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 📈 📉 📊 👍

@sirfredfredgeorge @BigChocFrenzy thank you for your replies.

The impact on exam results going forward in areas where schools are going to be able to remain open, and those where local lockdowns may affect it, is a concern.

I'm hoping councils can organise themselves quickly; I believe there are some systems they can utilise already in place. It can't come too soon.

Care home populations are not static. The freed up beds will not all be reoccupied but some will be. However reluctant people may be there comes a time when people need too much care to manage at home.

The north west seems to make up a smaller proportion of the positives than last time I calculated it.

I cannot remember where, but there was evidence that severity was related to initial viral loads during their infection - so people who were infected by low viral loads tended to have lighter diseases.

There is no tangible evidence that the virus load impacts severity of the disease but this hypothesis has been put forward by several doctors and scientists in the UK and Italy.

For instance, from the twitter account of Prof Francois Balloux
@BallouxFrancois

I suspect it is far safer to get infected by an asymptomatic carrier, and ideally outdoors, as this is expected to lead to a lower infectious dose, which may a key determinant of symptom severity. It might be viewed as a form of 'variolation'

That was said to be the main reason that young doctors in China and Italy died - inhaling a huge number of virus particles
Tiredness imo played only a minor role when we consider how few people of similarly young age died even with serious health conditions

Can I ask you clever sciency people a question. Is there much (any?) evidence of transmission by touch or is it mainly thought to be through breathing in enclosed spaces? (We initially hid evrrything for 3 days but gut feeling os there is less need to worry about touch...?)

I have a personal theory that anomalies are not due to viral load as such, because people have lived with multiple unwell others and been fine, but the number of infections on their day(s) of initial infection. It's a mutating virus where DNA/RNA can adjust as it passes through each host; only slight, but it's proven to be trackable in analysing infection flows (I'd point out the research on children and therefore impact on schools again, but ho hum). Anyway, those who catch a viral load from multiple people in a few days would logically find it harder to fight off; it explains early medic issues, bus drivers, random younger very unwell etc.

Is there much (any?) evidence of transmission by touch or is it mainly thought to be through breathing in enclosed spaces?

There are very few documented cases of COVID transmission via surfaces. The two that get quoted most often are:

(1) Church in Singapore

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30528-6/fulltext

(2) Shopping mall in China

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/6/20-0412_article

At the same time there are thousands and thousands of documented transmissions at superspreading events and via close contact.

I am personally not worried about surfaces. For instance, if we had lived in Wales, I would have taken DD to a soft play area in no time. However we are in England so it looks like we have to wait for longer.

Re: outdoor surfaces - SAGE actually concluded that the risk of transmission ranges from negligible (for low touch surfaces) to low (for high touch surfaces like door knobs, pedestrian crossing buttons, etc).

@pineapple I think the consensus is moving towards breathing in enclosed spaces as being the main form of transmission. But it definitely can transmit on surfaces too - as there was an early case in one of the Asian countries (S Korea maybe? I forget. Not China) where a church goer infected people in adjacent seats, and also someone who sat in the same seat at the later church service - which very much suggests transmission via surfaces.

As transmission has become more widespread it's more difficult to know how any individual caught it, so I don't think we can be certain what proportion of cases spread which way.

Personally I think you're being super-cautious if you're isolating all your shopping for three days, and probably only worth doing if your have zero actual contact with anyone outside your household and are very vulnerable. But everyone makes their own judgements.

We aren't doing that now - just the 2 months we shielded and were super careful. Now I'm assuming there's v low risk so have taken cups frome friends they've touched etc, stopped antibacing after touching benches etc, fine with buying ice creams. Just wondering if I was correct to assume touching was less of a worry.
But catching from sitting on a seat!? Id been assuming public toilets where its say 1 in 1 out were okay....

@PineappleUpsideDownCake I wouldn't have thought it was the seat alone but potentially a hymn book that was used by previous person that that person then used. Would seem more likely to me as people don't generally touch seats. Whereas the infected person would have breathed all over the hymn book which the next person would then touch

That's just me speculating obviously

Regarding the church, people tend to kneel in pews to pray, so it's technically feasible for air to have hung about "trapeed" in the indoor space (lack of air flow is as much of an issue indoors as air con artificial flows), especially with fervent singing. Of course technically it could be droplets on the hymnal etc, but as PP says, there is very little fomite transmission evidence, so I wouldn't worry about say shopping / takeaway, only high touch points like gates / buttons.

