Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread 26

[BigChocFrenzy]

Welcome to thread 26 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
NHS Triage Dashboard Pathways - triages of symptoms
NHS Triage Dashboard Progression - # people pillar 1&2, # triages

⏭ Our STUDIES Corner ⏮

We welcome factual, data driven and analytical contributions
Please try to keep discussion focused on these
📈 📉 📊 👍

(None of which works if you have kids going to school of course!)

@MRex

Changes in the test approach would reduce positivity rates, because those being tested multiple times since March get counted now on the negative tests, but it would actually increase case numbers for people who get repeat positive tests over a matter of weeks (which happens with some in hospital). There will be few enough cases like that to worry about, at the moment.

The slowdown is just a temporary pause in my opinion, because there are way too many people in hotspots in the north of England who have demonstrated they are keen to mix and mingle despite restrictions. The mobility maps are not showing reductions, which backs up that people aren't listening that there is higher risk now. It's nothing like the lockdown period right now, so cases will not slow down in some areas until people see their own friends and family unwell.

"The slowdown is just a temporary pause in my opinion, because there are way too many people in hotspots in the north of England who have demonstrated they are keen to mix and mingle despite restrictions. "

MRex
I agree with you that the slowdown could be temporary but I have real concerns about the way you have phrased the above.
Firstly not all hot spots are in the north and secondly many of most recent jumps in figures has been caused by students who will be disproportionately from more affluent areas all over the country.
I don't actually think that more people up north' are willing to break the rules than down south. It is just that figures here in Greater Manchester and other places were much higher coming out of lockdown. There's no evidence that compliance is worse here. It would be interesting to take a poll of the attitudes of MN members and the region I live in. I bet there's as many people down south saying they won't stick to the rules because they've had enough and noone is going to stop them seeing family etc.
There is a great frustration here that many of us have stuck to extra lockdown rules since the end of July ( which as far as seeing friends and families was concerned, was harsher than tier 2 as no meeting in homes or gardens) while at the same time having to deal with 'promotions" from government such as EOTHO and people travelling abroad which weren't exactly helping matters. In addition there has been no extra funding for being on these measures and the government have reneged on money that they promised. Schools have been made the hill to die on whereas here at least, teachers could have taught better and students had a better educational experience with part time attendance.
Just because figures are lower in many southern areas doesn't mean that they aren't increasing too. Today's northern cities will be tomorrow's Bristol's and Birmingham's and Swindon's and Southend's.

@EducatingArti - your suggestion is that I am making statements according to assumptions. I am not, I am making statements based on looking at the Google mobility report (actually, I looked to see if the news reports are biased). Take a look at Blackpool for example, it's close to normal mobility, actually an increase in household visits, that will create issues.

Indeed, but my argument is that this is also happening down south.

Actually, I do expect the student cases to drop once they've all isolated, but at the moment is we don't know how much is student versus community transmission, and my concern is that there is a lot of hidden community transmission that will keep rising.

I totally agree that there is a lot of hidden community transmission.
Have you also looked at the Google data for somewhere like Brighton?

That's fine @EducatingArti, but what is your evidence for that? I've explained what I looked at, in the mobility graphs I can see massive drops across most of the South, but it's more piecemeal in the North; Greater Manchester and Merseyside have drops but Lancashire, Nottingham and Yorkshire - not so much. Compare with London, Bath, Bristol, Bedford, Luton, Slough, Southampton, Reading... the bigger urban areas in the south appear to have lower mobility stats, it's a pattern.

@TheSunIsStillShining

Whilst i don't disagree with you about weak and narcissist Johnson, i think you somewhat miss whats been happening and how this situation has arisen.

Arguments between Manchester and Westminster have been ongoing since May or June, when the government turned around and said they couldn't have the money they'd been promised.

It then ramped to another level when local restrictions came in. And Bolton in particular have been trying to get extra support to completely tone deaf ears in Westminster. Hence when it was said that T3 was going to happen one of the Bolton MPs quit his job as a junior minister.

