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
📈 📉 📊 👍

@BigChocFrenzy

I do listen to the consensus of experts. I listen to Indie Sage. They are in accord with my thinking on this.

I can't dictate anything, but I can have a very well informed opinion on what would be reasonable to limit spread of a highly infectious disease. I do think there should be an intelligent differentiation of risk, but I also think there should be more measures on school for everyone. And that would help to keep schools open, for everyone.

This really isn't anxiety. More like a kind of righteous, clinically motivated annoyance.

I am very good at picking up trends in clinical data, because I have done this for decades. And I am very unhappy as a clinician about the way this is being managed. The infection control side of things in schools is terrible from a health and safety point of view.

UK schools are different from the continent, because we have so few containment measures.

I would be happy to post the guidance from Indie Sage, but it isn't data based so don't want to further derail a data thread.

Deaths in English hospitals over the last week or so, by age - almost all elderly, a v few middle-aged, none young:

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/10/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-6-October-2020.xlsx

@IloveJKRowling

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.

... Experts are not currently in favour of masks in class either for same reasons

This may change if deaths rise a lot more

With the deaths, though, it ain't where we are, it's where we're going to, 1 and 2 and 3 months down the line. We can be very sure that those figures will rise. By a lot, very sadly.

It is the recent admissions and then the admissions to ICU that give the best indication of where we are heading with that, as of course you know.

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).

That's all true. But, they haven't started full time yet, and many schools are not even running every day, or indeed full days. I don't see how parents in this country would be accepting of that, unless everyone worked from home.

@TheSunIsStillShining

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.)

A personalised study plan is exactly what I proposed for my adult learners (FE), based on very positive feedback from similar over lockdown. Vetoed. Teaching and learning has to take place in classrooms as before, with no SD to speak of and notional but nonexistent “bubbles”. I can’t say how pissed off I am.

Sorry to derail with my venting. I’ll lurk from now on.

But all the more reason why we can't make direct comparisons with the UK.

It would also be interesting to know how lockdown affected attainment. From talking to teachers I know the majority of their children seem to have kept up, a small number who took the opportunity to not do any work need some catch up. I also know a couple of families, no actually 3, where they are thrilled with how much the children progressed and in one case how a teenagers mental health improved.

Maybe we should take this as an opportunity to review our education system. The pressures of exams and testing aren't good for many children.

UK schools are different from the continent, because we have so few containment measures

I actually looked up all the different measures in different European countries, and actually, from my quick glance, they all looked pretty similar.

@ancientgran

It would also be interesting to know how lockdown affected attainment. From talking to teachers I know the majority of their children seem to have kept up, a small number who took the opportunity to not do any work need some catch up. I also know a couple of families, no actually 3, where they are thrilled with how much the children progressed and in one case how a teenagers mental health improved.

Maybe we should take this as an opportunity to review our education system. The pressures of exams and testing aren't good for many children.

Attainment

Children in England are three months behind in their studies after lockdown, with boys and poor pupils worst hit, suggests a survey of teachers by an educational research organisation.

The learning gap between rich and poor pupils grew by almost half between March and July, the National Foundation for Educational Research has found.

BBC

Another thing is that "experts" cover quite a range of opinion, by the nature of the beast.

I wear a mask whenever I can, including to school pick up. My children have masks, so they could wear them if they want, basically.

Indie SAGE take a lenient line on masks, that they might be helpful, especially in some school settings, but shouldn't be strictly policed, and I think that's right.

@Baaaahhhhh

UK schools are different from the continent, because we have so few containment measures

I actually looked up all the different measures in different European countries, and actually, from my quick glance, they all looked pretty similar.

Oh right, because I looked them up as well, and we had far fewer tha Germany, Italy or Denmark. Israel (not in Europe though) opened schools rapidly with few measures, had a surge of infections, and advised other nations not to do what they had done.

So I found very differently to you.

Maybe we need a "what are other nations doing in schools" thread.

twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1313816167786700802?s=19
Sage Member saying he doesn't think virus is under control and advocating circuit break lockdown.

@ancientgran

It would also be interesting to know how lockdown affected attainment. From talking to teachers I know the majority of their children seem to have kept up, a small number who took the opportunity to not do any work need some catch up. I also know a couple of families, no actually 3, where they are thrilled with how much the children progressed and in one case how a teenagers mental health improved.

Maybe we should take this as an opportunity to review our education system. The pressures of exams and testing aren't good for many children.

You don't live where I live! In general it is the children who were already behind who did nothing over lockdown and are now really behind.

Thanks Marsha, that is interesting as doesn't match with teachers I know or indeed GS who is year 11 where they have mocks since going back to school and GS is getting level 8s and 9s and his friends seem the same. Maybe kids round here just worked harder than most in lockdown which seems odd.

Didn't children miss about 3 months at school, so that survey seems to indicate they did nothing in lockdown. I know we keep hearing they missed 6 months of school but if you take out Easter holidays, half term and the summer holidays it wasn't anything like that.

