Data & analysis thread, started 1 December

[NoGoodPunsLeft]

New thread!

Link to previous:

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

@Chaotic There's been a lot of evidence that people are very different in their ability to spread Covid. A small number of people seem to be super infectious, while the majority of people infect noone at all, even those they live with. Sounds like one of your DH's colleagues was a super infectious person, but if you've not had any direct contact with DH's colleagues there's no reason to think your DH would also be so infectious, so you may well not catch it. Every day that goes past makes it less likely

That’s fantastic MRex I haven’t read it all but I like any document that details specific language

Ok so am I reading it right that other professions are at same risk of catching Covid as key workers and teachers? A little higher in fact bar one group

@ cathyandclare If it's no trouble I would love to know where you get a batch of lateral flow tests please?

Tier 3 (and a furious mp who says the town not in his constituency but in council is the cause and not fair and he wants the rules to be constituency led.... 🙄)

Question as I have looked and cannot see answer

I live on county border and that county is also now tier 3. I know the rules say to stay within your tier, so are we able to go that way? For example that is our usual supermarket and church etc.....

@PrayingandHoping

Tier 3 (and a furious mp who says the town not in his constituency but in council is the cause and not fair and he wants the rules to be constituency led.... 🙄)

Question as I have looked and cannot see answer

I live on county border and that county is also now tier 3. I know the rules say to stay within your tier, so are we able to go that way? For example that is our usual supermarket and church etc.....

Yes, you can travel - the travel guidance is just that, "guidance". (Assuming you are in England, sorry!)

Yes, bucks. On the bucks bed Herts border. We always do as much as we can to stay within the guidance and if the next areas were tier 2 we'd prob avoid but it seems daft if they are also tier 3!

Tier 3 as praying predicted!

No info sent to parents or teachers about the recommended asymptomatic testing form my school at least. V cross about that as someone who lives with someone vulnerable.

35383 cases - big welsh catch up inflating that

532 deaths

64% of cases added in England in London 5762, SouthEast 4744 and East 3879

22401 added to England overall

And this looks a bit horrific tbh

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/945441/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_w51.pdf

@Firefliess thank you for that information, it's really helpful and also really hopeful.

Can someone explain something that's confusing me (likely quite simple, but brain's not doing it!)

On piggy's link, it looks like the absolute highest rate is for 10-19yo in London and is about 500 in 100,000. This is 1 in 200 or 0.5%. But the BBC has reported that 1.4% of school staff and pupils had covid in a 3 week period.

Is this because the ONS data is in a 1 week period and that's why BBC data is 3x as high? Or am I misunderstanding something else?

1st Nov 7 day average in England 18688

7 days to Monday 14th December 18853.

Back where we started.

1st December England 7 day average just over 12000

The table of councils on the www.covidmessenger.com homepage is updated. Grim reading

After a few technical hiccups I have rebuilt it to be sortable and searchable etc. Any comments/thoughts/observations please DM me.

@2020 - @piggy's data is reported cases - ie ones detected via tests. The ONS study is based on a random sample of all people who take a test every week to track overall infection rates, including asymptomatic people. It's consistently found rates of infection about 3 times higher than we see via the testing figures.

[quote Firefliess]**@2020* - @piggy*'s data is reported cases - ie ones detected via tests. The ONS study is based on a random sample of all people who take a test every week to track overall infection rates, including asymptomatic people. It's consistently found rates of infection about 3 times higher than we see via the testing figures. [/quote]
Thanks for clarifying.

I've found a much scarier line in the schools data that I am also struggling to make sense of. The reported 1.4% is apparently only for students and staff who were at school on the day of testing. So doesn't even count those with symptoms or self isolating. Surely this can't be right?

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/covid19schoolsinfectionsurveyround1england/november2020#main-points

And this looks a bit horrific tbh

The surveillance report actually looks positive, the lack of Influenza A even though we're now well into the time it would normally arrive, the almost complete missing of RSV. If those aren't artifacts of those diseases being ignored and not tested for / people not seeking medical attention, then that's good news - the hospital capacity which would normally be consumed by these things is available for covid.

It does go somewhere to explain why still currently the hospitals are below capacity compared to a normal year - which is good of course as staff are more at risk of not being able to work than a normal year.

I am skeptical that it's genuine though, were rhinoviruses really down?

@2020out well they could only test people who were present, couldn't they?

@2020 - Yes it does look as if they only tested those who were present to be tested. I guess it would be impractical to do otherwise

New thread needed and we've got all the links again now haven't we?

It's listed at the end of a limitation of their data : along with small sample size. Nothing about it is generalisable. I expect the government to start parroting it soon as if it tells us something Very Important.

But my point is, if they only tested those who were present, this means that the 1.4% is much more concerning than if this were a percentage of the whole population of the school. This is 1.4% of those who are asymptomatic and not a close contact needing to self-isolate. 1.4% of those sharing classrooms with others.

But it seems too high, compared with other data, and that's what confuses me.

I think the value of the ONS schools study is to give you an idea of the number of potentially infectious people in schools at any one time. And to show how that varies between high rate and low rate areas. It's not generalisable to all schools (because they deliberately choose some schools in very high rate areas) and doesn't tell you how many of the whole school population has Covid at any one time, because it excludes those who were isolating with known inflections and as contacts. We know that the number of pupils off school who have confirmed Covid is (overall) small - 0.2% was the figure DoE reported recently. But we don't know how many of the isolating contacts are also positive, or what difference this would make to the overall proportion who are positive.

Thanks. That explanation makes a lot of sense and matches with the tone of the report. I guess I was thrown by BBC's irresponsible reporting! www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-55340597

I would think 1.4% of people not self isolating in schools is probably fairly realistic. We know they're only sending close contacts home-so ds who sat 2 people away from a positive test for 2 hours one day wasn't sent home, but those next to the positive case was.
We also know that up to 80% are asymptomatic in that age category, so you've got both contacts like ds who weren't in the close category but still have a chance of picking it up, but also any coming from outside.