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
📈 📉 📊 👍

"the UK experiment to send schools back against all the advice here"

but it hasn't been against all advice

Your ECDC link is a good summary of public health expert consensus

"School outbreaks have not been a prominent feature in the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly due to the fact that the majority of children do not develop symptoms when infected with the virus, or develop a very mild form of the disease.

No evidence has been found to suggest that children are the primary drivers of SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission. However, research has shown that children can become infected, and spread the virus to adults while they are symptomatic."

Experts in education and social welfare were behind the drive to reopen schools and most say schools should be the last to close
Some are also now saying that too many children are being tested

e.g.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/27/too-many-children-tested-for-covid-leading-study-schools

Prof Russell Viner of UCL and Great Ormond Street children’s hospital, the study’s lead author,
is calling for schools to be kept fully open in light of the findings, because of the serious harm done to children by classroom closures.

“I think we have a coherent policy about testing in schools,
but we are probably being overcautious and testing too many children,”said Viner.
“It was the right thing to start with, but it has had some unintended consequences.

“The key thing about this research is that it supports keeping schools open.

Schoolss^ need to be open and be almost the last places to close.
As part of learning to live with this virus, we need to be keeping schools open.”

Just had a look, Leamington is in the district of Warwick (I thought it was North Warwickshire but I checked) and is bang on average.

BCP council area been low since March (despite everyone saying the south had it bad in March, they mean London) suddenly we were on a watch list. More than double in a week. www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/18784106.covid-map-shows-bournemouth-christchurch-poole-hotspot/

Sending uni students may seem in hindsight as bad a sending hospital patients to care homes.

"Business leaders are mounting a legal challenge the government’s lockdown restrictions, which they say have decimated the hospitality industry."

www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/11/england-hospitality-bosses-legal-challenge-covid-lockdowns

Industry leaders argue the restrictions, which have already had a significant impact on pubs, bars, restaurants and other hospitality venues across the country, are not based on any “tangible scientific evidence” that closing venues suppresses transmission of coronavirus.

Sacha Lord, the night-time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, who is leading the challenge with the support of the area’s mayor, Andy Burnham, is hoping to overturn the restrictions.

I noticed that Wave. I wondered if it was also the building school cases.

Bmth uni hasnt had many reported cases.

@Applesandpears23 - the attendance report shows slightly lower nursery (3/4 yr only as state school) sign-up; it's normal to be lower at the start of the year but is stated as unusually low, they also state there is lower attendance from the younger ones. Apart from that figures look very similar to last year.

Number of live births (in 1,000s, from Statista) have dropped for relevant years, which is commented on however not such a huge drop as to make a difference in these proportions I don't think:
2018 - 731.21 (age 2, turning 3 this year so not eligible yet)
2017 - 755.04 (age 3, turning 4 this year)
2016 - 774.84 (age 4, turning 5 this year)
2015 - 777.17 (age 5, "mandatory school age" i.e. Full time education is compulsory)
2014 - 776.35 (age 6, mandatory school age)
2013 - 778.8 (7-8)
2012 - 812.97 (8-9)
2011 - 807.78 (9-10)
2010 - 807.27 (10-11).

England hospitals

544 admissions on 9 October

3451 in hospital on 11 Oct
with
401 in ventilation beds

Charts from COVID-19@UKCovid19Stats

@PineappleUpsideDownCake

Bmth uni hasnt had many reported cases.

www.publichealthdorset.org.uk/your-health/protecting-your-health/latest-updates-on-covid-19-in-dorset.aspx

Agree, not reporting but this link says that there are cases but nothing has made the local news (screenshot for help)

@littlestpogo

I was wondering if there is any data on the numbers of fines imposed by could councils re non attendance atm and how many have suspended fines.

That would at least give an idea whether families are indeed being forced to send vulnerable ( to covid) children into school and help ascertain I’d this is actually an issue in fact.

Also how many have deregistered from school and how this compares to a typical year.

(Also yes, they are, and it really is an issue! I am quite involved in groups about this issue as I am vulnerable but unable to stop sending my daughter in to school due to fines and the threat of losing her place -- but there are families in much starker situations than mine).

Interesting graph Nellodee.

Staff absences we're starting to be an issue at my school last week, more due to restrictions and measures causing SI than actual infections, thankfully, but we could have to close if too many staff were off.

4 schools I know of around here have fully closed; very little being reported in local papers though.

This is an Echo story on the proposed announcement for tomorrow, but they do seem to have the ear of the local mayors recently so probably reasonably accurate

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-city-region-pubs-closing-19087320

If it is true, then I can see a lot of pubs starting to serve food if that’s the loophole they have to jump through to stay open! Has there been any data on the difference between pubs and pubs that serve food in terms of risk?! Or (cynically) have Wetherspoons been lobbying to stay open?

