Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 17

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 17 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Uk dashboard deaths, cases, hospitals, tests - 4 nations, English regions & LAs
MSAO Map of English cases
Cases Tracker England Local Government
ONS MSAO Map English deaths
CovidMessenger live update by council district in England
Scot gov Daily data
Scotland TravellingTabby LAs, care homes, hospitals, tests, t&t
PH Wales LAs, tests, ONS deaths
NI Dashboard
UK govt pressers Slides & data
NHS t&t England & UK testing Weekly stats
R estimates UK & English regions
PHE Surveillance report infections & watchlists each Thursday
ONS England infection surveillance report each Friday
Datasets for ONS surveillance reports
ONS Roundup deaths, infections & economic reports
ECDC rolling 14-day incidence EEA & UK
Worldometer UK page
Our World in Data test positivity etc, DIY graphs
FT DIY graphs compare deaths, cases, raw / million pop
Covidly.com world summary & graphs

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

BMJ: Covid-19: Government plans to spend £100bn on expanding testing to 10 million a day

That's not much less than the entire annual budget for NHS England (120 bn) - and it is unlikely to work

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3520

Critics have already rounded on the plans as “devoid of any contribution from scientists, clinicians, and public health and testing and screening experts,”
and “disregarding the enormous problems with the existing testing and tracing programmes.”

On the Oxford vaccine, I find this worrying. The current pause is because a woman developed a rare neurological reaction which gives symptoms similar to MS. There was a previous pause where another participant developed MS, though that was judged to be unrelated. Having two participants come down with serious and similar conditions is worrying. Potentially a coincidence but certainly suggests that a vaccine is not coming this year, and probably not for quite a while longer.

www.statnews.com/2020/09/09/astrazeneca-covid19-vaccine-trial-hold-patient-report/

Vaccine news is concerning. bit odd it’s based on a conference call, info from investors, you’d think they’d have better controls than that.

Mass testing article scathing too. ‘These are plans from the world of management consultants and show complete ignorance of many essential basic principles of testing, public health, and screening’. Although they’d likely pay specialists marked up to an extortionate price to be part of process

That's not good news. Covid has been discussed as causing neurological symptoms in its own right (e.g. www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(20)30287-X/fulltext). I had thought it was a dead vaccine, but starting rare and bad symptoms sounds more like live vaccines, does anyone know?

I wonder what risk a vaccine can have? Eg how many people are testing that vaccine now? If it's a risk of 1 in xxxx might get a reaction like that, can it still go ahead? Anything medical has risks surely, if you have a GA you have risks, but you still do it.

If it's 1 in say 10,000, I'd still have it, surely?

@Bercows I'm sorry you're having to force the school to listen to you. MN is so weird, everyone moaning about having to stick to a group of 6 if they're fortunate enough to be in a big family - and yet there are families like yours having an absolute nightmare during this thing and it really doesn't compare to having to restrict socialising for a few months.

Hmmm, no. I in 10000 severe outcome risk for this disease badges sense if you're in your 80s or have a specific condition, it doesn't in your 40s. 1 in 1000000 might. They vaccine has some issues, but susceptibility to fever and rash for measles - it's likely your child wouid have fared far worse with live measles. We can't know with a new vaccine if the symptoms are related, nor expected prevalence. I'm pro anything vaccine and in that case would recommend my parents had it regardless, but definitely not my son.

Sorry, excuse all the auto-incorrect typos.

• makes, not badges
• Every vaccine, not They vaccine

thanks @MREX, that's what I was wondering, what population risk would be considered to be acceptable, as we can all make our own personal risk decisions. My DM won't be having the vaccine regardless as her health is so poor she doesn't want to risk it. So it's incumbent on me and dd to have it. But yes, that's a point, I wouldn't give dd a vaccine with a 1 in 10,000 risk, even while I'd have it.

I just wonder though that if there is a risk of this reaction, if it can still go ahead if the risk is low enough. I guess it makes it difficult to continue with the trials though if they don't already have a sense of that.

I'm a bit confused about news articles referring to current lab capacity in relation to spit tests. Drug, malaria and other existing spit tests don't use labs, the entire point of them is to give the diagnosis.

Sorry, didn't finish. Does anyone with more scientific background than me understand the point being made?

@MRex what I have seen (on US news admittedly) is that even though it would be possible for them not to be lab tested , they’re planning to send them to a lab for results, since it’s a notifiable disease and they’re worried if they were licensed for home use that positive cases would continue as per normal with no isolation/contact tracing etc.

