Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 19

[BigChocFrenzy]

Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 19

Welcome to thread 19 of the daily updates

Resource links:

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
Modelling real number of infections February to date
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 ⏮

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

I can see there being an issue with a UK wide circuit breaker fortnight, as to when that would actually be. Some Scottish schools have a 2 week October holiday starting on the 5th. Some English schools don't break up till the 26th.

Just a random question if you don’t mind. I know the 1m+ thing, how much mitigation is there just by being outdoors? Is it sufficient that 2m isn’t necessary? Should it still be 2m even outdoors? I ask because dds school seem to think it’s ok for staff that teach hundreds and hundreds across all the bubbles not to bother to maintain 2m outside even when it can be easy to do so because it’s fine, it’s outside. I disagree with this but I’m not sure if that’s my neuroticism or if that’s factual.

I wonder what compliance rate would be with full pay in U.K. How many will isolate when enforcement is low.

They won’t go to work which would help a lot but may do other socialising. Perhaps not going to work is enough and compliance would be good.

Expensive though, how much I wonder.

So cases in Luton have been up and didn't but never really settled low... They never came out of locks restrictions banning socialising in peoples homes

Found out yesterday even with their cases the way they are they have dropped their local restrictions and just going with the uk gov rule of 6!!

Absolute flipping madness! And makes a mockery of banning socialising in peoples homes for this long ( for those that did it!)

I don't live there thankfully but it's local ish

There’s probably some people who’d go for staying home if it meant full pay, so the positive test would have to be verified. Not sure how easy it is to mock up whatever they send you (haven’t tested yet)

over-estimating the number of infections at the peak - by using one days figure rather than a moving average, for example - is dangerous because it overestimates when the virus will die out.

The fines for not isolating will encourage people not to get tests. We could reward those who inform on people breaking quarantine after returning from holiday. Time to stop pretending this is "snitching" rather than a public duty that should be encouraged.

The second wave "coming in" is partly accurate since the return of holiday makers has been fuelling this in some locations (including Bolton).

There are still parts of the country with low virus levels and we need the economy running where it is safe to do so. However because people will travel and spread the virus you need travel bans - with serious fines - and lockdown that extends beyond the worst affected areas.

This virus doesnt live long outdoors in summer therefore you can probably get away with less than 2 metres for short periods but in winter it will survive longer in the air. So an Exmoor stag hunt is more dangerous for the car sharing than the social mingling - but chatting face to face at less than 2 metres is still a risk and if the person talking to you is loud I'd personally want more than 2 metres.

@BigChocFrenzy

Looking at the form of these curves, I don't think we can draw straight lines, except at most to estimate current gradient and hence what may happen over the next few days

At any stage, any of those curves may level off, or increase gradient - and also either of those changes may only stay for a couple of weeks

Too many variables for straight lines

Thanks. I thought once I'd drawn them they didn't look like they would be an accurate estimation!

Winter it's obviously very anecdotal but my areas of SE has started to drop again.
Keeping an eye but thinking a big chance it was returning holiday makers.

The report on self-isolation referenced by Sage: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.15.20191957v1.full.pdf+html.

I have to say, I'm not very impressed with how the numbers have been used / abused. E.g. 14.9% saying they thought they could break isolation for another medical need and groceries/ pharmacy 18.2%. Not ideal, but those are also not frivolous reasons, where they have been interpreted more like people saying "I'll just go to the pub". It's also actually permissible to leave home for a medical appointment or a test; the study authors claim this is a small fraction because only 12% with symptoms requested a test - but that's 6% overall to start with. They also disregarded people having another known reason for the symptoms. The reuse of 133 people and noting that small numbers with a positive test result skewed findings are also not great.

The big message to me from that report was the correlation between being a key worker and not knowing the symptoms! Perhaps linked to low English levels as that also is correlated, but then how did they accurately complete the survey if English skills are so low?

Where's I'm more south than you but it seems a few Hampshire people here! We were one of first counties hit - and hard and seem to be doing ok currently. 🤞

It's impossible practically but we need a system where you are paid full for SI but if your are caught breaking it you are fined the weeks pay.

A graph showing cumulative cases will not currently show exponential growth. This is because we are on a second, separate period of exponential growth which would not show up much until the daily additions reached the high figures the last one started steadying off at. To see the two separate exponential curves you need daily figures only, not a running total.

I wrote our policy for our company - it’s full pay for anyone who needs to self isolate for whatever reason (symptoms / track and trace) as long as you send me a copy of the text message. I absolutely don’t want anyone in work who might be a risk to everyone else! Our only exception is if you choose to go on holiday knowing you are going somewhere you have to quarantine on your return - then you have to use annual leave to cover the 2 weeks. We also paid everyone on furlough full pay too, as we didn’t want people worrying about money during a pandemic. I assumed far more businesses would be taking the same policy decisions, but I get the impression maybe not.

