Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 23

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 23 of the daily updates

Resource links:

Uk dashboard deaths, cases, hospitals, tests - 4 nations, English regions & LAs
UK govt pressers Slides & data
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
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
Zoe Uk data
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
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Regarding the apparent difference in infection rate between primary and secondary - could it be because under 10s are allowed just to have the nose swab which apparently isn’t as accurate (this is based on what we were told at the testing centre)? I don’t know if the same advice is given to those in the ONS survey? Having had to test a normally very brave, sensible and obedient 10 year old, I cannot imagine how they are doing it regularly for the ONS even for payment. I wonder if the ONS collect any data on tests done by nose or by throat and nose?

Secondly, if infection rates really do differ between younger and older children, is it the effect of puberty with teens being more like small adults. Has this been researched at all (I had a quick Google but couldn’t find anything)? As girls reach puberty earlier, are there more cases in girls at age 11 than boys?

Thirdly, if true, Why are children so much less likely to catch, have symptoms and spread it?

The position is pretty dire unless folk in the north stop acting like idiots

Agree that’s pretty unhelpful. I’m up north and everyone I know is behaving.
Generally speaking we are far more likely to work in settings where either social distancing or wfh are unlikely to be possible, for starters.

One of the biggest reasons we’re in this predicament now IMO is the total failure of the contract tracing system. Some in GM right now is done by public health teams. Their success rate is about 98% whereas “nhs” test and trace is in the 60s. Right now the local public health teams are overwhelmed. If the government had not massively defunded local health teams several years and ago we wouldn’t be in this situation. Instead £13bn has been sent to their pals at serco with zero PH experience.

@MarcelineMissouri

Anecdata re the ONS survey but we are participating and both our primary age children are doing it too! Our eldest hates the test but wants the money and our youngest is actually surprisingly fine with the test, nose and throat! (Eldest will only have nose done)

If there is money involved then I doubt the children's tests even more. Having had to have mine tested there is no way they or I would agree to weekly tests. How would a lab tell if you swabbed yourself twice?

@Frazzled2207

The position is pretty dire unless folk in the north stop acting like idiots

Agree that’s pretty unhelpful. I’m up north and everyone I know is behaving.
Generally speaking we are far more likely to work in settings where either social distancing or wfh are unlikely to be possible, for starters.

One of the biggest reasons we’re in this predicament now IMO is the total failure of the contract tracing system. Some in GM right now is done by public health teams. Their success rate is about 98% whereas “nhs” test and trace is in the 60s. Right now the local public health teams are overwhelmed. If the government had not massively defunded local health teams several years and ago we wouldn’t be in this situation. Instead £13bn has been sent to their pals at serco with zero PH experience.

I'd go further, saying things like that is more than unhelpful - it makes out that if you catch Covid you are at fault this puts people off getting tested.

UK today

Cases 13,864
Deaths 87

Charts from UK COVID-19@UKCovid19Stats

England

491 admissions 7 Oct.....

3090 in hospital 9 Oct....

367 in ventilation beds on 9 Oct....

I live in the North West.
The huge explosion of very recent cases is different from in March as they are overwhelmingly focused in students. This is clear from the huge numbers concentrated in student areas (Fallowfield is student central and was at 620 cases earlier this week for example; most of non-studenty Wythenshawe was between 5-15 cases in each area)

Whilst a very few students will be hospitalised most are just fine and many are asymptomatic.
The "bulge" of cases on the dashboard is completely different from back in March/April. There have been 9 deaths reported in the main Manchester uni hospital trust over the past 10 or so days.

It would be foolish to be complacent but equally I don't think we are a week away from Armageddon and calling in the army - as long as the majority of people catching it remain young.

Hi everyone - just completed a marathon week of homeschooling following a case in school - I am wrecked!

Just wondering if anyone has noticed the govt coronavirus site is down: coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Is anyone else able to get onto it. It keeps saying "site cant be reached" when I try to access.

The position is pretty dire unless folk in the north^ government stop acting like idiots^

Put the blame where it belongs, not on the poor sods who've been abandoned

QueenStromba Obviously the comparison between years only goes as far as this week. The data is being added as it is released so is a fair representation. At the moment Sweden is still under the expected number of deaths for this time of year and the line is looking pretty flat. We will only know who made the best choices when we look back in a year or so but my guess is Sweden will be up there.

