Data, Stats & Daily Numbers started 11th Jan

[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 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

sirfred

“The covalascent plasma therapy was suspended as being useless wasn't it? Which implies that antibodies aren't particularly successful at attacking the virus in this simplistic way anyway doesn't it?”

No. Not quite. In patients it hasn’t been proven to reduce burden of disease which is different.

In these types of experiments it absolutely does reduce viral numbers. And it is controlled for in the experiments by comparing the effects of the same plasma against the “old” variant.

Here is a more reassuring take mobile.twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1351264388284624897?s=20

@MRex

so far I've found running around in circles, screaming, and panicking a good expectation-management strategy for covid news Interesting, I find hiding my head under the duvet and shaking works best. Someone should run a trial.

We should study the adjunctive effects of wine and/or tea.

[quote ATieLikeRichardGere]Here is a more reassuring take mobile.twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1351264388284624897?s=20[/quote]
I like this guy

"More than 37,000 people with a symptomless Covid-19 infection have been detected through rapid lateral flow testing in the UK, the chief medical adviser for NHS Test and Trace has said. (Dr Susan Hopkins)"

Based on this, and the fact that since 6/11 there have been 3,136,287 LTF tests conducted we can calculate that the positivity rate is around 1,18%
Same time period for PCR: 13,9%

This, in itself, is meaningless because we don't know:

• context
• geo
• symptomatic/asymptomatic groups
• demographics

....and a whole lot more.

But it begs the question on what research and data are they basing the use of these? It seems counter productive on so many levels - at least to the outsider. And I cannot imagine any valid scientific reason to use these in the fashion they are using them.Caveat: there are valid use cases for it.

Also begs question no2: are all LTFs this crap or is it just innova? Or if others were used in the exact same setting would they do better/worse? I'm assuming that UK is only using Innova as I remember reading something along the line. If we are using more, than it would be an even more interesting figure to see how they compare to each other.

Q no.3: aside scientific, psychological and public health questions - did anyone do a financial analysis of this as a tool?

My final thought on this is that if I was gov the only reason I would not make all data public is because it would reflect back on me badly. I cannot fathom this level of stupidity after this many months of being in the exact same boat.

Now please take this to pieces and come up with ideas on why ltf usage is good, reliable and valid

I will wait to see what Francois Balloux says. He’s usually very “calm down everyone, it’s not that bad”

But if he’s worried we’re in real trouble.

My solution is to immerse myself completely in the sea shanties. Find Wellerman on YouTube for those of you who are uninitiated!

Well Andrew Croxford and Kristian Anderson are having a bit of a well-mannered roe on Twitter right now and I’m with Kristian!

Roe = row

TheSun I'm probably being thick, but I thought they were using them to catch people that wouldn't PCR test because they don't have symptoms? And the advice is if you have a positive LFT, to confirm with a PCR (and isolate obviously). So the positivity rate is bound to be loads less. And presumably they're not being used instead of a pcr test...? I don't know too much about their usage though so could be wrong.

(I also thought the point of speedy testing was to kind of 'back trace' to spreader events and get everyone else at those events to isolate but I've not heard any further about this)

Can't answer your question, but in my completely unscientific sample of a few colleagues who got covid, everyone only tested positive on LFT once they had actual symptoms. At which point you would have booked a PCR anyway 🤷‍♀️

I suppose it might help in "is it Covid or is it just a cold?" scenario in giving an instant answer, or if you don't have classic symptoms.

LFTs are mainly being used for HCPs from what I can gather. And in some areas for mass testing - people on this thread have named London boroughs I think? Starting to be used in schools on what staff and students who are in.

Yes positivity should be much lower if used on asymptomatic, as they are being in the above settings.

However I'm getting confused because one of the MHRA's main reasons for refuting the government's basis for using them in schools is that they should only be used in symptomatic people.

There is certainly at least one other licensed brand, called something like Landmark, sorry can't remember and must go to bed!

