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

false positives cannot be due to old virus if the lab performance was different to outside the lab performance unless the group being tested were so different (in which case we should exclude that result through not being representative probably anyway!)

Even with 0.06% it's still 25% of the positives are likely wrong today and until R gets above 1 that percentage is only going up, requiring whole households to isolate for potentially days on such unreliable data is not going to get people agreeing to the tests.

My thinking is that a lab test could be testing very low levels that wouldn't count as infection. It might also test other types of coronavirus that are very rare at this time of year, so false positives might be 0%. Unless we know why the lab result gave a false positive, it's fairly meaningless to try to rely on it.

6040 cases, 158 deaths
First dose 437,463, second dose 56,772

My understanding is that PCR tests are more sensitive than LF so are more likely to produce false positives than LF, while LF are more likely to produce false negatives. So using PCRs to check positive LFs is less likely (statisitically) to produce the opposite result, than using them to check negative LFs. But two tests are more likely to be accurate than one, so the regular testing is probably helpful.

AFAIK there has never been a test for anything that is 100% accurate so there will always be some false results. The challenge is to identify what the level is for any particular test. And, as PP says, it may vary according to the circumstances surrounding the testing.

There aren't 100% tests, but usually we know what can cause the error. Pregnancy tests for example; could be chemical / ectopic pregnancy, recent miscarriage or abortion - the result isn't actually a true negative; this is similar in error type to LFT/ PCR recovered from covid on that it is wrong, but because the answer was recently correct. Fertility medications don't have any kind of equivalent. If the result is caused by previous infection then each person (plus household) only gets impacted once and no retesting for 90 days, so not the end of the world.

Next are things we would all call real false positives: evaporation lines misreading (is this possible with the LFTs?). Or specific medical conditions; causes will differ e.g. A urinary tract infection won't cause a false positive covid test, but can another coronavirus sometimes do this? Any other types of respiratory infection that might? Flu? Chickenpox? I think there should be detailed list by now from labs of what these things are, otherwise how do we know if prevalence of the false positives changes or what ought to be done about them. If It were most likely with flu for example, I would expect big fat shrugs and just let the household stay home, because nobody wants flu either.

Specimen dates for cases reported in England.

Friday 5th

First day of reporting so usual caveats apply, 959 cases added, 11% lower than equivalent last week.

Thursday 4th

Second day of reporting, 3156 cases added, 4119 total so far, 25% down on the equivalent last week.

Wednesday 3rd

Third day of reporting, 754 cases added, total so far 4981, 29% down on equivalent last week.

Tuesday 2nd

Fourth day of reporting, 153 cases added, taking total to 5654, 30% down on equivalent last week.

Monday 1st

Fifth day of reporting and was pretty much done and dusted yesterday. 29 cases added, total 5922 so what I thought may have been an overly optimistic prediction that it would squeeze under 6,000 has come through. 40% lower than equivalent last week.

Taking the current week from Monday 1st 21,635 cases by spec date so far as compared with 31,654 at this point for last week. Close to 32% lower. Last week, ending Sunday 28 Feb ended up at 45880, so this week is probably going to just top 30,000 cases, leaving us at the equivalent level to the seven days to 22nd September last year.

I haven't checked exactly, but I think from reading boys3's excellent data that the lag from specimen date is reducing (ie now you're more likely to get the result sooner) anyone have to hand that I have this right?

If so, do we think this is simply because of lower pressure on the system (so labs are through their test sooner) or because so many more are LFT's rather than postal?

Boys3.

What’s the rough translation from cases per day to new admissions? Peak this time was approx 60000 by date reported, peak admissions was 2 weeks later-ish, at 4000/day. So 60000/4000 = 15%. Albeit depends on how many cases you are missing etc. So in two weeks are we thinking 400 admissions per day?

On another upbeat note although 53 councils still have rate in excess of 100 per 100,000 only a couple of months ago we were not far off that number of councils having a rate in excess of 1000 per 100,000. Leicester has the highest rate at 166 but looks to be on a decent downward trajectory, down almost 30% as compared to seven days ago.

@sirfredfredgeorge

I haven't checked exactly, but I think from reading boys3's excellent data that the lag from specimen date is reducing (ie now you're more likely to get the result sooner) anyone have to hand that I have this right?

If so, do we think this is simply because of lower pressure on the system (so labs are through their test sooner) or because so many more are LFT's rather than postal?

