Daily numbers, graphs, analysis thread

[NoGoodPunsLeft]

UK govt pressers Slides & data www.gov.uk/government/collections/slides-and-datasets-to-accompany-coronavirus-press-conferences#history
R estimates UK & English regions www.gov.uk/guidance/the-r-number-in-the-uk
Imperial UK weekly LAs, cases / 100k, table, map, hotspots imperialcollegelondon.github.io/covid19local/#table
School statistics Attendance explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak
Modelling real number of UK infections February to date Link broken?
NHS England Hospital activity www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/
NHs England Daily deaths www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
MSAO Map of English cases Link broken?
Cases Tracker England Local Government lginform.local.gov.uk/reports/view/lga-research/covid-19-case-tracker
ONS MSAO Map English deaths www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
CovidMessenger live update by council district in England www.covidmessenger.com/
Scot gov Daily data www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/
Scotland TravellingTabby LAs, care homes, hospitals, tests, t&t www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/
PH Wales LAs, tests, ONS deaths public.tableau.com/profile/public.health.wales.health.protection#!/vizhome/RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary
NI Dashboard app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZGYxNjYzNmUtOTlmZS00ODAxLWE1YTEtMjA0NjZhMzlmN2JmIiwidCI6IjljOWEzMGRlLWQ4ZDctNGFhNC05NjAwLTRiZTc2MjVmZjZjNSIsImMiOjh9
ICNRC Intensive Care National Audit & Research reports www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports
NHS t&t England & UK testing Weekly stats www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports
PHE Surveillance reports & LA Local Watchlist Maps by LSOA www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports
ONS England infection surveillance report each Friday www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/previousReleases
Datasets for ONS surveillance reports www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/datasets/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveydata/2020
ONS Roundup deaths, infections & economic reports www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19roundup/2020-03-26
Zoe Uk data covid.joinzoe.com/data#interactive-map
ECDC rolling 14-day incidence EEA & UK read://https_www.ecdc.europa.eu/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ecdc.europa.eu%2Fen%2Fcases-2019-ncov-eueea
Worldometer UK page www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Our World in Data GB test positivity etc, DIY country graphs ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-kingdom?country=~GBR
FT DIY graphs compare deaths, cases, raw / million pop ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=gbr&areas=fra&areas=esp&areas=ita&areas=deu&areas=swe&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&byDate=1&cumulative=1&logScale=1&per100K=1&values=deaths
Alama Personal COVID risk assessment alama.org.uk/covid-19-medical-risk-assessment/
Local Mobility Reports for countries www.google.com/covid19/mobility/
UK Highstreet Tracker for cities & large towns Footfall, spend index, workers, visitors, economic recovery www.centreforcities.org/data/high-streets-recovery-tracker/

⏭ Our STUDIES Corner ⏮www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3869571-Studies-corner?msgid=99913434

We welcome factual, data driven and analytical contributions
Please try to keep discussion focused on these

Surely lots of our products come in via the tunnel in kent?

Well we won’t have to worry about that for a while
www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/live-a2-a20-m20-traffic-4806519
www.france24.com/en/video/20201217-lorries-queue-in-france-ahead-of-uk-single-market-exit

Anyway. This new strain. Is it responsible for all these new infections all over the place? I very much doubt it. The end of lockdown (justvover two weeks ago now), schools open with growing numbers of infected (and often asymptomatic) children and people socialising and shopping, albeit more carefully than usual, in the run up to Christmas is far more likely to be responsible IMO. Plus of course the mixed messaging “have fun but not too much of it”. In fact, if you wanted to encourage the virus to spread, these are excellent ways of going about it.

If it does become milder but infect more, so long as it IS milder surely that’s a good thing? It’ll just be another strain of something like the common cold?

I’m still finding Kent really worrying as it’s seen massive growth in lockdown and tier 3. Tier 3 is as high as it can go with current measures yet clearly aren’t working. At what point do they decide to add in a tier 4, how bad does it need to get?!

