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
📈 📉 📊 👍
--
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

No, money, just money, actual support for poor, so far almost all the financial subsidy has gone to the wealthy. House prices propped up, mortgage interest rates cuts, secure jobs furloughed. A house owner was even allowed to take a break on their mortgage at borrow that money at maybe 2% over the next 20 years. Insanely cheap Government loans to private equity companies, so the extremely wealthy don't lose out.

Whereas a renter, just got told, "well we'll not let your landlord take possession for 6 months, you'll still owe them the full rent, but...", the zero hours contract person just got zero hours. Eventually access to 74 quid a week, or maybe a bit more if you're lucky.

I agree, the financial support is very uneven, some of it is just badly planned but some definitely favouring certain sectors. I see so much of , "How can people live on 66% if their normal wage" but very little about how can people live on £74 and I'm sure lots on £74 are very envious of those getting 66%.

There is also alot of misleading going on, when Sunak announced they would be supporting businesses that had to close and their staff I immediately said to my son that they wouldn't close all businesses but businesses would have to close because of restrictions and those businesses wouldn't be getting help. He didn't agree with me but that is what is happening.

NW

A running count of ICU free beds would be useful

1431 admissions over the last 7 days, vs 1059 the previous 7 days.

1637 in hospital on 16 Oct, which is +532 over the same day last week.

152 in ventilation beds on 16 Oct, which is +30 over the same day last week.

(data charts from COVID-19@UKCovid19Stats)

As with most crises / natural disasters around the world - remember e.g. Hurricane Katrina in the USA -
the poor experience them differently to the comfortably off,
while the privileged wealthy live in a different world to the 99%

• a world in which they make the decisions affecting everyone else

Red - an excellent post. I was talking with someone who was on the Knowsley Covid Outbreak call last week and their biggest challenge they feel is trust. When you have big areas of deprived people (such as in Knowsley) where the long held feeling is that they have been screwed for years by successive layers of authority (poor education, job opportunities, housing ...) then how do you expect those people to suddenly trust you when you ask them to trust you with another set of rules. That’s why there’s been an increase in media posts from the medics locally, people trust the doctors more than the politicians.

Also, and I really feel this is key, poverty takes away your choices. I am fortunate because I can get my groceries delivered because I know I have enough in my bank account to be able to order a shop big enough for the minimum order. So I can stay home and don’t have to risk contact in a shop. If you are living hand to mouth then this is a choice not open to you. Let alone other factors such as no internet and literacy issues. Magnify that one “choice” over and over and over again and you start to see the issues facing local communities

Agree BigChoc.

We only recently bought in this country having rented in many other countries and renting here was the worst experience by far. The protections for renters here are non-existent and bullying by landlords par for the course. It's generally very unprofessional and luck is the biggest factor in having a good or bad experience.

In other countries we rented in there were laws that required landlords to pass interest rate reductions onto tenants. Clear rules and regulations and enforcement. Nothing like this in the UK, not even in the middle of a pandemic with people losing their jobs.

You can find information and regional maps about furlough here: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coronavirus-job-retention-scheme-statistics-september-2020.
It's really important to note that some self-employed have been able to work throughout, so percentage getting a payment doesn't reflect needs.
Benefit claim changes might provide additional insight (though there will be gaps where data is annual):
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about/statistics.

It's great to provide feedback on how a local area is doing. If people have information they can't find, please can I suggest calling out the data in bold/italic when it's in the middle of a long post, so they don't get lost.

SD for thr elderly in particular can cause them to rapidly deteriorate

and in a care home, they don't have the choice to risk it and go out

I think we have to be very careful about lumping all care homes into one category. Some are run on very limited amounts of money and closures are happening and there will be more.

I am retired but I help out at a friend's care home, just a couple of hours a week with financial admin. The home is a home in the best sense of the word, the staff are supportive and caring. They have run so many activities during lockdown and residents are actually really happy and doing well. They do online keep fit classes, the staff have set up a "shop" which is open a couple of times a week. They "stock" treats (chocolate and sweets) that they know residents like, nice toiletries, they also stock some donated goods. Residents who aren't very mobile or don't get out much are loving it and it will continue. Pamper nights are also positive as are popcorn evenings with a film.

