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
📈 📉 📊 👍

[quote anoxfordtutor]Sorry to derail such an interesting and wide-randing thread but just to reply to @IloveJKRowling I think Oxford should be giving international students at least the option to defer a year or do a year online. All Oxford students can apply for dispensation from residence requirements and can have remote teaching if that is possible for the course. I have a number of students doing precisely this. Not sure whehter you have a connection to someone who wants to do so but the details are here if you do www.ox.ac.uk/students/life/residency[/quote]
Are they still paying full overseas fees for the duration?

I don't get involved in the financial side but I think so. They have exactly the same teaching,.

Oxford university freshers are arriving this week and next (I checked mumsnet higher education thread).

111 Audit

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/nurses-barred-from-nhs-111-covid-clinical-service-after-60-of-calls-unsafe

The NHS 111 service has permanently stopped nurses and other healthcare professionals handling clinical calls with people suspected of having Covid-19 after an audit of recorded calls found more than 60% were not safe.
...
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group says hundreds of its members’ relatives called 111, as instructed, when they were critically ill, but were given inadequate advice,
with some being told to stay at home and take paracetamol and then dying shortly afterwards.
....
NHS England and the SCAS both told the Guardian in statements that call handlers for the CRS were “carefully selected, screened and trained”.
However, the Guardian has interviewed three people who worked for 111 at different sites across England and say they were given the job after a relatively brief conversation with a recruitment agent and negligible training.

The Mayor (Indep) rejects new govt restrictions on Middlesborough

• although I don't know what power he has to do anything, other than venting.

However, his statement will likely influence some residents not to be compliant:

Andy Preston Mayorr@Tees*_Issues

Govt Restrictions Are Unacceptable

We tried to communicate with govt but they didn’t listen

They’re imposing restrictions that’ll kill viable jobs & damage mental health

I do not accept the government’s intended restrictions - they’re based on ignorance

@BigChocFrenzy that does not surprise me

Anecdotal but my friend rang 111 last week (she didn't know u could book tests online....) as she has a continuous cough and was told she didn't need a test as my friend wasn't sure if her cough was a "dry" cough and according to call handler that meant she wasn't eligible 🤨🤨🤨🤨

She's now booking a test online (she only told me yesterday when I then sent her the link and there was none available last I heard)

I am usually a big supporter of 111 having only had good experiences with them but something strange going on with their Covid advise even now

The NE are saying the restrictions are too much, the Liverpool region are saying they aren’t enough!

Statement here signed by the council leaders and MPs twitter.com/metromayorsteve/status/1311626996288544768?s=21

Weekly statistics for NHS Test and Trace (England) and coronavirus testing (UK): 17 September to 23 September

Improved, but still nowhere near meeting 24 hour target for most tests, or indeed for any type of Pillar 2 test

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/923206/test-and-trace-week-17.pdf

In the most recent week,
for in-person tests (local test sites, mobile testing units and regional test sites), 38.1% were received within 24 hours
compared to 28.2% in the previous week.

19.0% of test results were received within 48 hours for home test kits and satellite test centres, compared to 7.3% in the previous week.

For all routes combined, 16.9% of tests from all test sites were received within 24 hours of a test being taken compared to 10.3% in the previous week.

Tees Valley is now split with two (Middlesbrough and Hartlepool) out of five areas under restriction @BigChocFrenzy

[quote GetAMoveOnTroodon]The NE are saying the restrictions are too much, the Liverpool region are saying they aren’t enough!

Statement here signed by the council leaders and MPs twitter.com/metromayorsteve/status/1311626996288544768?s=21[/quote]
....
Suggests a lack of consultation with local government leaders who know their patch
or at least, if Whitty & SAGE are recommending a particular course, then insufficient discussion to get the local elected authorities on board

Thursday UK

6,914 new cases
59 deaths

When the local authority belong to a different political party, there may be too much temptation to disagree for the sake of it. If the rules are different everywhere, then that's considered too confusing. If they're standardised then it's draconian to one and lightweight to another. There's always a target.
Andy Preston in Middlesbrough has already been kicked for being an arse (well done Kier, nice to see some sense being displayed) so he retracted and said they'll go along with it, but it's too late because it's all over the media and staying there. Idiot. If cases and then deaths continue to rise in Middlesbrough though, you can be sure he'll take no accountability.

Using specimen date, we are far enough past to say 24th Sept looks like a mini peak. Tiny drop since then.
This week and the next 3 weeks by specimen date we will have the uni students peak to come that I expect to take us a little higher than 24th figures but hopefully holding steady at the 7000, and hopefully none of them will become too unwell because they're young. It's not looking good by any means, but I'm not as nervous as a week ago. Still excited to see the sewage report when it ever comes.
How do others think the numbers look?

