Pure data thread #1: Daily numbers, graphs, focused analyses

[BigChocFrenzy]

This is pure data, NOT for the "worried about Corona"

We welcome calm factual, data-driven contributions
Please try to keep discussion focused on these and avoid emotional venting or politics
📈 📉 📊 👍

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
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

COVID-19 Risk Factors
Alama Personal COVID risk assessment
PHE Clinical RFs - summary & social vulnerability indicators
PHE Clinical RFs - respiratory disease
PHE Clinical RFs - non-respiratory - CVD,T1, T2, obesity, flu jab coverage
PHE Non-Clinical RFs - deprivation, demography, economic inactivity, ethnicity
PHE Non-Clinical RFs - Vulnerable Groups (1): care / nursing home, MH, visual disabilities
PHE Non-Clinical RFs - homeless, children in care, ESL

Miscell:
Zoe Uk data
ECDC rolling 14-day incidence EEA & UK
Worldometer UK page
FT DIY graphs compare deaths, cases, raw / million pop
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 ⏮

Sunshinegirl I wonder if we should now start to focus less on which restrictions we think, if complied with, would have the biggest impact on R/case numbers and more on which restrictions people are most likely to comply with and lead with those? That is a really good point, something to think about for sure.

So the ONS figures show a sharp fall in % positive in secondary school kids (year 7-11) and a rise in age 2 year old - year 6 (apologies, I couldn't get the graph to load). I am a bit puzzled by that, if anything I would have expected the two curves to go the same way.

I was thinking about the issue with food shopping and Christmas and I wondered if anyone had thoughts on this.

I probably go into a supermarket once a week, I have my shopping delivered but normally end up having to dash into a supermarket to get a loaf. My freezer isn't big so I can manage a weeks shopping with pretty well everything but often need to get some bread. I imagine quite alot of people would be in a similar position at Christmas, they stock up on tins and frozen stuff, it might not be just like last Christmas but it is OK but bread and maybe milk? I bet alot of people in the shops on the 23rd or 24th are just there for them.

My idea was if supermarkets set up something in the car park, like they do for click and collect, with just bakery and milk. I think it could take alot of people out of the queue for the supermarket and obviously out of the supermarket.

I was thinking of sending an email to Sainsburys/Tesco etc. Do you think it might work?

@herecomesthsun I agree. Something to do with changing attitudes of parents/teens toward testing, is all I can think of? It's only dropped in the last published week hasn't it. Nothing's happened, unless the number of secondary groups isolating has reached some kind of critical mass, which I doubt.

@herecomesthsun

Just random thinking through but any possibility that if, as the data we have so far seems to suggest, secondary age children spread covid more readily there might be a level of herd immunity starting to build there? Specific only to that herd of course. Where as primaries are more reflective of increased spread in the community as opposed to seeing lots of internal spread?

@ancientgran I think that's a great idea, not just at Christmas actually, don't we all do it at times?

Tesco may say "That's what our smaller convenience stores are for.", though.

Augustbreeze thanks. I hadn't thought of the small convenience stores as we don't really have them, well we have a small co-op supermarket but I don't think they'd cope with the influx.

You are right though, I've stood in a long queue when all I needed was bread, it isn't going to be fun in the winter and it is more time when you can end up close to people.

Age 2 - year 6 have the steepest gradient of increase of any group. It doesn't simply look like a reflection of community spread.

I doubt that enough secondary school pupils have yet had covid to gain herd immunity (which is in itself a dubious concept especially with short lived immunity of only a few months).

Year 12 to age 24 % positive has plateaued rather than fallen, around 2%, which seems high to me.

I am still puzzled over the "story" behind this picture.

[quote Augustbreeze]@herecomesthsun I agree. Something to do with changing attitudes of parents/teens toward testing, is all I can think of? It's only dropped in the last published week hasn't it. Nothing's happened, unless the number of secondary groups isolating has reached some kind of critical mass, which I doubt.[/quote]
A few things occurred to me on the drop.

One is that it's half term this week for a number of schools. So have tests in that age dropped as well? I can imagine that a fair number of tests of the younger ones are tested because they hope to get a negative which means they can go back to school, parents may not bother if they've got a week off anyway.
Secondly there will still be some lag for this week to add.

And lastly antidotally here. Ds is in year 9. Half his year is off. I believe 1/3 were told to isolate on Wednesday (he's most put out that he wasn't one of them, especially as 2/3 of his form is off). The remaining 1/6 seem to have been pulled them out. Some of them, according to ds, are because they are going on holiday next week and don't want a positive test/to be told to isolate and stop the holiday. He also knows a couple who were pulled out 2 weeks ago telling the school they had to isolate due to contact, when actually (according to the child) parent wants them to isolate again so they can go on holiday.

Interesting re isolating prior to holidays @Witchend ..... and fab to think we'll have lots of families jetting off again .