If anything I think our residents have improved during this crisis, they certainly haven't deteriorated.

The stories imposed austerity on the country for years - as far as they are concerned the poor are "a waste of space" until they need their vote. I really am quoting story voters, more than one, using that description of anyone on benefits.

It wont escape Boris's notice that the New Zealand election is giving Jacinda a landslide victory and possibly a majority.

Our local foodbank is not given enough vegetables but wont take fresh. If yours doesnt you can donate to the olio ap olioex.com/ - or donate tinned sweetcorn (seems to be available again) and tinned carrots. Tinned fruit is also welcome, they'd like something other than tinned peaches so we put mandarin oranges in.

The virus degrades faster in sunlight so weather does have an impact. I think there's now enough data, even if not great quality, to say vitamin D supplements should be handed out to anyone on benefits. The small bit on the telegraph reporting on Matt Hancock encouraging their use is unlikely to reach people who most need to hear it.

Vallance at 16:16

the confidence intervals for covid numbers in the community are concerning, they go from 22k to 74k. With exponential spread that's not all that far from where we were previously at lockdown in March, and it's only mid October, with the rest of the winter to come.

The problem with renting relief is that landlords are not equal.

You have:

1. Landlord one, who owns many properties, and is sitting on £500k plus reserve, and most people will still be able to pay because he's very careful who he rents to and only rents to people he sees as low risk.
2. Landlord two, who has a few properties which is his income, he will lose pretty much all his rent, because he's been happy to rent to people who are in tougher financial situations
3. Landlord three, who is only renting out her mum's old home and the rent goes directly, not quite covering, to pay for her mum's care.

If you said renters don't have to pay, then landlord 1 would be fine, landlord 2 may be fine, but may decide in future he's going to only take lower risk people, landlord 3 may not be able to pay for her mum's care (that's our landlady btw!).

I'm not sure you can necessarily separate out this fairly. Would it be fair to say landlord 3 gets paid and the other two don't? Possibly on Landlord 3, but not fair on tenant 3.

I've also seen some brilliant examples of care homes arranging good things for their residents. Dont want to describe that as that could be identifying but creative ways to allow more than through a window visits and activities that they arrange for residents.

Anyone seen or tried the cuddle curtains?

Test and Trace app - exposure notifications - exposure checks- number of keys

Does anyone know anything about this? I have done some research, and as I understand it, each time it does an exposure check, the number of keys is the number of new reported positive tests of people using the app. Each exposure check compares the ID of the keys with your phone data and checks if you have a match.

Therefore, if I added up the number of keys in the 24 hours up until 9am and then compare this number with the number of new cases reported that day does it tell me the percentage of people testing positive using the app? And if I checked these figures daily could I get a rough estimate of case numbers?

In the 24 hours until 9am on 16 Oct, my phone shows a total of 14,003 keys. In the 24 hours until 9am this morning, it shows 12,017 keys.

In 24 hours to 9am 3 Oct - 9,282 keys.

If anyone wants to check their keys, I found it by turning off my Bluetooth with contact tracing still turned on it the app. It gave me an alert and when I clicked on it I got exposure notifications and then I got details by selecting exposure checks and clicking on each time. I have since found that I can get the same from going to settings, Google, COVID-19 exposure notifications.

One local care home has been advertising their new visiting pod this week, a sealed unit with hugging access. Which is amazing, but clearly not every care home can afford to build such a solution.

twitter.com/highwrayhome/status/1314550802145595399?s=21

I'd add landlord 4: a property management company with a portfolio of flats/houses.
Our last 2 places were/are like this. And I hate the idea that I'm paying to a company that does jack all and only grow their profit, regardless or my personal circumstances. But I don't have a choice.

