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

Some NHS keyworker are now getting Access to testing services which extends to include their families. I don’t know how widespread this is.

some universities are testing their students, gets around the transport/lack of tests issue. If you test at least you have a bit more confidence about future exposure/ ability to return home at Christmas without being a risk to your family.

The comparison with Whitty/Vallance scenario should come with comments about the non-availability of tests. Denying people tests is one way to keep the positive test figures down but it is not going to help with the numbers in hospital.

@Nellodee

Apologies for the anecdote, but I think the student figures may be severely undercounting. My friend’s son is isolating in halls and has classic COVID symptoms, but is not getting a test. He has no transport, he knows others in the halls are positive and whatever he tests, he can’t go out regardless, so what’s the point? There certainly isn’t the incentive to test for this group - they’re not missing work or school and they’re not likely to get seriously ill. Why would they bother testing?

It's definitely worth them getting tested. If they're able to.

Long Covid is affecting many initially mild non hospitalised cases.

It's also important that they get tested (if they can find a test) because of the risks to clinically vulnerable students (who do exist).

Both my children’s private schools have or have had portacabins at various times in the 12 years they were there. Sometime they became semi-permanent. Sometimes they appeared almost overnight and were gone when a building project finished. I’m not sure why you’re so adamant that they (and indeed other schools) would be unwilling or unable to bring them in again. Or why this is important?

@Nellodee

Apologies for the anecdote, but I think the student figures may be severely undercounting. My friend’s son is isolating in halls and has classic COVID symptoms, but is not getting a test. He has no transport, he knows others in the halls are positive and whatever he tests, he can’t go out regardless, so what’s the point? There certainly isn’t the incentive to test for this group - they’re not missing work or school and they’re not likely to get seriously ill. Why would they bother testing?

.... So long as they are all isolating for the required period, they are not a danger The problem only rises if they get bored and go out, or go food shopping or laundry, especially without a mask

I've read of fellow students kindly cooking for those in isolation and leaving meals outside their door,
but tricky for students who have not yet even started to make friends

The students are a huge issue imo because
If you lock down a whole hall wi th people at different stages all mixing. They will all get symptoms at different times. Not within the 14d.
Person a day 14 then their blockmate could be day 28. Are they actually sticking to their rooms or even floor etc.
As this happened on the cruises.
It only really works in a 1 person house. Or they need to test to see who is still positive after 14d. And who asymptomatic.
Even say person 1 who is contagious until day 10.
Anyway knowing this gov they will release the students and half will still be contagious.
This could obviously happen in any house but i guess on average the second person might get sick day 5 even asymptomatic so would have 9d. Whereas with so many people mixing and high likelihood of other people becoming contagious later.

So you could in theory have a child who's been sitting in class next to someone who's tested positive, who has a rash, fatigue, sore throat, headache and gastro symptoms within the isolation period

For those symptoms I would definitely get medical advice so GP would possibly send for test.

They are actually very similar to symptoms we had in the house in December. That was diagnosed as Scarlet Fever but I do now wonder. It didn't spread though as far as we are aware. But also didn't clear up after 10 day course of Pen V and needed further dose of antibiotics.

(It is rare to get SF twice, or so they say.........)

@Sunshinegirl82 That's a great graph. However, the recent problems with testing might mean that current figures don't fully reflect the way cases are rising.

@herecomesthsun

Perhaps not fully no although would we not be seeing the test positivity rate rising quite sharply if very significant numbers of positive cases were being missed?

Trying to identify every single asymptomatic child with COVID would be a failed mission from the very start

Completely agree.

I do think, however, that given they've sent schools back with essentially no mitigation at all on the basis that children don't transmit, it would be a good idea to test some of the close contacts in class of positive cases to see if this oft-repeated statement is actually true. Otherwise we could have a lot of community transmission driven by asymptomatic children. Families of children isolating don't themselves need to isolate. So if the children are positive but asymptomatic from say day 7 after exposure, then it's quite conceivable the parents / siblings in that house become pre-symptomatically infectious a week or two later.

It seems like it would be useful to know how often this is happening.

@Sunshinegirl82

I don't have all the figures to hand but, in Scotland, positive tests have risen from 5% to 11.5% and the % was much higher than that in Glasgow, I noted today. (I can't find the Glasgow figure now). I think the % positive tests is going a bit awry (probably someone else will come along with the stats )

here from Scottish government site.

The number of people newly tested refers to the number of individuals in Scotland who have been tested for the first time for COVID-19 on the previous day. Note that each person is only counted once regardless of repeat tests. This means that where someone tests positive after receiving a negative test result on a previous day, they would be counted in the new positive cases for that day but in the number of people newly tested on the day they first received a test result.

So basically if they've had a test before they are not counted.

So the positivity rate is higher than it needs be.

"If they've had a test before, they are not counted"

I understood that means they don't count twice and hence do not inflate the % positive

BCF I am not sure.

My reading of it (and I may be wrong).

If you test 1500 people, but 500 have previously been tested then the number tested is reported as 1000.

If 100 of the 1500 are positive then they are included in that days positive cases?

So 100 positives from 1000 tests?

I understood that means they don't count twice and hence do not inflate the % positive

It would nice to be really clear, as it does imply that a negative case 3 months ago would make the person count as a positive case, but not as a new person tested, thus inflating the positivity rate. But that doesn't make much sense.

Apologies I really should know this by now.

What does the number at the top mean? Is that really how many cases we got in Newcastle today? For some reason I've always assumed that was some estimate or accumulated number over a few days, then tests were properly distributed on the right days on the graphs after a couple of days.

Either way, it appears % +ve has doubled overall, which is worrying.

Ds 1 had it twice. I became a SF expert! Ds2 has it just before Covid came along and helped us stay away from people at key times I think.

It possibly happened twice as I was bfing him; a Paediatrician once said that can happen with chicken pox (different pathogen I know so who knows ?!)

(Sorry scarlet fever. It's actually just how your body reacts to strep throat.)

@NeurotrashWarrior
it's the number of new cases attributed to newcastle but they were probably from specimens taken over the last few days - mostly at the weekend. So those 169 cases will be attributed to the graph already.
If you look at the daily cases by specimen date and work out a rough average for, say, monday-friday last week, then ideally you want the number of new cases attributed to be less than that! That isn't generally happening right now though.

Thanks, frazzled, that's what I thought. Bit concerning!

"If you test 1500 people, but 500 have previously been tested then the number tested is reported as 1000."

That would not make sense, as it would automatically increase positivity

If someone has previously tested negative, that earlier result obviously should not count, only whether the new test is positive or negative

if someone has tested positive, but is having a 2nd test to confirm (key worker who would be missed) then their positive should only be counted the first time

Neurotrash ha ha I'm a bit like that.

The problem its never obvious with him.

He puked. He then had a slight rash (very subtle which i would have missed if he hadn't had it before). Even at GP we weren't 100% sure but the 1 spot on tonsil led to diagnosis.

Funnily enough though 2 weeks later and it was proper strep throat even after a 10 day course of antibiotics.

If someone has previously tested negative, that earlier result obviously should not count a second time I mean
So only the new test, positive or negative, is counted on the new day

If the earlier result was positive, the 2nd positive is not counted for the new day