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

@TheDinosaurTrain

www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports

ICU data here

What a great report for people who like data

I can’t see much on youngest ages but it’s very good

@MarshaBradyo have you seen the press release from the RCPCH?

www.rcpch.ac.uk/news-events/news/rcpch-responds-media-reports-increased-admissions-children-young-people-covid-19

@herecomesthsun wow that article, those positivity rates.....

Presumably "out of control" doesn't have a scientific definition? Anyone know??

I can’t see much on youngest ages but it’s very good

That's because paediatric ICUs don't take part in the programme this reports on. So by definition, it won't include data on the under 18s.

(not that I think that is a problem in the sense that all the other evidence we have so far shows they are not more affected by this strain in terms of hospitalisations, but just to be clear)

I think the latest ICNARC report is useful for challenging two myths occasionally circulating on social media:

1. The age of patients in ICU has gone down.

It hasn't. The mean for second wave admissions is 60.4 (vs 58.8 in the first wave) and the median is 62 (vs 60). I have seen one respected and highly credible ICU consultant commenting that his patients now appear younger but nationwide data does not appear to support his individual observation.

1. The majority of ICU admissions is now women.

Again, it is not true. Women represent 33% of the second wave ICU patients (vs 30% in the first wave). The percentage has indeed gone up but I doubt the change is statistically significant.

Could the large numbers from 29th also be reflective of more asymptomatic testing turning out positives? I noticed between Christmas and New Year that Hammersmith & Fulham council have started asymptomatic testing for all residents or workers in the Borough (just book online lots of availability) presumably lots of other councils are doing similar and this may not have been running over Christmas (and way down the priority list for most asymptomatic people), which combined with restarting hospital admissions/routine surgeries, healthcare staff doing weekly testing etc (I’ve assumed this doesn’t need to be done on the same day each week, so thinking people may put it off over Christmas celebrations, but I don’t have personal experience of the process). Might create a bigger effect when this “restarts” 29th although I might be clutching at straws in the hope people didn’t meet up with others whilst thinking they might need a test....

@wintertravel1980

I think the latest ICNARC report is useful for challenging two myths occasionally circulating on social media:

1. The age of patients in ICU has gone down.

It hasn't. The mean for second wave admissions is 60.4 (vs 58.8 in the first wave) and the median is 62 (vs 60). I have seen one respected and highly credible ICU consultant commenting that his patients now appear younger but nationwide data does not appear to support his individual observation.

1. The majority of ICU admissions is now women.

Again, it is not true. Women represent 33% of the second wave ICU patients (vs 30% in the first wave). The percentage has indeed gone up but I doubt the change is statistically significant.

re age

I have heard/ read of Hugh Montgomery, a senior ICU consultant saying that about half his patients are younger than him (he is 58).

If the median is 62 then half the patients are younger than 62 (so broadly what he is saying). But that hasn't changed from the first wave, it sounds overall much the same.

He isn't the only ICU consultant saying in the media that half their patients are middle-aged or younger.

Also, if he is/ they are speaking anecdotally, then it would of course be possible to have a run of cases involving younger patients. sometimes. So the average age of his patients in recent weeks might have been a bit younger.

@winter - the average age of ICU patients going up slightly and the proportion of women also going up slightly could well be because many care home residents (who are mostly older women) were not admitted to hospital during the first wave. Now they are being admitted, which is probably a good thing. But I agree with you that the differences aren't huge. Men are still at much higher risk than women, which is something we don't here a lot about. If they were being really fair with the vaccines they'd be drawing the age groups up to take women of whatever age, and men of 5 years younger.

Silly question but I assume there's no taking into account whether someone's had Covid already when prioritising vaccines? I know it doesn't necessarily confer longterm immunity...

@Quarentino - no they don't take it into account at all. Though they probably ought to - even if the natural immunity doesn't last that long, it would make sense to put those people at the end of the queue. But they're not doing that currently.

Thanks @TheDinosaurTrain. That's a really interesting read. There really is still a very stark difference between male and female patients isn't there?

The Hugh Montgomery comments raised the question of whether the vaccination priority list is correct. I.e. if the age of patients is reducing why are we focusing on vaccinating largely in age order and how will that reduce hospitalisations? These stats would support the priority order being generally correct though which gives some hope to the theory that mass vaccination of older people will have a significant impact on hospitalisations.

.

The vaccinations are in age order, rather than taking into account CEV, CV, sex, BAME, weight, occupation etc because it makes it straightforward and therefore easier to get as many done as quickly as possible. If you had to run a per person risk assessment the whole thing would take long and cost more.

@Hmmph

The vaccinations are in age order, rather than taking into account CEV, CV, sex, BAME, weight, occupation etc because it makes it straightforward and therefore easier to get as many done as quickly as possible. If you had to run a per person risk assessment the whole thing would take long and cost more.

Spot on @Hmmph .

There would also be a huge amount of debate, argument, and political fallout. It is impossible to agree a strategy based on factors such as occupation.

Hence the straightforward method being used.

I'd like to see more focus on how the current method could be speeded up. Although TBH I'm not clear on the constraints on this in terms of where actual delays and bottlenecks are likely to occur.

Is today the day that the high number (74k) of positives from the 29th December will start to show in the local case rates?

ST today reporting on 'postcode lottery' for vaccinations : mentions Bedford, Newark and somewhere else as having had none yet, as London having the lowest number of vaccination centres per head and Nottingham only having the QMC.

Does seem a bit patchy so far. I have elderly relative (mid 80s) in south Wales who hasn’t even had his first appointment booked yet. Hopefully this week things will start to move everywhere .

I have seen one respected and highly credible ICU consultant commenting that his patients now appear younger but nationwide data does not appear to support his individual observation

I still think there's a bias from March/April in some areas due to it reducing in the community, long before any sort of control of care homes happened, and better protection of care homes now. ie in april a much higher proportion of people requiring treatment were from care homes, particularly outside the peak community areas.

So if you were seeing ICU in a low community case area but high care home outbreak you would've seen a different demographic to community spread.

vaccination centres per head

Not a useful metric, distance from a vaccination centre is the interesting thing surely? and obviously higher population density lowers that whilst increasing per head.

(capacity is also relevant of course, but number of centres doesn't matter there, although again large cities having larger available premises would bias that up)

PM on Marr and clearly has no idea of the numbers of vaccines available from tomorrow. I know he’s bad for detail but you’d think he’d have those basic facts given to him before a key interview (or maybe he did but he didn’t read his briefing )

@Firefliess there's also a bias in the data with respect to ITU admissions. The most elderly or previously frail don't get admitted to ITU, because there is little chance of them surviving it. This was true pre-covid; I suspect it is even more true now resources are so tight.

The overwhelming risk factor is still age. You'll see plenty of 70 or 80 year olds in the mortality figures. But you won't see them in the ITU admissions, because ITU is intensely gruelling for any patient to endure, and the odds of the average 80 year old surviving it to discharge are low.

@tootyfruitypickle I had to switch Boris off. I'm a numbers/data geek, and the wooliness was just too irritating!

@Motorina yes I may have to avoid him from now on. He makes my anxiety spike with his uselessness. Much prefer Hancock who is at least clear and I don’t think lies outright .

@sirfred There was also a shocking proportion of care homes that had outbreaks during the first wave - over half had at least one case, and many of those seeing big outbreaks. So they'll have been fewer residents still vulnerable in the second wave.

We will of course very soon be seeing a reduction in the age of patients as the older parts of the population get vaccinated.