Data and analysis thread, started 12 November

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Data and Analysis Thread, started Oct 29 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4064113-Data-and-Analysis-Thread-started-Oct-29

Regular lurker but I frequent poster, didn't want to lose the threads.

@FeelingBIue

www.royalmail.com/priority-postboxes

Yes they are doing Sunday collections

Doesn't mean people use them....

Tuesday numbers are generally low for cases (and high for deaths). Unexpected spikes in positive tests tend to happened on Wednesdays and Thursdays (when Monday tests get processed).

This time official data is consistent with Zoe (Tim Spector believes R in the UK dropped to 1 on Oct 31). There may be some backlog of cases due to the weekend but I would not expect it to change the downward trend.

@MRex

I do not think the ONS would fabricate data deliberately, and I think it's inappropriate to make public suggestions that they would without actual evidence from the request to look into it. Trial by Twitter is even worse than trial by media, at least the media ask for a comment first!

In terms of the data itself, I'm curious about why nobody has suggested that the other teachers might be university, further education, tutors, other education or even schoolkids incorrectly tagged by linking to schools. I'm just not sure why the assumption is that people would see a category called "primary teacher" and select "other teacher" instead.

I take your point but equally with everything happening so rapidly I think that people need to speak out quickly.

Take the headline the other day that supermarkets were the main transmitter of coronavirus, followed by secondary schools then primary schools... add secondary and primary schools together and it turns out that schools are actually the main source of coronavirus.

Our prime minister stood next to a bus promising the nhs 450 million, knowing it wouldn’t happen. I don’t doubt for a second that he won’t be asking for statistics to be made to fit his narrative.

He asked for the Priti Patel report to be “watered down”.

Does anyone honestly believe that know thought it given to what data to collect, from where, how to process it and when to lose it behind the sofa for a while?

How independent is the ONS? Doctors can’t even write doctor’s letters freely atm. Headteachers are scared to use their discretion. Scary times imo.

I

Excuse the typos, off to do bedtime so speed typing!

@Firefliess

Yes very encouraging drop in cases today 🙂

On schools, the figures on numbers missing school and the reasons suggest that reducing isolation time for contacts to a week followed by a test would have a big impact on the amount of school being missed. That's what they're talking about doing for contacts in general so hopefully that includes kids.

DD's sixth form seems to be doing very well with the alternate week schooling. I don't know why they don't mandate that for sixth formers and allow it as an option for secondary schools in areas with high numbers off. Online learning is a lot better when it's been planned for (and far better than DD received during the summer term)

Sadly @MRex, the education press is reporting that rotas are to be banned in secondaries, local health officials will have no say in school closures, schools will only close if there's huge spikes in infections.

There are rumours of close contacts being allowed to keep coming into school, whether that would always be combined with daily testing or not is unknown.

I didn't comment on that.
If you'd like my comment; for ages over 14, I would move them all online personally in Tier 3, rotas in Tier 2, normal in Tier 1. I certainly would not start looking at rotas for younger ages, because I don't think the evidence supports that at all. But I doubt the DofE are following this thread for my opinion or they'd have taken this action last May.

It would be lovely if the DfE did listen to anyone with a modicum of good sense...

I feel the need to be more strictly honest with the above. I used to say I didn't know if the cut-off should be 14 or 16 dependent on data. And we didn't have tiers, so I was suggesting all older kids study from home or all in school, case numbers dependent. I don't think the evidence has changed much from what I've seen, just additional backup data turning up.

@August That quote was from me rather than @MRex. The alternate week thing is working well for DD, who is 17, even though she didn't enjoy online learning in the summer. I think it ought to be used by all sixth forms as they're the highest risk age of under 18s and the most able to learn online. It would be harder for secondary - but better than an unpredictable random assortment of kids being off at any one time I think. Yes 14 up might work better than 11 up (and be less of an issue for working parents)

Re the ONS study: is there a list somewhere of possible jobs that the interviewer can put people in?

I am an educational psychologist, and on the ONS survey, and I have a feeling my job was categorised into 'education' which could be "education other" or possibly "teacher of unknown type" if the ONS interviewer (most of whom have been very young) isn't sure what an ed psych does or how to categorise us. I wouldn't be surprised in lecturers faced a similar situation. Just a thought.

That's interesting @BwanaMakubwa. Can anyone else who works in education recall the categories available? Although I can't see that there'd be more education- related workers such as you, than actual teachers.

Do they come armed with a tablet and a comb-bound book of multiple choice answers, as with the personal finances ONS study which I contribute to every 3 years?

The ONS questionnaires are here.

It seems that anything more discrete than "teaching and education" would come from a free text box question, there are no pre filled options. This seems to be filled in at enrolment by users themselves, hence the difficulty in categorisation.

www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/covid-19/covid-19-infection-survey/case-record-forms

Just looked at that survey. I can absolutely see that I would just put teacher in that box. I wouldn't perceive why they needed to know what age.

