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

Jeremy Hunt and govt adviser Prof John Bell both advocating "circuit-breaker"

Imo, if there is a 2 -week breaker, it needs to stay short and really sharp,
so schools should be shut, all non-essential shops (rope off any shelves selling non-essentials, to keep down numbers), all non-essential businesses that can't be done with 100% WfH
BUT
under the promise it won't be extended

Remdesivir and interferon fall flat in WHO’s megastudy of COVID-19 treatments

www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/remdesivir-and-interferon-fall-flat-who-s-megastudy-covid-19-treatments

One of the world’s biggest trials of COVID-19 therapies released its long-awaited interim results yesterday—and they’re a letdown.
None of the four treatments in the Solidarity trial, which enrolled more than 11,000 patients in 400 hospitals around the globe, increased survival

They are sitting on a massive asset

This was the fundamental mistake of the great depression wasn't it? That governments continued to bailout equity (let people with assets keep their assets with high values) at the expense of individuals. I believe Herbert Hoover said something about it being it his main mistake.

Whatever the situation of anyone, those of us with equity are always in a better place than those without, especially with secured interest rates so low, even illiquid assets can be turned into cash readily. As the guardian said the other day, unsecured loans though are getting very expensive due to default risk.
www.theguardian.com/money/2020/oct/15/uk-banks-plan-to-hike-cost-of-credit-card-borrowing

If providing a full safety net to the poor is not affordable to the government, the equity holders that made their money from previous low tax rates need to share the pain with the poor.

Has anyone here yet had a notification from the Track and Trace App?

Friend has this morning and been told to isolate for 6 days.

(Not a problem and she feels perfectly well)

However anyone know why 6? My guess was that means she had contact with the person 8 days ago....?

@herecomesthsun

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.

just to say this is

22-74k new cases per day, with around 40- 50k the likely range and

336k total cases in the community in the last fortnight.

Mayor joe Anderson just tweeted his brother unfortunately died last night.

BCF - Joe Anderson’s brother sadly died last night

From his twitter
Despite the efforts of all the staff @LivHospitals ICU my brother sadly died at 10.45 last night We want to thank the dedicated staff risking their lives for us.Thank you all for your messages of love and support Let’s stick together and support each other and win this battle💙❤️

@BigChocFrenzy
Totally agree. Everyone stays at home. Nothing but supermarkets open. Exercise only allowed. I could do that again for a time limited period. Only thing is obviously hospitals would need to be open and there would need to be some kind of key worker childcare provision.

@BigChocFrenzy

Jeremy Hunt and govt adviser Prof John Bell both advocating "circuit-breaker"

Imo, if there is a 2 -week breaker, it needs to stay short and really sharp,
so schools should be shut, all non-essential shops (rope off any shelves selling non-essentials, to keep down numbers), all non-essential businesses that can't be done with 100% WfH
BUT
under the promise it won't be extended

I waiver on this simply because of the possibility of extension. If it was a legally guaranteed two weeks, restrictions as you say and then back to what was in place for an area before no matter what, then I would accept it with minimal grumbling (not that my grumbling would make that much difference anyway ). However NI have said their school closures will be reviewed on the 2nd Nov which concerns me as it invokes what happened in march/April with extension after extension. Not great for education/business and potentially lead to unrest this time (would definitely make it harder to do a third time if needed) . A hard circuit breaker should come with the guarantee that it will be lifted no matter at the end even if the figures aren't quite where we'd like (accepting that figures lag behind measures so you are lifting "at risk" so to speak).

Plus it needs to be done soon as quite a few schools have broken up for half term already and most break up this Friday. If it drags on beyond end of this week then they've missed the boat so to speak to keep school disruption to a minimu

I'm neutral on the circuit-breaker, but the probability that it would be extended also tips me over into the No camp atm

Some of its advocates want 1-2 months, so I suspect 2 weeks is merely what they think can be agreed initially, but it would be extended again and again

What are the university numbers. The figures in the 00s of two/three weeks ago may by now be reducing dramatically as the students concerned are recovered or out of isolation?

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

You might think it is a rosy view but it is actually true and we aren't the only home that works like that. I have a relative in a home in a different part of the country, I had a photo this week of her having her hair done in the homes salon, hairdresser not calling but one of the staff doing it. My relative's home is expensive, the home where I help out is mainly council funded so not high fees.

Yes visiting is restricted, it has been for all of us hasn't it. For our residents most are having some visitors, seeing other people on the ipad and to be honest the ones with advanced dementia generally will tell you they haven't had a visitor two minutes after their family leave and don't seem to notice the difference. This seems to be more distressing for families than residents in our homes. Some of them seem much calmer with less coming and going generally, it is lovely having open visiting when you can see a friend or relative whenever you like but the downside of that is people with dementia can get agitated with strange faces and the hussle and bustle. That isn't a reason to stop visitors but I think going forward we will think about ways to reduce that stress for some residents.

I just think the general picture presented of care homes isn't always accurate, care staff have been blamed for not keeping homes safe and covid spreading and then they are criticised for keeping homes safe and restricting visitors.

At my relative's home staff moved in and lived in caravans in the grounds to ensure safety. They had an outbreak from someone being discharged from hospital with covid, the home I help in has had no cases and long may that continue.

The care sector is much maligned and the staff undervalued by much of society.

