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 📈 📉 📊 👍

@alreadytaken

"Are there any wealthy areas with low levels of obesity/metabolic disorder that are performing badly?"

Give me a list and I'll take a look. It's easy to find the areas of high deprivation, google not so helpful with low.

Parts of Trafford weren't doing too great but numbers there are good now. Theres other pocket of wealthier parts of the NW which have had / are having not particularly great rates atm.

But i should perhaps cavet that by saying that better off areas are likely to have people who are more able to get to a testing site / more willing to get test because they are more able to isolate. So what you might see is wealthier areas have more reflective figures of the actual rates but less well off ones have rates which are lower than actual prevalence in the country in terms of cases.

We won't know cfr / true infection rates relating to areas until much later on.

Just on the test and trace. The phoning and organizing tests can be done by non healthcare professionals, however it is much more effective if Public Health Teams have enough resources to get to the source and manage it.

It’s not just a question of phoning someone’s contacts and getting them tests.

It needs people with experience in this speciality, which isn’t just a doctor, it is a public health team who can look at clusters, really track down sources like a detective, be on the ground and talk to local at risk settings.

It sounds like Germany had a good handle on this @BigChocFrenzy by the way you’ve described that when they couldn’t keep on top of tests they prioritised effectively in the way that only a Local Public Health Team can. The UK is not well managed - in a public health strategy.

I think part of the reason the UK is not so good is chronic underfunding of local public health teams.

@IloveJKRowling yes underfunding but also the structure. Public Health England was not welcomed as a good new structure by many regional Public Health Teams in the UK, particularly when dealing with a pandemic.

While it's not Bolton or Warrington levels Windsor has quite a few recent cases.

When cases rise rapidly in an area it's difficult for any part of that area to stay out of it completely, even those that have low deprivation.

And unfortunately they have not consulted public health local teams yet again with the proposed new central agency - headed temporarily by Dido Harding current head of test and trace

@Bananasinpyjamas20

Just on the test and trace. The phoning and organizing tests can be done by non healthcare professionals, however it is much more effective if Public Health Teams have enough resources to get to the source and manage it.

It’s not just a question of phoning someone’s contacts and getting them tests.

It needs people with experience in this speciality, which isn’t just a doctor, it is a public health team who can look at clusters, really track down sources like a detective, be on the ground and talk to local at risk settings.

It sounds like Germany had a good handle on this @BigChocFrenzy by the way you’ve described that when they couldn’t keep on top of tests they prioritised effectively in the way that only a Local Public Health Team can. The UK is not well managed - in a public health strategy.

... Phoning is part of t&t but so is old-fashioned "boot leather" especially when people can't be contacted otherwise, don't answer the phone, or aren't as cooperative

There can be much better response and fuller info when t&t teams mask up and do an SD interview to fill in a full contact report; they can better adjust their questions and style when they can actually see the person

This is classic public health tracking, which in the Uk the local Environmental Health officers are trained to do for e.g. other infectious diseases like TB, or for food poisoning
However, the EHOs are being sidelined by central govt and their numbers have been cut over the last 10 years due to budget constraints

• they aren't sexy and their pay and training is much more expensive than NMW call centre staff with a couple of hours online training.

@BigChocFrenzy exactly. It’s also Public Health Teams which have a wide remit including prevention, and an overview bigger than environmental health. They also have the epidemiology and pandemic expertise and good multi-agency relationships built up over years - that work with Environmental Officers, who can do the walking alongside other professionals.

@IloveJKRowling

I think part of the reason the UK is not so good is chronic underfunding of local public health teams.

..... Even 10 years ago, the Uk had 10,000 public health & environmental health staff based at nearly 350 local council offices. They were highly skilled and knew their local patches

Big mistake, after transfering all this public health function to Public Health England,
was to savagely cut this capability to 226 staff operating out of 9 offices.

During this crisis, their numbers have been increased by a 100 or so, not nearly enough, but as explained, call centre staff are much cheaper - and much less capable !

Germany started the crisis with about 20,000 such officers in the 401 German administrative districts,
plus thousands of other local civil servants who could be drafted in - there is spare capacity to allow for emergencies.
They led track & trace teams and had the experience to slot in less experienced seconded people and the uni volunteers.

Is Windsor's recent rise due to the private testing that Eton has funded for all scholars?

@IloveJKRowling

Wouldn't the smaller class sizes in private have some protective effect?

I keep seeing this but how true is it? I went to private primary & secondary both had classes of 30. Until sixth form when it was about 10

@Bananasinpyjamas20

And unfortunately they have not consulted public health local teams yet again with the proposed new central agency - headed temporarily by Dido Harding current head of test and trace

... I don't wish to compare again, but... Dido Harding running the central public health agency ?

Unless I've missed something, her qualification for all these jobs appears to have been to marry a Tory MP and to be a Tory donor, which was also rewarded by a peerage.

