Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 25

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 25 of the daily updates

Resource links

UK:
Uk dashboard R, deaths, cases, hospitals, tests - by postcode, 4 nations, English regions, LAs
Interactive 7-day rolling cases map click on map or by postcode
UK govt pressers Slides & data
SAGE Table Interventions with impacts and R
Imperial UK weekly tables & extrapolations LAs, cases / 100k, table, map, hotspots
School statistics Attendance - Tuesdays
ICNRC Intensive Care National Audit & Research reports
UK testing and NHS England track & trace - Thursdays
ONS Roundup deaths, infections & economic reports
ONS England, Wales & NI Infection surveillance report - Fridays
ONS Datasets for surveillance reports
Our World in Data UK test positivity
R estimates & daily growth UK & English regions - Fridays
Modelling real number of UK infections February in first wave

England:
NHS England Hospital activity
NHS England Daily deaths
PHE COVID Clinical Risk Factors Non-respiratory by region, area, district etc
MSAO Map of English cases
Cases Tracker England Local Government
PHE surveillance reports Covid, flu, respiratory diseases - Thursdays
CovidMessenger live update by council district in England

Scotland, Wales, NI:
Scot gov Daily data
Scotland TravellingTabby LAs, care homes, hospitals, tests, t&t
PH Wales LAs, tests, ONS deaths
NI Dashboard

Miscell:
Zoe Uk data
ECDC rolling 14-day incidence EEA & UK
Worldometer UK page
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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Links added to OP:

• SAGE Table of Interventions with impacts and R
• PHE COVID Clinical Risk Factors by region, area

Links changed

• PHE Covid surveillance is now Covid & flu

@wintertravel1980

It's also not the only example that suggests increasing corruption in government with money going to cronies or directed to the private sector when the public sector is more efficient.

Public sector could not/cannot provide sufficient supply when time is of essence. The government had no choice but to reach out to private laboratories and throw money at the problem back in March and April when we were looking to expand our testing capacity from 10,000 to 100,000 tests a day.

Out of £12bln spend earmarked for "test and trace" the most expensive component is in fact testing (drive in/walk through centres/mobile units/use of private laboratories/etc). Clearly there was plenty of money wasted because the whole process was set up at the last minute through multiple fire drills but we were operating in a state of emergency.

I was born and grew up in a country that is widely known for corruption of its political elite. When I look at the UK, I primarily see poor planning, rushed decisions and incompetence both in the government and high PHE ranks. I do not see genuine "corruption".

Public sector needed time and funding.

Government decided to run down PPE stock before the crisis and were late ordering more,even with covid under way.

The contracts didn't go out to tender, and appear not to have been competitively priced and not given to companies with experience in the area.

Established UK firms offering to provide PPE / wanting to help in the national effort were reportedly overlooked.

It is of course entirely possible that a lot of this is bad planning/ incompetence.

But why on earth appoint Dido Harding if not nepotism?

@wintertravel1980
"Public sector could not/cannot provide sufficient supply when time is of essence. " Ideology - not data. Last time this type of ideology was raised I was able to produce data to show it was wrong.

No data here but anecdotal evidence at the time of ability for public sector to increase capacity. Also possible for public sector to buy in extra capacity if needed, the difference being that they would have the expertise to identify which labs could actually deliver.

@cathyandclare I missed Matt Hancock saying that - but clearly message still not out yet, not coming up on tv or newspaper headlines. Just posted another (tiny and not very good as observational) intervention study in the studies corner, saying the same as the others - it helps.

The failure to fund a vitamin D intervention study early on in the uk may yet be one of the governments biggest mistakes.

belgian study in studies corner - most transmission came from outside school, secondary age group most affected.

Interesting that Merseyside have shut gyms but Lancashire haven't

Police force fine rates

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-uk-fines-law-regulations-local-lockdowns-postcode-lottery-police-b914482.html

Lancashire have chosen to shut soft play centres and car boot sales instead of gyms. Some of the restrictions come into force tonight and some on Sunday night. So much for simpler rules!!

The gyms thing is crazy IMO. How do they expect the nation to stay healthy in winter by closing gyms. It is very much up to gyms to make sure they are operating safely though. Ours definitely are but commercially it must be very difficult.

@TackyTriceratops

There are also middle and first schools as well as junior and infant schools to make it even more complicated setting wise.

I might ask how my friend's middle school are doing the masks thing. Rates are about 600+ per 100,000 round here.

@TackyTriceratops one of my children is in a year 5-7 middle school. None of the children are required to wear masks, but they are also not teaching in sets this term, so they aren’t moving as much as usual

@Frazzled2207

The gyms thing is crazy IMO. How do they expect the nation to stay healthy in winter by closing gyms. It is very much up to gyms to make sure they are operating safely though. Ours definitely are but commercially it must be very difficult.

I agree completely, over winter they are really important for physical and mental health for many, from what I have seen there are very few cases linked to gyms and leisure centres, and I would have thought keeping them open should be a priority

Agree gyms should stay open! Just with VENTILATION along side the other measures.

ONS infection survey out showing a 50% increase in the past week.

BBC notes that the survey is of homes and so doesn’t include student halls of residence or care homes. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/16october2020

The % in secondary is still going up. School year 12 to age 24 is twice as big but not increasing.

Surely looking at this data, it is obvious that Secondary aged children are a massive driver of the current infection and mitigation should be targeted here.

Primary school aged children seem fine in comparison with the general population.

