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 📈 📉 📊 👍

Whilst i think it is important now to have an accurate count of what is happening re deaths in the community especially now, , i dont think they should have knocked off 4000 plus off the total. We are now a long way off the ONS ( which i believe is the most accurate count) and 25,000 short re excess deaths. Spain also has a large gap between official figures and excess deaths and is often accused of not counting properly and we are now the same. Think some analysis has been made of this and Belguim was very accurate some countries in europe around 90% ( not sure what Germany was but probably very close). The uk is now very low.

I was talking about sending out knowingly infected patients. To emphasise a different section of that report although there were numerous instances where an introduction event was not followed by any detected forward transmission. Clusters commonly contained isolates from both residents and staff members, although it is not possible to infer directionality. First it is not possible to infer whether the multiple introductions were from staff or residents. The timing coincides with moving patients - but also the time when staff were more likely to become infected because it was nearing the peak of a pandemic Secondly as noted an introduction did not always lead to onward transmission, because care homes have staff trained to deal with sick residents.

Since quoting Sweden has become popular recently - they had massive numbers of deaths in their care homes, because when community transmission is high the virus enters care homes with staff and visitors. www.thelocal.se/20200707/swedish-healthcare-watchdog-report-care-homes-coronavirus

Bias in the report not to point out that care home staff were becoming infected from community transmission at that time.

We need to learn from this - that if you send people anywhere it needs to be to places where there are trained staff who have the means to avoid infection. I consider care homes the least bad of the options available at the time - the German approach only works if you have trained staff to send into hotels, otherwise they spread infection into the community.

@Humphriescushion

Whilst i think it is important now to have an accurate count of what is happening re deaths in the community especially now, , i dont think they should have knocked off 4000 plus off the total. We are now a long way off the ONS ( which i believe is the most accurate count) and 25,000 short re excess deaths. Spain also has a large gap between official figures and excess deaths and is often accused of not counting properly and we are now the same. Think some analysis has been made of this and Belguim was very accurate some countries in europe around 90% ( not sure what Germany was but probably very close). The uk is now very low.

..... Yes, Belgium is notable for being almost the only country to include all deaths anywhere that might be COVID, without needing a positive test They let their public health authorities decide how to count and their 9,900 official deaths are v close to excess deaths (the inevitable lag for total death data makes it difficult to compare exactly when the numbers are so close)

Germany's 9,200 official death toll is also within a few % of excess deaths

The UK has one of the highest gaps, due to earlier UNDER-counting, especially before end April when care homes were included
e.g. the 22 consecutive days of deaths > 1,000 and peak of 1,445 with discrepancies of > 60% to real figures

The ONS figure of 55,000 deaths with COVID on the certificate is close to the > 60,000 excess deaths
The ONS are superbly professional, with access to complete data and able to produce reliable total deaths and detailled analyses more quickly than other countries
They are a genuine "world-beater" of whom we should all be proud

@Humphriescushion

Whilst i think it is important now to have an accurate count of what is happening re deaths in the community especially now, , i dont think they should have knocked off 4000 plus off the total. We are now a long way off the ONS ( which i believe is the most accurate count) and 25,000 short re excess deaths. Spain also has a large gap between official figures and excess deaths and is often accused of not counting properly and we are now the same. Think some analysis has been made of this and Belguim was very accurate some countries in europe around 90% ( not sure what Germany was but probably very close). The uk is now very low.

I think our new way of counting brings us in line with rest of UK plus most of Europe. I read Spain only counts deaths within 36 hours of positive test so I don't think we can be compared to Spain with a 28 day count Scotland/ Wales / N Ireland have been counting this way the whole time (didn't hear anyone complaining about that!) and so I think it is only right England follow suit - or England's figures look much higher which reflects unfairly on the England population who by and large have been following the rules as much as the devolved nations. Its a shame there wasn't an International agreed way of counting right from the start - hopefully that will be something countries can agree for any future pandemic (god forbid!)

I think when all is said and done the UK will be firmly in the middle of the pack (if people want to compare countries) - not the worse figures in the world by a long shot.

Does anyone know if Belgium are looking at how they count? Have they been unfairly labelled worst in Europe due to the way they count every covid death? Seems like they have to me.

