people were comparing the ONS projected UK rate with Spain's confirmed tested rate, that's why they thought it was the same. Also comparing rates in some areas of England with the average for the whole of Spain. Likewise the death rate, comparing historic additions with daily actuals. It was supported/ driven by statements by Spanish government officials, because I saw similarly misleadingly statements from them. I understand their desperation to get money in through tourism, but it's unfortunate for quarantine to be perceived as a form of punishment when it's just a virus control measure.

Lancet: SeroTracker: a global SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence dashboard

A useful resource
A custom-built dashboard that integrates results from hundreds of Covid serological studies around the world

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30631-9/fulltex

serotracker.com/Dashboard

Very different % according to the filter chosen for test type, general pop / blood donors etc
We'll have to decide on the most representative
Iran 22% though !

They said London was 17% at one point, then it went down to 7%, it'll be interesting to play with the filters and see exactly what was tested.

Over 1000 new cases today

The Zoe Covid symptom tracker research had some interesting stats the other day from their samples of antibody testing. In London and the South East their testing showed approx 12% with antibodies. They also believe from symptom history a further 12% had had it but without testing positive for antibodies (hopefully protected by T cells instead).

Perhaps when you also add in that some people seem to be able to be exposed but don't catch it, then perhaps there is some hope for an element of herd immunity in the fairly near future.

@MarcelineMissouri

Over 1000 new cases today

That's disappointing after the last two days seemed a little bit better.

I wasn't expecting that many test results at the WE, but maybe actual tests are from Friday ?

How do those increased results compare to testing numbers? (Site isn't updated yet).

We had another area added to lockdown yesterday so I would imagine there's been increased targeted testing in that area and perhaps they've pulled out cases?

Will be watching closely the overall figures for the next week or 2.

When does the watch list by area get released?