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 📈 📉 📊 👍

This is unbelievable. Kids / staff in schools everyday with no SD and no PPE - everyone told to just smile and get on with it. Testing not adequate at all and this hardly being mentioned in media.

In the press conference they did specifically point out Belgium as compared with Spain and France. It was the graph with the UK curve superimposed but with a 4 week lag.
Interesting that the numbers are going back up there again.

Throw in the plastic bone and let the plebs chew on it.

Yep, 'moon shot', my big back side!

Part of the massive demand for testing is of course that with school returning etc etc there are a lot more simple cold viruses circulating and there is so much confusion about what kind of symptoms need a test, that every kid with any kind of snotty nose starts looking for a test which in turn or course reduces access for people with more typical Covid symptoms....

Personally, I don't know how to marry up these v confusing messages: get tested if you have new continuous cough, fever, change in smell etc vs almost ANY symptom could be covid including mild/no symptoms in kids or even stomach upsets.
It is very very confusing.
The numbers don't really help in practical terms as the counting within the UK and worldwide differs so wildly. IMO the only half-significant number are the 'all cause additional mortality', that's it.

I am dreading the winter and find myself only thinking one day ahead to not get overwhelmed.

@MRex

It would be dodgy to say the rule is based on Belgium for several reasons: 1) For over a week, Belgium's case numbers have been tilting up again; if that continues or gets worse there will be pressure to abandon the rule without trying, even if it is having the same positive effect it initially had in Belgium. 2) Belgium had the highest death rates first time round, too easy for shouts of "why are we following them when they've done so badly?" 3) Lengthy pointless debate about why 6 not 5.

... Belgium: I don't see a very recent uptick - just reasonably stable at a higher level than July (like Italy & Germany)

7-day rolling graphs for new cases / million pop. and raw numbers

@BigChocFrenzy - just a graph can look misleading, they're up 29% in the last week with increases in most areas: epistat.wiv-isp.be/covid/covid-19.html. Hopefully a blip, but up is up.

Belgium: I don't see a very recent uptick - just reasonably stable at a higher level than July (like Italy & Germany)-

Hmmm, I'm not so sure. Rolling average was 435 on 2/9. Now 575 and the last two days have seen 877 and 969. Hope fully a couple of localised outbreaks rather than general community seepage.

Still zero tests available in our area (commuter belt in Surrey/Hampshire).

Now two friends who have whole households isolating for children who (most likely) have a cold but with a cough and temp spike.

I live a good 20 minutes away from one and 40 minutes from the other and checked, no tests here either

@Prokupatuscrakedatus

BCF I have heard (secondary source online article) about a study done by the Charité in Berlin among employees of the DB. They tested for past C infections and found low incidents in general and the lowest among traveling personel and highest among maintenance / workshop crew with almost contact to the public. Do you know about this? If true it goes against expectations (well, mine anyway).

.... (in German, my summary) https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/corona-studie-zuege-sind-laut-charite-keine-virenschleudern-a-1dae278e-fa38-431d-a919-b57857d06790

This is an interim report from an ongoing study between Berlin Charité Research, Berlin Uni Hospital and the DB (German railway)

End June / early July, they tested 1,072 DB employees, including 600 train attendants for IC and ICE (longer distance) plus train drivers and workshop employees.

From all the PCR swab tests, only 1 plant employee (of 1,072) was found to be currently infected.

1.3 % of the train attendants had antibodies in their blood, indicating previous infection.

In the comparison group without customer contact, the proportion was a good twice as high

• likely because they did not have the same SD and mask use, e.g. some heavy manual work for plant employees, or just not being subject to the same strict rules.

In train carriages, air conditioning replaces the air every 7 minutes.

Long-distance trains had a load factor of 30% , half as much as before the corona crisis.
Further tests on employees are planned in October and February, in the cold and flu season.

Study shows German trains do not bring an increased infection risk atm for employees and

"This result is in line with observations made by health institutes and other studies that report a low number of infections in trains around the world"

The risk of infection for passengers may be higher or lower than that of train attendants,
because passengers could have longer contact with infected people sitting next to them,
but they spend a shorter time on trains than DB employees.