Its been quite apparent that there has been efforts by Manchester to get Westminster to help that arent public. Its just they have been completely and utterly stonewalled.

Whats gone on in the past week has been a combination of outright frustration by all quarters of Manchester at this and a deep sense of desperation.

There's also been very deliberate undermining of the local authority power by Westminster. At some point they have to stand up or risk losing their own authority. (This is a matter of democracy - if you dont assert authority and challenge dictates then you essentially accept them) Theres been leaks from Westminster to the newspapers to try and undermine the position of Manchester and Burnham in particular to bully them into accepting new restrictions. This has been to totally ignore all the private discussions that have been going on. Again its been made very clear by various Tories in the city that they were being left out, overruled and actively ignored by Johnson.

My fear in this is this is deliberate. We have an individual who is on record as wanting to burn all institutions of government in this countrt to the ground to start again. My worry is therefore its a deliberate attempt to bankrupt councils and get rid of local representation in favour of the establishment of a new system. We have already seen local councils go bankrupt and effectively lose local representation. Burnham as a devolved leader is a thorn in this governments side especially when the north was part of Johnson's winning strategy. It is not good for the north to have a political voice going forward because the agenda and priorities of Northern Tories and the North in general is very different to the aims and ambitions of those in power.

I think what we are seeing is Manchester pushed into a corner and making something of a last stand. We will see this unravel next year and no one will quite realise whats happened because the media are really picking up on the significance of what is happening here.

I don't think this is purely about covid. I think its political opportunitism to destroy the system of local government in areas which are regarded as 'difficult' to rule manage.

This also applies to policing too i expect, and Greater Manchester Police pointing out the localism factor is very interesting. If councils are taken over then who comes in to manage the finances and run the police? (Again the word Deloittes springs up here too)

I hope I'm wrong on this, but i think we shall see it play out. I think there is some massive political opportunism and disaster capitalism going on that is currently more off the media and public radar than it should be.

@EducatingArti - at least 62% of Brighton's cases are university students based on available stats, possibly more. So it's an anomaly area that's hard to include. Their mobility stats are also lower and they had very low cases before the University opened up.

So this has been an interesting data question which I haven’t seen answered (conversation red Google data is interesting) but what is out evidence of compliance since local lockdowns happened? I am aware that everyone in mumsnet was convinced at the time no one was complicating with the lockdown in March and everyone knew someone who was still having play dates etc but that wasn’t born out by data which showed that people did comply in very high numbers (higher than the government expected)

Have there been any attitude studies to compliance in local lockdown to assess compliance. Have those been split by geography and more importantly by different social groups (age, income etc). It’s easy to shout at all the people who are not as sensible as you are but as this goes on it makes me wonder if we would get bigger compliance and maybe better results if we looked at what people generally have a tolerance of and what they don’t. I wonder if allowing outdoor meetings in some hot spots might help for example as it gives an option to meet up that people didn’t have before and therefore drive meetings to the park which otherwise would have taken place in the house (because people simply are very unlikely to give up social contact indefinitely irrespective of what makes sense on a science level).

However I have seen very little evidence re compliance since the initial lockdown lifted and we do need to get a data driven idea of what is happening as I don’t find the anacote that “no one I know is” helpful!

@RedToothBrush - I fear you are correct. This is also a centralising government whatever it protests.

There is a similar ( although of lesser importance in some ways) stand off going on in London with the TFL negotiations and the imposition of conditions from central government ( and also the behind the scenes wrangling around Tier 2 in London). The government seems to rely on local councils to step in with extra test and trace and yet they haven’t provided any extra funding. Local councils were already woefully underfunded ( whatever the arguments around wastage at local council level).

