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
📈 📉 📊 👍

If it's purely about not wanting children to stand out, I think we should stop handwashing. There are several children in my DD's class who can't do that due to severe eczema.

Their is less scientific evidence that it's beneficial anyway, compared to masks.

There. Sorry for spelling mistake

twitter.com/DrZoeHyde/status/1311253906098237446

Transmission on an airplane.

(1/4) Study of #SARSCoV2 transmission on a 5-hour flight from Sydney to Perth. There were 11 people considered infectious on board. Eight probable & 3 possible secondary cases resulted from the flight. 27% sat more than 2 rows away, & 64% had window seats.

(2/4) Two of the secondary cases who sat in window seats never left their seat during the flight. This, and the fact that 27% of secondary cases sat more than 2 rows away from index cases suggests aerosol transmission may have occurred.

(3/4) Index cases didn’t seem equally infectious, and transmission was only detected in the mid cabin. No secondary cases were detected in passengers sitting in the aft cabin, despite infectious passengers being in this area. This raises the possibility of a superspreading event.

(4/4) Almost all index cases had recently arrived in Sydney from cruise ships, and there had been very few #COVID19 cases in Australia at the time of the flight. Probable in-flight transmission was established by sequencing.

640 new cases in Scotland. 7 deaths which is the highest daily number since June .

...

@TheMShip - how can they rule out passengers being infected by being near each other before take-off and waiting for luggage? Equally if it's affecting certain seat types, who checked the aircon to rule it out from causing spread in one area?

@Mrex - they deal with the possibility of pre flight infection via airport interactions in the full report ( basically they can’t rule it out But the way the infections clustered make them think more likely it was in flight transmission). They also mention the aircon ( it was functioning but they themselves note that simulations of aircon spread in aircraft may not be accurate).

It’s quite an interesting read - albeit not very conclusive other than to say as ever assumptions re covid spread on aeroplanes should be treated with caution!

Report published 30th September 2020

Cases data from week 21st-27th September 2020
Data extracted covering testing up to 27 September 2020 show that the total number of confirmed cases for the last 7 days is 1287, an increase of 301 cases on the previous week. The latest weekly rate of COVID-19 in Liverpool is 258.4 per 100,000 population and the latest positivity testing rate* is 16.1%.

Still going up. But the pace of increase does seem to be slowing.

There's at least one other example of transmission on an aircraft but that was pre mask wearing, this probably was too.

I havent flown anywhere but a friend who did said the biggest risk, he felt, was in a packed foreign airport with people from many countries. He didnt seem to pick up the virus.

Why it may not be a good idea to obsess over this thread news.psu.edu/story/633375/2020/09/29/research/social-media-use-linked-depression-secondary-trauma-during-covid-19

@alreadytaken - yes they noted in the study this was prior to the implementation of many precautions and that mask wearing on the aeroplane was minimal

@littlestpogo - I rather felt that they glossed over both topics. I'd be most inclined to say the aircon needs to be specifically checked. Upgrades were carried out quickly and some may have messed up with a portion of air still cycling round / missing filter etc, it's not good enough to say "simulations show it's fine". Simulations show engines are fine, they still need maintenance and occasionally one has errors.

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@MRex - that’s funny I read it slightly differently in that they weren’t taking that has a given. It was a slightly odd article on that it didn’t really draw many conclusions at all and seemed to work on a lot of assumptions. Slightly frustrating in that it made me say yes but why ..

388 new cases in Wales, still holding steady-ish BUT apparently 2,000 test results (presumably a mix of positive and negative) are not able to be added today and the results of those tests will be added to the dashboard in the coming days.
Worryingly if you look at the dashboard to see how many tests took place yesterday it says 816,000. That can't be right as their cumulative test numbers are only slightly higher. Someone's put an extra digit in.

PS NW watchers - MEN has good live feed of today's Manchester/Liverpool press conference with AB and Steve Rotheram with some figures to chew on www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/live-mayor-andy-burnham-holds-19023674

MRex thanks for your reply to my question. That does make sense, but it shows how confusing all this can be to your average Jo!

43 hospital deaths in england today :-(.
Was still just single figures at the beginning of September.

@littlestpogo look at the infections here: wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/12/20-3910-f4. Most of the secondary infections are in line with an air flow system running up/down on the top set of seats of the mid cabin, other cases are all sitting near to an infectious person who happens to be near the window.

Sorry, I do try to follow these threads, but follow a link and get list down the rabbit holes 🤣

Can anyone tell me what the rate of incorrect tests is currently? How certain can we be that the test results are current? (If symptoms are present).

Thanks.

From Tim Spector’s twitter:

Yes - not a glitch - our CSS swab survey is a few days ahead of other data and many areas are slightly down - and nationally rates have stopped rising - so may be good news.

The CSS survey run by Zoe is based on the actual swab data rather than on symptoms reported by app users so it sounds like potentially good news.

@IloveJKRowling

What about a child who doesn't want to be bullied for being the only mask wearer but is scared their ECV parent could die if they catch coronavirus? Is that fair?

The teachers, fair enough, they're adults, but I think it's unreasonable to expect children to decide to stand out. If masks aren't actively promoted by the school, children won't wear them even when they want to and are scared by not doing so. Unless they're an exceptionally confident and self assured child.

.... In most circumstances, not just wrt Covid, I would prioritise the felings of the child who cannot wear a mask (ohysical / autism / PTSD ....) over the one who can choose between a mask or being with the "in crowd",

... because the child with medical reasons cannot choose and likely will have these reasons for a lifetime
as distinct from being a few months blip for the child who has a choice.

Clearly, the epidemic may worsen to a stage where no child's feelings matter and masks become mandatory for children in class, wirth strict exceptions.
However, we are far from that stage being acceptable to most parents atm - and it would require the acquiescence of the great majority of parents for mask wearing to actually happen.

Handwashing brings some benefits in preventing infection - of all diseases that might cause absence atm - especially for children, due to poorer hygeine, more face touching, more touching of other people etc

It is worth doing, even though fomite transmission may only be 10-20% of cases - especially as it may be a higher % for children

I think with masks we need to stop talking about schools and refer to age groups instead. Risks are proven to increase with age, while the issues caused for learning and compliance reduce with age. So e.g. age 14+ and their teachers wear masks and under 14 don't. I don't know where the correct age cut-off is, but 16+ at least I don't see why they aren't in masks and I think the issues far outweigh risks for 5yo to wear them.

Scotland's test positivity rate 10.27%
7-day rolling average 9.52%
Tests down

(graph from UK COVID-19 @UKCovid19Stats)

@BigChocFrenzy
is that black line a sign that there was massive demand for tests when schools went back and demand has since decreased? Good news I suppose if so and we would see a similar pattern in england albeit later. Or does it mean tests have become more scarce?
Even if number of positives is increasing if there is less overall demand for tests then surely that is good?