Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 21

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 21 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Uk dashboard deaths, cases, hospitals, tests - 4 nations, English regions & LAs
R estimates UK & English regions
Imperial UK weekly LAs, cases / 100k, table, map, hotspots
UK School statistics Attendance
Modelling real number of UK infections February to date
NHS England Hospital activity
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
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 analytical contributions
Please try to keep discussion focused on these
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It seems that the virus seeds with ski journeys, holidays and parties; and then it becomes endemic with poverty and deprivation. If you look where & how the clusters start; and where people die.

@BigChocFrenzy

Several experts giving their opinion do have an agenda, political / Social Darwinist or about schools / jobs / welfare state etc

Some of them are scrupulous about keeping their views private;
other are very selective in their posts about the evidence they include

I try to read a wide range, but exclude some with too obvious political bias, such as Sikora, who I just don't trust

Those I trust, for competence and objectivity:

The ONS - gold standard
Nick Stripe at ONS
RKI (German public health institute)
Van-Tamm (Deputy CMO)
LSHTM (London School of Tropical Medicine & Hygeine)
Kucharski at LSHTM
COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group
S McDonald & J Roberts with the group
Spiegelhalter (stats expert)
Burns-Murdoch (FT stats geek)
Kupferschmidt (biologist & journo)

It is worth requoting, excellent list there @BigChocFrenzy

Yes squid, that is what I was thinking.

There were some strange spikes in more affluent areas at the end of August in Newcastle. Which then calmed right down till recently.

[quote Piggywaspushed]Here is a link:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/03/uk-covid-testing-cutoff-quietly-extended-to-eight-days-after-first-signs[/quote]
Gosh there's some worrying quotes (from experts) in that article.

Am now wondering if the only reason I found it so much easier last night than a few weeks ago to get potential test slots in my area was because of the extension of the allegedly valid testing window to 8 days.

Why do you suspect Spiegelhalter of bias, piggy?

I've just looked at the UK page on worldometre. They've reassigned the excess from the 12k yesterday.

It's quite interesting.
22nd September it was just over 5k, the biggest it had been in the second wave.
But then 23rd jumps up to around 7k, where it stays since, barring a low one on 28th. Range, barring 28th, is 6835 to 7701.

Now obviously there may be more to add over the next few days, hopefully not too much, so it might not stay at around 7k and we may see a pattern once that's done.

@ChristmasinJune
That sounds very stressful.

Cases much lower near me, though rising rapidly, and people are acting like we've gone back to normal here too. I think schools going back as normal has a lot to do with it. Seeing a lot of people not bothering social distancing at school gates, at park outside of school etc. The same people who were rigorously social distancing in June/July when rates were 1/10th what they are now.

It makes no logical sense but I think a lot of people gave up when they realised their kids would be crammed in together right next to each other all day, that's my theory at least.

If your biggest risk is completely out of your control.... maybe the psychological result is people just giving up. Is there any research on this? In a job long ago I ended up reading a bit about risks that people can control and those they can't and IIRC correctly it does result in different behaviours but can't remember any more about it.

I haven't given up entirely but there have been times I've felt like I wanted to because I find it quite stressful with the kids being in school as they are and then having to social distance everywhere else. It's confusing - is it safe in school or not? If it is, why do we have to do this everywhere else? Kids don't cope well with this level of cognitive dissonance.

DD2 has been consistently seeing a little friend outside since we've been allowed and they've been brilliant at social distancing until now - now they're back in school and we're constantly having to remind them because they're not SD in school and it's confusing. (they're in different schools so there is a reason still to SD but they don't get it, being 3)

@ChristmasinJune I agree, I work in Knowsley and we had over 15% of our employees self isolating this week (all from separate contacts outside of work). We’ve been open all the way through and this is the worst we’ve experienced by a long way.

It’s a nightmare mix of complacency and deprivation in my opinion

Munro august?

Realised that didn’t come out as I meant it - complacency and deprivation within the community at large, which means it’s really hard to avoid even if you are being careful (as I know our employees are)

Oh beg pardon Mrs piggy, ((not Miss!) someone raised a doubt about Siegelhalter and I mistakenly thought it was you

@IloveJKRowling I think that when it's impossible to social distance because it's too busy or other people keep making it impossible then it gets really tempting to believe the covid deniers as a coping mechanism. I've barely left the house since March, I think if I was out every day then I'd have convinced myself that it was nothing to worry about by now which seems to be what everyone who's out and about has done.

*Cases much lower near me, though rising rapidly, and people are acting like we've gone back to normal here too. I think schools going back as normal has a lot to do with it. Seeing a lot of people not bothering social distancing at school gates, at park outside of school etc. The same people who were rigorously social distancing in June/July when rates were 1/10th what they are now.

It makes no logical sense but I think a lot of people gave up when they realised their kids would be crammed in together right next to each other all day, that's my theory at least.*

I completely agree with this. I am in a high risk area, but with schools, restaurants, pubs and shops open as usual, it feels like he old days and, apart from the mask wearing and queues for shops, it is very easy to forget.