If someone asks me my job IRL , I always just say teacher.

It may be that some people also put eg deputy head , or headteacher without specifying sector.

I cna absolutlry see why the 'other teacher' categry was the largest!

Dc woke me then went back to sleep but I can’t do have read ONS report instead ;

It seems a bit clumsy! ONS is well regarded and nothing will be intentional but the question leads on detailed answer but provided no category to choose.

So by giving ‘primary teacher’ as an example you will get quite a lot following it with primary or secondary, also HT etc as detail looks wanted. But you will also get many who write teacher as they usually might.

Secondly why does this bit say:

Data from 2 September (the start of the school year) to 16 October 2020 show no evidence of differences in the positivity rate between primary and secondary school teachers, other key workers and other professions.

The “other key workers” category includes the following occupations:

resident-facing care home workers
patient-facing and non-patient facing healthcare workers
protective service occupations

But when referencing the figure ‘other professions’ has been left off?

Figure 12: Since the start of the school year there is no evidence of difference in the positivity rate between teachers and other key workers

Also what is other professions?

I can see why if you are in the profession you might want more care so clarity is better.

Unless it is a question asked in person? And the person asking knows the category break down they are looking for and can guide

No, as someone said above you fill it in yourself.

If they knew marsha, they wouldn't have ended up with a large 'unknown type' category!

There is no evidence of difference in the positivity rate between teachers and other key workers

This is the bit that got weasel rewording, iirc. Not a statistician so didn't quite understand Rasmussen's point on this bit but she seemed very cross about that bit.

Other professions is terribly vague : now that we know it is freehand it presumably encompasses almost every other role written in that box! Which is odd as in the world of market researchers, 'profession' is different from 'job'.

Makes me feel jumpy. I don’t do research but used to outsource it and have to present it, if I was in a room full of teachers I’d expect them to ask questions on that slide ;

I think whoever collated answers got heaps of teacher responses didn’t know where to put them and hence the chart.

But also when drawing conclusion do they ignore that bar? Because it obviously has teacher in it, not like they have all turned into plumbers by virtue of being ‘unknown’

Crazy. Think they need a redo.

I hope so . I genuinely don't mind if it still finds out what they wanted it to find out (by 'they' I mean the government) but it needs to be done properly and meet all ethical standards.

I'm on the ONS survey, we did not fill it in ourselves, the person phoned us from the car parked outside our house, and asked us all individually about various things.
DCs were easy to categorise, DH's profession is easy too. Mine could end up
In a number of categories dependent on what I'm asked. I think we settled on "schools - other" or "entertainer", but it's a moot point as I haven't had any work (school or otherwise) since March.

I looked back at the previous ONS research based on US studies, where they don't seem to have categorised "other professions" usefully, but someone else may find it: www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/whichoccupationshavethehighestpotentialexposuretothecoronaviruscovid19/2020-05-11.

Standard Occupational Classification codes here do provide a definition, but whether that's what was used is anyone's guess. From here: www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/standardoccupationalclassificationsoc/soc2020
Volume 2 data it's based on this: www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/isco/isco08/

Which summarises:
Professionals
21 Science and Engineering Professionals
22 Health Professionals
23 Teaching Professionals
24 Business and Administration Professionals
25 Information and Communications Technology Professionals
26 Legal, Social and Cultural Professionals

What I find concerning about the education situation is:

1. They seem to go out of their way to hide information which might show schools having any issues.
2. Any sensible measures brought in by schools seem to be at best disproved of. So rotas makes sense, as does finishing a week early for Christmas. Why stop those?

It's almost as if they think it's best to get covid round the schools asap, which I can't believe is actually their idea.
Not really following Covid guidelines could be put down to head in sand, but those two make me wonder what is happening.

Interesting time. That does rather suggest loads of their employees write in 'teacher'. Presumably they weren't told they needed to specify what kind.

The ones we've had (never the same person twice!) are quite variable in their grasp of English. Some have struggled with asking the questions, let alone recording the answers accurately. Fine for "tick box" questions, but I wouldn't want to be the data analyst working out the free text stuff.

So rotas makes sense

It seems to be commonly said here, but I struggle to see that it's so self evident. You need to isolate for 14 days, how does 7 days in change that, you still have the vast majority of people infectious whilst at school. In any case, the children would not be isolating during the other 7 days and so are still likely to catch it in non school situations and then take it to school (if they are isolating then that's a whole different kettle of fish, and the lack of exercise that isolating results in would be too much harm for it to be medically warranted).

So the only benefit is that the school only has half the pupils in at a time, if they halved the close contacts by doing half size classes that might benefit, but there aren't the teachers and in any case irregular teachers half the time and no teachers the rest of the time is not a positive.

To me, the benefit of rotas is not obvious, can someone actually provide evidence for the benefit, I can see harm, but the benefit only appears extremely marginal.