Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 15

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 15 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Uk dashboard deaths, cases, hospitals, tests - 4 nations, LAs, English regions
Slides & data UK govt pressers
UK added daily by PHE & DHSC
PHE Surveillance report infections & watchlists every Thursday with sep. infographic
ONS England infection surveillance report
ONS UK death stats each Tuesday
ECDC rolling 14-day incidence EEA & UK
Daily ECDC country detail UK
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 test positivity etc

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

anyone have any insights into the higher level of hospitalised in France.

France and UK very similar population totals; looking at www.santepubliquefrance.fr/ levels are a lot higher than UK (and Germany).

Commentary also that Number of people hospitalized in increase for 3 weeks, especially among those under 40 (NB my emphasis)

"seems to re-inforce just how big a factor age is in terms of potential severity"

Also explains the partying and holidaying abroad:
Young people would not be worried by 36 deaths under 40 in a country of 83 million

and there is general lack of public concern after nearly all single figure deaths for 2 months+

It looks like nearly everywhere that is experiencing summer is also experiencing low % deaths,
whereas e.g. Australia has its winter atm, which may explain the upsurge of deaths in Victoria after their cases rose

the RKI keeps issuing worried statements about rising cases
and there are posters up reminding about SD

If cases spread to the elderly this winter, as people stay indoors more, then the situation here could become serious again

Mask compliance is almost 100% in my area (quiet Rhine village) in shops and public transport, but there are many family parties without SD as is allowed within the rules
and I gather in many other areas there is a lack of SD for large groups outside

Any of you clever ladies able to look back and figure out respiratory deaths registered on ONS for last year (Aug-Dec)
It would be good to look at age as well. Were they above average or below?

Only because I've seen whisperings of various scientists suspecting it was around before we realised and WHO have reportedly asked consultants to re look at chest X-rays going back to last August.

With there also being lots of coughs and odd gastric colds in schools before December they are investigating Covid being around longer than we realised.

I saw a report (couldn't work out how to link) discussing the possibility March was a second wave and that's why it was severe as 2nd waves can be.

I know scientists everywhere all have various views and therefore it made me think if there was anything in the actual deaths data that would lead to that suspicion rather than hypothesis based on various scientific beliefs (which mostly appear anecdotal!) Especially as I also had heard weeks 1-11 were below 5 year average

"France and UK very similar population totals"

It could be different hospitalisation policies, but France has much higher # infections

Do we have data about the average age of infected people for France vs UK ?
we know age has fallen, but a difference between the 2 countries of several years would significantly affect hospitalisation

ECDC reports 14-day incidence of France is > 2 x UK
41.4 / 100,000 vs 20.4 / 100,000

and World in Data stats are that France currently has 2.2% positive tests vs UK 0.7%

The idea of March - May being a 2nd wave is persistent, although I'm not sure how important it actually is

What imo is against a true "1st wave" last winter, vs merely a likely number of isolated cases in some European countries,
is that winter deaths in the UK at least were slightly below the 5-year average
If it was a 1st wave, it was confined to the under-50s

There are a number of respiratory bugs every winter and this last winter was not thought unusual or worthy of investigation until COVID took off in Europe in March.

A number of people reportedly thought they might have had COVID over winter, but have found to be without antibodies,
although they may just have reduced too much by now to be detectable

We need to wait for the evidence - chest X-rays would be unique to COVID and a permanent record

Wouldn't roughly half of years be below the average? I wonder if the below average is actually anything unusual i.e. lower than the normal low year.

Figures still low here in South Devon, I think everyone was expecting an increase by now as the visitor numbers seem to be high.

Anyone know when we start to get sewage data? It sounds like that's quite accurate and they started recording officially at the beginning of August, rather than just trials.

Regarding France, I may be wrong, but I don't think their hospitalised figure ever came down in the way that the UK figures did. Looking back on graphs of hospitalisation would confirm it. Whether it's that they were swapping people out and simply hospitalised more people, or they have not been releasing people as quickly, or they have kept people in a coma for a long time - no idea.

