Data & analysis thread, started 1 December

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Data and analysis thread, started 12 November www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4077794-data-and-analysis-thread-started-12-november

@MRex ; politically London with the initial tier announcement was "the whole city must be in the same tier". Do you think we'll see movement there? The numbers clearly point several boroughs strongly towards T3, but for others it would be difficult to justify, and hard to see how buy in from residents and businesses could be created.

[quote boys3]@MRex ; politically London with the initial tier announcement was "the whole city must be in the same tier". Do you think we'll see movement there? The numbers clearly point several boroughs strongly towards T3, but for others it would be difficult to justify, and hard to see how buy in from residents and businesses could be created.[/quote]
Surely this applies everywhere though? I’m in tier 3. We entered lockdown in tier 1 with approx 100 cases per 100k. Left lockdown in tier 3 with 58 cases per 100k in my town. Now at 42 cases per 100k, still tier 3. They didn’t care about buy in from businesses and residents here.

@AlwaysBehindTheCurve politically London will always be treated differently. That does not make it right, but that is the reality. We probably need a quote from Shakespeare to sum it up. There are probably only a dozen councils, well thirteen to be precise, with a lower current rate than yours.

[quote boys3]**@AlwaysBehindTheCurve* politically London will always be treated differently. That does not make it right, but that is* the reality. We probably need a quote from Shakespeare to sum it up. There are probably only a dozen councils, well thirteen to be precise, with a lower current rate than yours.[/quote]
Yes I know, I pointed that out to our MP as I imagine many others have too.

And yes I know London will be always treated differently, I’m just bitter

@Firefliess

They've also given out several months' supply of lateral flow tests to people who work in care homes and the NHS and told them to test themselves twice a week. How are those going to be counted in the statistics? I can't see a reporting mechanism.

I strongly suspect that they've not yet got the systems set up to report the student lateral flow test results. If they were testing 50% of the 2.8m students twice each over a one week period that would be 400,000 tests a day. The figures don't show any additional lateral flow tests above the numbers we were seeing before the uni testing started. So I really don't think the student testing is in there - unless it's been an absolutely mega flop. However if they found 0.5% if those positive, all of which were then confirmed via a lab test, that would add 2,000 positives a day to the reported cases - which we might not easily spot in the daily reported cases.

The NHS one, we have to fill in the results online every time. No idea what happens to them from there though.

That's interesting @luna. Would it include care home staff too (who aren't employed by the NHS)?

@Firefliess I think we need to consider the maths on this one.

400,000 tests a day would require each uni, on average, to carry out about 3,000 each every day. I'm not convinced many, if any can get anywhere near that. Would love to be wrong.

A more cynical view might be this.

• The cases numbers, positivity etc may not look that great when the next tier review starts
• Confirmed cases are recorded by specimen date (leading to the found down the back of the sofa wry comments) so when the test took place is what counts
• In a week or so; a mass of Uni related test results finally come through
• However the test dates were mainly w/c 30th November and the first few days of the week starting tomorrow
• They feed into the stats for those days, pushing the figures up, and allowing a mid December position to suddenly look much better relative to one or two weeks earlier

As I say a very cynical view.

it puts Measure for Measure in a whole new light. I'd like to think Alls Well that End Well, but with the current Comedy of Errors it could be a bleak Twelfth Night. Still the vaccines may still bring reality to a Midsummer Night's Dream

@boys3 A quick search on Google and I can't see any unis reporting the number of tests they've done yet. Sheffield does, however, say that they have capacity for 16,000 in a week. If that's typical and they're doing anything like the numbers they can then they do not appear to be being reported.

Whether that's a cynical government plan to support a lack of downgrading anywhere pre-Chrismas, or just an administrative cock up, we can only speculate!

Re the comments about backwards contact tracing. This has been bandied around for months and it works.
Remember the guy who went skiing then all over the place infecting dozens of people? When numbers are low you can do it but once they get above a certain level it's unsustainable.

NHS. I've been given a box of 25 (ie 12.5 weeks) of lateral flow tests. There's a form to report online and it's been made very clear this is mandatory as the data is reported on and data analysis is beign done.

It records name, NHS.net email adddress, date of test, and test result as positive/negative/indeterminate/void.

I would say that I worry lateral flow test results are being double-counted with the lab checks, except that it would be good news because cases would be lower than they look as would positivity. I strongly suspect it's a double-counting error that will be discovered soon.

Uni anecdata: DN got tests done at uni no problem for going home and said they were contacted to ask if they'd take them; they aren't retesting all the previous positive cases so that's a small percentage who don't need tests. The larger impact on student numbers is probably that such a huge proportion of students already went home at the start of lockdown and didn't go back. All but 3 flats in DN's block had gone home, those flats (including DN's) were unable to because they were isolating due to one or more cases in their flats.

Regarding London and Tier 3, it doesn't make sense to me to have boroughs in different tiers, people will just walk into the next borough to shop. If it were only cases in one small part of London with Met police enforcement then it could work, but not the way the cases look now.

Anecdata re DS's 2 lateral flow tests / he had to report the first one to his college to get the second one and to prove he was negative, but he didn't report the second one. He says it wasn't obligatory.

More anecdata, DS has been visiting us almost weekly all term, and is still living in halls for the time being, he hasn't done any lateral flow tests despite walking past the test station every time he goes out.

@Ontopofthesunset - different communications then, DN was told it was obligatory to confirm results.

Well, DS could be wrong...

Sorry, what I meant was that I don't think it's unlikely that DS is wrong/confused/has not paid enough attention.

I guess you'll find out if he gets a call to follow up!

sorry not data, but interesting on schools

Two schools in Londonderry (which you will remember had the highest COVID rate in the U.K. in around early October) have said they will not mark students absent from school from this Friday, should they wish to do work from home to avoid having to self-isolate due to COVID contacts over Christmas. Might this approach be followed by more schools? Is it even doable? I’m not sure on the rules around registration etc.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55216227

Cases today higher than last week?

boys3 I had initially though that the data would be reviewed two weeks after the initial review (eg two weeks after who was in what Tier was announced) and then changes would take effect from 16th December I'm almost certain that is what they said initially.

@lurker101 I thought NI as a whole was considering doing this. English schools have been told in no uncertain terms that it is Not Allowed. However some parents seem to be planning to take their DC out anyway.

@Piggywaspushed

Cases today higher than last week?

yep - driven again by SE, London and the East.

I think London will be lucky to escape Zone 3 when things are reviewed....I know it's patchy across the whole Zone, but there is no reason to think this will break without extra measures tbh.

@ancientgran

boys3 I had initially though that the data would be reviewed two weeks after the initial review (eg two weeks after who was in what Tier was announced) and then changes would take effect from 16th December I'm almost certain that is what they said initially.

I am certain that they always said they would review on 16 December - people in Manchester were up in arms about it effectively being 3 weeks from the initial review. The regulations say “by 16 December”. So could be earlier.