(Forgot to say, I'm presuming 24th was the holiday peak ending.)

imo, it's because there is so much centralisation, diictats from Westminster and not a healthy relationship between national and regional / local government

So in a crisis, they are tending to clash, especially when central government does not inspire confidence

We're not seeing party politics in Germany over this
(regional willy-wagging sometimes another thing !)

I think it's because the 16 German states are devolved with genuine autonomy:
their own Parliament etc, with responsibility and budget for public health, health srvices, environment, education etc

Merkel can make general public health rules for the whole country - but only if she discusses them first with the 16 leaders and gets unanimous consent

Responsibility and power are clear
The 401 administrative districts within the 16 states also have quite a bit of autonomy to interpret the state and national rules

So, by the time rules are applied at the most local level, there have been 3 levels of discussion and 2-3 parties involved

For most European countries, including the UK, I'm expecting to see from now until spring:

a series of rises, levelling off, further rises until eventually the winter peak is reached - late January / early Feb ? -
then gradually falling and falling more quickly from March, with low levels by end May again.

I agree that it looks like we might be getting the end of summer outbreak under control, at least in the south of England. South West, South East, East of England and London all look in a reasonable shape. Numbers of patients in hospital and mechanical ventilation are all flattening up. Sadiq Khan will probably continue moaning about London but I have always thought he is too removed from the actual detail and could benefit from spending a bit of time on this (or other similar) forums.

North of England is still problematic. The numbers do look slightly better but it is too early to say whether it is a sustainable positive trend. Hospital admissions in North East really spiked today.

Northern Ireland does not look good. The numbers are still low (relatively speaking) but they are not moving in the right direction.

I feel the same MRex, especially as testing is up 23,000. Not totally reassuring but makes me feel a bit calmer.

Oh and re Germany, of course a national CDU / SPD (moderate conservative and social democrat) coalition also helps remove most party politics from an emergency

That's not feasible in the Uk system, but a temporary cross-party setup to run just this crisis, decide measures, including public health appointments and contacts,
would have brought in more povs and imo more acceptance and compliance

However, too late now
Other parties won't want to carry the can for previous decisions

Can someone tell me why the Gov (Scottish Government) does not publish data on the number of people who have been admitted to hospital with respiratory distress caused by Covid as part of the daily update? I

I had always thought the 'number of people in hospital with Covid' meant this but have recently found out that the figure could include people who are in hospital for up to 14 days before testing positive (i.e. in hospital for other things including prior conditions) and also includes people in long-stay hospitals, mental health hospitals etc (i.e. their home in many cases).

I think this would be a much better figure to base policy decisions on as it would indicate how many of the cases progress to needing NHS intervention / severity of the disease.

I am not a conspiracy theorist normally but am beginning to think the lack of such data is because it doesn't support the current narrative thread.

@MRex

Using specimen date, we are far enough past to say 24th Sept looks like a mini peak. Tiny drop since then. This week and the next 3 weeks by specimen date we will have the uni students peak to come that I expect to take us a little higher than 24th figures but hopefully holding steady at the 7000, and hopefully none of them will become too unwell because they're young. It's not looking good by any means, but I'm not as nervous as a week ago. Still excited to see the sewage report when it ever comes. How do others think the numbers look?

... There have only been a very few deaths of healthy young students in the USA, where there are far more cases and students

re Scotland and indeed Wales:

even with devolution of power for public health, it is important to keep the same reporting metrics for cases, hospitalisations, deaths etc for the 4 nations
and of course any other local authorities or private organisations reporting

@wintertravel1980 On NI a lot of the cases are in the Strabane and Derry council areas which are very intertwined with Donegal both socially and economically (which ROI has put into enhanced measures) and the Executive have just announced even stricter regulations for these council areas from next week (takeaway, delivery and outdoor dining only) so hopefully they’ll start to get a grip on this soon. I’m amazed that numbers have continued to increase despite the rules already in place

[quote CoffeeandCroissant]Expert reaction to preprint with the latest interim data from the REACT-1 study on COVID-19 spread across England:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-preprint-with-the-latest-interim-data-from-the-react-1-study-on-covid-19-spread-across-england/[/quote]
Matt Keeling's comment on there is concise and clear:

“I have huge admiration for the REACT study, it’s been massively influential in the past months for giving early indications of the scale of COVID infection in the UK.

“The statistical approach taken by the REACT team is first-rate, and I would therefore trust the numbers.

“The key issue is the messaging and the head-lines around R dropping to 1.1. The value of R=1.1, is based on just 9 time points in round 5, and has large confidence intervals (0.74-1.45). I would be much more inclined to look at the change including both rounds 4 and 5, which captures the large rise in cases over recent weeks and leads to R=1.47 (confidence interval 1.40-1.53) — which is much more in keeping with recent estimates from SPI-M.”

The RKI in Germany has added NI and Wales to its high risk areas,
requiring mandatory airport tests and quarantine

England & Scotland not yet, but probably soon

https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/NeuartigesCoronavirus/Risikogebietee_neu.html