Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 16

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 16 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Uk dashboard deaths, cases, hospitals, tests - 4 nations, English regions & LAs
MSAO Map of English cases
[[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/909430/Contain_framework_lower_tier_local_authority__14_August_2020.pdf
Slides & data UK govt pressers
UK added daily by PHE & DHSC
R estimates UK & English regions
PHE Surveillance report infections & watchlists every Thursday
ONS England infection surveillance reports
ONS UK death stats released each Tuesday
ECDC rolling 14-day incidence EEA & UK
Daily ECDC country detail UK
WHO dashboard
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 📈 📉 📊 👍

I posted on some of these threads early on, and am glad to see them continuing. At the time I posted some random anecdotal information from my dd who was working in a large London Hospital (and having a shit time).

She's just phoned me to tell me that her ward, which had been ICU for March to July then back to normal, is being reconverted to an ICU for the forseeable future, because of a rise in admissions, and a forecast of worse to come.

I hope it doesn't happen again

We were close with overwhelming NHS, but then it pulled back.

Whitty pretty much met the brief in terms of initial government strategy.

I wonder whether it could have been any different for early countries - W Europe and America for example. We all got hit hard financially and with Covid. Because we were first and had little experience or infrastructure (post SARS).

That double whammy to economy and deaths is bugging me. I had been feeling we were doing ok. But being at the top of the double hit is quite stark.

@NewAccountForCorona I remember your posts. Let's hope things are better for your DD and all NHS staff this time.

@NeurotrashWarrior

Can anyone comment on the assertion that COVID is primarily spread through surface contact?

Everything I've been reading recently seems to indicate the opposite.

.... iirc Drosten - a leading German virologist who is one of Merkel's chief advisers on COVID - said surfaces probably accounted for only about 10% of infection transmission

These are the known modes of transmission of COVID:

• Respiratory droplets - main method
• Aerosols
• Direct hand-to-face contact
• Fomite (surface) transmission
• Fecal-oral transmission - theoretical, as it happened for SARS & MERS
• Vertical transmission mother to foetus - rarely happens

@Piggywaspushed

If vulnerable staff are allowed to tutor shielded children from home, it poses too many logistical difficulties, even though it sounds a good idea :

Who replaces the teacher in school ? There is a recruitment crisis.

At secondary, teachers have specialisms. Three , let's say, vulnerable teachers in a large secondary won't cover all - perhaps not even any - of the subjects the student(s) might be studying.

I do think medical needs tuition funding and provision should be increased to allow medically vulnerable children to stay home. As someone with a DH with a heart condition , I wish he could stay home. But its not practical-and, at the end of the day, DS and I will still be at schools and could bring things home. It is difficult not to feel fatalistic.

.... Formerly shielded WFH sounds a problem in the UK, if there are staff shortages

I don't know if this is such a problem in Germany, but they have decided to safeguard the most vulnerable 3% or so of teachers.

Probably not such a retention crisis, as iirc German teachers are the 4th highest paid in the world, after Switzerland, Canada, Luxemburg

It was entirely possible to put in place blended learning with provision for shielding families and teachers. The government weren't interested in doing that. Easier to try and force everyone back and the weakest go to the wall.

"I also wonder how much the initial strategy of not overwhelming NHS played a part. In which case a later lock down makes sense."

The Uk lockdown was already too late and is thought by most analysts to be the main reason for the higher number of UK deaths than in countries which locked down at an earlier stage of their epidemic

An even later lockdown would have allowed further exponential growth and infections might have got totally out of control; the UK might well have seen similar scenes of NHS hospitals and doctors being overwhelmed as in N Italy
This would have made people even more frightened for a longer time and more reluctant to go out to work, shop etc

Hence an even worse double whammy of high deaths and high economic damage

I’m not arguing for a later lockdown. Rather why it was left as late as it was.

Because the scientists were responding to the ask of not overwhelming NHS.

I can't see how locking down late could possibly have been thought to help the NHS (maybe I am misunderstanding you).

There was

• a persistent idea about herd immunity being a good thing

• the feeling that shutting down big events like Cheltenham was sort of unBritish and not in the interests of the friends of the government

• a sort of disbelief that a pandemic was happening

• a desire not to shut down offices or put restrictions on flights in and out of the UK because that would be bad for business and finance and that had to come first

Those factors were there but I don’t think Chris Whitty was thinking of them in particular when he said wait. I’m interested in his scientific POV, and it’s just that memory bugging me.