Even the Singapore case is not 100% clear cut.

Patient C5 in the Lancet report (the woman who sat in the same seat as the infected individual) developed symptoms 14 days after the presumed exposure.

While the 14 day incubation periods are not unheard of, they are relatively rare. A couple of scientists speculated that there might have been an intermediate (asymptomatic? mildly symptomatic?) transmission that was not picked up by the analysis. The "interim patient" might have been infected by patient 0 and passed the virus to Patient C5 a week after the initial exposure. This would imply Patient C5 developed symptoms 7 days later which brings her case closer to the median.

In any case, even if we assume the Singapore transmission happened via surfaces, it is still much more of an exception than the rule.

I've never washed my shopping or post,
as the advice here was always that the virus dies off quickly on surfaces and it was not necessary

However, during lockdown I was very careful to wear a mask even outside, as we had crowds of people walking by the Rhine then

I didn't buy sanitiser either, just washed hands thoroughly with ordinary soap whenever I came indoors
I found that masks stopped me touching my face when out

Interestingly, one of the main arguments against masks has been that the vast majority of people do not use them "correctly" and may get themselves infected by touching the outside of the mask and subsequently their face.

If we believe surface transmission is not a major risk for COVID, masks suddenly become much more useful. Looks like most of the observational data so far supports this.

I do think the official info about "wearing masks correctly" is aiming at the wrong level really. We need a public information campaign on "just wear something to cover the parts of your face that can release germs" and "yes you can breathe normally in one".

Another mask "risk" is people wearing them on their chins and thinking that means that can have a chat up close.

DH commented today that supermarket A had quite a few people not in masks (3 of whom were having a shouted argument about food and nobody social distancing much, though it's hard in narrow aisles), whereas everyone in supermarket B and all but one person in supermarket C
wore masks. (Over the course of 2 weeks, we mix it up with different items from each). Some people won't be able to wear masks, but the discrepancy in numbers suggests it's more likely that the message is getting lost somewhere.

@wintertravel1980

Interestingly, one of the main arguments against masks has been that the vast majority of people do not use them "correctly" and may get themselves infected by touching the outside of the mask and subsequently their face.

If we believe surface transmission is not a major risk for COVID, masks suddenly become much more useful. Looks like most of the observational data so far supports this.

.... It's an argument I've seen often on MN by people opposed on principal to wearing masks, or to children wearing them However, it's not something I've ever heard mentioned here as a concern

re pp concerned about their holiday in France :

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/10/france-on-the-cliff-edge-of-removal-from-uk-safe-travel-list

France is “on the cliff-edge” of being removed from the UK’s travel corridor list,according to an industry figure,
with a decision expected by the end of the week that could mean hundreds of thousands of Britons holidaying there would have to quarantine on their return.

Mask wearing at my supermarket today was 100% for customers (apart from one noticeably deaf man) Staff behind screen generally not. But the staff do chat to customers with no SD at all and quite often pull masks down to talk to each other. I am not clear whether the staff are meant to SD from each other because they definitely don't. Whereas, as we know, at schools we have been told the key is to keep away from our colleagues, so I do find that confusing! I wonder if the supermarket workers have just got more confidence/less bothered by now? But, at another supermarket across town apparently mask wearing is rare. And this is a town on the edge of lockdown.

I have a Sainsburys Local opposite me and mask wearing good there, too : even though lots of people are just popping in, The teenagers are pretty good about it too (boys more than girls! I think the girls worry about how they look more!)

They have messed up with P1 cases I think

thanks for the clarification Patricia

Counties missing yesterday, cases missing today, who knows what omission tomorrow may bring. If we're sticking with c words then my vote is for covid-19 to go missing and not return.

Will be interesting to see if the dashboard is corrected tomorrow

Just commenting on the missing cases. NI reported 76 cases today, a catch up from over the weekend as they don’t report on Sat & Sun anymore. It definitely wasn’t zero cases today.

Ah, I suspect the missing NI data is actually the answer! Just a massive coincidence that it's the same as the P1. Thanks!

Times tomorrow has front page main story "Older pupils spread virus like adults, blow for minister"

You can choose your newspaper according to the version you prefer