@Hmmph

ONS infection survey out showing a 50% increase in the past week. BBC notes that the survey is of homes and so doesn’t include student halls of residence or care homes. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/16october2020

The % in secondary is still going up. School year 12 to age 24 is twice as big but not increasing.

Surely looking at this data, it is obvious that Secondary aged children are a massive driver of the current infection and mitigation should be targeted here.

Primary school aged children seem fine in comparison with the general population.

I am sure I read, on this or another thread, that someone's DS was coming back for regular swabs for the ONS ( and the vouchers that go with it )

We are on the ONS survey. Since they expanded testing it has been incredibly difficult to get through on the phone lines. Our last weekly test was 10 days late and I rang daily the week before, trying to chase it. After 4.5 mins an automated voice reads back your number "for a call back in the next few days" and then cuts you off. I have never had the call back despite my number being taken 5 times that week.

So I reckon that 5 percent is partly explainable as the lucky few people who have managed to get through on the phone lines.

@Frazzled2207

The gyms thing is crazy IMO. How do they expect the nation to stay healthy in winter by closing gyms. It is very much up to gyms to make sure they are operating safely though. Ours definitely are but commercially it must be very difficult.

I really feel for gym owners and the such like. Many have no good ventilation or even windows so it’s not possible to ventilate well. I guess in one sense as long as we don’t put our heads in the sand and think that cleaning or SD is enough - and that is made clear. Even opening the door to any other areas like corridors would help and some masks are easier to wear exercising.

@Hmmph

ONS infection survey out showing a 50% increase in the past week. BBC notes that the survey is of homes and so doesn’t include student halls of residence or care homes. www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/16october2020

The % in secondary is still going up. School year 12 to age 24 is twice as big but not increasing.

Surely looking at this data, it is obvious that Secondary aged children are a massive driver of the current infection and mitigation should be targeted here.

Primary school aged children seem fine in comparison with the general population.

There's a significant increase in % positive in y 7-11 to 1 % and rising, (I can't upload as the image is too big I think.

y 12 to age 24 has plateau-ed at around1.5%.

These increases appear significantly greater than increases in the rest of the community. For the y 7-11 it would seem likely to be that this is related to conditions in secondary schools.

My DS is coming back home from halls for swabs (we joined the study before he moved so he's remaining in our "household" for study purposes), but he is alone in his flat and his course is fully online, so he's not that reflective of student infection levels.

@alreadytaken

In one of the last briefings either Whitty or Van Tam mentioned 16+ as an issue. The failure to mandate masks for 16+ in schools is another example of government incompetence. If older students were wearing masks it would then become acceptable for younger children who wished to do so to wear them.

Masks are encouraged for all aged children by WHO however it is clear that secondary school upwards it is much easier ethically and data wise to make the argument for them. It is not hard to do either - in Ireland all secondary school students (age 12 to 18) are wearing masks for lessons - and students comply fine. In many countries Universities are almost entirely online this term - or a mix - and places like Cambridge University are testing each week (I think I am right someone here posted this).

All it takes is for this to be mandated - as it is a weight on secondary/further education/universities to make this decision for themselves is too much - they just need clear evidence based direction.

Possibly related to the previous post. I would love to see the official government figures for this. Does anyone know of any?

I thought the point of the tier system was to simplify the rules so that everyone knew them and it was easy to follow because they were the same everywhere?

Hancock re vitamin D is on front page of today's Daily Telegraph: storify.com/services/proxy/2/xxrtsdi3ujNzeEqsTK8DYQ/https/media.fyre.co/utDzbkerTUScsy62mRge_1001ic-dtndt-1-161020-a001c-dt_1602795718_001.png

Liverpool:

Report published 16th October 2020
Cases data from week 7th-13th October 2020

Data extracted covering testing up to 13th October 2020 show that the total number of confirmed cases for the last 7 days is 3199, an increase of 9 cases on the previous week. The latest weekly rate of Covid-19 in Liverpool is 642.3 per 100,000 population and the latest positivity testing rate* is 18.4%.

Between 9th-15th October 2020 there were 156 registered deaths in Liverpool, of which 23% (n=36) were Covid-19 deaths.

From John Roberts ( @john_actuary ) on twitter:

The latest ONS COVID survey continues to show rapid growth in infectivity. Around 336k are believed to be infected (last week 224k), being 1 in 160 (1 in 240) of the population. New infections are put at 28k (17k) per day.

The regional position suggests that levels in the NE and Yorks/Humber may be levelling off, but the narrative expresses extreme caution in over-interpreting these results. We saw recently how an apparent levelling nationally was followed by a sharp rise the following week.

A similar caution is given for the Age 70+ band, but probably the most striking feature is a possible levelling in the young adult group. Again though the wide confidence interval means we need to be careful, and there has still been a small increase.

Finally, levels of new infections follow the overall infectivity track. It's worth noting that at 27,900 per day we are still well below the level of 100,000 assumed at the peak of the first wave. This data is for the period 2 to 8 Oct.

See twitter thread for accompanying images: mobile.twitter.com/john_actuary/status/1317065391668137985

@IceCreamSummer20 to add to the gym discussion - NI have announced that they will remain open for individual training and council swimming pools will remain open for lane swimming only (no family sessions etc.) this is very encouraging as they are doing the “circuit breaker”

@lurker101 Yes I believe that is the case for some areas of Ireland too. It must be quite crippling financially and fitness is to be encouraged. So a shame. Good to see decisions are being made understanding the evidence though.