Landlord 3 could sell the house and could get a loan against the value of the house / equity release too if needed and use that to pay care costs. They are sitting on a massive asset. The government could ensure there is a mortgage holiday (during the pandemic) until property sales finalised. Stamp duty already reduced making it easier financially to sell.

Also, for Landlords 1-3 I fail to see why any of them shouldn't pass on interest rate reductions to tenants, but they're not required to.

Compare to the renter who has no job / reduced hours, who can't pay their massive rent, and is just racking up huge debt and in fear of getting evicted and having to live on the streets with their kids.

Anyone who owns a house has an asset they can borrow against or sell. They do have options.

@ancientgran

SD for thr elderly in particular can cause them to rapidly deteriorate

and in a care home, they don't have the choice to risk it and go out

I think we have to be very careful about lumping all care homes into one category. Some are run on very limited amounts of money and closures are happening and there will be more.

I am retired but I help out at a friend's care home, just a couple of hours a week with financial admin. The home is a home in the best sense of the word, the staff are supportive and caring. They have run so many activities during lockdown and residents are actually really happy and doing well. They do online keep fit classes, the staff have set up a "shop" which is open a couple of times a week. They "stock" treats (chocolate and sweets) that they know residents like, nice toiletries, they also stock some donated goods. Residents who aren't very mobile or don't get out much are loving it and it will continue. Pamper nights are also positive as are popcorn evenings with a film.

If anything I think our residents have improved during this crisis, they certainly haven't deteriorated.

... That paints a pretty rosy picture compared to many other homes, which have very little enrichment activity,

When I visited homes to find one for my late mother, so many were miserable, smelly warehouses
In the end I paid for an upmarket private home, a struggle but at least I had the choice

Even for the good ones, most have had to restrict or ban visitors as a safety measure
If elderly people are used to family visiting, stopping that for months can be devastating,
especially if they are no longer able to understand why, or even if they are

If the Landlord sold the property, the risks are high that the tenant would be evicted and made homeless.

As an accidental landlord, paying a mortgage with an enormous rent deficit, and an inability to sell the property due to a tenant ( single, professional). I can see both sides of the argument.

can anyone direct to me to regional numbers of people in employment to work out what proportion were furloughed?

It is a fact little known and less acknowledged that a large part of the country's tax take comes from London and the south east. www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-and-tax-by-county-and-region-2010-to-2011

Some cities receive more from the government than the tax they bring in see e.g. www.centreforcities.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/15-07-06-Mapping-Britains-Public-Finances.pdf

Some more data we should be collecting in schools:

What percentage of schools with 1 case in a year go on to close that year group within the next 3 weeks? What percentage with 2 cases? 3? Does the size of the year group matter? Same question for entire schools.

This way, we could work out the best possible time to close a year group/school and prevent spread getting out of hand. If 90% of schools with 2 cases in a year went on to shut that year within a short amount of time, we would be much better closing the year down quicker and having a chance at eradicating the cluster before it became established. These kind of decisions should be evidence based.

This kind of data should be being actively sought. It should be easily available, but I doubt it is, as I understand schools are discouraged from reporting subsequent cases.

Vallance at 38;26

"since August, 40% of admissions to hospital are under the age of 60" Vallance

I think there would be more success getting people to accept lockdowns and follow SD measures
if those advocating them accepted that some people will suffer very badly as a result
discuss how to mitigate it for them and put in the resources to do so,
rather than glossing over it , or attacking opponents - only of the other party of course - as this government is doing

An exercise for future textbooks in how NOT to manage public health

Sorry for a school derail, I just got hit by the notion and had to get it out.

We also need data on what numbers / % of pupils are isolating after a positive test
and what number as a precaution
separated unto a few age groups

Also cases & isolation figures for teachers in primary and in secondary school

The school attendance link we have (in the OP) is very limited

I think it's a good thought Nellodee and does fit in with the thread. Would be interesting data to have

Liverpool mayor urges people to follow Covid-19 rules as brother in ICU

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/16/liverpool-mayor-pleas-people-to-follow-covid-19-rules-as-brother-in-icu