@BigChocFrenzy

So I would see Prof Viner as incredibly unhelpful - for example he seems keen for children to be tested far less.

The WHO general advice has been that test and trace is key to reducing the spread of the virus. Their specific advice is here. They suggest a multi layer approach to schools with lots of prevention - and testing of individuals with symptoms. It's very different to what we are doing. I think we should be following the WHO.

Independent SAGE have been a voice of reason, with senior medical input, not affected by a need to tow the Government line.

Their consultation document on the opening of schools is www.independentsage.org/consultation_schools_aug2020/here

and lessons learnt from school opening in Scotland is here

It's hard to disagree with the key points from the last one, from early September, which has aged very well.

Drive community transmission down: The most important step for reopening schools, keeping schools open and keeping all pupils and staff safe is to take all reasonable measures to drive community transmission rates down. This includes encouraging home-working where possible; ensuring all workplaces and public spaces are inspected and certified as COVID Safe before re-opening , closing high-risk enclosed indoor public spaces such as indoor bars and cinemas where local infection rates are high

A widespread information campaign: stressing the limits on household gatherings and the need for vigorous protective measures such as hand washing, not touching eyes, nose and mouth, and maintaining distancing in the home where possible. Masks should be considered as a protective measure in all secondary school spaces (including staffrooms and classrooms), especially when distancing and ventilation are absent and local infection rates are high.

Government should provide the practical support necessary. These include
employing additional teachers and additional spaces so that schools can operate smaller classes to enable physical distancing.
systematic monitoring of ventilation, particularly as the weather gets colder and opening windows will be impractical.

Government should provide resources necessary to study at home (i.e., computers, WiFi, study spaces) so that, if secondary school students have to self-isolate or if schools have to close due to spikes in infection, all students are able to continue their education.

Clear and consistent guidance as to when staff and pupils should seek tests and when they should be asked to self-isolate should be provided.

Testing facilities and capacity must be expanded and organised such that all pupils, staff, and parents can access a local testing site, obtain a test without delay and receive test results within 24 hours.

That Viner research is a metastudy, combining lots of data from countries that have no relevance to the UK and from times when many children were not at school. Even it's own conclusions do not match Viner's comments on that article. We did a critique of it earlier in one of these threads and the consensus was that it was an absolute non-entity in terms of real, useful data.

@BigChocFrenzy

"the UK experiment to send schools back against all the advice here"

but it hasn't been against all advice

Your ECDC link is a good summary of public health expert consensus

"School outbreaks have not been a prominent feature in the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly due to the fact that the majority of children do not develop symptoms when infected with the virus, or develop a very mild form of the disease.

No evidence has been found to suggest that children are the primary drivers of SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission. However, research has shown that children can become infected, and spread the virus to adults while they are symptomatic."

Experts in education and social welfare were behind the drive to reopen schools and most say schools should be the last to close
Some are also now saying that too many children are being tested

e.g.
[[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/27/too-many-children-tested-for-covid-leading-study-schools]]

Prof Russell Viner of UCL and Great Ormond Street children’s hospital, the study’s lead author,
is calling for schools to be kept fully open in light of the findings, because of the serious harm done to children by classroom closures.

“I think we have a coherent policy about testing in schools,
but we are probably being overcautious and testing too many children,”said Viner.
“It was the right thing to start with, but it has had some unintended consequences.

“The key thing about this research is that it supports keeping schools open.

Schoolss^ need to be open and be almost the last places to close.
As part of learning to live with this virus, we need to be keeping schools open.”

There is some concern with Viner, by the way. Cambridge mathematician Dr Sarah Rasmussen has written an interesting thread flagging up some problematic aspects of his first research.

twitter.com/SarahDRasmussen/status/1309437229622865920

Also, the Guardian article above is terribly misleading as Viner's comments do not actually represent accurately the findings of the research mentioned in the article.

Sorry, but there's by no means a universal consensus that schools should be open at all costs. There's a consensus that education is massively important and that we should try to open schools safely. But most other countries are doing it very differently. In the province of Canada where I have friends, school is optional, remote learning is provided for those who don't feel safe attending in person, class sizes are significantly reduced, schools have been given additional budgets to improve classroom ventilation, and you can get same-day testing with next-day results for a far more extensive set of symptoms that we have here (for example a runny nose, a sore throat, gastrointestinal symptoms).

