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 📈 📉 📊 👍

Found data from last week.

Its not pretty.

Tyneside positivity of 11% on 14th!

My phone battery is about to die so bare with me.

Pretty much confirms my thoughts on where there were most shortages with testing though from what ive seen.

Reading the latest RKI report, I've just realised that Germany has mandatory testing of known contacts of positive cases !
At least for a large cluster:

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/NeuartigesCoronavirus/Situationsberichte/Septt_2020/2020-09-22-de.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

(translation)
"The increased incidence in SK Hamm is largely due to more than 80 COVID-19 cases in connection with a wedding celebration.
Over 200 identified guests have been quarantined and subjected to mandatory testing"

@screamer1

Thanks that's interesting *@BigChocFrenzy*. This is the only thread I should read on coronavirus.

It's so much better when just examining the data.

I totally agree. It's often the first place I go when wanting to find something out

I'll be starting the new thread after another 20 or so posts

I prune the OP to keep it a reasonable length
I'll remove the Covidly.com link from the OP as it seems no longer useful

So shout out if you want it retained !

Polling data on public support for further control measures if cases continue to increase: mobile.twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1308480304512991232

Tyneside positivity of 11% on 14th!

Jeeze. Where did you find that red? I was thinking high but not that high. But tests were impossible to get hold of a week ago.

We've gone from a rough daily average of single digits during August to almost 3 digits daily for the last few days in the space of 4 weeks. In fact it might be 119 today, I'm never sure what the number at the top on the gov page means in relation to the data lists and graphs.

Times test availability map again:

Thank you @TheSunIsStillShining and @Piggywaspushed, fascinating stuff. I also found it interesting that South Africans have the propensity to be even more wildly individual than they are, anyone who's worked with a lot might be surprised by that.

Regarding women aged 20-40, this surely goes back to the theory that being exposed to lots of virus on the day of infection is the worst for hospitalisation, and maybe being infected by more than one person has an impact.

BCF what does mandatory testing actually mean in Germany? Things in the UK appear mandatory but often there are many exceptions.

@Morfin

BCF what does mandatory testing actually mean in Germany? Things in the UK appear mandatory but often there are many exceptions.

... I'd take it literally in Germany

I don't know if there is a cluster threshhold number at which tests are mandatory
or whether it is for confirmed contacts (> 15 minutes close proximity) of anyone with a positive test

@MRex

Thank you *@TheSunIsStillShining and @Piggywaspushed*, fascinating stuff. I also found it interesting that South Africans have the propensity to be even more wildly individual than they are, anyone who's worked with a lot might be surprised by that.

Regarding women aged 20-40, this surely goes back to the theory that being exposed to lots of virus on the day of infection is the worst for hospitalisation, and maybe being infected by more than one person has an impact.

But why would that have got worse for women than in March?

probably the latter:
mandatory test for any confirmed contact of a positive case

Also, it is mandatory that those waiting for results of a test have to self-isolate

• a few publicised cses of people not doing that, causing an infection cluster and then being hit with heavy fines and enforced quarantine

However, tests usually back within 24 hours or less
Tests are authorised after someone phones their GP, or a central line for OOH, which keeps down "unnecessary tests"

Sorry just been putting this together.

The data is from the government surveillance reports
www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports

And its the 'Contain framework lower tier local authority watchlist - maps by LSOA' that you want to look at.

Each of the areas on the watchlist has a little graph showing the positivity rate.

I've picked a few which I'll post up here so you can see them. To make it easier to read and compare (if you can't see the small print) I've added a green line to highlight the line where you hit 9% and a turquoise line to show the week ending 24th August. They show the positivity rate week by week from May 4th and changes over time.

There is a clear increase in postivity rates starting to occur in many key councils that starts around this week ending 24th August and it is happening in multiple locations - but crucially not all.

I'll start off with Leicester and Northampton because they are slightly unusual with how cases / restrictions have played out. You can see how bad the community transmission in Leicester were and you can see the very localised outbreak that occurred in Northampton

Next up is Leeds and Bradford. There is quite a noticable difference. Positivity rates have stayed high compared with the national rate throughout for Bradford and although there was a dip over the summer it seems to have started to climb again. Leeds on the otherhand was much much lower but has started to climb to a level where its hard to understand why its escaped local restrictions so long.

Finally there's Birmingham which has had a gradual increase in positivity since July but with a spike starting at the end of August but seems to have recovered.

[quote TheSunIsStillShining]Serotonin transporter gene.
I had to look it up too :)
"Culture–gene coevolutionary theory posits that cultural values have evolved, are adaptive and influence the social and physical environments under which genetic selection operates. Here, we examined the association between cultural values of individualism–collectivism and allelic frequency of the serotonin transporter functional polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) as well as the role this culture–gene association may play in explaining global variability in prevalence of pathogens and affective disorders."

