Data and Analysis Thread, started Oct 29

[PatriciaHolm]

With a link to the previous header for all the great links to data -

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4057030-Pure-data-thread-1-Daily-numbers-graphs-focused-analyses?

And with a polite plea to keep the focus on data and analysis if you please.

thanks all

Liverpool rates seem a bit low, certainly not excessively high.

But we had ~1.1% of England positive over the most recent survey periods, if we assume positive detection is 8 days out of that, that means we'd expect a full sample to be around 0.6% - pretty much in line, but Liverpool is supposed to be a hot spot with considerably higher rates than the 1.1% nationally. The whole north west was 2.6% so 0.7% is well off that.

I wonder if my 8 days positive is too high, but it would need to be 2-3 days to get low enough? Or if the sensitivity of the test is very low.

Or possibly just the restrictions since October 31st have had a large effect already.

I think cases in Liverpool had started falling way before Tier 3 restrictions were formally announced. People often tend to change their behaviour before government actions. The prevalence now is probably significantly lower than what it used to be a month ago. Generally, most of North West seems to on the downward trajectory.

I would have picked the next location for mass testing based on Zoe data which appears to be more current. The region which has got relatively high prevalence according to Tim Spector and is not dropping as fast as others is Midlands. Health officials might want to review more detailed data and pick the most problematic hot spot.

On a related note, Zoe’s estimated daily transmission rate keeps dropping - it is now down to 36,293 cases. The number is based on the test data up until Nov 6, i.e. it does not take into account any impact of the English lockdown.

Nottingham is apparently in talks about being the next city to be mass tested. We also had sky high rates, which then fell off massively. But there is increased transmission into the elderly.

It's interesting that they seem to be mass testing areas that are improving, instead of targeting those that are worsening.

I'd guess it's politics. If they tested in an area of rising cases, then the "hands-on"cases and particularly deaths would continue to go up with some attention seeker wheeled out on newspaper headlines to suggest mass testing was the wrong approach because it was making people complacent, finding too many false positives etc etc. The first few regions need to work as proof before taking risks.

There is now a list of rollout areas, each of which is getting 10k of the new tests out of a total of 600k next week. Local Directors of Public Health will determine how to use them. Following on from that -

"The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has now written to all upper-tier local authority leaders, confirming that all directors of public health will be offered this weekly allocation, equivalent to 10% of their population." Which suggests we are looking at sending out 5.5m tests a week!!

www.gov.uk/government/news/more-rapid-covid-19-tests-to-be-rolled-out-across-england

.

That's interesting patricia. I wonder if that's what the guardian reported on where councils were deciding how best to use.

I might be mistaken, but isn't this rapid test the one that is for use on symptomatic cases and has a 50% chance of being correct?
I admit I'm totally confused by now....
I just can't see weekly 5.5m tests being done effectively when they have failed at everything thus far. My cynical self is saying that it's a PR stunt in the runup to xmas

oh, but pls. tell me I am way off :)

From another thread... the sheer beauty of this sentence:
"What needs to happen after the elderly and vulnerable have been vaccinated is for the government to not release figures on cases etc."

I think this sums up people en mass.

The 50% should be the most infectious, especially for asymptomatic people, so it has a good chance of being useful in any event. That was also the finding of only one study; 3 areas trialled the tests at over 90% accuracy and only Greater Manchester had the issue.

TheSun, I think that was the criticism in the guardian article I read. But then later I saw someone on twitter say it had all been misinterpreted. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I believe it must be administered by a hcp so it's not the holy grail "in your home" test BJ said it was.

How will the LAs allocate the 10%, does anyone know. I wonder if it is just going to be a first come first served thing or will it be planned.

@ancientgran It'll be up to the local Directors of Public Health to work that out, depending on the needs of their area. The idea is to proactively test unsymptomatic people in high risk and priority groups, but it's up to the local areas to identify those who fall into those categories in their areas, and the best ways to reach them.

I’m not yet convinced about 10%. The Graun have Nottingham and Nottinghamshire down for 10,000 combined. The total population is 1.16 million. So even if it’s 10000 every week that’s 11 weeks to get to 10%. It does of course depend on how the population is defined. Maybe initially restricted to those with a 29th February date of birth.

Thanks Patricia.

@TheSunIsStillShining

From another thread... the sheer beauty of this sentence: "What needs to happen after the elderly and vulnerable have been vaccinated is for the government to not release figures on cases etc."

I think this sums up people en mass.

I guess this will be the long term approach though, they don’t scare us whitless with data on flu, meningitis etc.

I think we'll need to get a bit beyond the elderly and vulnerable though before we can just let the virus rip. Death rate for 55 year old healthy men is about 0.3%, for instance. And 55 isn't normally classed as "elderly". That's not a trivial number of middle aged people would die if we let the virus run rampant (plus the small percentage of older people for whom the vaccine doesn't work) We really need enough people vaccinated that the virus dies out - with a natural r rate of around 3, wouldn't that happen once 2/3 of people are vaccinated?

@Ijustcantcope That's a bit rude!

@Ijustcantcope the reason I am placemarking and not simply bookmarking is to keep the thread on Threads I'm On instead of constantly losing it off the bottom of active threads

I don't have anything useful to say but am appreciating other people's great contributions

On such a fast moving thread, I really don't think just skipping over the odd "." is really as onerous as you say

No numbers for England yet, and I see earlier that the case numbers for Wales were partial only.

It is better to “watch” the thread but I can’t get worked up over the odd blank post.

[quote AnyFucker]@Ijustcantcope the reason I am placemarking and not simply bookmarking is to keep the thread on Threads I'm On instead of constantly losing it off the bottom of active threads

I don't have anything useful to say but am appreciating other people's great contributions

On such a fast moving thread, I really don't think just skipping over the odd "." is really as onerous as you say[/quote]
AnyFucker, I like your • posts

However, I unwatch and then rewatch to bring the threads I'm interested in back up to the the top. I use the app on my phone and don't know whether this is possible in other situations.