Here's how they're evaluated by the authorities, if anyone's interested:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/assessment-and-procurement-of-coronavirus-covid-19-tests/protocol-for-evaluation-of-rapid-diagnostic-assays-for-specific-sars-cov-2-antigens-lateral-flow-devices

My midwife told me today that when I go into hospital in labour they'll do both a LFT and a PCR for both me and DH, at the same time - I can see the logic in that situation, where they can't possibly wait for the PCR result before giving treatment, but obviously if they could find out sooner that someone is positive they would like to. Though I think their testing regime is also probably half-aimed at people who are symptomatic but denying it, since knowing that you/your partner is going to have to give birth alone if you say you have symptoms is quite a strong incentive to not mention your cough/that temperature you had yesterday/that actually you've been feeling like death for three days.

It did occur to me - possibly due to the influence of this thread! - that this must mean that the hospital (all antenatal departments? I don't know how standardised practice is in this regard) is building up a nice dataset on cases identified by LFT vs PCR...

That's interesting re labour ward!

More of interest from parliamentary publications, hadn't seen this:

post.parliament.uk/the-latest-in-covid-19-testing-developing-new-technologies/

That's from October btw

Lfts are being used widely twice weekly in my area of the country in all nhs services.

Form what I gather also happening for primary staff at home from next week. There are lots of webinars happening this week. I imagine the same for secondary.

The NE is doing some sort of community testing but they had to change their plans due to the recent wave.

It makes no sense to me that they're saying LF tests should only be used on symptomatic people. They have a concerning proportion of false negatives. People with symptoms are much, much more likely to have Covid than people without symptoms, so why would you risk giving them a test that might result in a false negative? For routine testing of asymptomatic people, however, they seem a useful tool for filtering out at least some of the asymptomatic people to stop them spreading it (37,000 of them is what I think we're meant to to infer from the statement yesterday). Is it some weird quirk of the way they were tested maybe that they're saying they're licenced for people with symptoms? Is the false negative rate perhaps higher than stated in asymptomatic people? (You'd expect it to be tbh, given higher vital loads make people sick) And why have they said schools shouldn't be using them but other places can?

I'm really anxious about the use of LF tests in my and other London boroughs .

My neighbour was thrilled that they had been introduced and that people would now know whether they could safely go and hug their grandchildren .

That's a very big issue re understanding of their use Peridito.

@peridito

I'm really anxious about the use of LF tests in my and other London boroughs .

My neighbour was thrilled that they had been introduced and that people would now know whether they could safely go and hug their grandchildren .

Yes, my employer (a university) offers them for all students and any staff working on campus (which I'm not, so I've never used one) and anecdotally a lot of people were using them to make sure that their Christmas plans were 'safe', ie they were taking one then seeing their 90 year old relatives in the belief it was risk-free - quite a lot of people were hoarding them for this purpose.

My son had a positive LFT test, confirmed with a PCR. He was asymptomatic so very good he had the test before he went into work in a hospital.

Seems like we are generally agreeing that LFTs could be a useful tool if used in certain ways, and a dangerous one if used in other ways.

Re licensing, from the Telegraph today:

“However, MHRA made it clear that the Government would not need regulatory approval to carry out daily testing provided people are assisted when processing the tests (where an individual swabs themselves under supervision) and the trained operator processes the test and reads the result.

The Government has not yet gained regulatory approval for allowing people to self-test daily at home – to allow contacts to be tested rather than isolate – which is the next phase of its rapid testing plan.”

I hadn’t quite understood this from other reading - just in case anyone else the same.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

Seems like we are generally agreeing that LFTs could be a useful tool if used in certain ways, and a dangerous one if used in other ways.

Re licensing, from the Telegraph today:

“However, MHRA made it clear that the Government would not need regulatory approval to carry out daily testing provided people are assisted when processing the tests (where an individual swabs themselves under supervision) and the trained operator processes the test and reads the result.

The Government has not yet gained regulatory approval for allowing people to self-test daily at home – to allow contacts to be tested rather than isolate – which is the next phase of its rapid testing plan.”

I hadn’t quite understood this from other reading - just in case anyone else the same.

I thought it was the LF tests being done to replace self isolate for close contacts that was the issue, not whether the tests were done at home or school.

For daily ‘close contact’ testing in secondaries (the plan for increasing attendance in pupils) it was always the plan (well, since 17.12.20 when the plan was invented) that identified contacts of positive cases would come into school each day to be tested there rather than be sent home.

@Redlocks28
Given the 50/50 chance that it picks up a positive case I would suggest that the HT randomly points out half the students to go home that day. Less admin, same efficiency.

Or even one of these! Much cheaper!!