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
📈 📉 📊 👍

@whatsnext2

I saw Denmark has managed to get R to 0.8 and keep schools open - does anyone know what strategies they use?

They have far fewer students in a class and so were better able to keep sd measures for one thing.

@Hmmph

Thank you. Is this the study? www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2020/september/commins-study.html

Am I right in thinking they not reporting anything until July 2021?

Bristol is also preparing to do a study on primary school students, testing a cohort regularly and then testing the household of any positive cases

Semple is not interested in how often parents go in to settle a small child

It is all about the results of what parents and schools do, as seen in deaths and hospitalisations

Children - except ECV and maybe even fgor them - are at tiny risk of Covid, in their age group indeed a lower IFR than flu

Public health experts have nearly all decided that the balance of risk to parents & others vs benefit to children has so far been decided in favour of keeping schools open ft, at least in European countries

Just as I supported the experts on having the 1st full lockdown and support ongoing SD restrictions,
I support their opinion on ft schools

More generally - I think this is one of the dangers of mostly men with little to no experience of the nitty gritty of child rearing pontificating upon and making policy decisions in this situation. 'Twas ever thus, though.

The people making decisions seem to also be very disconnected from the reality of teaching in schools (the idea that teachers can stay 2m away from students at all times is clearly fantasy). I'd suggest that anyone making policy in this area should be mandated one day in primary and one day in secondary shadowing a teacher (they can help out at the same time, wiping down tables etc), and wearing the same level of PPE as the teacher (i.e. none). I think we'd get much better policy if they did.

RE: schools (still)

In the UK -afaik- the options are school/deregister.
In some countries there is an option to have a personalized study plan. This means that kids and parents are responsible for the learning, but the school organizes every end of term (of half year) a test (both oral and written) and gives a grade in each subject.
This could be a fair interim solution. (Although the problem is that in this country this is a totally foreign concept, so would come with huge pushback probably.)

It is all about the results of what parents and schools do, as seen in deaths and hospitalisations

We don't have any data on this yet as schools were closed at the peak last time, and anyway no data was collected on the 40/50s deaths about how they caught it the first time around and whether it was from their asymptomatic children. The studies I've seen have only been during lockdown when children were not in school.

Would love to see some data on this from when schools were open. I don't think there is any though, but happy to be proven wrong.

@BigChocFrenzy

Semple is not interested in how often parents go in to settle a small child

It is all about the results of what parents and schools do, as seen in deaths and hospitalisations

Children - except ECV and maybe even fgor them - are at tiny risk of Covid, in their age group indeed a lower IFR than flu

Public health experts have nearly all decided that the balance of risk to parents & others vs benefit to children has so far been decided in favour of keeping schools open ft, at least in European countries

The risks are very different in UK schools than many other European countries though.

Anecdotally I know of a few mid 40s women who have long Covid who are certain they caught it from their children (two of whom WFH so it's likely).

The impact on their lives and their children's lives is huge.

@IloveJKRowling

More generally - I think this is one of the dangers of mostly men with little to no experience of the nitty gritty of child rearing pontificating upon and making policy decisions in this situation. 'Twas ever thus, though.

The people making decisions seem to also be very disconnected from the reality of teaching in schools (the idea that teachers can stay 2m away from students at all times is clearly fantasy). I'd suggest that anyone making policy in this area should be mandated one day in primary and one day in secondary shadowing a teacher (they can help out at the same time, wiping down tables etc), and wearing the same level of PPE as the teacher (i.e. none). I think we'd get much better policy if they did.

... I repeat they do not NEED to know the nitty gritty of childcare

Only the epidemiological statistics of the results over months and many countries
and the known shot and longterm educational damage to most non-ECV children of missing ft school for long periods

We cannot let fears of those with no epidemiological expertise overwrite the scientific consensus

• which is mostly split at the moment between continuing as we are vs removing most SD measures

There are very few experts advocating pt schools

More or Less were saying this morning that Long Covid seems to be affecting 1-2% of those who get Covid ( still experiencing health problems after 3 months). That is based on symptom reports so doesn't include "silent" issues like possible damage to heart muscle.

@IloveJKRowling

More generally - I think this is one of the dangers of mostly men with little to no experience of the nitty gritty of child rearing pontificating upon and making policy decisions in this situation. 'Twas ever thus, though.

The people making decisions seem to also be very disconnected from the reality of teaching in schools (the idea that teachers can stay 2m away from students at all times is clearly fantasy). I'd suggest that anyone making policy in this area should be mandated one day in primary and one day in secondary shadowing a teacher (they can help out at the same time, wiping down tables etc), and wearing the same level of PPE as the teacher (i.e. none). I think we'd get much better policy if they did.

