Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 18

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 18 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Uk dashboard deaths, cases, hospitals, tests - 4 nations, English regions & LAs
Imperial UK weekly LAs, cases / 100k, table, map, hotspots
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
Zoe Uk data
UK govt pressers Slides & data
ICNRC Intensive Care National Audit & Research reports
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
Alama Personal COVID risk assessment

==> Our STUDIES Corner

@Nquartz

Except Spain and France and weeks ahead of us and neither are reporting huge deaths or hospital admissions like March.

Given test capacity in the UK is too low for demand, and cases are much lower here than France and Spain, yet we are testing far more than they are both in total and by population backed up by much lower positivity... Are people in France and Spain just not going for tests when they're ill? Are there different criteria? Or are they complaining too?

Israel have gone into a 3 week lockdown.

@Mogtheforgetfulmum

I'm still taking pregnacare breastfeeding supplements- would anyone recommend also taking extra vit D or will the supplements cover me?

I'm taking the boots version. You can take more vit d when bf; you do need it. you may not need it though at the mo if you've had lots of sun. I'm taking 2-3 extra sprays of the red better you vit d with vitamin k in it too. (The full dose is 3 sprays.)

Sorry to hear of your loss mog

@Ecosse - I'm afraid the facts don't agree with you. Children have proven less likely to pass on covid than adults, but it's possible for them to pass it on and particularly with older children it's a near certainty that there will be some transmission. That risk increases when community rates are high. Working conditions in schools also can and definitely has resulted in adults spreading it to other adults as well. It does nobody any favours to say there is no risk, and when people erroneously say there is no risk it undermines any discussion about what is higher or lower risk, which are hugely important concepts for living during the pandemic.

As for hospital admissions - you're incorrect, admissions have gone up significantly in both Spain and France. "Not as bad as March" is very cold comfort when cases are continuing to rise. In the UK, admissions have gone up but ICU is still fairly stable at August levels, unfortunately it won't stay that way if cases don't come down. Spain has had hundreds of new deaths this week, it's not a safe path.

It is unscientific (why should children and schools be magically exempt from transmission), flying against common sense, and there is evidence accumulating to suggest the opposite, albeit slowly and piece by piece, as schools have so far been open only in a very limited and speciifc way.

The biggest issue is they do know they're largely asymptomatic!

If asymptomatic people can spread it, or very low symptoms, we have no way of knowing where infections are coming from in childcare situations.

Classes of 10-15 then, low infections in community, few amenities open, sunny weather and many classes outside; the contexts are so different.

Now: classes of 30-34, higher community infection, more amenities open and demonstrating incidental clusters and outbreaks (around 100 from the football match in Durham) weather starting to turn. Failing testing.

It doesn't take a scientist to see the issues facing us. The fact kids are coming down with colds left right and centre isn't a coincidence!

Sorry for your loss Mog. Can you ask a union rep for advice about the situation at school?

I have a question

In March and April we were said to be x amount of weeks behind Spain/Italy

But we caught up, right ?

So why are we 'still' said to be x amount of weeks "behind" ? I don't get it.

Good question Any Fucker - I’ve been wondering this too

@MRex

There were 48 deaths reported in Spain on Saturday following a positive test. 7% of the hospital beds set aside for COVID patients are being used. The average age of victims is now 86.

Hardly thousands dying on hospital corridors as some are making out.

@AnyFucker

I have a question

In March and April we were said to be x amount of weeks behind Spain/Italy

But we caught up, right ?

So why are we 'still' said to be x amount of weeks "behind" ? I don't get it.

At a guess because we locked down longer (as we locked down too late) which meant we started opening up later. Hopefully this extra time will give us chance to get on top of it

I don't think we still have the same "playing field" between the uk and Europe though as we did in March/April

Foreign holidays, movement across the channel, family visits allowed etc had levelled us all as well as the UK "catching up" (and also surpassing) prevalence of Covid per capita

I still don't get it. The uk is no longer "behind" Spain/Italy, surely ? We are on a par as far as risk factors go, aren't we ?

