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
📈 📉 📊 👍

On Zoe app our area in Surrey declined last week. We'd got up to 130 ish and dropped back down to about 75. I think we were back up at 80 today, but not as much as it had been.

@Witchend is that the same area ZOE seems to think is the lowest in the country? But has 68.3 cases per 100,000 according to yesterday’s figures? I was looking at that area too... It seems to be a massive discrepancy.

Surrey resident here, and I agree, locally cases have been up and down like a whatsits wotsit. A couple of weeks ago Woking and Surrey Heath were up and everywhere else down, then the opposite happened, and now they are all on a steady up, with Elmbridge standing out. Guildford with it's university doesn't seem to making (much) difference yet, and I know that they have set up their own walk in testing at the Uni car park.

Local schools do not seem to be hugely affected, those I know have had one child, small numbers of children sent home, no onward in school transmission.

Something odd does seem to be going on.

Yes, but this is the medical officer talking. He's sensibly keeping it to his expertise, not trying to talk about other issues

He ignored medical issues!

Lockdown leads to isolation, isolation is linked to lots of negative outcomes "Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults" doi.org/10.17226/25663 (it's bad in other age groups too, see elsewhere)

Lockdown reduces physical activity, physical activity is strongly linked with health outcomes - www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1012-3 - including dose/response changes which means you do need more.

Also whilst pulling that nature paper from my memory, this one came up again on the biobank data
www.researchgate.net/publication/343437915_Physical_activity_BMI_and_COVID-19_an_observational_and_Mendelian_randomisation_study
Physical Activity (measured) correlated to COVID outcomes more than BMI, yet the COVID age things don't seem to ever account for it - of course self reported physical activity is even poorer than self reported BMI.

ONS data show that an estimated 224,000 people have the virus – up from 116,000 last week
That's approaching double.

😮😮😮😮

The odd thing is, no one is testing properly in schools. Here we are 6 weeks after schools going back. No track and trace to speak of and it is pretty well known now, younger children are often asymptomatic or have different symptoms. Schools are conveniently not being mass tested, so hear/speak/see no evil, it isn't happening.

That is what is happening, mass test unis, we can blame them. Despite them only really having gone back a couple of weeks ago. It's all deflection and utter lies. The data isn't accurate as they are deliberately missing out ANY sort of mass testing in schools. They know it is driving infection, even Nicola S said as much on TV!

I just find it weird that in Cornwall cases are actually declining and it's the only place in the UK where that's happening. There is no physical reason why it should be so

The reason cornwall cases are declining is surely because of the artificial peak from the outbreak at the food factory?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-54361824
It never really had the high rate.

@Hmmph
No not that area, one of the areas mentioned above. I know of several schools that have closed bubbles currently, but not many people outside who currently have it.
I do wonder if ds had it a fortnight before lockdown. He had a cough and a temperature for two days, then I had for around 24 hours. If he did though, it was rife round the school, so it may be that their school has had it run through. At the time there apparently were so few cases in the UK it seemed ridiculous to think it might be.

Although, to my mind, it means that if immunity runs off in about a year we could see a peak again next spring at his school.

It is simply not true to say that schoolchildren have not been tested "properly", whatever you mean by that. 200,000 schoolchildren were tested in the initial weeks with under

Itisasecret. Agreed no mass testing means no proper data. However, if we assume most children are asymptomatic, they are not spreading anyway (possibly), which is why they are, again probably, bringing it into school from home and not in fact spreading it within school. Does it really matter if we have a large number of asymptomatic children if they are not causing large outbreaks? I struggle with this, I think we all do.

Agree with MRex there are many other threads for speculation.

@sirfredfredgeorge

I just find it weird that in Cornwall cases are actually declining and it's the only place in the UK where that's happening. There is no physical reason why it should be so

The reason cornwall cases are declining is surely because of the artificial peak from the outbreak at the food factory?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-54361824
It never really had the high rate.

According to the Zoe app there are something like 20 less active cases today than there were yesterday, and I can't remember what the day before's was but it had just tipped over 1k. I can understand a smaller number of cases being reported, but not that the estimated number of active cases is declining. I just cannot see how that can be.