You don't live where I live! In general it is the children who were already behind who did nothing over lockdown and are now really behind. Well yes they were probably the ones who I said had taken advantage of lockdown to do no work but didn't the majority of children do work? I know my GC did, all the families I know did. Some schools seemed more proactive than others but they all did work.

inews.co.uk/news/politics/coronavirus-latest-wake-up-call-covid-19-hospital-admissions-england-642484
Concerns now about the increasing rates of hospital admissions, especially in Northern England. I'm particularly concerned about the way things are going in my area of Greater Manchester.

ancient my DC did lots of work and school were very proactive.

I suspect more than half of the pupils are in the quoted 2 million who didn't engage with education at all during school closures.

A quick Google will easily give you the information you want.

Out of my 6 nieces and nephews only 1 got decent online schooling that was successful for her. 2 went back when schools opened, before then had nothing useful. One mentally struggled badly and another who was struggling with school before lockdown has now fallen even further behind.

There's hard decisions that need to be made at the moment, and it needs to be one as safely as possible, but I fully support the view that schools have to be the last thing to close.

AncientGran it was highly varied so it’s likely that a personal experience can’t be extrapolated.

Some may have been behind already, done some work and fallen further behind.

Overall I think it’s right that Whitty and others recognise the issue of learning loss and ensure that reducing further loss is a priority.

Oh right, because I looked them up as well, and we had far fewer than Germany, Italy or Denmark. Israel (not in Europe though) opened schools rapidly with few measures, had a surge of infections, and advised other nations not to do what they had done.

This concurs with my research @herecomesthsun

Reporting on Israel

"Israel’s advice for other countries?
“They definitely should not do what we have done,” said Eli Waxman, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and chairman of the team advising Israel’s National Security Council on the pandemic. “It was a major failure.”"

"The lesson, experts say, is that even communities that have gotten the spread of the virus under control need to take strict precautions when reopening schools. Smaller classes, mask wearing, keeping desks six feet apart and providing adequate ventilation, they say, are likely to be crucial until a vaccine is available."

None of which is happening in UK schools...

Unlike Israel we don't seem to be monitoring contacts to see how it is spreading out from schools. In this study below two cases in school lead to 260 cases.

www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.29.2001352?mc_source=MTExMDY2Ojo6OTgxM2NkZDM4OGRjNGFlM2JhY2RhNWIyZTNlODhkOTE6OnYzOjoxNTk2NDc1MjIzOjox#html_fulltext
"The first case was registered on 26 May and the second on 27 May. The two cases were not epidemiologically linked. Testing of the complete school community revealed 153 students (attack rate: 13.2%) and 25 staff members (attack rate: 16.6%) who were COVID-19 positive. Overall, some 260 persons were infected (students, staff members, relatives and friends)."

In the UK when we get cases like this we are not following up with this sort of analysis.

From what we know, it seems less that children took "advantage of lockdown to do no work" than that they couldn't access either work provided by their school or from elsewhere.

The lack of tech, Broadband, space, adults to help/with fluent English/privacy in homes of many families in the UK has been discussed throughout as a barrier to engaging with home learning - surely this isn't news to anyone?

The weeks not in formal schooling are never 'neutral' weeks for learning and progress. Again the 'summer slide' whereby the attainment gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged opens up is well documented.

here that thread did exist for a while.

No country has as few mitigating measures as us, was the finding. Mainly because of mask wearing and class and room sizes.

@ancientgran

Thanks Marsha, that is interesting as doesn't match with teachers I know or indeed GS who is year 11 where they have mocks since going back to school and GS is getting level 8s and 9s and his friends seem the same. Maybe kids round here just worked harder than most in lockdown which seems odd.

Didn't children miss about 3 months at school, so that survey seems to indicate they did nothing in lockdown. I know we keep hearing they missed 6 months of school but if you take out Easter holidays, half term and the summer holidays it wasn't anything like that.

... The reason we have studies and reports by experts is that anecdata can be heavily skewed and is known to be unreliable

it is understandable that those whose children had sufficient parental supervision, online facilities, desk and quiet space, not in a deprived area etc think kids did well

However, the widening attainment gap between the haves and have-nots is bad enough already in society without making it worse by placing obstacles in the way of deprived or poorly motivated children.

I have also read Indie Sage reports and they seem within the general expert consensus, balnced, not radical in either direction

• other than that they call out this incompetent government and their shameless cronyism in key jobs & contracts

I understood that they say masks may be useful and could be a future measure,
but have not said in any report so far that they should be made mandatory at this stage
e.g.

https://www.independentsage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Schools-v-short-consultation-v3-1.pdf

https://www.independentsage.org/learning-the-lessons-from-reopening-schools-in-scotland_4sept2020/

I agree with nearly all their recommendations, although their suggestion of more money to hire additional rooms in halls etc will be of very limited help in practice:
It should be done, but there are far too few available & suitable rooms to help the thousands of schools