@bornatXmastobequiet - there are actual differences in the spike protein for VUI – 202012/01 variant, I'm not sure why you disbelieve that?
www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857

[quote MRex]@bornatXmastobequiet - there are actual differences in the spike protein for VUI – 202012/01 variant, I'm not sure why you disbelieve that?
www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4857[/quote]
I don’t disbelieve that, and never said I disbelieved that. Why do you think I do?

I asked if the new variant was responsible for new infections all over the place and suggested alternative, more mundane explanations Even your link says:

Matt Hancock told the House of Commons on 14 December that initial analysis showed that the new variant “may be associated” with the recent rise in cases in southeast England. However, this is not the same as saying that it is causing the rise.

I’m in the South West and our infections have skyrocketed. So unless the new variant is circulating here, and we have no evidence that it is, it’s probably down to other causes.

@Delatron I'm not sure the German death rate was ever any better as a proportion of actual cases - it just looked that was during the first wave because they had much better testing facilities than most other countries so were detecting more of their cases (unlike us who were only testing hospitalised patients, a large proportion of whom died) Being better at identifying cases, locking down early (and possibly because Germans are generally a rule-following lot) meant that they kept actual case rates low during the first wave. I don't think it was ever that their hospitals or physical health was significantly better than anywhere else. They're not doing see well with this second wave though it seems

Thanks for the link to that article about the new strain @Mrex. I'm not sure the figures in it do really support it being the main factor behind the rise in cases. It says it's responsible for 20% of cases in Norfolk - which is seeing relatively low case rates compared with most areas. And only 10% of cases in Essex, so can't explain most of the rapid growth there.

I was just wondering what the people on this thread make of the fact that the Zoe estimates are lower than the government test actuals for the first time in the pandemic. As I understand it usually Zoe estimates SYMPTOMATIC prevalence based on the app, which is higher obviously than the number of cases the government finds. Any ideas? Anecdotally I've recently known a few people testing positive with no symptoms whereas this was only something I heard in the Media before so I'm wondering if we are entering a bit of a new phase....

Can someone help me with a question please?

I log in the ZOE app and it gives graphs based on their data. Today it shows the attached for London, 70 new daily cases per 100,000. But when I search the BBC postcode tracker thing, it shows 305 per 100,000.

The 305 is my specific area, and the ZOE number is the whole of London, but I can’t understand why this would be so wildly different, and which is more likely to be accurate?

Ah I just read the comment above and someone has made a similar point!

Morning. Thanks for the new thread puns.

That's a really interesting question @Mumma. I've just looked on Zoe myself and you're right - it's currently estimating the numbers with symptomatic Covid at around 28,000 in the UK, whereas yesterday's reported cases was 35k. Part of that was the Welsh catch up if their backlog - the average daily rate is more like 23,000 - which is below the Zoe figure, but not by much. The rates are much closer now than they were just a couple of months back - the peak of the second wave was about 24k reported cases, whereas Zoe was estimating around 45k at this time.

More asymptomatic testing would seem that most likely explanation. An increase in cases among children (not included in Zoe) or the very old (less likely to be in Zoe as it requires using a smart phone app) could explain a bit of it, but I don't think there's evidence of a huge change in the age profile of cases in the last couple of months.

@1990s - the case rates really do vary a lot between local areas within London. Have a look at the maps on the government website. But yes, part of your question is the same issue that @mumma just raised (and I've just responded to)

@bornatXmastobequiet - unfortunately genome sequencing always runs a bit behind cases, those figures are actually from 1st December. Cases in Essex have rocketed since then. Norwich is more sparsely populated, so we would expect it is easier for their cases to stabilise, it's urban areas where increased transmissibility can become very problematic.
Christmas shopping may cause some issues if people don't wear masks indoors, but walking outside and going in shops shouldn't have a big effect (look back at summer predictions, everything outside was fine)... Unless transmissibility has changed. Then it would have an effect, but be the change in the variant drives that.