@alreadytaken "The fines for not isolating will encourage people not to get tests. "

Exactly this.

People all along have done the best to twist the rules to suit. Ignoring the lines which they don't want to hear. Any way of getting around it.... they will

My personal opinion is the rules need to be harsher than we actually need to get the compliance level required

@GetAMoveOnTroodon

I wrote our policy for our company - it’s full pay for anyone who needs to self isolate for whatever reason (symptoms / track and trace) as long as you send me a copy of the text message. I absolutely don’t want anyone in work who might be a risk to everyone else! Our only exception is if you choose to go on holiday knowing you are going somewhere you have to quarantine on your return - then you have to use annual leave to cover the 2 weeks. We also paid everyone on furlough full pay too, as we didn’t want people worrying about money during a pandemic. I assumed far more businesses would be taking the same policy decisions, but I get the impression maybe not.

It’s great if businesses pick up the cost

There’ll be sectors where it’s less likely, can’t think exactly which but zero hours contracts wouldn’t be paid I assume by company

I'm so cross and I know this breaks the aim of the thread. Apologies.

The situation in the NE is getting out of control now partly due to the impossibility of getting tests.

From a psychological POV you're less likely to think that the tickling cough and sore throat warrants a test if it means turning your world upside down for a week. There's also a lot of defiance around current guidance not to mingle among the age groups who are both key drivers of the infection here and more likely to be asymptomatic.

Many people don't have cars as public transport is so good here. Yet another barrier - Carlisle was offered to a poster in Newcastle on the NE thread.

My own school lasted two weeks before positive cases and a closed bubble, we've since had more but many more children off attempting to get tests.

Can we find local positivity rates?

If businesses claimed under the CJRS for the zero hours workers then they had to calculate an “average pay” so that could be used. We don’t have unlimited funds so I’d be delighted if the government helped businesses do the right thing, but we’ll carry on doing it even if they don’t.

Thanks for posting that France update BCF !

@MarshaBradyo - not all zero hour contracts are problematic; IMO it's the minimum wage zero hour sector that's the biggest issue, those are people who can't afford to lose wages.
Many zero hours contracts are people in the service sector doing outsourced work for local and central government. Care sector, cleaning staff etc; it's only clear by digging into figures or reading the analysis from Workplace Employer Relations Survey etc e.g. 10% in "education" according to ONS, but largely they're cleaning staff.
www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/emp17peopleinemploymentonzerohourscontracts.
For other reasons, I once had to research the topic in depth and 65-75% of the roles track back eventually to central or local government functions, the rest being largely hospitality sector.

Mrex thanks for the actual paper, as usual it's reported badly. People need to be reminded there are still volunteers able to fetch food and medicine, but sometimes you will need to leave home for a medical need.

[quote MRex]@MarshaBradyo - not all zero hour contracts are problematic; IMO it's the minimum wage zero hour sector that's the biggest issue, those are people who can't afford to lose wages.
Many zero hours contracts are people in the service sector doing outsourced work for local and central government. Care sector, cleaning staff etc; it's only clear by digging into figures or reading the analysis from Workplace Employer Relations Survey etc e.g. 10% in "education" according to ONS, but largely they're cleaning staff.
www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/emp17peopleinemploymentonzerohourscontracts.
For other reasons, I once had to research the topic in depth and 65-75% of the roles track back eventually to central or local government functions, the rest being largely hospitality sector.[/quote]
Thanks MRex I was hoping someone would have more info, that’s useful

[quote PrayingandHoping]@alreadytaken "The fines for not isolating will encourage people not to get tests. "

Exactly this.

People all along have done the best to twist the rules to suit. Ignoring the lines which they don't want to hear. Any way of getting around it.... they will

My personal opinion is the rules need to be harsher than we actually need to get the compliance level required [/quote]
But then of course tests are in short supply so maybe that is an intended consequence?

@EducatingArti

Stop this kind of stupid behaviour would help with the testing issue

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8751363/Covid-tests-chaos-blamed-mad-frenzy-parents-checks-children.html

I hate the daily fail but for once they are are right. This is happening all over.

Stop all the people having tests with zero Covid symptoms has to be priority

Some zero hour contracts don’t give enough hours to warrant even statutory sick payment. A week or two of missed pay for many people can be the difference between eating or paying rent. In my line of work I’m speaking to people weekly who have had to isolate at different times since March and it’s been disastrous, especially with the eviction ban lifting today, people who’ve already had a notice have a very dire few months ahead. So although it’s fraught with problems I think the only thing that can be done is to pay people properly for isolating .

I think part of the problem though, is that symptoms in children are less specific than that DM article suggests.