If I was them , I would be looking at the stats and thinking about bringing the count in line with rest of Europe/ UK.

@alreadytaken said Care homes cant be forced to take people so clearly the home believed they could manage the infected person. No I wouldnt have sent them out - but if I was a care home owner I wouldnt have accepted them either if I couldnt keep the rest of the residents clear of infection.

Care homes were being forced to take patients with Covid in order to keep funding payments. They were the poor relation of the NHS when it came to obtaining PPE and the 'dumping ground' for elderly Covid patients when the focus was 'protecting the NHS'. So many outbreaks in care homes were beyond the home's control to avoid.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-care-homes-faced-funding-cut-if-they-didnt-take-in-covid-19-patients-11986578

@sashagabadon

Does anyone know if Belgium are looking at how they count? Have they been unfairly labelled worst in Europe due to the way they count every covid death? Seems like they have to me.

If I was them , I would be looking at the stats and thinking about bringing the count in line with rest of Europe/ UK.

.... Belgium have one of the highest population densities and they have the massive international connections of Brussels

So they were always going to be high, unless they had locked down after v few deaths, as Germany did

Statistics should not be affected by national pride or politics, but should be what public health authorities consider is most useful & realistic

Fortunately, Belgium have not yet succumbed to the childish behaviour of treating comparisons like a football match

Many other European countries counts are much closer to the excess death figure ( except spain and the uk). So not sure we can say we are counting the same way, if we are how are we missing more 25,000 deaths and other countries are missing less.

I totally agree with not getting into a football match - but it does seem to be UK media in particular enjoys putting the boot in when it comes to the UK stats (mostly as a way to kick Boris I think) and certainly NS in scotland loves to compare Scotland favourably to England - so I think that ship has sailed

We constantly get told we are the "worst in the world", "worst in Europe" plus everyone is comparing Sweden to NZ now - so country by country comparison is sadly inevitable - hence why we should all be using the same counting mechanism or countries like Belgium look "worse" than they are - which strikes me as unfair on Belgium citizens.

Belgium doesn't have a stats bureau of the capaciy & quality of our ONS, to reliably include additional deaths very quckly afterwards,
so including diagnosed deaths without an actual test, gives useful information to their public health and government authorities to make decisions

Giving in to the football match mentality is not an adult basis for public health information

If Belgium can rise above that, good for them

Yes i always thought people saying Belguim was the worse was unfair.

@sashagabadon

Does anyone know if Belgium are looking at how they count? Have they been unfairly labelled worst in Europe due to the way they count every covid death? Seems like they have to me.

If I was them , I would be looking at the stats and thinking about bringing the count in line with rest of Europe/ UK.

I don't think this when I look at Belgium for example. Its clear that they are doing a better job reporting than most.

Spain on the other hand - I have questioned their data for months. That may be unfair, however the dramatic improvement especially re deaths did not follow the trend in other countries.

UK I think are doing well now although we know that we were seriously caught on the hop, so data for early months is not representative of the actual situation.

@alreadytaken Therefore it is unlikely that many infected patients were sent to care homes. Care homes cant be forced to take people so clearly the home believed they could manage the infected person. No I wouldnt have sent them out - but if I was a care home owner I wouldnt have accepted them either if I couldnt keep the rest of the residents clear of infection. Some homes did manage to keep their residents free from infection.

There are homes with contracts to take a certain number and the contracts could, and I believe in some cases were, enforced so that homes had no choice. I have also seen a manager on TV stating that she opened her door and was told she had to take a resident back, what should she have done with one of her residents sitting there being returned to his home? Some homes did stay free of covid, some like the home where I work were full so couldn't take any of the people who were being turned out of hospitals, some like the home where I have a relative kept their residents safe by closing down all visits, when you claim no one knew about asymptomatic transmission, and by staff moving in. The infection got into the home when a resident who had been in hospital for something else was returned and the next day the home were told he was infected, an infection that must have been caught in hospital. It is a dementia home, short of tying residents to their beds or locking them into their rooms there is no way to stop them wandering and spreading infection.