This situation is playing out across the country but particularly acute in GM and areas where the virus is currently at very high levels. AB and other local leaders are damned if they do/damned if they don’t - if they stay silent the government is manoeuvring for them to take the blame, if they speak out they risk undermining the public health message.

Sorry that was a data free post!

And in the media-

Richard Horton has tweeted that government scientists are being leaned on not to speak to the media

while Dido Harding in the Times is apparently saying that Test and Trace was not meant to be "a silver bullet". It was however supposed to be essential, according to the WHO.

(Not actual data, but very much pertaining to the collection and interpretation of key data.)

Link to the Dido Harding article here for those who can get behind the Times paywall www.thetimes.co.uk/article/test-and-waste-dido-harding-boss-of-12bn-tracing-scheme-says-it-was-never-a-silver-bullet-s5n66rnjc

I think this graph needs to be added to the list, sadly.

I think the big issues with policing is numbers, there just aren't enough of them and experience. It is all well and good Johnson saying we have recruited x number this year, you don't become an effective police officer in five minutes. Back in my day they were "babies" for most of their probationary period i.e. 2 years and the most dangerous were the ones who thought they were fully cooked the minute they put their uniforms on.

It wasn't the popular view with management services but actually on the ground there was an awful lot to be said for the 50 year old with a beer belly compared to the enthusiastic but wet behind the ears 20 year old. Of course data wise you didn't see how many situations they had averted, just crude arrest figures. Don't know if they are more sophisticated now.

The old Resident Beat Officer who knew his patch, knew the characters was a valuable resources and most of them are gone and it will take years to effectively replace them.

@EducatingArti very true. I hate the old divide and rule which is so terribly British. I don't want to set north against south, I live in the south west which has been pretty low throughout but I'd rather have a national lockdown than be manipulated by this govt into blaming "Them in the North." for all that is going wrong.

[quote MRex]@EducatingArti - at least 62% of Brighton's cases are university students based on available stats, possibly more. So it's an anomaly area that's hard to include. Their mobility stats are also lower and they had very low cases before the University opened up.[/quote]
Blackpool also has much higher levels of deprivation than Brighton (6th in the UK), lower levels of professional, managerial and directorial jobs, higher numbers of care workers. There will be lower numbers who can WFH and high numbers in client facing roles, which will impact on footfall. The Govt also reported increased dependency on informal childcare in the north.

It's simplistic to blame it entirely on people being 'keen to' mingle. Many may have no choice in order to keep food on the table.

The smearing is also about trying to make it look like local leaders are guilty of financial mismanagement. There has been a sustained real terms defunding of councils over a number of years whilst councils are expected to provide more services (especially in terms of social care) for less. Its a perfect storm of circumstances and there is a very real tension between Westminster and local councils across the country (again noting the cross party nature of this and how the first councils going bust have been Tory).

All these things dont come out of nowhere, they are the eventual conclusion of a sustained pattern.

The problem is none of this stuff about liberal democracy and its institutions (everything from local government, to the justice and policing systems, to localised media etc etc) is properly understood and appreciated. I am pretty damn sure the concept of Peelian Principles is not taught in schools (i know about it from doing family history and finding someone who was one of the first police officers in the country and reading into the establishment of the Leicester Police force).

I am very very concerned about all this and how we seem to be sleep walking into a very different country which is far from the Liberal Britain that Johnson speaks about and is supposed to be a champion of. Tbh i dont think he even realises himself and is something of a useful idiot.

@MRex

That's fine *@EducatingArti*, but what is your evidence for that? I've explained what I looked at, in the mobility graphs I can see massive drops across most of the South, but it's more piecemeal in the North; Greater Manchester and Merseyside have drops but Lancashire, Nottingham and Yorkshire - not so much. Compare with London, Bath, Bristol, Bedford, Luton, Slough, Southampton, Reading... the bigger urban areas in the south appear to have lower mobility stats, it's a pattern.

Is that a reflection of northerners not keeping to rules or relational to more of them being unable to work from home. Although a smaller town, maybe somewhere like Southend might be a better mobility comparator to Blackpool then?