I think that when it's impossible to social distance because it's too busy or other people keep making it impossible then it gets really tempting to believe the covid deniers as a coping mechanism

Yes, I think this is an astute observation. Although I'm not sure it's 'believing the covid deniers' so much as believing that nothing you individually have the power to control will make any difference and it being really hard applying one set of standards to one thing (schools, for me) and another everywhere else.

I feel that sending the kids back to school is such high risk with no SD or masks and big classes and am finding it actually very stressful trying to social distance / wear masks everywhere else. I absolutely believe in the latter, but I think that the former is so high risk as to render me, individually, doing the latter almost pointless (I don't go out much other than to school).

And it's really hard to explain to the kids - actually, it's impossible. Both of them keep asking me if 'coronavirus is over' and 'when can their friends come to play' because 'school is back to normal' and I'm finding it highly stressful trying to tell them that it doesn't matter there's no SD in school but we still have to do it everywhere else. It just doesn't make sense to them, or to me.

Re testing at 8 days.

It is very concerning that spin and superficial considerations of (badly) managing the process of testing seem to be more important than scientific principles of when is the best time to detect the virus.

And containment of spread in a cluster is much more difficult at 8 days than earlier on.

This process needs to be put in the hands of a scientist with experience of managing labs/ scientific process.

Anyway, my question is - is there any psychological literature around trying to get people to take public health measures when they are being forced to accept high levels of risk beyond their control.

I am sure in the past I delved into this for a past job - my understanding was (i think) where people believe they have some control and what they do is meaningful they will act to reduce risk but if they feel they don't have any control then they won't - but honestly it was a long time ago and I might be misremembering.

It just seems to me this might be an area where we need input from experts - and a potential problem with the open pubs and restaurants and schools but don't mix in homes message.

Hi all - If you are wondering how the big "correction" last night from the govt affected case numbers in your council, I have published the change in cases for affected dates owing to the correction on www.covidmessenger.com.

I have detailed the change up to 28th as that's the latest date for which we would expect the total number of cases to remain stable ie we would expect there to be very few additional cases reported for dates up to 28th Sept in last night's release. However, as you can see, there were a LOT of additional cases.

It's more challenging to assess for dates beyond 28th Sept (ie 29 Sept/30 Sept/1 Oct) as we would expect there to be a significant portion of cases not reported yet anyway. So we can't assess with certainty which were "late" owing to this issue, and which were late in the usual course of reporting. You could spend time estimating it but I am not sure it would add much.

The dates up to 28th give a good steer on the volume of cases missing.

Obviously the govt have indicated there will be more cases to come so this is a work in progress. I will update the table as updates are published.

Some people are certainly struggling to accept that there need to be some limitations, that it doesn't need to be all or nothing. Part of the difficulty I think is that population and individual risk assessments are generally performed in different ways; we have law and guidance based on population measures, but of course it won't suit those individuals who would prefer to prioritise leisure over work when they have to choose. Meanwhile economic implications can lead to what appear to be odd decisions like allowing travel abroad instead of more mixing at home. Social media and newspapers criticising strategies and actively repeating messages that things "don't make sense" create a vicious circle, where people repeat that to each other. Regardless of explanations that we can only take a certain number of risks so schools are being prioritised, as long as so much airtime is given to "it makes no sense that I can't see my mum", people will struggle to psychologically move past that, and are more likely to consider that if things don't make sense then everyone might as well make their own decisions.

I don't know what you'd search on to find such a paper @IloveJKRowling, but you can try searching from here as it links to quite a lot of research: psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Risk_assessment. It would be interesting to read if you find anything suitable.

Thanks @littleowl1, that's interesting, and a very even spread considering. I'm going to roll with my theory that it was a timing issue on the integration script given to the labs.

@littleowl1 that’s fascinating thank you!

It clearly shows it wasn’t just “student pop up testing” that was omitted. Knowsley has no student population and has a 20% increase in cases from the extra ones added.

It also shows the huge number of councils they’re spread over.

Has Knowsley had any mobile units, I know it has been a hotspot? Could they be the cause of the delayed cases?

There has always been an MTU per 2 boroughs in London, I don't know if the same is true for other LSOA.

littleowl1 thank you, that’s very helpful.

That was a question I had actually, when the daily numbers are reported, how far back do they normally go to?

You seem to be indicating 5 days (as you mention going back to 28th) from 3rd Oct reporting. And those before that are the “catch-up “?

Have I understood correctly?

If your biggest risk is completely out of your control.... maybe the psychological result is people just giving up. Is there any research on this? In a job long ago I ended up reading a bit about risks that people can control and those they can't and IIRC correctly it does result in different behaviours but can't remember any more about it.

I think this is it in a nutshell, it's so scary and stressful now (especially if you go out to work and mix with a lot of people every day) that your mental survival strategy becomes burying your head in the sand and pretending it isn't happening.

I also think though that focusing exclusively on cutting off human interaction is a very difficult strategy to sell people especially in the long term with no end in sight. I've lost count of the number of people who've said "I just can't do this anymore" and started breaking the rules in desperation.

This is very positive and separate source to the (messed up) government data...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=3nZfDpNozn0

@Arcadia but when did he do that, was if before last night's "extra cases" were "found"?