The Nightingales were not available at the start of the pandemic when patients were being sent out. When one did become available it was a political dick waving exercise, there were never people to staff it. With no tests for staff or their families and limited PPE there were less bodies around - and few of them properly trained. As for these empty beds you think are lying around - the NHS runs close to capacity in winter, if beds are empty it's usually because they cant staff them.

You seem to think you know the dates people were sent into homes, it went on for longer than you think. The NHS runs close to capacity in winter but we have constantly been told that the NHS has not been overwhelmed and there were empty beds. Were the govt lying to us?

I am also v dubious about earlier reporting of deaths in Spain.
However, their data on cases & testing clearly shows the effect of relaxing measures and it would be logical that their deaths remain v low atm,
as in the Uk and the rest of Europe with much younger people being infected and fewer of the frail elderly - lessons learned there, hopefully

ECDC have 14-day incidence :

98/100,000 for Spain
59.1 / 100,000 for Belgium
30 / 100,000 for France
35.5 / 100,000 for Sweden
vs
18.2 for UK
14 for Germany (but continuing to rise)
15.5 for Greece

How care homes, both residents and staff, have been treated was disgraceful

@BigChocFrenzy, I couldn't agree more and the bashing goes on.

Care homes are private businesses, responsible for negotiating with local authorities and for their own infection control. I dont think there are any state run homes now, as there used to be? They were offered additional money to help deal with Covid precautions if they took in positive Covid cases. They are businesses, they chose to accept an additional risk for additional payment. With not enough PPE to go around it was supposed to be sent to where the infected people were, blame an incompetent government for not getting it to the right places.

If you wish to use anecdote rather than data this is an example of why it is difficult to separate cause and effect www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/14/three-weeks-of-hell-the-peak-of-covid-19-at-hard-hit-uk-care-home-melbury-court

Did the lady who had a respiratory infection in February take Covid to the hospital having contracted it in their care home from an asymptomatic member of staff? Most people will jump to the conclusion that it came from the hospital but you could make a case that the care home resident took it to the hospital.

It's a highly political issue - and one where there should be a soundly based scientific study. The ONS study pointed to highly levels in care homes with staff who didnt get sick pay and to possible transmission between homes. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/impactofcoronavirusincarehomesinenglandvivaldi/26mayto19june2020

The genomic study has ruled out transmission between homes but it didnt find the source of the infection in those homes and claiming that it must have come from hospitals is not based on data, it's an assumption.

Care home residents have indeed been at risk everywhere. This is a , I suspect biased, report of German care residents being refused testing. If true then German care home deaths will be understated if they only count care home deaths with a positive test. www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/12/germ-m12.html

The lack of sick pay for so many low-wage jobs is a long-standing disgrace

I hope the contribution of this factor to the high care home deaths will bring about permanent change for all employees, not just in care homes
Sick people shouldn't have to work - and infect their colleagues and service users - just to pay the bills

(In Germany, even before COVID, the norm was 6 weeks sick pay on full salary, then afterwards 80% salary, which probably helped reduce infection spread)

Reading about the US is very worrying, it looks as if cases might be reducing in states such as Calif/Texas/Florida but it seems there is a trend towards fewer people getting tested due to the long queues and extended wait times for results. At the same time, positivity rates are increasing (50% in Texas on Saturday ) and schools are reopening with no testing facilities in place for kids and teachers. Meanwhile in Florida the police have been BANNED from wearing masks! What a mess.

One article

[quote alreadytaken]Care home residents have indeed been at risk everywhere. This is a , I suspect biased, report of German care residents being refused testing. If true then German care home deaths will be understated if they only count care home deaths with a positive test. www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/12/germ-m12.html[/quote]
....
It is a self-proclaimed Marxist site
So obviously hates Merkel

There were about 3,000 deaths in German care homes, which is pretty low for a country of 83 million

Even residents of 90+ and 100+ were tested,
but not all of th v elderly and desperately ill would not have been put on ventilators - at some stage it becomes well-meaning cruelty

When gap between excess deaths and official figures is only a few %, as in Belgium and Germany, there isn't under-counting

I agree @ big, excess deaths are largely covid deaths so countries with a big discrepancy are not accurate.