Sounds similar to NHS, frontline staff perversely affected less because they wore PPE earlier. Radiologists, porters and other roles weren't perceived to be at risk soon enough.

[quote MRex]@BigChocFrenzy - just a graph can look misleading, they're up 29% in the last week with increases in most areas: epistat.wiv-isp.be/covid/covid-19.html. Hopefully a blip, but up is up.[/quote]
...
A 7-day rolling graph shows the broad trend, while a table of figures shows the detail and the most recent, but can be more sensitive to daily blips

If the trend is genuinely up, we'll soon see this on graphs too
We can then analyse if this was because of falling compliance after people thought it was safe, that the rise was over, or if there is a need for additional measures: workplaces, churches, transport etc

What we can say is that the earlier rapidly increasing growth was cut off by the 5-person limit

Relative risks car vs train

Despite COVID, trains look safer than cars:

According to a safety comparison by Allianz pro Schiene (pro-Rail alliance)
almost 47 times as many people died per kilometer in Germany in the ten-year period from 2009 to 2018 in cars than in trains.

Even allowing for curently lower train occupancy, an increased risk of about 4,500% with car travel is most unlikely to be reduced down to train risk, barring a much worse 2nd wave

I saw on another thread (although struggling to find source) that most infections in Belgiim occur in workplace or school.

Will try and do some digging.

BUT if this is the case, I see that is a positive thing. Its easier to target these areas, take action, and confine any outbreaks and limit community spread.

I don't think others agreed with me

I find it fascinating (and confusing) how different the rules are in different countries.
I'm in nl and just had to get dc tested for a snotty nose.

From that Belgium dasboard link, still looks too early to say if it is a blip the last week or a significant trend

Following Germany, that has a week up and a week down, which is I suspect is because of targeted testing around different outbreaks, not testing the same people every time

@BigChocFrenzy - exactly, I wasn't by any means disparaging the rule of 6, apparently people couldn't understand guidance but most can count to 6 (I say most, because I read some other threads). In the last 7 days the average has gone from 435 to 575 in Belgium, but hopefully it'll trend back down again next week. A few areas have over 80s clusters that sadly look like care home outbreaks, it's Brussels and Antwerp that need to come down and there it's young people driving the case increases.

@Timeforanotherusername

I saw on another thread (although struggling to find source) that most infections in Belgiim occur in workplace or school.

Will try and do some digging.

BUT if this is the case, I see that is a positive thing. Its easier to target these areas, take action, and confine any outbreaks and limit community spread.

I don't think others agreed with me

... I think most would agree that a large number of smaller outbreaks, from partties or holidaymakers, are much more difficult to shut down whereas businesses can be locked down

I haven't heard about significant school outbreaks anywhere in Europe yet, though
It seems a tiny % of schools and cases no higher than community level

[quote MRex]@BigChocFrenzy - exactly, I wasn't by any means disparaging the rule of 6, apparently people couldn't understand guidance but most can count to 6 (I say most, because I read some other threads). In the last 7 days the average has gone from 435 to 575 in Belgium, but hopefully it'll trend back down again next week. A few areas have over 80s clusters that sadly look like care home outbreaks, it's Brussels and Antwerp that need to come down and there it's young people driving the case increases.[/quote]
...
Care home outbreaks in Germany have in the past distorted R a lot and raised the weekly rate too
They cause most of the current deaths too (within total daily average 3-4)

However, much easier to lock down single institutions than the more worrying spread among the young, since there are so many of these in many countries

The RKI keep saying that the low numbers of cases comparatively in a country of many millions leads to big swings, in R too, so that we must look at trends over weeks

For genuine trends, we really need to be testing large numbers of the same people
such as the 150,000 sample the ONS plan for October, with 400,000 later

Thank you BCF - I knew, you'd know and could explain.