I always like to keep my eye on the google mobility data. I think it gives us an eagle's eye perspective of movement within the UK. Looking at the most recent report, the area which has seen the largest increase over the period when cases were rising is this one, recreation and retail. None of the others; work, public transport, supermarkets have shown anywhere near the same rise. I would not be surprised if it was this that drove infections, rather than people returning from holiday. I think the whole pubs v schools thing gets pretty close to the heart of the dilemma we are facing.

AnyFucker Spain and Italy have had different lockdowns and different reopening. People find it difficult to understand exponential growth so saying we are a couple of weeks behind somewhere else is really just a way of saying look what exponential growth can do. It made sense before lockdown, it makes less sense when everywhere has different ways of responding to the virus.

Cases here are growing and it's now back in care homes. I really hope better immune systems at the end of summer mean we'll have slower growth and less severe disease but I do see this as the second wave starting.

It doesn't matter what deaths are now, it matters what cases are now.

What was the lag in March and April between highest cases and highest deaths? About 3-8 weeks, I think.

We locked down on 23rd March (when incidentally deaths were 149 having been 35 two days before on the 21st - lower than they are now in Spain) and then deaths peaked at over 1000 per day around the 9th April and continued at or about that level for the whole of April - when the country was locked down. So most of these deaths were people who caught it in March and just took different amounts of time to die, presumably.

Now I'm not saying we're going to necessarily follow the same level of exponential growth now - testing is better and we're SD, wearing masks etc. So we're doing something to prevent that. But the point is, people were saying 'deaths are low' when the government announced lockdown, and they were. Deaths don't really tell you that much except as they relate to cases. Cases in Spain 3-8 weeks ago will have caused the deaths seen on Saturday. You can't base decisions on deaths because then you'll be operating reactively not proactively which is a fatal mistake with a virus like this.

@MRex I would like to know the answer to that question too. I’m hearing so many complaints about the lack of available testing in the U.K. but we are testing more than any other European country. What’s going on in France and Spain if they are testing less but having more positive results? Does that mean that the cases in those countries are much higher than the stats show, or are we testing too many people who don’t need to be tested?

@AnyFucker

I have a question

In March and April we were said to be x amount of weeks behind Spain/Italy

But we caught up, right ?

So why are we 'still' said to be x amount of weeks "behind" ? I don't get it.

I never thought of that.

Good question and hopefully one of the clever stats people here will have an explanation.

Do they count people tested, and we count tests carried out?

Neurotrash I dont know how much vitamin D is already in pregnacare. It's the end of summer so you should be fine until October but if you get Covid type symptoms you could take an extra dose.

@illovejkrowling

The issue is that cases have been rising in Spain for 8 weeks now and the huge number of deaths some are proselytising has never happened.

Cases have been rising here for 6 weeks and again, deaths have not risen at all. In fact, they are falling.

@Mogtheforgetfulmum yes u should take vit d on top of pregnacare. I had ivf and consultant advised it in addition

Thanks, guys. Just trying to get my head around "we are x, y, z weeks behind Spain/Italy" etc. I totally get the worry about exponential growth in cases.

Did we ever catch up? That would assume we had our peak at the same point they did. If you look at a very basic level on worldometers, it appears that the top of our case curve was about April 20, and the top of France's was about April 1st. Their lowest point was around the beginning of June, whereas ours was around the beginning of July. If anything, because we locked down later, and because numbers are slower to fall than they are to rise, we didn't catch up, we fell further behind.

Ecosse this is a data thread. No-one here has been discussing large numbers of deaths happening now, because they are not happening now. However what is being pointed out is that deaths come a long way after the rise in cases.

At the moment hospital admissions are rising fairly rapidly, that is worrying but it's currently from a low base. The fatality rate for those admissions will be lower than before BUT we are not locked down and there is the potential for this to go haywire quickly and be unstoppable. This virus is like an oil tanker, you cant stop it quickly, even if you see rocks ahead.