Data, Stats & Daily Numbers started 27th Feb

[boys3]

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

Primary school chn can test if they want to (households and support bubbles of too) but aren’t being done at school. Or is that starting from next week?

@JanFebAnyMonth

Sorry have just realised my figure is wrong because no primary school children are being tested under this scheme.

So maybe more like 5.5 million (guessing)

Primary school covers 7 years (Reception plus 1-6). Secondary is 5 full years (Y7-11), plus maybe 80% of sixth former age attending at least part time. Staff ratios pretty similar, so if there are 10m schoolchildren/staff I'd estimate just over 5m of them are secondary.

I ordered some lateral flow tests for our family the other day - they arrived the next day and come with full instructions on how to use and report the result online. DD is being tested at college on Tuesday and has to set up an online account where the school input her results and she gets a text. I'm not sure they will get that many families bothering to set up online accounts to record their results though. It seems quite a hassle and doesn't seem to be enforced in any way. I suspect most people will just use them, and if they're positive will go and get a more accurate PCR test to make sure (as you might tend to disbelieve you really have Covid if you're feeling well and have no reason to suspect you'd have it) That will definitely be hard to see from the data. Will have to see whether today's big spike in testing leads to a spike in cases in a day or two.

That should have read, just under 5m.

@ancientgran

On the local news they reported 45% of adults in Devon have had the vaccine. That seemed high to me considering they are saying July for everyone to have it. Is Devon doing really well, are they expecting it to slow down or am I not getting something?

Already 34.2% in England overall.

South west leads the way with 39.6% of all over 16s and 92.1% of those aged 65+. Then with the over 16 percentage and just the over 65s percentage

East Midlands 36.6% and 91.7%

East of England 35.6% and 91.2%

North East 36.4% and 90.1%

North West 36.3% and 90.4%

South East 35.3% and 91.1%

West Midlands 36% and 91%

Yorks and Humber 34.9% and 90.8%

London 24.2% and 80.2%

Top ten council areas for all aged 16+ percentage, ranging between 48.4% and 50.6%

1. Tendring
2. Wyre
3. Either
4. West Devon
5. Malvern Hills
6. Isle of Wight
7. North Norfolk
8. East Devon
9. East Suffolk

10. Somerset West and Taunton

Then the top ten councils just based on 65+ percentage, ranging 94.8% to 96.6%

1. Isles of Scilly
2. Tewkesbury
3. Wychavon
4. Melton
5. Staffordshire Moorlands
6. Malvern Hills
7. Mid Suffolk
8. Yarborough
9. Babergh

10. Stroud

South Hams 44.7% (rank 34th) and 91.7% (rank 146th)

County Durham 39.7% (103rd) and 90.4% (191st)

specimen dates for cases added in England today.

Thursday 4th

963 cases, first day of reporting, 19% lower than equivalent last week.

Wednesday 3rd

3136 cases added, 4227 total after second day of reporting. 31% lower than equivalent last week.

Tuesday 2nd

Third day of reporting 704 cases added, total 5501. 31% lower than equivalent last week.

Monday 1st

Fourth day of reporting 164 cases added, total 5893. 40% lower than equivalent last week.

Seven day rolling average 5970

Although the dashboard shows over 680,000 reported for yesterday we should bear in mind there were 580,000 on Monday. I’m not in the camp predicting any spike in cases from expanding LFTs. Certainly even at a positivity rate dipping nearer to 0.1% it will find some cases given the sheer volume of likely tests, but will these duly counter the downward case trajectory? My view, no.

True, hadn't thought about the small numbers the LFTs may find versus the huge downward trend in cases!

It's not recommended to test primary children I think (although I can't find that in the guidance, just that it's "not necessary"). I thought the test kits specifically excluded them but have just read the leaflet with mine and it allows for under 12s being tested.

That's interesting @Jan. I'm guessing they don't think it's reasonable to expect parents to test young children who are without symptoms and may be upset about a swab up their nose (17 year old DD is clearly not too old to make a fuss about it though....)

But if you have a compliant child then you can if you want I guess. The tests ought to work just fine.

@ancientgran South Hams lowest 7 day rate in England at 6.9 per 100,000 from what I can see. And Torbay looks to have had a big drop too, in lowest 20 councils at the moment.

Am very confused/cross maybe:

I thought one of the main reasons we were accepting (well OK not much choice in the matter for staff!) these less accurate tests was because they were for asymptomatic people, less likely to be infected.

What do the NHS instructions in my home test kit say?

"You can use this self test kit if you have symptoms or if you are asymptomatic (you do not have symptoms)."

Whaaat??

Also, to go back to the post re whether families will bother reporting negatives, it says:

"You must report a positive result to the NHS. You are also asked to report a negative and invalid results."

• so, not a very clear command to report negatives, just a request.

I think the kit is telling you that you can use it with symptoms, not that it replaces the other tests. You are supposed to do a lab test of you have symptoms for covid, as we all know. But if people have heard that LFT s are for asymptomatic testing and they have any sign of any illness, they might think they shouldn't use them because they won't work or something. Those kits are going to all sorts of people with all sorts of different understanding s of what they are for.

It's a mixed thing with the LFTs really isn't it? On the over hand, some people may use them who would otherwise avoid going for testing as it's too much hassle, and they'll also pick up some asymptomatic people too if course. The speed of results is also hugely helpful for getting the sick isolated and tracing contacts before they themselves become infectious. On the other hand, if you had minor symptoms and had a LFT to hand you might well just use that, and if it said you were negative believe it.

I got a bollocking on another thread for saying I've got some LFTs for a rainy day, for example if someone in my household was under the weather with non covid symptoms- people told me that they're not for symptomatic people on asymptomatic!

