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 📈 📉 📊 👍

Very interesting FT analysis:
why Spain is hit worse than the rest of Europe

A complex mixture of reasons, but it looks like an important factor is the political conflicts between central and regional government,
which meant that lockdown was not replaced by an effective system of measures

Another reason is very tactile social culture
As in the UK, deprived areas have been hit worst: "those who have least are most exposed"

Attached chart on infection by age shows the worrying trend that cases have risen in the elderly too,
which means a rise in deaths, as we are already starting to see there

https://www.ft.com/content/6a5e61f5-7a35-4ad9-b57d-98f1dfa107ad

“The important thing is what you do after testing people: 

to isolate the person who has tested positive and identify and quarantine their contacts.”

said José Ramón Arribas, head of infectious diseases unit at Madrid’s La Paz hospital.
“But we have not been among the leaders in any of the activities that have been shown to be effective.”

@MRex

The normal definition is the occurrence of more cases of disease than would be expected within a specific place or group of people over a given period of time.

PHE is still 2 or more, as far as I'm aware. I can't see any recent changes to that.

... Well, we can't criticise posters for using the PHE language of "outbreaks"

The RKI also refers to "outbreaks" even for a handful of cases; it seems epidemiology-speak for > 1 case

@BigChocFrenzy - I didn't, I criticised posters for suggesting there are outbreaks in schools that had single cases, and therefore massively inflating the figures.

One case is not an outbreak, but 2 cases officially are
I don't know if PHE keeps a running total of school outbreaks

It would be more useful to keep track of the number of more variables:

1. schools closed
2. forms / years sent home
3. number of pupils tested positive
4. number of staff positive

Of course keeping in mind the total number of schools, students and active teachers

While we are on the subject, just had email from my DS's sixth form - confirmed case...he can go in though.

@BigChocFrenzy - yes, they do. It's in the surveillance report as I already posted earlier, but figures increased since Friday so I went with the higher number.

Statistics, lies and the virus: Tim Harford’s five lessons from a pandemic

From the FT - essential reading for the stats thread !
Also, I'm so glad they give the ONS plenty of praise; I keep posting that it is a genuine "world-beater"

https://www.ft.com/content/92f64ea9-3378-4ffe-9fff-318ed8e3245e

 David Spiegelhalter, author of last year’s The Art of Statistics, <span class="italic">laments some of the UK government’s coronavirus graphs and testing targets as “number theatre”,</span>

with “dreadful, awful” deployment of numbers as a political performance.

“There is great damage done to the integrity and trustworthiness of statistics when they’re under the control of the spin doctors,”

I can't post any examples off hand but I'm pretty sure the media have sometimes confused the term outbreak with case - possibly because somewhat biased groups are doing the same and the idea is spreading.

Also possibly confusion caused because PHE do not appear to be in line with the July 2 DfE guidance on Welcoming all children back to School. This stated that two cases could "burst a bubble", potentially - ie cause the whole class or year group to be sent home to isolate for a fortnight. What seems to be happening in practise, in Scotland and England, is that one single case results in whole year sent home. That's what's being reported in the local press and anecdotally anyway. So I guess a single case is being treated like an "outbreak".

On the other hand, there are also some reported examples of only a row or whatever of children being sent home when one tests positive. It may depend on differing policies or on the ventilation/size/crowdedness of a room, etc.

One definition of an outbreak could be something which causes action like closing a school or form
I thought the threshhold for even closing a class was 2 confirmed positive, not 1
However, it could be the school and / or the local public health authority being very keen to stop the spread

Something shocked me from that FT stat article:

I've posted several times that the late lockdown seriously increased deaths, which the statisticians agree
and that it lengthened lockdown, but I hadn't realised by how many weeks

https://www.ft.com/content/92f64ea9-3378-4ffe-9fff-318ed8e3245e

since the infection rate took just days to double before lockdown but long weeks to halve once it started, 

“We would have got out of lockdown so much sooner . . . 
Every week before lockdown cost us five to eight weeks at the back end of the lockdown.”

@Augustbreeze

I can't post any examples off hand but I'm pretty sure the media have sometimes confused the term outbreak with case - possibly because somewhat biased groups are doing the same and the idea is spreading.

Also possibly confusion caused because PHE do not appear to be in line with the July 2 DfE guidance on Welcoming all children back to School. This stated that two cases could "burst a bubble", potentially - ie cause the whole class or year group to be sent home to isolate for a fortnight. What seems to be happening in practise, in Scotland and England, is that one single case results in whole year sent home. That's what's being reported in the local press and anecdotally anyway. So I guess a single case is being treated like an "outbreak".