I'm not convinced that the tunnel/port can be blamed for the spike in Kent (or the existence of the new strain). If the initial rise was around Dover/Folkestone maybe but if anything it's been later to start ramping up in those areas than further North/East in the county. You might get a small number of people in Thanet commuting to work in the ports but suspect there are very few from Sheppey doing so and that's where the problem first became apparent (it's a 45min to 1 hour drive from "the island" and public transport links aren't great to the channel crossings). It's not a place people would stop on the way through either, they would have to divert to do so. Quite what has caused it though?

Re: Zoe. I have noticed on their heat map, over the past few weeks, there have been areas that haven’t had enough contributors to be included in the daily figures.

It’s not a majority, or even consistently the same areas of the country but it does look like they’re working with less data than they have been previously.

@Firefliess thanks for your reply, I’m actually in one of the lower rate boroughs according to government maps which was why I was surprised at the massive difference, but all the things you said make sense.

I think previously I’d assumed there was some sort of algorithm or something to extrapolate to the correct number taking into account people with no phones etc etc

But I’m definitely not a data person which is why I find the comment on this thread so useful

[quote MRex]@bornatXmastobequiet - unfortunately genome sequencing always runs a bit behind cases, those figures are actually from 1st December. Cases in Essex have rocketed since then. Norwich is more sparsely populated, so we would expect it is easier for their cases to stabilise, it's urban areas where increased transmissibility can become very problematic.
Christmas shopping may cause some issues if people don't wear masks indoors, but walking outside and going in shops shouldn't have a big effect (look back at summer predictions, everything outside was fine)... Unless transmissibility has changed. Then it would have an effect, but be the change in the variant drives that.[/quote]
Whatever. I still didn’t say I disbelieved in the protein spike in the new variant, and everything else you say is as much speculation as what I said.

But it’s of no matter anyway, we’ll see in the long run.

@MRex of have agreed with your comment about going in shops being unlikely to cause a big spike previously. However, 90% of the workforce in DH's retail store tested positive over last three days. The store has done a great deal to be Covid safe- but clearly not enough, and I can no longer feel shopping is safe or a low driver of transmission.

@MRex please could I ask you if you know how the transmission of the 'new' variant is monitored and tracked?

Presumably it is not as clever as the testing labs being able to tell which variant someone tested positive with?

@1990s

Can someone help me with a question please?

I log in the ZOE app and it gives graphs based on their data. Today it shows the attached for London, 70 new daily cases per 100,000. But when I search the BBC postcode tracker thing, it shows 305 per 100,000.

The 305 is my specific area, and the ZOE number is the whole of London, but I can’t understand why this would be so wildly different, and which is more likely to be accurate?

Aren't you comparing daily new cases to weekly new cases there?

@Chaotic45 with such a high % of the workforce getting sick at once Id be more likely to think it’s from staff socialising or not social distancing in the break rooms etc rather than all individually catching it from members of the public.

I’ve got family in Australia who were talking about a new strain in their state that was traced back to someone coming in from the UK about a month ago.They said it was largely asymptomatic. Do you think this is the same variant in the south?

@SeptSpiral I totally understand why you would think that but in this case that's not the reason. DH runs the shop day to day. Everyone has stuck to the procedures at work as they have all been frightened about the consequences (possibly because they are an older demographic).
The staff never have socialised out of work other than the usual 'Christmas party' which obviously didn't happen this year. They all run along nicely but no one is close enough to socialise as such and as we have been just T3 forever there are no opportunities to do that anyway.

@Chaotic45 apparently 10% of all positive samples are DNA sequences, someone on here posted that recently.

Anyone care to tell us / take an educated guess as to whether the DfE / DHSS has been, or will be, able to source the over 6,000,000 LFTs which will be needed to test all secondary staff and students in the first week back in January?

*are RNA sequenced

@Chaotic45 - To a large degree it's up to individual labs what they choose to submit as proposals and run genome testing on. There's limited capacity, so it's usually tied in with specific research plus some randomised testing.