Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 22

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 22 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
School statistics Attendance
Modelling real number of UK infections February to date
NHS England Hospital activity
NHs England Daily deaths
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
📈 📉 📊 👍

@alreadytaken

found a local newspaper saying Exeter is caused by students and the university is doing some of its own testing. www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/covid-warning-following-another-large-4578314

The paper is claiming it hasnt spread to the community yet but cant see that lasting.

More universities should be copying Cambridge.

Exeter is my closest city. It's such a small city - you can walk across it in half an hour, I can't see how it will be contained within the university, especially as the university has more than one site / campus (one of which is literally a five minute walk into the centre of town)

The local MP is also furious that the University has apparentley been stopped from doing its own 24 hr tests and told to use the national testing scheme.
www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/exeter-university-coronavirus-covid-19-4582051
www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/ben-bradshaw-blasts-government-over-4581871

(FT paywall) NHS labs hit by shortage of vital kit and chemicals for Covid tests

https://www.ft.com/content/aa48893b-9c90-4701-b317-67bda727bbda

NHS labs across the country that process Covid-19 tests have been hit by shortages of vital chemicals and kit used to test for a range of diseases
following a problem at one of Europe’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.

The Swiss pharma giant Roche

• one of the biggest suppliers of the machines, chemicals and equipment used to process Covid-19 tests by NHS labs across the UK - wrote to labs on Monday alerting them to the disruption.

It blamed an issue at a new “automated warehouse” which had caused “a very significant drop in our processing capacity”.

The Roche letters have already sent shockwaves through the NHS. Clinicians fear the situation will exacerbate existing shortages in supplies of diagnostics equipment, both for coronavirus and other diseases.

Allan Wilson, president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, said Roche had been “unable to fulfil a broad range of orders across the testing range”, 

including Covid-19 diagnostics as well as those needed to determine courses of treatment for cancer patients.

“The slightly scary thing is we don't have an end date to it yet,” he added.

“If this isn’t fixed within days there would be an impact on our ability to do not just Covid testing but a broad range of lab testing.”

Just what we need. Great news. again.
I'm feeling like it might not have been the best idea to open one of the 59 mummies they found recently... ?

"A UK government decision on plans to introduce Covid-19 testing for international arrivals to cut quarantine times will not come until next month at the earliest, with Downing Street instead setting up a global travel taskforce to look at proposals," ( Guardian)

Not like they had 9 months to look at proposals. ...
I genuinely wonder wtaf these people were doing instead of governing the country? Playing gof with their head up their ass?

Just to point out that we should be stockpiling medical supplies right about now...

... Never mind just trying to meet current demand with a just in time supply chain.

Another depressing issue, the amount loss to fraud with the bounce back loans, plus potential defaults. Although guy on R4 just stopped being able to talk for some reason so story stopped half way through.

On the plus side

R4 Professor Semple talking about - primary school children not amplifying cases. That does sound better than the opposite. Secondary a balance of risks.

@TheSunIsStillShining - travel testing was waiting to garger evidence (I.e. Real life outcomes from Germany and Italy). The UK doesn't need to be first in the queue making every mistake

@MarshaBradyo - I've supplied analysis of the school figures multiple times, posted many reports, nobody who has decided to panic about schools is interested because 1% of primary schools looks like a big enough number to ignore logic. The sad thing is that it diverts focus from mitigation needed for the 14+ cohort and mixing of staff.

MRex I know it’s a tough crowd out there for information. As always, so relieved for this thread.

Just popping my head over the parapet to agree.
Thanks for building this haven of common sense you lot!

BBC Radio 4 More or Less on the lost data at 9:00 am
Tim Harford's trail "Well we like fun between the spreadsheets as much as anything but..."

@Mrex I take your point about the Covid parties but no sign of the virus changing in the way you suggest and in a flat with several people the students may have already been exposed to strains from more than one part of the country - that horse has bolted.

There’s a special on north west tonight on why cases are so bad in the NW. hopefully will be fact driven

@alreadytaken - it's a risk; there has not been time for this to occur plus genome testing yet. I agree the mutation is not a very high probability, but the potential impact on students of getting two simultaneous strains is sadly much higher probability. The risk of two viral strains in one flat of 8 is nothing like the risk of 5 viral strains in a party of 140.

I'd be interested to know what Prof Semple said about 'balance of risks' and also I wonder whether these profs know what the inside of secondary schools do actually look like. I think they have sometimes fallen for the DfE/ gov/ Harries line about the mitigations in secondaries and the fact that older children socially distance. they really don't. And very few schools I know of are making any attempt to encourage it at all.

I am very worried about silent spread in secondaries. We now ahve hardly any students seeking tests. They lie low for a few days (sometimes as much as a week) and then reappear. There seems to be some sort of stigma attached to testing amongst both families and teachers. Maybe it's a British thing about 'not making a fuss'. But it also arises form recent government messaging about not 'wasting' tests. Again, another potentially British attitude.