This report says 2.9% hospitalised in France, while some of the data is just from early in the epidemic it might be possible to compare to known UK hospitalisation data: science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6500/208.

Numbers have been rising just the last 3 days including under-40s (my comment: loud parties = higher initial viral load theory?):
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/20200818-french-covid-19-infections-dip-but-hospital-admissions-still-rising.

@ boyz I have been tracking France and there always appeared to be many more in hospital at any time so maybe policy differences. Hosptial numbers overal l are coming down slighty ( a bit jumpy atm) but not by much now.The numbers for new admissions are now going up unfortunately but i dont see this data broken down into age groups, though have it for overal hospitalisations and cant see anything too startling.. geodes.santepubliquefrance.fr/#c=indicator&i=covid_hospit_incid.incid_hosp&s=2020-08-16&t=a01&view=map1

@ancientgran

Wouldn't roughly half of years be below the average? I wonder if the below average is actually anything unusual i.e. lower than the normal low year.

Figures still low here in South Devon, I think everyone was expecting an increase by now as the visitor numbers seem to be high.

.... It's more that a true 1st wave would have meant much higher deaths than normal - especially over winter - even if not as bad as the March-April period

Looking at excess deaths easily picks up events like bad flu years,
so I'd expect a 1st COVID wave to be very noticeable
It's also difficult to see why it would be confined to under-50s over winter, when people are indoors so much more

e.g. look how easy the COVID peak is to spot in most European countries and the UK regions:

.

BigChocFrenzy I'm not sure if we are talking about below average last winter or now. I'm confused I think. I hear people talking about deaths being below average (generally not on here) as if it something miraculous, "Oh my goodness, isn't it amazing that deaths are low." But like I said isn't it normal that some years are below average, so if we are below average now, with very low covid deaths, does that actually indicate anything.

Between covid stats and results algorithms I think my mind is blown, not to mention childcare for grandchildren all summer. Roll on schools opening and I might regain my sanity and the ability to think things through.

I find the discussion about when Covid really took off here fascinating and I can't understand why there hasn't been more published on it as it seems absolutely key to me in understanding this virus.

The thing that I find it hard to comprehend is that if we were really only a month or so into the UK pandemic when we locked down, how did it get to every single part of the country? Especially as we now know that 80% of people don't spread it and it's the superspreading 20% that are responsible for the spread - seems to me that after only 4 weeks lots of chains of transmission would have died out and it wouldn't have seeded in pretty much every area of the UK. I understand exponential growth but I find this hard to understand. I read in late March of a story of an elderly couple who sadly died with it in a very remote part of the country I know well and I just thought to myself if they've got it then it really must be everywhere! I feel like it must have been bubbling along under the surface for some months beforehand to be so widespread, even allowing for the half term travel.

I think how far the covid infection got around the country so quickly was a reflection of the late lock down.

People were still travelling around unwittingly spreading the virus at a time when many, many people were infected.

Countries which locked down more quickly tend to have less country-wide spread.

@ancientgran

BigChocFrenzy I'm not sure if we are talking about below average last winter or now. I'm confused I think. I hear people talking about deaths being below average (generally not on here) as if it something miraculous, "Oh my goodness, isn't it amazing that deaths are low." But like I said isn't it normal that some years are below average, so if we are below average now, with very low covid deaths, does that actually indicate anything.

Between covid stats and results algorithms I think my mind is blown, not to mention childcare for grandchildren all summer. Roll on schools opening and I might regain my sanity and the ability to think things through.

... I was referring to the discussion about a possible 1st wave over winter which imo would have has to be confined somehow to the over-50s not to show up as a very high winter death toll

A different discussion point:

We have had non-COVID deaths below normal for iirc 11 weeks now, which is a result of lockdown and then of SD etc
Total deaths including COVID have also been below normal for a couple of months, since there are so few COVID deaths now

This is one of the justifications for ft school

@Mummabeary

I find the discussion about when Covid really took off here fascinating and I can't understand why there hasn't been more published on it as it seems absolutely key to me in understanding this virus.