However, re your other point, the data will be for the previous week and afaik only Scottish schools were on half term then.

I understand the limitations of herd immunity via natural infection as a long term strategy but if we accept there is some short term immunity (and this seems likely) then I think it's possible it could have an impact in certain limited groups (university students might be another herd that might benefit from some collectively immunity).

Indie SAGE on now, looking like an interesting agenda

Manc, Notts & Liverpool

schools

hospitalisations and deaths

the case for a circuit breaker

I agree Sunshine that there may be a level of herd immunity in those specific groups- hopefully that will slow spread within the group and also within vulnerable people that come into contact with them .

@Sunshinegirl82

I understand the limitations of herd immunity via natural infection as a long term strategy but if we accept there is some short term immunity (and this seems likely) then I think it's possible it could have an impact in certain limited groups (university students might be another herd that might benefit from some collectively immunity).

Yes I think so

ONS notes say this about the secondary schools data:

“Extreme caution should be taken in over-interpreting small movements in the narrower age groups, particularly those in school Years 7 to 11, which have wider credible intervals.”

The ones I've heard of re: secondary school being off is that they don't test because it's hard to get a test and B) because they don't want to know as it would mean keeping the other child off, administration, having parents off,.... so they don't bother. And also: oh, it's just a small cough/cold/sniffles... everyone is a bloody doctor :)

re: secondary school being off sick

@BigChocFrenzy Please don’t go. This is by far the best source of coronavirus information and analysis. We don’t always agree but your posts are always interesting.

A very long explanation just released about why MSOA is only marked at 3+ and why cases aren't shown at LSOA level. It's just data protection as you might expect, fear of false identification of people as cases as much as real identification. I don't know how the article manages several pages just to say that, even though I've read it, and it's a tedious read: www.gov.uk/government/publications/office-for-national-statistics-recommendation-for-publishing-data-at-small-geographies-for-nhs-test-and-trace/disclosure-risk-assessment-for-nhs-test-and-trace-counts-at-small-geographies.

Things can get heated but it’s not that bad, stay

Interesting report looking at the number of excess deaths occurring by age, sex and place of death. The findings (based on the ONS numbers) aren‘t what I expected to see, particularly the lower than normal number of deaths of the elderly and from respiratory illness. One possible interpretation is that some of the covid deaths are people who are dying after a positive test, but of something else as the main cause. This would reflect my daughter‘s experience in a large general hospital working on the medicine of old people wards. They are testing a lot and these are people in their 80’s and 90’s who have other comorbidities as well. Worryingly, there are increased deaths of younger age groups that don‘t seem to be down to covid especially in peoples‘ own homes. www.cebm.net/covid-19/22268/
Does make me wonder if we are considering the big picture enough here.

Sorry that should say PHE numbers, not ONS who use a different method to calculate.

@Sunshinegirl82

I was musing this morning on the issue of restrictions and their effectiveness (or not). I've always been of the view that it was a reality that people simply will not socially distance or comply with restrictions long term. Not because they are selfish or stupid (although some are!) but because it is contrary to human nature and consequently really hard.

I had thought we would get more compliance through the Winter but I'm not sure about that now (that's not a criticism, I can completely see why it might be happening).

I wonder if we should now start to focus less on which restrictions we think, if complied with, would have the biggest impact on R/case numbers and more on which restrictions people are most likely to comply with and lead with those?

Have there been any studies on which elements of the restrictions people are complying with the most/least? Do we know whether the reduction in isolation periods in France has increased compliance?

I very much appreciate these threads too and all that goes into them, and BCF for starting them.

I have been wondering re restrictions which things might have the biggest ratio of theoretical effect on R to behaviourally realistic effect on R. On the economic side, I wonder how much spending has been taken out of specific sectors and how much is due to imposed restrictions versus people choosing not to use them.

I don't honestly think it is in any way a new rethink that we need to care about the economy as well as health; it's been a strong thread running through discussions from the start, and regardless of what the papers might prefer to make headlines of, I think also policies.

Covid is like having polluted flood waters throughout a town - we can't stop everything, pump out the flood water and wait until the ground is dry before opening things up again, but neither can we just open things up and stop bothering at all with the flood barriers, sandbags, road blocks and so on that are keeping levels low. We're like London suddenly given Venice's sea levels and maybe preparing for the next year is about accepting that and restructuring things fast. At the moment lots of things are alternating between "as normal as possible and therefore not that safe" and "closed", when maybe there are middle grounds not yet explored.

Another one delurking to say how much I appreciate these threads, BCF, as an oasis of calm, I have usually felt much safer here than anywhere else because they have been simply data and fact driven, sensible and helpful but with compassion as well. Please don't leave.

Yet another lurker who has appreciated these threads for their calm factual approach. Broader discussions are important too, but should take place on other threads.