@Cattermole - the Zoe app does tend to go a bit screwy sometimes.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-54485272
Sadly pertinent to Van Tam's op-ed, Covid deaths and infections in a cancer ward in the Western General in Edinburgh. This news coming after deaths and infections in 2 care homes in Lothian Health board, yesterday. Clearly showing that Targeted Protection is bullshit.
More mundanely, the queues are back outside the supermarkets.

I can understand a smaller number of cases being reported, but not that the estimated number of active cases is declining. I just cannot see how that can be

Presumably because R is less than 1 in cornwall, and the people infected from that outbreak are progressing into inactive cases? The south west has consistently had low R levels, and it's not at all unreasonable for cornwall as the most isolated part to also have lower levels, it had a few outbreaks like the meat plant, but they don't drive cases. I don't think there are any universities there, the tourist places will all be closed for the season, it's completely conceivable to me that they have rates below 1, when the whole region is only slightly higher and has Exeter and Bristol Universities with their significant testing.

It may not be right, but the data is such that it is not inconceivable.

@Baaaahhhhh

Itisasecret. Agreed no mass testing means no proper data. However, if we assume most children are asymptomatic, they are not spreading anyway (possibly), which is why they are, again probably, bringing it into school from home and not in fact spreading it within school. Does it really matter if we have a large number of asymptomatic children if they are not causing large outbreaks? I struggle with this, I think we all do.

Well yes it does matter, we don't know if there are outbreaks and where they are because we are not testing.

Asymptomatic does not mean they don't spread it. I think the mass testing in unis has shown that is another inconvenient lie. We had relatively low infection and now look, 6 weeks after schools went back. Nicola S, said they had a higher R rate as Scottish schools went back earlier.

Schools are the elephant in the room that no one wants to look at, it isn't convenient. It will be a bit late though, once community spread is so out of hand schools and hospitals struggle for staff (some are already). Before you even get on to bed space.

Asymptomatic does not mean they don't spread it.

Quite.

I thought asymptomatic transmission was now proven? Wasn't that the whole point with this virus? If it wasn't transmissible when asymptomatic then it wouldn't have spread so far across the globe so quickly?

Scotland under 1000 cases today at 956.

Also the Scottish Government page now states re the positive percentage figure "the approach used to calculate this percentage using only newly tested individuals is under review" - good news!

Wales down today too 467/2 deaths. 30 more than last sunday- fairly sure their Sunday figures are usually low but at least not a big increase on last week at all.

However, if we assume most children are asymptomatic, they are not spreading anyway
Asymptomatic has been shown to spread it.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-latest-uk-matt-hancock-asymptomatic-spread-sage-guidance-infections-b519138.html (one report)

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejme2009758

"Asymptomatic Transmission, the Achilles’ Heel of Current Strategies to Control Covid-19"

This article suggests that one of the (very understandable) mistakes early on was assuming it would act like SARS-1, where transmission occurs mostly if not entirely when symptomatic.

At my large secondary, we had a big increase in the amount of staff absence between the beginning and the end of last week. If staff absence doubles at the same rate as cases and the insistence that schools stay open at all costs continues, it's touch and go whether we will make it to half term before we start having to teach merged groups in the halls. If it doesn't happen before half term, it is likely to afterwards, unless the level 3 restrictions are sufficient to bring spread down on their own.

thumbsnap.com/Lkv4mC9z

we now have 6 weeks of steady increases in daily cases and daily deaths since the beginning of Sept.

That is easily enough time to compare the trend and rate of growth to what we saw in March.

This graph compares daily deaths by date reported for the last 6 weeks and the 6 weeks starting from the 13th March. The starting point in each case is similar at 10 and 13 deaths respectively. The way this has developed could not be more different.

it's touch and go whether we will make it to half term before we start having to teach merged groups in the halls.

Will teachers be willing to do this? Won't there come a point where their employment T&Cs are being so horrendously breached that teachers will take action? I don't see how you can really teach in these conditions?

Sounds horrendous in any case and a consequence of the very short term idea that you can open school as normal in the middle of an epidemic without consequences.