Of course symptomatic people could use them, they're more likely to be positive than if someone has no symptoms at all. It's just that the gov still favours PCR in the event of symptoms. I think we'll see a gradual retreat from PCR as months go on to be honest. People are more aware of the limitations of PCRs now, no test is a gold standard.

@ancientgran

On the local news they reported 45% of adults in Devon have had the vaccine. That seemed high to me considering they are saying July for everyone to have it. Is Devon doing really well, are they expecting it to slow down or am I not getting something?

I heard somewhere that Devon had the highest population of over 80’s so I’m not surprised 45% of the adult population has been don’t. Vaccine take up is very high as well. In Exeter only 35% of the population has been vaccinated as the population is younger than the rest of Devon.

@JanFebAnyMonth

True, hadn't thought about the small numbers the LFTs may find versus the huge downward trend in cases!

It's not recommended to test primary children I think (although I can't find that in the guidance, just that it's "not necessary"). I thought the test kits specifically excluded them but have just read the leaflet with mine and it allows for under 12s being tested.

It does but I got an email from test and trace a couple of days after ordering mine which says very clearly they should NOT be used in primary children. 🤷🏻‍♀️

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56285179

Can anyone explain this graph and sentence about lft false positives in the link? "but the testing done in schools in recent weeks, of pupils and staff who have been attending, shows the number testing positive is now at the lower estimate for the false positivity rate."

I'm confused whether they're talking about rates or absolute numbers, and the graph I've no idea what the 0.1% is out of, presumably that's a different scale and the % positive is out of all tests? Otherwise it's saying there were more tests falsely showing positive than actually showing positive?

The text seems to imply that the fewer positives there are, the more likely they are to be false positives. Why would this be the case?

@Corona. I think the scales are the same. They're showing the proportion of all LFTs in schools that have been positive in recent weeks. As we can see from the graph is now at 0.08% (8 in 10,000). It was previously thought that the false positive rate was about 0.1% (10 in 10,000) but the clue is in the word possible false positive rate - it obviously can't be higher than the actual rate found, even if nobody at all was positive. Possible explanations include pupils (and teachers?) not doing the swabs properly, or the false positive rate quoted being too high - maybe because false positives were mainly found in people who'd recently recovered from Covid, and there aren't as many of them around as there were when they worked the figure out.

If rates really are as low as that, I see no reason why a PCR test shouldn't be used as a failsafe. Even if it turns out there are no false positives, that gives information.

Will have to see whether today's big spike in testing leads to a spike in cases in a day or two

LFT's are reported as "taken" and "positive" on the same day surely? you don't go online and report you've taken one and then report the result some days later?

but the testing done in schools in recent weeks, of pupils and staff who have been attending, shows the number testing positive is now at the lower estimate for the false positivity rate

It was discussed before on the thread the false positive rates in the porton down / oxford evaluation of the LFT's had a false positive rate outside of "the lab" higher than the current rate of positives, that is obviously impossible (unless the rate of invalid tests was completely unreasonable) so that shows that the rate of false positives is lower than their research, presumably matching the "lab" data.

That's very good news, as with the original rate, it was only a 50/50 chance of being a real positive with todays rates, and 1 in 5 kids would've had to isolate wrongly for the rest of the year.

Would be good to hear from the people who evaluated it their hypothesis on why it found so many more than we're seeing.

@MRex

If rates really are as low as that, I see no reason why a PCR test shouldn't be used as a failsafe. Even if it turns out there are no false positives, that gives information.

I think the concern is more that is rates are really low, but a fixed proportion of tests do come back as false positives then that's a lot of healthy children (and their families and classmates) having to isolate and relatively few actually sick people being picked up. But if false positives aren't a fixed random event but in fact relate to the proportion of people who've had Covid recently that's not cleared yet then the rates ought to fall broadly in line with the fall with actual cases detected

[quote boys3]@ancientgran South Hams lowest 7 day rate in England at 6.9 per 100,000 from what I can see. And Torbay looks to have had a big drop too, in lowest 20 councils at the moment.[/quote]
Yes you were right when I was being impatient last week. I'll soon be able to go out of the front door instead of the backgate if Torbay carries on like this.

@Firefliess - I think for the kids affected and their contacts, as well as to extend our knowledge about LFTs, it seems sensible to get a confirmatory test. If none are false positives then that's reassuring for everyone taking the tests, or if a few are then PCR confirmation is essential to avoid kids missing school and parents missing work unnecessarily.
I still don't know what causes an LFT false positive, which I find troubling. If it's old covid infection then actually here is a level of infectivity risk so count as positive. If it relates to a different coronavirus infection, or a manufacturing fault, then the process needs to be a little more robust than test-isolate.

@ThrowawaySecondarySchool Almost certainly a result of schools testing. We don't test until Monday, but lots were going testing at the end of this week. My grandson's school did testing on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday. years 7 to 11 each had a half day set aside so say year 7s on Wednesday morning, years 8 Wednesday afternoon, I'm assuming they did 6th form on Friday afternoon but not sure. It was well organised with kids given time slots, GS was in and out in 10 minutes and that included walking to and from the car park so was probably in school for 5 minutes. He had to log on and get his result when he got home. He was negative and hasn't heard of anyone in his year getting a positive.

I think @Firefliess a few posts back bails the biggest risk with handing out home LFTs to all and sundry: that those with symptoms will use one of them, get a false negative, and merrily go about their business (school, WOH, supermarket, whatever) and contribute to the rise in R rate.

*nails

PCR tests are still going to be very important for genetic sequencing to track variants.