Daily stats, numbers, data thread 02 Jan

[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 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

Some of them are active ingredients in creating perfect petri dish conditions.
Mutations always happen, nature of the game. Mitigating circumstances help in prolonging them potentially.

Western civilizations are still not doing enough to minimize mutation opportunities. Thus there is the potential that the next mutation will be a bit more aggressive, or more severe. Point would be to not find out.

It seems to me that the position we are in is a choice between two sub optimal paths. Vaccinate higher numbers with the longer delay or vaccinate fewer people with a shorter delay. Both paths have pros and cons and a pretty reasonable argument could probably be formulated for either one being the "best" option.

Reality is we have to go one way or another, some perfect hypothetical third option isn't available. I think there is a lot to criticise the government for but I'm not convinced this is one of those things to be honest.

Thanks @QueenStromba I’ll check it out

@QueenStromba - his argument is not to give the vaccine to vulnerable, nor to countries with high numbers of infections in case of vaccine escape (even though in many cases that can be fixed by a vaccine tweak). So, let's see, nobody can have vaccines except Japan, South Korea and New Zealand - and then only their young people who aren't at risk. Everyone else wait in lockdown and die as needed, to protect the efficacy of the vaccines. That they aren't allowed to have until they manage to eliminate covid without vaccines. Unclear when those with poor immune systems will ever be allowed the vaccines under his argument, but looks like never.
I don't think the less emotional version is more rational, sorry. But thanks for posting it.

@TheSunIsStillShining

Some of them are active ingredients in creating perfect petri dish conditions. Mutations always happen, nature of the game. Mitigating circumstances help in prolonging them potentially.

Western civilizations are still not doing enough to minimize mutation opportunities. Thus there is the potential that the next mutation will be a bit more aggressive, or more severe. Point would be to not find out.

I don't disagree. I guess my argument is timeframes. As the mutation was 1st identified in Kent in September.

This was Kent in September! That is why I question it. I am just not convinced that we had a particular dish of conditions when mutation 1st occurred!

I also heard that it may have been due to treatment (plasma?) of a patient but don't really know if that is correct or not.

[quote MRex]@QueenStromba - his argument is not to give the vaccine to vulnerable, nor to countries with high numbers of infections in case of vaccine escape (even though in many cases that can be fixed by a vaccine tweak). So, let's see, nobody can have vaccines except Japan, South Korea and New Zealand - and then only their young people who aren't at risk. Everyone else wait in lockdown and die as needed, to protect the efficacy of the vaccines. That they aren't allowed to have until they manage to eliminate covid without vaccines. Unclear when those with poor immune systems will ever be allowed the vaccines under his argument, but looks like never.
I don't think the less emotional version is more rational, sorry. But thanks for posting it.[/quote]
I think this argument is not to do all of those things at the same time as the risk is cumulative

@Wakeupin2022
I am just not convinced that we had a particular dish of conditions when mutation 1st occurred!

I believe that what the UK has been doing -lack of- is exactly, at all points in time what led it to mutate here and not in Germany or NZ or wherever.

If we had access to all world data and understood it (I don't) then it might be obvious that there have been similar mutations in other countries, but because of their successful mitigation measures they were suppressed/eradicated before taking over as the main strain.
I don't know and I'm not even guessing or trying to look knowledgeable. I'm not.

What I do know is that it has been a disgrace how the people on this island have been behaving and how there is no sense of community spirit/societal responsibility.
This also holds true for most western civs.

I find it an extraordinary coincidence that the new variant just happened to occur in the country that does by far the most genomic testing. I do think we must have been among the first to have widespread transmission since you can so clearly see its impact in our case numbers and it's hard to see that elsewhere, but I think the evidence that the actual mutation occurred here will always be missing because so many other countries simply weren't looking.

Apologies if this is off topic but do we think about the spread of the new variant globally? To me it’s pretty concerning and while borders to the UK have been shut there are worrying signs that it’s quite out the bag. Adam Kucharski shared this for example as reminiscent of early days of the pandemic asiatimes.com/2021/01/hk-reports-15-mutant-virus-cases-in-two-weeks/

This is another example:
www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2021-01-05/dozens-more-cases-of-contagious-covid-19-variant-identified-in-san-diego-county?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

And it does make a case for tighter border control into the UK now, because globally surveillance is very poor and the fact that the UK and SA variants are separate lineages yet present similar issues...are they likely to be alone?

