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
📈 📉 📊 👍

@Baaaahhhhh

What is even more indefensible, is that normal testing, ie: the thousands of every day testing of bloods, etc is not done that way. Each and every test is a single data file, which is transferred digitally and directly by a very clever system, which sends the data direct to your consultant, and your doctor automatically. No consolidation of data, no middle man.

Deloitte's have a lot to answer for. I suspect they were given the contract in a hurry (what's new), and as they are not specialists in NHS data handling, bunged something together with PHE which is not up to the job.

This is why my friend's father is hoping mad like the rest of us!

These systems exist.

@TheSunIsStillShining
BCF has probably posted a link to the actual paper published by these Oxford folks on one of the earlier threads...
It isn't liking me attaching any photos (of the interview article) to the post

Ooh then it worked but only 3 (of the 4) pages

Thanks for these threads.

The job description and spec was really interesting. I wondered whether it smacked of Cummings new approach to the civil service, but don't know as don't usually read similar job adverts? Can anyone comment.

@blodynmawr @GreyishDays Thanks! It is interesting and reassuring.

This should be publicized wider as it should slightly quell the anti-vaxxers theories of being rushed through, etc.

I think govs around the world should start thinking of putting pre-emptive comms in place so that the uptake of the vaccine will be optimal. And I don't mean propaganda, but start slowly building a factbase that they can refer back to in months to come.

Here’s a twitter thread comparing New York and Liverpool’s approach to school closure. Not sure about the provenance, I got it from Tim Harford’s feed, but it contains the terrifying assertion that Liverpool’s tests are 15% positive. I’m not sure where I’d check that?
mobile.twitter.com/Dr_D_Robertson/status/1312821471618662401

Can't comment on the job description, but the applied for a Civil Service job in April and expected it to be a slow process due to Covid, but they've only now completed the pre-employment checks and will apparently finish the review of the checks within 6 weeks.
Am at the Scottish figures coming out. A bit samey with positive % regularly around 12%. We have now had tighter restrictions for a couple of weeks, which could explain the stabilising of daily number of positives, but....

re: job spec

One thing poked me in the eye:
"• Compile evidence base, including area and population context, influencers, early signals, outbreak indicators, and direct Test and Trace result data;"

So, influencer early signals ... we used these terms when data mining social media for creating predictive algorithms. It sends alarm flares up in my mind. And it's buried as a casual point....

This is a generic job spec for many very-very different roles.
If I wasn't disgusted by the gov I'd apply to actually have potentially a say in this shitshow.

I am a lurker but find these threads a space of calm and clarity. You help me cope with my anxiety. So thank you

With Welsh and Scottish family I am at least pleased that both wales and scotland figures don't seem to be running away and also that the missing results cock up don't seem to have affected them

Apply TheSun you can change the shit show and spend your life banging your head against a brick wall

I'm not reassured by buzz words like 'machine learning' being used without any specificity about why you'd use machine learning. Also, given they've just lost 16k tests in the middle of a crisis point in this pandemic, machine learning probably shouldn't be their first priority but actually a functioning system to report cases in a timely fashion.

I also don't find this bit of the job ad very reassuring 'These roles are essential for supporting the ongoing design and build of the JBC and Test and Trace as it develops to Full Operating Capability.'

At this rate it's not going to be to full operating capability until well after the bloody pandemic is over.

It's so wide ranging - it's saying they want people who can do data management, machine learning but also that can essentially make public health decisions. Surely you want public health specialists for that bit? Why would the people managing the data be advising on how to manage infection flare ups ( one of the bullet points in job description)? Surely local public health teams are best placed to know what interventions will work at a local level?

Not reassuring at all.

@TheSunIsStillShining
the daily fail is now running the story too. She said that under 18s will not be getting it (I am comfortable with this given how mildly they get it and also that there have not been any large scale trials in children). Healthcare workers, older people and the vulnerable will be prioritised which we knew already. It does mean that healthy 18-50 year olds like me (and a lot of us) will be at the bottom of the list though. I would be surprised if there weren't quicker private options for those that fall into that category.

TheSun I wish you would apply but I can understand why you wouldn't - at this point who is going to want to take this on?