@RedToothBrush

The smearing is also about trying to make it look like local leaders are guilty of financial mismanagement. There has been a sustained real terms defunding of councils over a number of years whilst councils are expected to provide more services (especially in terms of social care) for less. Its a perfect storm of circumstances and there is a very real tension between Westminster and local councils across the country (again noting the cross party nature of this and how the first councils going bust have been Tory).

All these things dont come out of nowhere, they are the eventual conclusion of a sustained pattern.

The problem is none of this stuff about liberal democracy and its institutions (everything from local government, to the justice and policing systems, to localised media etc etc) is properly understood and appreciated. I am pretty damn sure the concept of Peelian Principles is not taught in schools (i know about it from doing family history and finding someone who was one of the first police officers in the country and reading into the establishment of the Leicester Police force).

I am very very concerned about all this and how we seem to be sleep walking into a very different country which is far from the Liberal Britain that Johnson speaks about and is supposed to be a champion of. Tbh i dont think he even realises himself and is something of a useful idiot.

I so agree with this.

@RedToothBrush
I don't see out povs as being mutually exclusive. I think we agree, just commented on different aspects.
We were just talking with my husband how many things are flying below the radar atm. And how that is a terrible thing. We've seen it slowly happen in another country and we saw where it led to. Not what I would call a democracy.

On the other hand I can hardly fathom UK devolving into such a mock-democracy. People are more used to democracy here.

You've also got to realise that Blackpool is very dependent on footfall, and specifically footfall from other areas.

There will be huge issues simply from lockdown meaning the visitors will have been down. And now, with the illuminations-that's another huge footfall they can't afford to lose.

So it's not as simple as saying reduce footfall. Reducing footfall in Blackpool will cause poverty, not just now but also going into spring. Next Summer is unlikely to be able to cover the debts unless things rapidly change.

I grew up near there. There were people who were in the tourist industry that seemed to have of ready cash in the summer through to the end of the illuminations, then they'd be living the pauper's life until the tourists returned.
A poor year, just as in the past a poor harvest at a farm, meant that it wasn't just hard in the Spring, it was literally having nothing and waiting for the tourists to come back. I remember friends whose parents would be selling anything to get food. Friends who wouldn't have a phone over winter (1990s), or a car, or not able to get things like new shoes etc.

I don't think it's as simple as the north being less compliant. Blackpool can't be compliant in the way London can. They only have the tourist industry to take them through.

@Witchend

You've also got to realise that Blackpool is very dependent on footfall, and specifically footfall from other areas.

There will be huge issues simply from lockdown meaning the visitors will have been down. And now, with the illuminations-that's another huge footfall they can't afford to lose.

So it's not as simple as saying reduce footfall. Reducing footfall in Blackpool will cause poverty, not just now but also going into spring. Next Summer is unlikely to be able to cover the debts unless things rapidly change.

I grew up near there. There were people who were in the tourist industry that seemed to have of ready cash in the summer through to the end of the illuminations, then they'd be living the pauper's life until the tourists returned.
A poor year, just as in the past a poor harvest at a farm, meant that it wasn't just hard in the Spring, it was literally having nothing and waiting for the tourists to come back. I remember friends whose parents would be selling anything to get food. Friends who wouldn't have a phone over winter (1990s), or a car, or not able to get things like new shoes etc.

I don't think it's as simple as the north being less compliant. Blackpool can't be compliant in the way London can. They only have the tourist industry to take them through.

This is an interesting post. Can I ask quite a basic question (I grew up o/s and know London very well) but where do you see the differences, if any, for places like Cornwall. Are the rates surprisingly low for SW considering tourism?

New FT page (free to read) on global Covid-19 data:
ig.ft.com/coronavirus-global-data/

Cornwall has a lot of money throughout the year through retirees.

No one retires to Blackpool.