*what do we think

Please tell me how and since when?
while borders to the UK have been shut
They are not shut. Many reports from current days of ppl just walking out of airports without anyone looking at their ttr paperwork.

Many countries don't let ppl go in from UK. EG. Hungary (until feb 8. - magic date). But as long as any one EU country lets in anyone from UK it's pointless. Eg. hungarians are now flying into any neighbouring country and take a train, rent a car, take a plane to HU.
How is this stopping anything?

My personal opinion - same as in March-
every country in the world should shut their borders to passenger traffic for 3 months.

My understanding is that the U.K. does around 45% of the genomic testing that is undertaken worldwide. SA also undertakes more than most other countries. Seek and you will find.

USA, Denmark and Spain have all found the "UK" variant, with no known links to UK, but the high transmission here may mean it's more likely to have developed here? Unless an older "parent" variant is found by genome testing elsewhere we'll never know. It's important to note that the mink variants (Netherlands and Spain) all had spike mutation; Wales and South Africa also had separate spike mutations; spike mutations at this point is very clearly not a one-off rare event but an expected path for the virus. Perhaps coronavirus doesn't like its name. Suppressing the variant in individual countries won't stop it from arising again.

I hope other countries are ready, I fear any that aren't under tight enough restrictions will get hit terribly badly. 50% doesn't sound like much, until you realise how many must have been having close calls before.

Wakeup that’s a very interesting point re Kent

How is this stopping anything?

That would be a question best asked of the Hungarian authorities.

@TheSunIsStillShining

Excuse my clumsy phrasing - I mean other countries have wisely shut their borders to us in the Uk. My question is really whether they should be going further and shutting their border to Ireland, USA, Denmark...everywhere. Essential pursue at zero B117 strategy, even if they can’t quite pursue zero covid.

@TheSunIsStillShining

Please tell me how and since when? while borders to the UK have been shut They are not shut. Many reports from current days of ppl just walking out of airports without anyone looking at their ttr paperwork.

Many countries don't let ppl go in from UK. EG. Hungary (until feb 8. - magic date). But as long as any one EU country lets in anyone from UK it's pointless. Eg. hungarians are now flying into any neighbouring country and take a train, rent a car, take a plane to HU.
How is this stopping anything?

I am sure i saw an update on the Guardian that Hungary are reopening borders to UK very soon!

@TheSunIsStillShining ah ok I see that you did see my point and we basically agree that borders should be more shut/less porous. The measures in place may have bought time though.

Viruses mutate. It's not a surprise we have a mutated virus here.

I suppose the question is whether it didn't mutate here, but the situation in schools allowed it to take hold here.

I'm not convinced. The pattern of the age profile is different enough that I think it would have come out in other countries that younger children seemed to be being infected more.
The interesting thing to perhaps look at is if the other spike mutations also infect younger children more.

@QueenStromba
I think this argument is not to do all of those things at the same time as the risk is cumulative
I think he needs you to rewrite his arguments for him, you'd do a better job. There is risk in all of these things, of course. If the intent of vaccines isn't to help reduce cases from vulnerable people and over-exposed populations though, then I'm not sure what the point of them is. I don't know of a single country in the world that has said "I'll just vaccinate young and fit, and only if cases are below say 5/100,000"; and what's more I can't imagine any coming to the conclusion that is the action needed to stop health services from being overwhelmed, bring economies back etc. Sorry, I know you're just posting links rather than actually advocating for his viewpoints, I just find his arguments so ludicrous that I can't stop commenting.

The best thing to stop mutations is a variolation like approach, infect everyone at the same time and mutations are irrelevant as there's nowhere for them to go after the first infection. Obviously the collateral damage from that would be insane (although I'm getting more convinced that such an approach with 10 to 25year old summer camps would've been positive) the collateral damage of the .ws would still be huge too though.

that is just too stupid

@Hardbackwriter

I find it an extraordinary coincidence that the new variant just happened to occur in the country that does by far the most genomic testing. I do think we must have been among the first to have widespread transmission since you can so clearly see its impact in our case numbers and it's hard to see that elsewhere, but I think the evidence that the actual mutation occurred here will always be missing because so many other countries simply weren't looking.

Also the country with the most half baked approach to mixing in schools.

So we created the best conditions for mutation possibly? and then we picked
up when there was a problem.

Our baby.

@oneglassandpuzzled

How is this stopping anything?

That would be a question best asked of the Hungarian authorities.

Bad formatting. This was a rhetorical/general question, not in regards to HU. I know their reasoning for closing borders. Not all of them valid or pretty.