The thing that I find it hard to comprehend is that if we were really only a month or so into the UK pandemic when we locked down, how did it get to every single part of the country? Especially as we now know that 80% of people don't spread it and it's the superspreading 20% that are responsible for the spread - seems to me that after only 4 weeks lots of chains of transmission would have died out and it wouldn't have seeded in pretty much every area of the UK. I understand exponential growth but I find this hard to understand. I read in late March of a story of an elderly couple who sadly died with it in a very remote part of the country I know well and I just thought to myself if they've got it then it really must be everywhere! I feel like it must have been bubbling along under the surface for some months beforehand to be so widespread, even allowing for the half term travel.

.... Most experts think that the unusually wide spread around GB, with high excess deaths in every region, is due to the late lockdown wrt the stage of the infection, allowing the infection to spread so widely

Spain, Italy, France all have high deaths in only some regions
It is a notable difference to the UK

Looking at when countries went into lockdown, these are estimated infections:

However, GB now with similar policies to other countries may be seeing the benefits of being an island, without the easy transfer of infections across land borders
and hence not (yet, at least) experiencing the high rise in cases seen elsewhere

I think it's more likely to do with propensity to travel, the UK has many flights, with many people from different countries as well as a population who enjoy travel. This leads to spread. The resident numbers needing help to return in March from various countries were enormous.

I agree I think it was spreading a lot earlier than February. Look at daily infections now and hospital admissions, they are really low. It must’ve been everywhere in March. We will have to wait and see what happens when schools go back and the autumn and winter months to see if hospital admissions go up.

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/08/Covid-Publication-13-08-2020.xlsx

Other countries travel a lot too - more easily in fact, since it just involves driving over land borders

Analysis of UK infections showed that after the initial infections from abroad, there was widespread community infection which went on too long before lockdown

[quote Alex50]I agree I think it was spreading a lot earlier than February. Look at daily infections now and hospital admissions, they are really low. It must’ve been everywhere in March. We will have to wait and see what happens when schools go back and the autumn and winter months to see if hospital admissions go up.

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/08/Covid-Publication-13-08-2020.xlsx[/quote]
...
UK infections are very low now because of the long lockdown and then - as with other countries - infections now being much more concentrated among the young

If infections were widespread in late winter, when everybody was indoors and the elderly were not shielded,
then this should have shown up in the total death stats for winter

Look at the high excess deaths for the later months of March - May, which were 60,000 above the average for those 3 months
The COVID peak is vey obvious in most European countries

Also, the % with antibodies was much lower when tests were first done, but have since increased to e.g. about 7% in the UK
A widespread 1st wave - in several countries ? - that somehow didn't reach the elderly to kill them, also lost its antibodies very quickly

It depends what numbers count as a 1st wave, as there have been several individual cases confirmed in Europe

However, a winter outbreak with no precautions would reasonably be expected to have a higher death rate than March - May
So not to show up in the total death stats would be at most a "First ripple" rather than a First wave

I'm convinced it was here in early Jan or even before.

I work in the top UK indoor tourist attraction.
7000 visitors a day come through our doors. At least 50% from overseas. Many many from Korea japan China and other Asian countries. We have fairly close contact, enclosed rooms over crowded. Handling lost property cloakrooms taking photos with visitors phones etc etc.

In Jan/feb well before half term we had a awful coughing bug go round work Many off sick for weeks and some even had lung investigaton procedures as the illness was a mystery not going away and not responding to antibiotics.

I'm convinced we were all exposed to the virus at that point many many times over.

Spain, Italy, France all have high deaths in only some regions
It is a notable difference to the UK

Our higher population density is likely to be another factor.

20% higher than Germany
40% higher than Italy
Over double that of France
Three times higher than Spain