Ok thanks, that's not exactly an impossible challenge though. If they're used at venues by someone with some kind of license, with ID provision mandatory, then that person could be responsible for sending details of positive / inconclusive tests to a lab, and anyone who gets that result can be told they must isolate or go for Covid validation tests.

Prof Spiegelhalter was just on the Today programme and dismissed the daily test idea. His issue was false positives. In order for the test to be effective, it is likely to be made very sensitive. In some cases, too sensitive. If there are even 1% false positives - so just one in 100 tests which should be negative gives a positive, then that could be 600,000 false positives a day if you tested the entire population.

@BigChocFrenzy

BMJ: Covid-19: Government plans to spend £100bn on expanding testing to 10 million a day

That's not much less than the entire annual budget for NHS England (120 bn) - and it is unlikely to work

[[https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3520]]

Critics have already rounded on the plans as “devoid of any contribution from scientists, clinicians, and public health and testing and screening experts,”
and “disregarding the enormous problems with the existing testing and tracing programmes.”

This terrifys me. It sounds like something Trump would say. No base in reality but something to appease the masses.

@Eyewhisker

Prof Spiegelhalter was just on the Today programme and dismissed the daily test idea. His issue was false positives. In order for the test to be effective, it is likely to be made very sensitive. In some cases, too sensitive. If there are even 1% false positives - so just one in 100 tests which should be negative gives a positive, then that could be 600,000 false positives a day if you tested the entire population.

He is a good guy to listen to generally. False positives are less an issue than false negatives - we are not behaving optimally atm with people not at work when they could be due to sectors closed. I don’t know what the weigh up would be but interesting to assess.

Low vitamin d in MS and transverse myelitis.

Did the people catch actual covid. Can they check? As they would have antibodies from the vax. As surely many of the testers will have been exposed now.

I don't think we need to be too pessimistic about the Oxford vaccine just yet and I think to suggest this means there definitely won't be a vaccine for a long time at this stage is premature.

The process is doing what it should. Being super cautious and checking every possible issue out. Presumably, in an average population, a certain number of serious diagnoses would be made per 1000/5000/10,000 people even if you were testing nothing on them. Until there is confirmation that the issue is even connected to the vaccine I think watching and waiting is the best way forward.

@Sunshinegirl82 yes I agree, I saw it suggested that they expect the trial may be able to recommence as soon as next week, which makes me hopeful that it’s not caused by the vaccine, but part of the check and balance process

I really hope you are right about the Oxford vaccine, but it is useful to note that the two times it has been paused are for similar conditions. It definitely suggests not rushing the testing stage.

False positives are less an issue than false negatives - we are not behaving optimally atm with people not at work when they could be due to sectors closed. I don’t know what the weigh up would be but interesting to assess.

Yes, it depends on what the purpose of the test is for. If say 600k people have a false positive and have to isolate, then it could allow the rest of the population to carry on as 'normal'. But if people who have had contact with those with a positive result also need to isolate then you quite quickly get up to much larger numbers in isolation.

More like 600K over a fortnight, everyone isn't out in a risky place every day. So the 600k get a possible positive with the spit test:

• 500k turn up for full Covid tests and get positive / negative as normal
• 60k get chased and turn up for their test etc
• 20k get tracked and fined for roaming around without doing a test, they go to test
• 10k get tracked and chose to isolate not test, ok
• 10k never found again, using false ID.

re a vaccine:

• We don't know yet if this is statistically likely to be a side effect

• We don't know if this would affect all the other vaccines being developed, or just specific to the Oxford vaccine
  As the Oxford vaccine is reportedly to be on a different basis to the others, there is a high chance it is just Oxford

There are 8 other vaccines in stage 3, with others in earlier stages, so we must wait to see if they are paused at some stage
The UK, like other wealthy countries, has hedged its bets with possible purchase of 3-4 different vaccines

What does concern me is the current early rollout - reportedly without the usual large-scale testing - in China, Russia and other countries receiving their vaccine

Even more so, that Trump - for blatantly electoral reasons - pressuring the FDA to approve early release of the main vaccine being developed in the USA.

Any of these vaccines rushed through with curtailed testing could have too high a chance of side effects, which would likely discourage more people from having other vaccines late, which have been through all the proper testing series.