DH's (private) school had a case announced in year 8 yesterday. They have always seemed organised. Apparently it was chaotic because all the contacts were on site. (And staff were being asked to 'decide for themselves' if they needed to isolate!)

There is also definitely a lack of reporting of school closures in at least our local news which does feel like suppression of bad news.

And don't get me start on teachers' failure to SD!!

One more thought. If 10-20% of people are responsible for 80% of spread over the course of say a week, then in any gathering of 100 infected pepple you expect 5 to be in a superspreader state. That's a lot of extra viral load for people whose systems are still fighting off a virus.

Piggy in his view secondary should be in class, as downsides are great if they are not. He said it’s about balancing harm and we know about teenage suicide and lack of educational opportunity. It’s about amplifying cases in community and if this is lower for children than adults and dc are at lower risk, then effort should be made to keep them in education at school. Via improved testing.

He talked about North South divide. Local authorities more power to decide.

He was very good on at 8.14 if you have BBC Sounds

He is looking at data so I don’t think it matters so much about inside the classroom, he won’t be speculating on what should happen given SD but what is happening.

He is basing it on the extent to which cases are amplified by the various age groups being in schools.

@Piggywaspushed

I'd be interested to know what Prof Semple said about 'balance of risks' and also I wonder whether these profs know what the inside of secondary schools do actually look like. I think they have sometimes fallen for the DfE/ gov/ Harries line about the mitigations in secondaries and the fact that older children socially distance. they really don't. And very few schools I know of are making any attempt to encourage it at all.

I am very worried about silent spread in secondaries. We now ahve hardly any students seeking tests. They lie low for a few days (sometimes as much as a week) and then reappear. There seems to be some sort of stigma attached to testing amongst both families and teachers. Maybe it's a British thing about 'not making a fuss'. But it also arises form recent government messaging about not 'wasting' tests. Again, another potentially British attitude.

DH's (private) school had a case announced in year 8 yesterday. They have always seemed organised. Apparently it was chaotic because all the contacts were on site. (And staff were being asked to 'decide for themselves' if they needed to isolate!)

There is also definitely a lack of reporting of school closures in at least our local news which does feel like suppression of bad news.

@Piggywaspushed

I think another factor at play stopping people getting tests is that the whole household has to self isolate while waiting for results. I'm self employed so if I can't work I don't get paid.
Unless I have reason to believe one of my sons really does have covid, I can't stay at home for several days just because he has a cough. Happy to keep him at home until he's better though.

There is financial help of a kind now available for people who genuinely have to self isolate because they have the virus but nothing available for those doing the responsible thing and self isolating while waiting (several days in many cases) for a test result.

Top German scientists:

1. Herd immunity not possible bc immunity too short.
2. Not feasible to go 'shield vulnerable' approach bc impossible to fully identify & isolate them.
3. Potential serious, long-term damage to young/healthy also from this virus.

www.mpg.de/15426163/stellungnahme-ausseruniversitaere-forschungsorganisationen-covid-19-epidemie

Another science one, if someone is interested how remdesivir works
(in highly understandable language)

scopeblog.stanford.edu/2020/06/29/how-remdesivir-works-and-why-its-not-the-ultimate-coronavirus-killer/

I'd be interested to know what Prof Semple said about 'balance of risks' and also I wonder whether these profs know what the inside of secondary schools do actually look like. I think they have sometimes fallen for the DfE/ gov/ Harries line about the mitigations in secondaries and the fact that older children socially distance. they really don't. And very few schools I know of are making any attempt to encourage it at all.

Not helped by all the fake photos from the BBC of socially distanced classrooms.

The fact is there is no testing being done in UK schools to see how many asymptomatic cases there are so we don't KNOW if children are amplifying it or not. They're using data which doesn't apply in the UK situation and not bothering to gather any that would. I see no credible body of evidence to support the idea that - if we tested - we wouldn't see the same picture in schools as in Universities. The difference is they're testing, schools are not.

I would LOVE to believe that primary schools - despite being the exact environment described as perfect for sars-cov2 spread - to somehow not be amplifying and for my kids to be unlikely to catch it asymptomatically and spread it to me. But the data there is is really in completely different situations than we have in schools here. To the point that comparing is really unhelpful.

For situations more similar to UK schools we have Israel and the summer camp in the US. Both of which showed children (in the case of the summer camp, including primary aged children) did spread it outside of those settings.

Not helped by all the fake photos from the BBC of socially distanced classrooms.

It’s really nothing to do with appearances.

Listen to R4 8.14am and maybe look more into Professor Semple’s approach. I’m sure it’s robust but if it’s not it’s best not to guess, but review.