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

.

@Qasd I’d say you are spot on. Very mixed picture in England. Taking the seven days to 6 nov cases overall are just under 7% up as compared with the previous 7 days.

North west though 11% lower, and Inner London 3.3% down. Everywhere else up at the regional level.

North east up 20%
York’s and Humber up 10%
East Midlands up 9%
West Midlands up 17%
East of England up 12%
South east up 16%
South west up 11%
Outer London up 9%

however within several of the regions with increased overall cases there is a real mix of increases and decreases by council areas

Although to add some council areas increasing from a relatively lower case rate. However with 265 councils at at least 100 cases per 100000 for the last seven days and just 2 below 50 per 100000 let’s not kid ourselves that any council has a genuinely low rate.

I'm interested in what's going on on the Zoe app.
It's falling, that's great, and it's a definitely fall, not a wavering level off.

But our area is now the lowest it has been since about mid October, barring a blip about the 25th October where it dropped for one day. But less than a week ago was at the highest ever, having risen really rapidly-it's dropped more than 100, from around 300.
It makes me wonder about the data here.

By official positive tests we're up a little but not majorly, we are at our highest level per 100k currently, but not by a huge amount.

I think we can look at the data and say it is looking hopeful but not time to be complacent and relax yet. :(

I find Covid Zoe is useful as an overall estimate and as an indicator to the country's direction of travel, but not to be taken too seriously at a local level because the variability means it can have cases whizzing up and down by too much.

Agree about Zoe app being unreliable at local level. I suspect it has greater uptake in some areas than others.
I live near Hull which has had a huge surge in cases after being consistently low until recently. Zoe app doesn't show the density of users there as other cities. For example the app shows 1462 contributors in Hull, with a population of 260k. Whereas in Cambridge there are 4472 contributors with a population of 123k.

I think @MRex is right re Zoe. It's a useful source for national estimates, but its sampling strategy can't enter be accurate at local level. The numbers of Zoe users are just too low to pick up relatively small numbers of cases. Even their regional charts look dodgy with large margins of error. I think your only option for local data is the reported case rates.

On the other hand, in my area, Zoe shows cases nearly doubling in the past week!

When I went back to teaching in sept I couldn't physically or mentally keep going with Zoe. It was too stressful to analyse symptoms daily. So there may be others who didn't either.

@Pepermintea I’ve found the same, and I’m in London where cases are supposed to be stabilising....

Cases still going up in my part of outer London too although a couple of weeks ago they opened up a new testing site and in the wards closest to the new site the PHS interactive map has gone from light blue to dark blue and the occasional red. Could just be more cases being picked up through more tests being processed or could be the R-rate increasing. Fingers crossed its increased testing.

Cases seem to be levelling of here where I am in the South West, we do seem to have a lot in schools atm so time will tell as we are only a week in from half term.
It doesn't help that the time from testing to actually getting results here are 3 days +.

Not pure covid data, but related
www.ft.com/content/07f76b06-73db-4647-97b6-ef0a9a58626d

twitter.com/AllysonPollock/status/1326246805202472965

I don't always agree with AP, but so far she has made sense and looks capable and professional (based on indy sage appearances)

@TheSunIsStillShining

Not pure covid data, but related www.ft.com/content/07f76b06-73db-4647-97b6-ef0a9a58626d

twitter.com/AllysonPollock/status/1326246805202472965

I don't always agree with AP, but so far she has made sense and looks capable and professional (based on indy sage appearances)

My experience of Allyson Pollock is that she opines on areas outside her professional expertise. I would not assume her view is reliable, unless backed up by other sources.

Thanks for that opinion, I don't know her work that well, but will read more around what she says.

I'm in the SW as well @Castiel07 and the Zoe app has us up and down and all over the place!

There are definitely a few hotspots down here though, but as this is a big region (SW goes all the way up to Glos/Swindon in NHS terms) so the rates for the "proper" SW ie Devon, Cornwall, Dorset tend to be skewed in the overall figures.

In my little corner of Cornwall I don't think there are many of us reporting so it can look a bit dramatic - but then this week it does look like the affects of back to school after half term are being seen, so if that's a national trend, it will be interesting to see what the govt does with the data.

The DM saying it will be more regional after lockdown but dint see how that works with say Bristol /s glocs/n somerset and BANES areas as they are all very high. Completely out of step with the SW.
Looking at the imperial predictions certainly n somerset doesnt look like it would come down after lockdown. Maybe the rapid testing in bristol might make the difference to all the surrounding areas. However we all only went up when schools went back and then the unis. Maybe thats why the unis sound like they will be going home within 6d, although large cities will just see a large volume of infected students reyurn home

They are planning mass student testing @Keepdistance so there should only be covid free students travelling. That said I don’t see how they can make students get the test so will be relying on compliance from people who probably feel a bit cheated.
I always thought we would be going back into the tiers in December but hopefully when the new cases per 100k come out they will show a slowing down meaning we might be able to go into lower tiers than we were in in October.

I really dislike this new thing of publishing data in dinnertime....

More timely data today

22950 cases
595 deaths

The dashboard has been updated. 22,950 cases, 595 deaths.

The cases seem to be plateauing or going down across most of the regions. Generally, numbers reported on Wed seem to be the highest during the week (e.g. we had 25,177 cases on 4/11, 24,701 cases on 28/10 and 26,688 cases on 21/10).

I feel the tiered system might have been actually working.

The UK has now passed 50,000 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test :-(

50,365 to be exact.

And 61,648 with Covid-19 on the death certificate.

Extraordinary failure on the part of our government when you compare this with the deaths in other countries that have managed this pandemic more successfully.

I can only think of one densely populated Western country that has managed this pandemic significantly better than anyone else. It is Germany.

UK numbers on a relative basis are not that different from Italy, Spain or France. Yes, France looked better/lower in summer but it is now going through a very tough second wave. By the way, they have also identified a major backlog of cases this week (similarly to what happened in the UK a few weeks ago). Everyone is struggling and everyone makes mistakes (often - fatal mistakes).

I feel the tiered system might have been actually working

Yet it was never given a chance, and instead we harm millions with lockdowns, without even an attempt at education about the importance of exercise to replace the incidental exercise you get from your tiered life.

I think tiers weren't enough (and I'd respect the CMO's opinion on that).

I also think we'd have done a lot better with the circuit breaker in September (as suggested by the doctors).