The excel spreadsheet news suggests the system as is has not been well built - and trying to rebuild / work around / salvage a rubbish system must be much harder than just building something decent from scratch (which should have happened about 7 months ago - what the hell have they been doing for the past 7 months, and why weren't they advertising these jobs then?)

I think I am probably now at the point of just not believing the government figures at all and looking to Zoe / ONS studies for the best information.

[quote MsWarrensProfession]Here’s a twitter thread comparing New York and Liverpool’s approach to school closure. Not sure about the provenance, I got it from Tim Harford’s feed, but it contains the terrifying assertion that Liverpool’s tests are 15% positive. I’m not sure where I’d check that?
mobile.twitter.com/Dr_D_Robertson/status/1312821471618662401[/quote]
Thank you for these threads I've lurked for a long time.
Liverpool currently has a positivity rate of 16%, it has been around that for at least the last week as reported by quite a few locals on here. Liverpool City Council have a daily report on their website
liverpool.gov.uk/communities-and-safety/emergency-planning/coronavirus/control-and-testing/cases-by-area/

I think less kids are in school in wales was it 80% vs 86% was it for England?
As they are not fining. They also have local lockdowns with no non essential travel.
I was working out that i think Wales has about 5% of englands population so Englands numbers yesterday when reallocated so was it 10k make sense proportionately to Wales. But may just be they are missing as many.
The imperial predictions show almost the whole uk rising in future and im not een sure that was from the updated figures
The IT issues really do not surprise me as the gov have had huge expensive balls up several times with IT.
Rapid changes /development of systems is not good here.
I worked in a top FTSE 100 company but our internal IT was shocking! Basically they didnt use trained people to test the systems. A lot was excel or Access. And the inputs had usually been manually adjusted so very frequently had human errors. We did also often run out of disk space.(also no procedure documents). The variety of release times for gov data suggests similar issues.
But they should have been sense checking.
Ive said my area went down 50% but really up 13%. Now the scientists didnt expect drops. Behaviour hasnt changed drastically and schools are still in so i would expect cases to rise (especially with all these missed contacts). But anyway as cases rise surely 1) we are getting delays getting test results back =impact on t&t 2) larger numbers =more for t&t to do so more contacts not contacted.
The ship has probably sailed on many of them.

They know full well they cannot keep a lid on this with schools in. (With the school measures we have)
Hearing that you and children wont be likely vaxxed at all isnt going to help behaviour. But that is likely what the plan is for kids and their parents -infection. Really they could have been more honest. All the stuff about closing schools if rates too high hasnt happened. (Lies)

Check in

10 hospital deaths in england which is on the low side. Zero in Wales and Scotland.

Article in RTL about reseach into transmission through surfaces.
“There is no significant risk of catching the disease when you go shopping. Severe outbreaks of the infection were always a result of people being closer together over a longer period of time, for example the après- ski parties in Ischgl, Austria.” He could also not find any evidence of ‘living’ viruses on surfaces. “When we took samples from door handles, phones or toilets it has not been possible to cultivate the virus in the laboratory on the basis of these swabs….”

I'm just wondering, if there are roughly 10k positive tests a day at present, what do you think the actual numbers per day might be estimated to be?

@Frazzled2207 even accounting for delay in reporting Sun-Mon that seems low....

Yes I wondered about "influencers" being mentioned in the job description.

A bot of a side tangent but this thread - I cant work out how to link it - "Am I right in thinking that most boarding schools are only testing symptomatic pupils, not doing whole-population testing?" Is interesting me.

It looks like when a school is testing whole groups there are lots of asymptomatic cases.

It seems the case with the university students too?

Are there really an awful lot more cases than we think? Are schools and unis spreading it like wildfire? Or are tests picking up colds or something different?

Just really curious as it affects figures in a fairly big way. Does it make our half hearted testing even more meaningless?

Well there's certainly going to be a lot more people who have it (with or without symptoms) than are getting tested. I think there are estimates of how many more, but I don't know where to find them. Someone else here will!

@PineappleUpsideDownCake
the test is specific to sars-covid-19. It will not pick up other corona(or other) viruses.

forgot the link: fullfact.org/online/PCR-test-coronavirus/