Sky news are doing an item now about homes closing, an elderly lady crying as she is being moved out of a home that is closing, oh the staff are joining in now, 85 and homeless.

@OhTheRoses

What are the university numbers. The figures in the 00s of two/three weeks ago may by now be reducing dramatically as the students concerned are recovered or out of isolation?

University of Nottingham are significantly reducing. They started asymptomatic testing on 5th October.

www.nottingham.ac.uk/coronavirus/covid-19-active-case-statistics.aspx

I'm in the NE and struggling to believe our numbers are going down as the last few days seem to indicate.

I suspect what is happening is that the testing in universities caught a lot of pre-symptomatic people as they were testing close contacts. That's great but if even a small portion of those were spreading out in the community then we don't know to test those close contacts yet until they become symptomatic. Which would suggest we'll get a few days lull and then it will properly explode.

And the next ONS survey will be interesting.

@PrayingandHoping yes that will be it- her contact will have just registered a positive result on their own app. The app will then know how long ago your friend was with the contact.

I heard something on local news about care directors being asked to identify homes which could be turned into Covid homes, to discharge patients from hosp. Not sure if they mean people who were still testing positive but didn't clinically need to be in hosp (whether admitted for Covid or something else).

Which sounds sensible until you realise this would mean moving existing residents out of their care homes!!

@Chaotic45 ok well that's good for her.

Just hope she hasn't been asymptomatic as she delivers food to the elderly and vulnerable for a living! ( a meals on wheels type company). They take lots of precautions but still....

Twitter thread by Stuart Mcdonald
@ActuaryByDay on latest ICNARC intensive care weekly report. The report covers critical care admissions to 15 October and compares the second wave (1 Sep onwards) to the first.

"As before, seven out of ten ICU admissions are males, with most aged 50-80.

Overrepresented groups include:

• Asian and Black ethnicity
• More deprived groups
• those who are obese

Nine out of ten needed no assistance with daily activities. A similar number were free of severe comorbidities.

Compared to the first wave, patients are much less likely to be mechanically ventilated within the first 24hrs (26% vs 58%).

They are much less likely to need advanced respiratory or cardiovascular support, or renal support.

Indications that cases are less severe.

Regarding outcomes it is still early days but survival is much better than was seen at this stage of the first wave.

Of those no longer in critical care,
around one-in-four has died and three-in-four have been discharged from ICU.

So, in summary ICU admissions still rising, though slower than first wave. Admissions were already falling sharply at this stage last time (we’d already locked down).

Severity appears less acute on admission and survival improved. "

mobile.twitter.com/ActuaryByDay/status/1317391421851172864

@PrayingandHoping it's really tricky isn't it, and makes you think about your contacts- although I realise in your friend's case that she has these contacts due to work, so has link choice.

I don't think this is the fault of the app though. Much depends on when the contact got tested and how long the results took.

It's inconvenient for your friend, but could save her potentially transmitting the virus.

Spain

15,186 new cases
222^ deaths^

Spain's death rate looks higher than other countries
and the graph I plotted of rolling 7-day total deaths upthread, shows a clear rise over the past few weeks, in comparison to other countries

Higher age of infection ?
Far lower % of cases found ?

[quote Chaotic45]@PrayingandHoping it's really tricky isn't it, and makes you think about your contacts- although I realise in your friend's case that she has these contacts due to work, so has link choice.

I don't think this is the fault of the app though. Much depends on when the contact got tested and how long the results took.

It's inconvenient for your friend, but could save her potentially transmitting the virus.
[/quote]
Oh my friend doesn't mind at all. Especially with her job. It's just a concern about the period that she hasn't been isolating...

BigChocFrenzy posted:

"Their calculated population IFR of 0.5% is in the range of most others (without a political agenda !) for the current situation"

@BigChocFrenzy From what I've seen of Dr Campbell's videos, he seems to be a caring man, who has integrity, and he tries to use data from reliable sources, as and when research/data studies become published/available. He posts links to the sources that he quotes, and sometimes passes comment, if he believes that the methodology used was flawed in any way. He does not seem to have any political agenda.

It may well turn out that the overall IFR is 0.5%, or higher, but that won't be known until the end of the pandemic, when the final death count is known for each country. Obviously, the death rate for countries with a larger number of elderly people is likely to be much higher than those with younger populations, but there are so many other factors that will affect the IFR - population density, availability of healthcare, weather patterns, cultural practices, mitigation measures and vitamin D levels.

I like this thread - lots of logical, well thought out comments, and very little political sniping or hysteria.

ancientghran We'll have to disagree on that
imo those in care homes who have awareness and have lost family visits are suffering

An earlier ONS report showed rises in dementia deaths that were not all Covid cases
and their conclusion was that the changes in routine and restriction of social contacts had accelerated dementia and deaths in care homes

I'm in correspondence with a former work colleague in her 80s living in a care home
I won't post anecdata from her, but merely note that care home residents are under more restrictions than probably any other sector except for prison inmates.

Restrictions are necessary, but let's not pretend that the cost in human terms isn't very high

Few of us would accept playing games with strangers as a substitute for formerly frequent contact with family,
although obviously those who never had contact may not experience much difference.

@PrayingandHoping very understandable. It shows the value of the app though. Inconvenient for each individual recipient of such a message, but potentially very helpful wrt slowing spread.