On the other hand, there are also some reported examples of only a row or whatever of children being sent home when one tests positive. It may depend on differing policies or on the ventilation/size/crowdedness of a room, etc.

I'm in Scotland and certainly haven't heard any instances of whole years being sent home for one case. If there's a case (or two) the close contacts of that pupil will be told to isolate through usual test and protect process. Everyone else continues as normal.

Nicola Sturgeon announced that in Scotland children under 12 will be exempt from the Rule of Six,
as the evidence is that young children are much less likely to catch and pass on COVID

I think there should be a united approach to tackling the pandemic. Having 4 different sets of rules plus different rules for different localities with high numbers of cases is confusing. We need consistency. And clarity. One hymn sheet.

I can't blame Scotland for doing it their way, when the Westminster government has been so incompetent
and also handed out lucrative contracts and jobs like sweeties to fellow incompetents

The 16 states in Germany have far greater autonomy than Scotland, Wales, NI
It works.
A country of any size will have regions with very different characteristics and also infection levels, which are best hanled by competent regional authorities who know their area best

That doesn't seem to be working here though. Especially when there's different rules on different sides of one street like my friends. They are in GM but their neighbours across the road are in Cheshire. Luckily those rules ended a week or so ago but people in bury and Bolton are having the same issue now. I completely agree that Westminster have handled things terribly. I recall Scotland and Wales being far more cautious and acting sooner at the beginning. I can't remember what NI did differently but didn't follow much on the differences due to being shielded. It's only since shielding has paused that I've taken note of the differences. There are no easy answers and no perfect way of handling this but they need to sort out test and trace ASAP and bc ensure that the new rules are communicated and understood by everyone. No easy task going off the threads on here since yesterday!

Key word there in your post: competent. Not much of that round Westminster.

The 2 cases popping a bubble was removed from the recent guidance an hour after publication in yet another shambles. It doesn't actually say this at all.

Or, actually, it said one case. There was much confusion on Twitter as everyone had thought 2. And then the whole paragraph vanished!

I think it now says to consult with local public health to discuss each individual situation.
They are going to be busy!

Under 12's have not had to socially distance in Scotland for a while.

It makes sense.

Scottish kids do need to wear masks where required over the age of 5.

I don't think all the rules that are brought in in Scotland are purely because they make more sense than UK govt guidelines. There is political one upmanship going on.

I also saw it reported that Scots holidays to Portugal weren't getting cancelled/ refunded (will probably change now). This was by Jet2 and was because they follow UK foreign office advice.

I actually think the rules should be the same across England, Scotland and Wales (NI the exception) and then any additional restrictions done at a local level.

@SellFridges

I am not someone who has regularly been contributing to this thread but I have appreciated very much those who do so.

I do agree with app that it seems to be moving towards anecdote and speculation rather than data. I’d love it if this could remain data focussed.

Yes please

The country can no longer afford to have the same rules everywhere. We need to have low risk areas operating as near normally as possible.

This is a well educated country - people are capable of understanding different rules but choose not to do so. In general "the rules are too complicated" is just an excuse to ignore them. Pretty obvious that if you want to avoid infection you hide as much as you can when positive tests in your area are high and rising, whatever side of an artificial boundary you live on. We've also been told time and again that you get the virus by spending time in close proximity to an infected person and anyone with half a brain can recognise that the more people you meet the higher your infection risk, especially if they meet lots of people either socially or professionally.

IF we could protect the clinically vulnerable the best course of action now is to let children and young people become infected before winter, while their immune systems are at their strongest. That will hopefully reduce the problems in winter to a more manageable level. If you want to ignore guidance now is the best time to do so.

The government delay going into lockdown is a direct cause of much of the economic damage we have suffered.

If anyone has capacity to restart the Worried about Coronavirus threads - maybe entitled something like
Evidence based discussion of Coronavirus or Analysis of the Coronavirus situation, it would be very welcome.

There would still be a bit of crossover with this thread's named themes, but that's OK I think?

As long as that didn't get buried in polemic!

These stats threads also have "analysis" in the title

• data, facts & statistics alone are insufficient without reasoned analysis of them

I suggest the "Worried about Corona" title for those threads is a good basic title , as it sums up the concerns those posters feel and allows them to vent,
in comparison to these threads, which are fact-based