It wasn't all the fault of politicians
Whitty, Vallance and the other advisers started off on the wrong track, because British pandemic planning for the last 15 years - by their predecessors - was for a very severe flu, not the quite different strategy needed for a Coronavirus
So they all had to do a major mental shift in early March when the crisis had already begun

Cases in Germany have been gradually going down the last 7-10 days, with harder hit more populous states seeing reductions
Nationally now at 7-day incidence of 9.1 / 100,000

Weekly tests running at > 1 million, with < 1% positivity,
see weekly test table

Transmission continues to be from returning holidaymakers, private parties, places of worship, work places,
also outbreaks at institutions - care / nursing homes, geriatric hospitals, hostels for asylum seekers & refugees

Schools don't seem to be playing a role atm
A single case can close a school - a threshhold which may change - so the total number of cases within schools at most reflects community levels

I think they were correct that people wouldn't stick to lockdown for long; it's been evident for months now that a significant portion of people gradually stopped following rules at certain points. Look across Europe at all the young people holding raves, protests all around the world (not just explicitly covid), it's like they all ran out of patience at once. I think we should have locked down a week or so earlier, but I don't find retrospectives on the economy and health helpful while we're still in the middle of this pandemic, for many reasons. There's the ongoing changes in situation both economically and in infection rates, there's the mix of what went well or badly that is usually skewed, the inconsistent reporting of figures, the possibility that recent past will inform future behaviours (see Asia with SARS)...

Compliance was very high when deaths were also high,
but naturally drops off after months with deaths at around normal levels

It isn't so much the length of time of lockdown or the following measures, as the length of time during which the threat seems very low

Most people will follow rules for a very long time when the danger level is high e.g. the UK in WW2

Is it possible to find out the test rate vs positive test rate for LAs? I've tried but struggling.

Notably Redcar & Cleveland, Middlesbrough and Stockton who are all bordering each other and cases are rapidly increasing.

The SAGE group got the doubling rate wrong. It was referenced in the medium thread two pages back. Based on the government models, the virus would double in 6.2 days. In reality it was doubling every 3 days, (I.e. it had quadrupled In the time they thought it had doubled).

By early March, Number of deaths per day in Italy were doubling every 3 days so it was a pretty significant cock up as the numbers were there.

NHS was about to be overwhelmed when lockdown came in. I seem to have to remind people often of this

Despite a very London centric media - I don’t think that the virulence and crisis state London was in as we locked down, was fully recognised at the time. It hit the Northern urban conurbations 2 weeks later and still there were rural peninsulas with very few cases at the proper peak. So I can see why the general view was it wasn’t so bad.

Late lockdown, still allowing international flights when we have highest rates of air travel in Europe, discharge to care homes all seem to be to be the most significant in terms of death rate here.

@BigChocFrenzy interesting where transmission is. What are the rules on places of worship in Germany? In England they are limited on numbers, mask wearing, with all local churches near me currently not opening except for weddings and funerals. That may change and I know some are open elsewhere.

It's two cases to close a 'bubble' in a school. I am not sure where the single case thing came from, other than its mistaken appearance in DfE guidelines, rapidly withdrawn.

Two schools in Glasgow now being investigated for within school spread.

@BigChocFrenzy

Any thoughts on India? Read interesting study that they tested in slum areas and 50% had antibodies. Not seen those sorts of antibody results anywhere.

Unless you were talking about Germany there of course!

It is important to note some obvious mistakes, so that they are not repeated

It isn't a domestic obsession:
Observers across the world from the USA to Asia are pointing out that the UK is among the worst sufferers for both deaths and economic damage
and pointing the finger at poor decisions made

Of course the pandemic isn't over, so the Uk govt may well have learned from its mistakes and do very well this winter,
whereas the public in other countries with few deaths may not be as compliant as in the UK

So if there is a real 2nd wave this winter, who does well and who does badly may change considerably - or hopefully all countries will have learned by then what works best

@Piggywaspushed

It's two cases to close a 'bubble' in a school. I am not sure where the single case thing came from, other than its mistaken appearance in DfE guidelines, rapidly withdrawn.

Two schools in Glasgow now being investigated for within school spread.

One of them is a Private school.

So you would imagine there would be less pressures re space /class sizes etc compared to the other one I think in Easterhouse which is a very deprived area.

@Piggywaspushed

Unless you were talking about Germany there of course!

... Yes it was a followup from my post immediately above Sorry, I should have made that clear !