This is really basic, but I don't understand how the Bristol schools study can remove the researcher impact from their findings, nor how they separate in- school from community infections. Does anyone have a link with more details? The issues I see are:

1. If they find a person with covid, then they must tell that person, who must isolate. Then the study looks into who else might be infected and again an infected person is informed etc. So the study can't find chain infections of A infects B who automatically infects C.
2. Equally, I don't see any detailed movement study attached nor more importantly genome sequencing, so it still wouldn't pick up finer details e.g. if children infect each other outside school, or a teacher is infected by a parent not child, or a parent infects someone else's child outside school, or infected using the same shop/ church/ cafe etc etc.

Southampton Uni are offering saliva tests to all students and also have various other measures in place (ie face masks in communal areas).

Freshers week was from 29 Sept.

thetab.com/uk/soton/2020/09/24/everything-soton-uni-is-doing-to-limit-the-spread-of-coronavirus-on-campus-84645

*that should say B asymptomatically infects C.

@MRex

This is really basic, but I don't understand how the Bristol schools study can remove the researcher impact from their findings, nor how they separate in- school from community infections. Does anyone have a link with more details? The issues I see are: 1) If they find a person with covid, then they must tell that person, who must isolate. Then the study looks into who else might be infected and again an infected person is informed etc. So the study can't find chain infections of A infects B who automatically infects C. 2) Equally, I don't see any detailed movement study attached nor more importantly genome sequencing, so it still wouldn't pick up finer details e.g. if children infect each other outside school, or a teacher is infected by a parent not child, or a parent infects someone else's child outside school, or infected using the same shop/ church/ cafe etc etc.

That's a really interesting point about the fact that closely observed spread is not going to represent normal spread.

@Hmmph

You mention a GDPR concern about GPS reporting cases to councils. However, Covid is a notifiable disease. I linked yesterday to the .gov page about notifiable diseases, and there it quite clearly states that:

Registered medical practitioners (RMPs) have a statutory duty to notify the ‘proper officer’ at their local council or local health protection team (HPT) of suspected cases of certain infectious diseases.

So in fact GPs must report, and I think it very likely that this is where the "Richmond effect" comes in to the data. If so, my child will be one such case - tested positive in uni town but still registered with a Richmond GP (despite my nagging).

[quote PrayingandHoping]@ceeveebee are they both "in town"?

At Southampton because the uni is out of town a lot of your socialising is in hall. No one goes into town every night..... [/quote]
The halls of residence are all very central and densely populated. Pretty much the entire dark blue area on the Manchester COVID map is student accommodation (although I think they need another shade of blue, the main student MSOA area Fallowfield has over 300 cases in the last week and a rate of about 4000/100,000!

Probably showing my ignorance here but where can I find the level of cases (per 100k in the last 7 days I assume??) that will be used to establish which areas will be in which tier?

Holdingtight - little owl has a fab website covidmessenger with all the rates on, you can sign up to her daily emails too to get notifications on your local area.

@Piggywaspushed Debbie is checking and getting back to me I’ll update here.

I’ll get shot down by the mums for this but Teaching Staff are you starting to realise you’re central to the whole running of the U.K. economy 😂. They’re not touching schools yet as it’s politically too difficult for them.

Hope your pay rises reflect the fact that you’re clearly central to the running of Society..........

.........cue “there’s no spread occurring in schools” comments!

Back to Richmond (that will be my username soon!):

I have also found this:

“A number of different dashboards will be used by different organisations to support the response as shown below:

a public Information Dashboard, showing statistics on cases of coronavirus and deaths associated with coronavirus in the UK, updated daily

a Strategic Decision Makers Dashboard, providing a national summary of situation report (SitRep) information, alongside modelling, simulations and analysis. These dashboards are designed to help senior national and regional officials to make policy and strategic decisions in response to Covid-19. Only Government and senior regional analysts and managers are given access to this dashboard.

an NHS Operational Dashboard, providing local NHS and local government organisations with a clear picture of what is happening both across the country and specifically in their area so that they can take the right local action.“

www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/privacy-notice/how-we-use-your-information/covid-19-response/nhs-covid-19-data-store/

Is it possible that the Strategic Decision Makers Dashboard and/or the NHS Operational Dashboard include BOTH test postcode and GP postcode and Richmond council have looked at this and misunderstood it. They saw Richmond GP addresses and the Leeds etc Postcodes and assumed that Leeds Uni students were being attributed to Richmond on account of their GPs. Whereas my assumption is that the case data we are seeing uses test postcode, but the dashboard the council is seeing shows both test and GP postcode and misunderstood.

As I can’t find information as to which postcode the data dashboard is using nor am I special enough to see the other databases to see what data is on there. I cannot prove my theory!