The equivalent central agency in Germany is the RKI, which is run by professionals in disease control,
e.g.

RKI President:
Prof. Dr. Lothar H. Wieler is a specialist veterinarian for microbiology
and was previously managing director of the Institute for Microbiology and Animal Diseases at the Free University

RKI Vice President:
Prof. Dr. Lars Schaade is a specialist in microbiology and infection epidemiology
and previously headed the department “Communicable Diseases, AIDS, Epidemiology” at the Federal Ministry of Health

Think Eton's tests wont be included in the figures as M&S private tests were not when they had an outbreak. However if Mummy and Daddy live in Windsor and get tested by Serco they would be included. I doubt that is the answer but perhaps some staff live locally and were tested.

Is there no epidemiologist in the entire UK who could have taken on Harding's jobs ?

BigChoc That data on the decimation of public health expertise in the UK is truly shocking and surely explains part of why our response has been so poor.

I knew it was bad but seeing the numbers it's worse than even I thought, and the comparison with Germany is sobering - why is there no article on this in the mainstream media?

Shocking.

Goodness me some interesting people have descended on the coronavirus boards this weekend!

I hope MNHQ turfs out the conspiracy theorists : that is where the real scaremongering is.

Dido Harding has got to be the worst appointment of all the terrible appointments.

I know a few academic epidemiologists and they'd have loved to had Dido's job and would have been much better at it too.

It wasn't advertised, it was just announced.

Frankly, at this point, I'd take anyone with any relevant expertise - virologist, epidemiologist, environmental health officer. ANYONE.

Seems the only qualification that matters is if you're mates with the Tory elite though.

Looking at the PHE Surveillance report from Friday, by age range and deprivation quintile,
1 (most deprived) to 5 (least deprived):

The most deprived have the highest infection rates in most age ranges ... but look hard at age 17-19 where the more privileged had higher rates until just recently
More money to go out and hold bigger parties ?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/919092/WeeklyyCOVID19SurveillanceeReportweekk38FINAL.pdf

"at this point, I'd take anyone with any relevant expertise - virologist, epidemiologist, environmental health officer"

Any of those would be qualified, if they've also had managerial experience

Looking at schools etc, week 37, which is 7-13 September, showed naturally a big rise to 108 confirmed clusters or outbreaks
More in secondary schools than primary, not surprisingly and few in nursery
Does NOT specify how many cases are staff vs kids

"Confirmed COVID-19 clusters or outbreaks in educational settings , England

ARI < respiratory disease > incidents in educational settings are reviewed to identify confirmed COVID-19 clusters or outbreaks as per the definitions below.
This does not include incidents with only one confirmed case identified, incidents where COVID-19 is suspected but confirmation is awaited, incidents where other causative organisms have been identified or incidents where there was no causa- tive organisms identified.

A cluster is defined as two or more test-confirmed cases of COVID-19 among individuals associated with a specific non-residential setting with illness onset dates within a 14-day period
(in the absence of detailed information about the type of contact between the cases).

An outbreak is defined as two or more test-confirmed cases of COVID-19 among individuals as- sociated with a specific non-residential setting with illness onset dates within 14 days, and one of:

(1) Identified direct exposure between at least 2 of the test-confirmed cases in that setting (for example under one metre face to face, or spending more than 15 minutes within 2 metres) dur- ing the infectious period of one of the cases
(2) When there is no sustained local community transmission - absence of an alternative source of infection outside the setting for the initially identified cases"

@bigchoc I would say that rise in 17-19 year olds (a very narrow specific age range) in three last two weeks in most affluent areas is most likely the parties associated with students going off to university. DD is 17 and has been to a succession of social things saying goodbye to friends in the year above. Numbers going to university is very correlated with affluence. It'll probably change in the next few weeks as the students will have moved away.

Think we can all agree that Dido got the job solely on the basis of connections - no relevant experience, just a track record of failure.

[quote Firefliess]@bigchoc I would say that rise in 17-19 year olds (a very narrow specific age range) in three last two weeks in most affluent areas is most likely the parties associated with students going off to university. DD is 17 and has been to a succession of social things saying goodbye to friends in the year above. Numbers going to university is very correlated with affluence. It'll probably change in the next few weeks as the students will have moved away. [/quote]
...
Yes it will be interesting to see if this changes in the 17-19 age group, or continues at Uni

These days a lot of students go to university from non-affluent areas - but are probably less likely to have gone on foreign holidays with their mates. They are also more likely to have time themselves - and parents with time - to sort out how to get a test. Less affluent teenagers may be working.

Once again the generally much higher incidence of minority groups being infected, seen from the start of the pandemic

A significant part of this will be - different combination of factors for very different minorities - but due to more public-facing jobs, multi-generational living, deprivation and possibly related to discrimination too

However, this higher incidence varies a lot across the regions of the country too

(attached tables from John R @john_actuary)