Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 20

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 20 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 reports & LA Local Watchlist Maps by LSOA
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 GB test positivity etc, DIY country graphs
FT DIY graphs compare deaths, cases, raw / million pop
Alama Personal COVID risk assessment
Local Mobility Reports for countries
UK Highstreet Tracker for cities & large towns Footfall, spend index, workers, visitors, economic recovery

⏭ Our STUDIES Corner ⏮

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

Request to posters giving a link:
Please do so in full, so people can see in advance what they are clicking
Also at least a brief title so we know what the link is about

Discussion of data is inextricably linked to discussion of impact and measures taken, which in turn affects the data.

Discussions involve suggestions, view points and opinions and analysis of the data, measures and impact.

I agree it's not helpful to be swayed too far away from core data; at the same time opinions and points raised here have come to be true.

It is hard to ge the right balance. There are some posts that I don't agree with and it don't think should necessarily be on this thread. I tend to ignore them.

@Timeforanotherusername

It is hard to ge the right balance. There are some posts that I don't agree with and it don't think should necessarily be on this thread. I tend to ignore them.

Agreed. Scrolling is easy and possible!

"Without a widespread antibody test it is hard to assess future risk."

We have official serology studies, particularly for England:

• the excellent weekly ONS reports on testing representative samples of the population
• PHE serology studies on blood donors, admittedly not as representative as ONS, but useful to show trends
• Imperial's REACT study of 100,000 people

These all show antibody levels for the country on average at 6-7%. with highest % antibodies in London and the lowest in the SW
See links in the OP

What makes this complicated is that levels of antibodies start dropping after a few weeks
T cells probably remain, but we have posted research many times on these threads indicating that T cells, even if present, likely reduce the severity of symptoms, but people can still catch and pass on the virus.

Other research indicates that immunity to Covid probably lasts about a year, which fits with the decrease in antibodies
(only a tiny % of people have already caught it twice)

Chart from the ONS report for serology study 13-19 September,
showing the levels of antibodies (with ranges & confidence levels) in the English regions:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/englandwalesandnorthernireland25september2020#antibody-data-for-england

Thanks for that @BigChocFrenzy. Can we truly say that only a tiny percentage of people have caught it twice? Is it impossible that only a tiny percentage of "second infection" cases have been detected, but more exist?

Why would the East of England have the second highest rate of antibodies, and the East Midlands the second lowest, this seems off given infection rates?

*odd not off

The level of immunity in the UK is around that found in other European countries hit hard in the 1st wave:
France, Spain, Italy
as is to be expected

The % immunity should be helpful in reducing the spread over autumn & winter,
but as we have seen in those other countries, where some hard hit cities are being hit again the 2nd time round,
it is clearly insufficient alone to bring R down < 1:
to do so would require the continuation of significant SD measures

Even NYC, which has ~25-30% antibodies and up to 70% in at least one burough, is experiencing a sharp rise in cases, although not yet to the European level

Studies in a number of hard hit areas around the world have shown a 40-70% level of antibodies
and the UK is far off those levels.

So, current level of immunity is helpful in reducing a 2nd wave, but we don't yet know to how great an extent

@Augustbreeze

Thanks for that *@BigChocFrenzy*. Can we truly say that only a tiny percentage of people have caught it twice? Is it impossible that only a tiny percentage of "second infection" cases have been detected, but more exist?

Why would the East of England have the second highest rate of antibodies, and the East Midlands the second lowest, this seems off given infection rates?

.... Scientific consensus, considering other Coronavirues is pretty strong that reinfection within a few months would be a very rare occurrence indeed

Proof of a 2nd infection has only been possible with genetic tests of both illnesses and where the reinfection is from a different strain - so no firm evidence either way of reinfection by the same strain
Clearly genetic tests are very rarely done for even the 1st illness

However, there have been very few diagnoses so far, with or without these tests, of reinfection
and all the evidence is that - at this stage at least - genuine reinfection is far far < 1% of cases

A useful explanation of antibodies and T cells, together with what is known wrt Covid:

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/201833/cell-immunity-what-does-help-protect/

If you hear claims that this rapidly fading immunity makes a vaccine pointless - that's not correct:

From the above article:

"Another point to emphasise is that, although your antibody responses might wane following natural infection, if a vaccine is developed that promotes strong antibody responses, the antibody response to the vaccine may be longer-lasting.
Also, with a vaccine there is the option of an additional booster vaccination to improve antibody levels."