Of course there are other areas of poverty in the country, but there’s been a perfect storm here of lockdown mistiming (we opened back up while cases in the NW were still higher), a misunderstanding of how it would spread through these communities, a total failure of accurate track and trace, testing errors and delays (all those contacts not contacted from the 16000 until they’d spread it around) and then poverty. Of course there are some individual idiots, just as there are everywhere. But the vast majority of us are doing our absolute best to keep ourselves and everyone around us safe.

@littleowl1

Hi everyone - just completed a marathon week of homeschooling following a case in school - I am wrecked!

Just wondering if anyone has noticed the govt coronavirus site is down: coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Is anyone else able to get onto it. It keeps saying "site cant be reached" when I try to access.

... it's ok for me, littleowl

@littleowl1

Hi everyone - just completed a marathon week of homeschooling following a case in school - I am wrecked!

Just wondering if anyone has noticed the govt coronavirus site is down: coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Is anyone else able to get onto it. It keeps saying "site cant be reached" when I try to access.

I've just been on it. There is essential maintenance though.

And I don't envy you the task of home schooling. It is absolutely draining.

I have had a look at the ONS sampling methods. I think the large numbers make it a good survey but I would be interested in how they keep it truly 'random'. For example, for the first invitation batches (26 April and 31 May) they invited people who had previously completed an ONS survey. Fair enough - they wanted quick responses. But did they randomly pick from that dataset, or did they non-randomly pick from the data set to produce a data set that was representative?
Each of those datasets had what will probably end up being a 50% response rate and a very high percentage actually having the test once responded, and also going on to have more tests.

For the latest invitations, these are truly random by postcode, and so far have a much lower response rate, even allowing for the shorter length of time for the response to happen.

Given the letter is pretty detailed, and the incentive (vouchers) is towards the bottom of the first page, I would imagine the response rate is not random but skewed towards people who would read the letter properly. I did not see an option for a version translated into a non-English language (although there was an option to request Braille or large print).

I know this is a bit picky, but thought some people might find it interesting!

Owl - it said they were taking it down from 5pm - 5am for updates

I haven't told my children about the money for the ONS survey. It is going straight into the savings accounts for them. And they are all doing it (primary age) and I assure you they are doing it properly. A few minor moans but no refusals.

Looks like some facilities are now down, not all

@Whydoyouthinkthatthen that is interesting re ONS

I've put plenty of blame on the government - and complained about test and trace being given to incompetent Dido Harding from the start. But the government is only encouraging people to take risks, it is not holding them down and injecting them with covid. At some point people need to take responsibility for their own actions.

The number of beds occupied is now back to the level it was in March on the day we locked down. Growth has slopped a bit in the North West and despite government incompetence it could still get down to manageable levels if people stopped making excuses and starting behaving like adults.

It is extremely unhelpful, even irresponsible, to suggest this is out of people's control.

"367 in ventilation beds on 9 Oct.."

I wonder if this guy (Virologist Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor at the school of medicine, University of Leeds) has been misquoted by Sky News or if he just got it (very) wrong?

"In the UK last week, we already had several thousand people on ventilators and some hospitals are seeing wards filling up."
news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-five-of-top-european-covid-19-hotspots-in-north-of-england-12099132

The big northern university cities attract students from across the country. They're accounting for a big proportion of the infection in the north. Work settings also account for around a quarter. Is it really better to just blame it on a northern idiots on a data thread?

Coffee, I thought that but I think he was talking about all patients on ventilated beds, not just those with COVID

Due to essential updates, the website and the API may be unstable or unresponsive between 5pm Friday (9 Oct) and 5am Saturday (10 Oct).

@littleowl1 I get the above message - so useful

GetAMoveOnTroodon

Owl - it said they were taking it down from 5pm - 5am for updates

When I went on 15 minutes ago it briefly flashed up a new section - patients in hospital by age. It disappeared when I clicked on data. Maybe they're adding more info.

Yes, I thought that might be the case, but the article implies that it's Covid-19 patients, which is misleading and may alarm people. Sky journalist should really clarify this so as not to mislead.

Can I ask another question about the ONS survey-

As I understand it, it involves selected households being regularly tested as per Whydoyouthinkthatthen’s post above.

If a household was selected, for example, in July as had an 18 year old who started Uni in September and moved away to halls.. as they are no longer in the original household are they no longer tested? Would any “student households” be included in the ONS survey as they didn’t start until recently?