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842692/[/quote]
Wow. That's fascinating.

Goes to show how much more there is to this than just the actual virus.

On top of the other things likes population, density and deprivation for examples.

Next I've got Bolton, Manchester and Salford. All of these have been under restrictions over August. But it seems the positivity rate stayed fairly level throughout. Then all three climb at different rates, with Bolton by far the most extreme case.

Then Gateshead, South Tyneside, Newcastle and Sunderland. These have a very clear pattern of very few cases at all from July and then you get to mid August and it just starts to climb and fast.

And finally heres Warrington & Halton and Liverpool, St Helens and Knowsley.

For the most part all of these are following the same pattern. And really I think it should have been picked up on the week ending 7th - yet they only went into local lockdown at midnight last night. In the case of Liverpol and Knowsley I do fear the worst with them. Warrington's numbers do seem to have improved slightly in the last few days and hopefully the slight dip in the positivity rate right at the end of that graph has continued downward. I THINK this is likely due to South Warrington being particularly affluent and there being more of a capacity / willingness / awareness to change behaviour. (Speculating but I know all these areas pretty well).

I think there is an acute problem with testing facilities being overwhelmed in the area (and again the same in the NE) and real issues with deprievation preventing people getting access to tests.

But yes my point is these are all quite alarming graphs and point to problems with the testing system and something happening in mid August which lead to a pattern which is replicated in multiple areas.

And it started BEFORE the schools went back. Tbh the schools couldn't have gone back at a worse time - but its possible that the 'but the schools are going back in a couple of weeks time anyway' mentality could have been one of the factors driving this pattern too.

So you've got cases going up AND positivity rates going up at the same time. Which points to cases being significantly higher than the ones that have been identified and recorded.

The next question has to be WHY. Are people avoiding testing, are they unable to get a test or are there a significant number who are asymptomatic? Or a combination?

Question after which I see little being said about, is how do you actually go about changing that? Restrictions alone are not going to solve a lot of the problems by the look of that.

I think in tricky areas that are not responding to restrictions - you need community leaders to step in and talk people round into changing their behaviour. Get a local public health team bolstered and funded and get them door knocking.
It's either than or get the army in surely?

"it started BEFORE the schools went back"

Returning from holiday ?

@Augustbreeze
In March the schools have been shut down by the time we reached these numbers, ergo the school run phenomena was non existent.

That would be my logical bet.
Based on reality* I can see many mums congregating a bit further from school gates and chatting away merrily with not distancing or masks. And our local coffee shops (near 2 primaries and 2 secondary schools) are jam packed inside and out.
Surely these don't help.

*I still don't have it in my head that it's term time and 8.30-9.30 and 3-4.30 is chaos on the roads, so I usually run errand in either times. I need to get my head straight...

@BigChocFrenzy

Reading the latest RKI report, I've just realised that Germany has mandatory testing of known contacts of positive cases ! At least for a large cluster:

[[https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges]]Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/Septt_2020/2020-09-22-de.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

(translation)
"The increased incidence in SK Hamm is largely due to more than 80 COVID-19 cases in connection with a wedding celebration.
Over 200 identified guests have been quarantined and subjected to mandatory testing"

yes. And Italy I believe is also very diligent around testing contacts, Out attitude is crazy. You need to identify the cases and then you need to isolate them. Not let them mill about in the community.

Note:
The "maps by LSAO" reports are posted with the other PHE surveillance reports
The OP has the link to this report site, but in the new OP I'll add that it includes "maps by LSAO"
so people know they are there !

@itsgettingweird
I can't take credit, it was @Piggywaspushed who posted the original, this is just an addition :)

@BigChocFrenzy
do you know anything/have data about german holidays? How many went, where? How big was the drop in going abroad for a holiday? What mode of transport was used?

I posit (always wanted to use this word) that the regions where there was big influx from elsewhere, like spain, croatia got things out of control and then as a secondary result countries where these are popular destinations (eg croatia for hungarians) are driving up the numbers. I actually will go and check non-touristy stats, come to think of it....

@RedToothBrush

So you've got cases going up AND positivity rates going up at the same time. Which points to cases being significantly higher than the ones that have been identified and recorded.

The next question has to be WHY. Are people avoiding testing, are they unable to get a test or are there a significant number who are asymptomatic? Or a combination?

Question after which I see little being said about, is how do you actually go about changing that? Restrictions alone are not going to solve a lot of the problems by the look of that.

In Sussex.

Symptomatic child, school friend has confirmed positive. It has taken three days to get a test. Only just managed during Boris's speech.