These are two disconnected areas and the linking of them doesn’t make sense.

Scientists, male or female, are using data.

Of all the threads to pose this as an issue! Honestly it’s not because they don’t know about childcare.

The evidence is from current deaths - none of them children - and ICU, which are overwhelmingly of the elderly

Uk schools are not a totally different animal from all others in Europe

ECV children, staff and those with ECV household members should be allowed to stay home
They and the nervous well should not be allowed to dictate the schooling & job consequences of the other 97%

Look at the statistics of recent deaths and ICU admissions wrt age
Listen to the consensus of experts; don't just cherry-pick the minority joining in your anxiety
any more than people cherry-pick the ones who want to abandon nearly all SD measures

I would be happy personally with FT school with masks and / or social distancing. Most of the local schools I know well could do this with use of community spaces (church halls, village halls which have been offered).

I don't think it's reasonable to wait for robust results on DEATHS of teachers and parents before trying to take the measures taken everywhere else and proven to reduce transmission.

It's not going to help bereaved children or children with disabled parents saying after the fact 'well we have some data on this now'. But actually, I don't think they're even trying to collect the data. Quite the opposite, people interviewed are always talking about socially distanced schools in other countries, not the data from this country.

For example, why don't they talk about of those aged in their 50s who died or who have long covid, how many had school aged children in school during March? How many had primary vs secondary aged children. Is anyone looking at this, if not, why not as presumably it would be quite possible? All the long covid sufferers I know would love to take part in this study.

I thought there was data saying a lot of 20-40 year old women now being admitted?

I.e. exactly the demographic likely to be spending a significant chunk of time with little children.

Ilove my DCs school is locked down during the day.

There are strict security measures in place to ensure that only those that should be are on site.

If I want entry I need to go through reception who have to release a door to allow me into the next bit of reception.

To put it simply, I am not prepared for my children to be taught elsewhere in an environment that is not as secure as the school.

It may not be Covid Secure but its keeping my child safe, and for them, the dangers outside are riskier than the virus.

For whose benefit do you want to impose pt schools ?

Not for the non-ECV children, who statistically are at such tiny risk that flu is more damgerous to them

If it is for parents or staff:

The statistics show that risk of death if you catch COVID about doubles your normal risk of dying within the year,
much less if you are under 40, a bit more - not a lot - if you are aged 50+

Set that vs the educational benefit to most children and their future careers,
plus the benefit of their parents being able to continue earning and pay bills, not get into lomngterm debt and poverty.

I'm not suggesting all schools use community space, but that those who want to and for whom it is possible do, so those kids can SD and reduce transmission. Like in Italy.

Obviously schools that need to be in lockdown as a regular measure have a different risk assessment than other schools.

A couple of weeks ago on previous thread there was talk of the weekly testing of care staff. I said the care home where I work (I'm retired but help out at a friend's care home when needed) hadn't had tests since on in late May or early June. Just thought I'd update and say we have had our first supply of weekly tests, now we just need to organise a day to get everyone in when we can book a collection and we are good to go.

Considering Matt Hancock has been saying for weeks that these tests are happening weekly I thought someone might be interested.

I don't know who you're talking to Bigchoc? I said I'm in favour of FT school with additional mitigation, like my DD's school did (with extra money) in June/ July. For 4 weeks, when no children got sick of any communicable disease for the entire 4 weeks at all.

FT = full time

Bubbles are bursting in local schools and I'm in an area with low rates. I wish teachers could wear some PPE, two of my kids are teachers and have been told in no circumstances can they wear masks in class. One is teaching in temporary classrooms due to building work and handwashing facilities are limited.

@BigChocFrenzy

The evidence is from current deaths - none of them children - and ICU, which are overwhelmingly of the elderly

Uk schools are not a totally different animal from all others in Europe

ECV children, staff and those with ECV household members should be allowed to stay home
They and the nervous well should not be allowed to dictate the schooling & job consequences of the other 97%

Look at the statistics of recent deaths and ICU admissions wrt age
Listen to the consensus of experts; don't just cherry-pick the minority joining in your anxiety
any more than people cherry-pick the ones who want to abandon nearly all SD measures

I do think UK schools are different to many other European countries. It would be interesting to have a study on how much additional money had been spent on improving Covid security in schools across different nations Class sizes in UK are very different to many other European countries. Other nations are being more rigorous on mask wearing rules and the way students travel to and from school. Italy has spent extra money on additional classroom spaces and teachers so that student can be taught in smaller groups (and Italian class sizes are smaller than UK to start with).

ilove when I say lockdown that was just a term. There are no additional security measures simples compared to other schools.

But this seems to not be mentioned when people mention community spaces / church halls etc.