Daily stats, numbers, data thread 28 Dec

[PatriciaHolm]

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]]
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/
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

The NW cases are rising quickly unfortunately too, LCR needs to be hastily upgraded from tier 3 to 4

@Chaotic45

That's interesting, that you say the hospitals are struggling because taking it on face value from the tables, Leicestershire is relatively low compared to other parts of the UK, the majority of the county is in the lower half of UK, and all are below the top 1/3.
Leicester itself is only 341/100k at 146 in the rankings, just into the top half.

Obviously I'm just working with figures, whereas you know the local situation, which doesn't necessarily give the true picture.

Do you know if you have much of the new variant either? That will effect demographics.

I may be wrong but I thought that awful figure for 29/12 was by specimen date? So it is for tests actually taken on 29/12 only?

Yes, it is the specimen date but quite a few people (especially those with mild symptoms) will avoid testing over holidays and wait until Christmas celebrations are out of the way to get to the testing centre.

We often see the same phenomenon over the weekend - fewer people get tested on Saturday / Sunday which leads to a spike on Monday (again, these are numbers by specimen date, not reporting date).

Presumably the number of positives from 29th Dec is in part a reflection of how many people decided to hold off testing over the Christmas period though? RP131’s graph on twitter shows very clearly how low positives by specimen date were for the days before this.

twitter.com/rp131/status/1345396631777247234?s=21

Re the backlog question, may it be partly that people delayed getting tested until 29th because of Christmas - so it is that type of backlog effect, not a reporting backlog. (though - I can see why you might put it off until 27th, not so sure why you would wait until 29th - perhaps first non Bank Holiday day, though would that make a difference to people?)

Do we have someone on here who can work out positivity rates by the day? (Or are they somewhere on a dashboard tab?!)

Yes, most of the regions/nations which have so far seen low prevalence of the new strain (e.g. South West and Scotland) are now rising quickly.

ah - cross-posted with Marceline! Yes, test numbers for 25th and 26th plummeted, maybe the 29th and 30th is when they caught up.

(Still sticking to the view that the positivity rate matters more than the actual number - still surprised that it is reported without that!)

Any kind of spin you want to put on it to make you feel better won't change the actual numbers.

Your explanation of ppl putting off testing until after xmas actually is a bit frightening if you think about it.

@Witchend I don't know what level of the new variant that we have in Leicester and Leicestershire. We are part of the East Midlands which from the graphs at the last briefings had a lower percentage of the new variant than other areas.

I believe Leicester itself has a bigger issue with infections than Leicestershire, and has had relatively high levels and ongoing issues since June. However, since other areas have had an explosion of cases we have moved down the tables as we've so far escaped the severe uptick.

It's so hard to see the wood for the trees TBH. I do really feel for my friends in the NHS- they are all feeling so tired and deflated, and have noticeably less fight than they did in the Spring.

The 29th was the first day since Christmas Even that you could post a home test back.

As of 28/12/2020 England is at 15% positivity rate.
gov dashboard/tests

People testing positive is up 34% in the last week to 341,946

Tests conducted down 15% in the last week to 2,547,230

No doubt the positivity is rising...

"As of 28/12/2020 England is at 15% positivity rate.
gov dashboard/tests"

Thanks Sun - is that on the 'testing' tab of the dashboard? Just had a look there and couldn't see it. It's probably somewhere there very obvious and I can't find it, I realise!

Thanks, @Chaotic45

I looked as well but couldn't see any information.

Leicester does seem to be in a fairly unique situation in that it has remained on the high side pretty much throughout. And you're right, it's not that it's low, it's more that other places are now higher. It must be exhausting for the NHS staff, as they haven't really had the low other areas have had to take a quick breather.

@Aixenprovence

*"As of 28/12/2020 England is at 15% positivity rate. gov dashboard/tests"*

Thanks Sun - is that on the 'testing' tab of the dashboard? Just had a look there and couldn't see it. It's probably somewhere there very obvious and I can't find it, I realise!

on tests tab, if you narrow to at least nation, and around the bottom-ish

It does look like it dinosaur - would be interesting to see a chart of the past month's positivity rate figures. (or even the underlying data! I am constantly impressed by what numbers people find, so quickly, on the dashboard - I feel I am missing most of its functionality!).

Any kind of spin you want to put on it to make you feel better won't change the actual numbers.

No, but to see the actual numbers it makes more sense to look at rolling averages which, unfortunately, also get distorted because of the holiday schedule.

What the numbers show, in my opinion, is that different areas are currently going through different stages of the pandemic depending on the prevalence of the new strain (which is indeed very hard to control). Regions with relatively low prevalence are, unfortunately, likely to see future quick spikes (which can only be partially mitigated by imposed restrictions). The dynamic of cases in Kent should show us whether there is light at the end of the tunnel. I believe there might be but it is too early to say (and yes, I am a natural optimist).

Sorry if I’m being a bit dim but what does the positivity rate mean?

Thanks Sun - perfect! Though having looked at it - I think that positivity rates are not, in fact, the whole answer! For example the 8 April figure was 40% - but presumably that was because only people in hospital were being tested so you would expect very high positivity rates.

Whereas now the composition of those tested is constantly changing - even including asymptomatic people in some areas over the past few weeks - so presumably you can't really tell much from the trends.

Maybe the only reliable positivity trends are those in the ONS surveillance sample which is presumably fairly constant?

Dogatetheleftovers, the positivity rate is the percentage of tests that comes back positive. 15% means 15 of 100 people test positive.

@wintertravel1980

Any kind of spin you want to put on it to make you feel better won't change the actual numbers.

No, but to see the actual numbers it makes more sense to look at rolling averages which, unfortunately, also get distorted because of the holiday schedule.

What the numbers show, in my opinion, is that different areas are currently going through different stages of the pandemic depending on the prevalence of the new strain (which is indeed very hard to control). Regions with relatively low prevalence are, unfortunately, likely to see future quick spikes (which can only be partially mitigated by imposed restrictions). The dynamic of cases in Kent should show us whether there is light at the end of the tunnel. I believe there might be but it is too early to say (and yes, I am a natural optimist).

The current feeling is that tier 4 isn't harsh enough for some areas of Kent. It continues to rise exponentially despite being in tier 4 for weeks now

@wintertravel1980
That's your take.
My take: people choose to hold off testing so they can go mingle with family. Implying that there is a wave coming. Add schools opening (except London) and have a think of where we will be in 2 weeks.

And pls. don't tell me to not think the worse of ppl. If anything 2020 has proved that people -en masse- are selfish bastards with extremely limited scientific knowledge and almost 0 critical thinking skills.

Fascinating how low some of the numbers were in some regions in July/August - around 0.4, 0.5%.

The current feeling is that tier 4 isn't harsh enough for some areas of Kent.

Yes, I have heard it multiple times but this hypothesis is so far only a judgment call (even though made by experts) and is not based on the actual data. Tier 4 restrictions were introduced on December 20 - it is too early to conclude whether they work or they don't.