A vaccine, particularly the early ones, will likely have to be an annual one

However, since the multitude of Covid strains don't so far differ clinically to a significant extent, unlike e.g. flu,
it makes it much easier for scientists to keep rapidly improving the vaccines each year

That's a great article, thanks bIg

@conkersarebonkers

Another big drop in new daily case numbers in Scotland today.

26th - 28th: 714 > 344 > 222

The FM thinks the lower-than-expected numbers could be a "weekend effect", so it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few days.

Numbers in hospital and ICU still rising (+17 and +4 respectively).

Quoting myself from yesterday to add that today's numbers much higher again - 806 new cases (11.5%). FM noting that many of today's results were samples taken a few days ago, so it sounds like there's been a bit of a backlog.

conkers thats a big increase but not really a massive surprise.

I guess most of the cases are primarily Greater Glasgow and Lanarkshire still?

There may not be a national database yet for schools "incidence", I use that, as most schools do not close, or even send whole year groups home, but here is our local situation:

www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/interactive-map-shows-locations-surrey-19010478

@Timeforanotherusername No, not a massive surprise. Greater Glasgow & Clyde is 302, Lothian 180, Lanarkshire 91, Grampian 54, with the other 181 in other health boards.

Really sorry to hear that numbers in Scotland are rising. However, if there is a backlog in labs, maybe there are national lags explaining some of the changes in figures in recent days.

I wouldn't necessarily say numbers are rising yet!

It was obvious the last couple of days were far too low.

But if you average out the last few days it us still lower than Friday.

We will only really know over the next few days.

But even if you average out the last 3 days

Apologies for last line- should have deleted. I should use preview!

Weekly ICNARC report on rising ICU cases for Covid,
with data on age, sex, ethicity, deprivation levels etc

https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/baa7de02-3f00-eb11-912b-00505601089b

ICNARCC@ICNARC*

Please find our latest report on patients critically ill with #Covid_19, separately reporting patients admitted from 1 September to date, and up to 31 August.

Due to increasing admission we intend to revert to weekly reporting

Of course, the number reported yesterday was really low and, of course, we should expect to see catch ups today or over next few days.

However:

• the hospital admissions seem to be plateauing or at least slowing down
• NHS/111/999 triage date is showing a positive trend; and
• Even Zoe estimated daily transmission rate has flattened for the first time ever since mid-August (the absolute number of nearly 20,000 is, of course, very high but I feel the trend is more important than the actual level)

Thanks BCF

What is remarkable is that males / females are in ice in similar numbers under 40 and then it is a much higher risk factor to be a male.

Is this because there are more females under 40 catching virus or does sex make little difference under 40?

*icu

I find a 7-day rolling average helps show trends better, as it smooths out reporting blips, weekend effects, public holidays etc

That applies to cases, hospitalisations or deaths
but especially when indications are that tests are sometimes taking a few days to return results and the average is likely > 1 day

Also consider the estimates of R, nationally and in the regions
While R is 1.2 - 1.5, cases will be rising overall, unless some data is very inaccurate / late
(the R estimates are calculated from the last 1-2 weeks of cases and hospitalisations)

I note for example, that Germany has much lower cases reported on Sundays & Mondays, 1,000-1,500 whereas the other 5 days are around 2,000,
so I take the weekly total and observe how this changes over the weeks, along with R and deaths

UK test data last I looked showed a much higher demand for tests on Sunday & Monday pm, presumable because of the start of the school / work week

When the labs are at their capability limit - which I assume is the sitiations, given tests being sent to Italy & Germany for processing - then the results of tests on peak days would take longer

@Timeforanotherusername

Thanks BCF

What is remarkable is that males / females are in ice in similar numbers under 40 and then it is a much higher risk factor to be a male.

Is this because there are more females under 40 catching virus or does sex make little difference under 40?

... There was data recently that a much higher incidence of women than men aged 20-40 are becoming infected. That would fit with the ICNARC data