So infection spread in air-conditioned work places could be influenced by badly maintained (saves money) or badly run (saves money) units.
www.diekaelte.de/kurz-aktuell/btga-klimaanlagen-und-der-corona-virus

[quote Prokupatuscrakedatus]Thank you BCF - I knew, you'd know and could explain.

So infection spread in air-conditioned work places could be influenced by badly maintained (saves money) or badly run (saves money) units.
www.diekaelte.de/kurz-aktuell/btga-klimaanlagen-und-der-corona-virus[/quote]
...
Also noisy workplaces with shouting, not observing SD, not wearing masks
Air con alone is only one measure, not enough even if working well

Currently, 7.3 million people, 11% of the UK pop, live in areas under some level of local lockdown measures.

Times write that BJ & Gove discussing fines for those not self-isolating
Even more reason for people to avoid being tested in the first place, if they can't afford not to work,
but ...
I wonder how much of this is people just going to work to pay the bills vs continuing normal life because they cba ?

Also, schools still can't demand to see proof of negative test, so some kids will be staying home alone / roaming the streets and then going back to school a couple of weeks later

Hopefully, the majority complying is sufficiently large
but at least govt-funded full sick pay for isolation needs to be brought in urgently

Oxford vaccine

Alasdair Munro @apsmunro

I have the great privilege of working on the Oxford #COVID199^ vaccine trials

Safety is the top concern in all vaccine trials,
and we go to great lengths to ensure the vaccine is safe to use, and to keep our trial participants safe

Here are some of the ways we do that

1/8
First we have a dedicated phone number our participants can phone 24hrs a day, 365 days a year with ANY medical concerns that gets them straight to a study doctor

We provide advice, direct them to appropriate care, and record ALL symptoms/events in our participants

2/8
All participants have symptom diaries they complete in the period following vaccination

We receive alerts if any serious symptoms are recorded so we can follow up with them, check they're OK, and review if they were related to the vaccine (some mild side effects are normal)

3/8
We conduct frequent face to face reviews with the participants to check their diaries and ask them about anything they may have forgotten to tell us about

If they took paracetamol for a headache, it gets recorded

Antihistamine for sneezing, gets recorded

Everything

4/8
What if something serious happens?

If a patient is hospitalised FOR ANY REASON (fell down the stairs, anaphylaxis to a bee, hernia repair etc) we review ALL the details of the admission and speak directly to the study sponsor within 24hrs

5/8
Some stuff is totally obviously unrelated (e.g. car accident)

For other stuff, we speak to the medical specialists looking after the patient and the study sponsor to discuss any possibility it could be related to the vaccine

The majority of the time, it is very unlikely

6/8
If there are concerns it could be related, the studies STOP until their dedicated safety monitoring team can collect and review all the relevant information to ensure they are happy the study is safe to continue

These reviews are extremely rigorous

7/8
In a trial with 10's of 1000's of patients, it is common for them to pause for review of medical events which may have happened anyway, regardless of the participant being in the trial

But no one takes chances.
Safety comes first, and we work hard to ensure it's safe.

Schools

threader.app/thread/1298978413185703937

Alistair Munroe is Paediatric Registrar | Clinical Research Fellow Paediatric Infectious diseases @southamptonCRF
Another v informative thread from him, this time reviewing the studies on schools in different countries:

AlasdairMunro@apsmunro

People can't stop talking about schools and #COVID19
Here's a thread on school transmission studies

Summary:

• If prevalence high in the community, it will be high in schools and some will transmit
• Isolated cases result in low transmission
• Infection prevention works

1/11

..... He discusses several studies + tables ....

What does this mean?

Careful reopening of schools in areas of low community prevalence with good, basic infection prevention measures can work

Israel had problems, but Denmark, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland, Singapore etc managed it well
11/11

Is there a chart/graph/whatever around that compares where we were this time in March with confirmed cases and deaths and now? I took my dc out of school a week before schools closed because I didn't thinking was safe for them to be in and I was also unwell (similar to now).

BigChoc, and the precise reason why my anxiety about going into work was 0 in July when Newcastle had a week of 0 cases, compared to anxiety levels now that we are on a watch list.