The tests started coming through faster during January, as cases feel and labs caught up and got pretty efficient. DS says his lab does all the ones they receive the day they receive them, and have done so since about mid January when they got back on track from the Christmas surge. I'm not sure there's much more room for labs to get any faster, especially with postal tests, so suspect that any recent reduction in time taken is a result of the lateral flow tests.

@Doomsdayiscoming

Boys3.

What’s the rough translation from cases per day to new admissions? Peak this time was approx 60000 by date reported, peak admissions was 2 weeks later-ish, at 4000/day. So 60000/4000 = 15%. Albeit depends on how many cases you are missing etc. So in two weeks are we thinking 400 admissions per day?

I think it will be possibly quite a bit lower than that. If case wise in England we are roughly at the level of around 22nd sep in terms of a seven day total, give it a week for the virus to get serious and hospitalisation needed, then the 7 days to 5th October averaged 388 for hospital admissions. Cases were rising, no vaccine. So I cannot see us being anything like that. 250 mark, or closer to 200 perhaps in two weeks time in England.

This is just England of course. A 15% uplift should roughly cover the other three.

I think it is going to be difficult to see what's happening to infections over the next few weeks with the big increase in lateral flow testing picking up both false positives and real but asymptomatic infections, not previously identified. The Zoe app is probably the most up to date alternative, or ONS/ React for slightly more robust data with a week or two's delay in it. Hospital admissions are become increasingly unrelated to case rates due to the targeting of vaccinations at the groups most at risk (though significant in their own right of course, as being what we actually care about more than positive test results in themselves)

@Firefliess that’s an astute prediction - I’m very interested to try tofollow the conversation you stat gurus have over the next few weeks!

The blue area in Midlands has really shrunk today all of a sudden! Looks like cases there have started to drop a bit faster?

Twitter from Imperial scientist about LFTs and how they're being reported on. He proposes the idea I posted earlier, that their results should be labelled Positive and Unknown:

mobile.twitter.com/gconstantinides/status/1368232126856957953?s=21&fbclid=IwAR2sECjZyNxGP76iiTcPIkV199sHDrlebmPnlawAg_ym0CxkpJIX4aFn0Pc

The concern grows about LFD tests - whether a Positive needs confirmation by PCR/ whether an opposite result releases you and your household from isolation (it doesn't!):

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/06/school-covid-tests-pupils-in-england-very-likely-to-get-false-positives?fbclid=IwAR2qj-TZa7alo9BWXkhYdVdiZNId1juf-KDoitoS9bBOTx6MYKKnKOEsN74

Twitter from Imperial scientist about LFTs and how they're being reported on. He proposes the idea I posted earlier, that their results should be labelled Positive and Unknown

That is horrible, whilst it's completely right that negative doesn't mean negative, but it's equally true that with the current prevalence positive doesn't mean positive either, it's more "covid is the only thing that matters" rubbish.

10 days isolation harms your health, you become less fit (unless you're extremely blessed with in home exercise equipment and are motivated enough to do it) fitness is directly linked to your ability to survive infection.

Without the max 72 hour get out of a PCR negative to allow return to life, I would not be consenting to testing, I now firmly believe it would do so more harm than benefit given the relative risk of a false positive.

If false positives are lower than the 0.4 community 0.3 average that Public Health England have themselves published they need to explain what it is, not force kids and their families to damage their health further.

(@sirfredfredgeorge your points are valid but you're quoting the wrong post of mine in bold, your comments are about my post immediately preceding yours.)

[quote JanFebAnyMonth]Twitter from Imperial scientist about LFTs and how they're being reported on. He proposes the idea I posted earlier, that their results should be labelled Positive and Unknown:

mobile.twitter.com/gconstantinides/status/1368232126856957953?s=21&fbclid=IwAR2sECjZyNxGP76iiTcPIkV199sHDrlebmPnlawAg_ym0CxkpJIX4aFn0Pc[/quote]
Completely agree with this.

@JanFebAnyMonth No I wasn't calling the Guardian article horrible, I was calling the idea of the two states being "positive" and "unknown", it's completely misleading. According to the ONS 1 in 230 current prevalence and PHE's 0.3% False Positive and 70% False negative. *

The current probability of a "Positive" LFT is actually positive is under 50%, ie it's more likely negative.
And the probability of a "Negative" LFT test is actually negative is over 99%. So calling one of the Positive (when it's more likely negative) and the other one unknown (when it's very unlikely to be anything but negative) is extremely misleading.

That's what I was calling horrible.

• PHE percentages probably are wrong - due to the overall rate being lower than their false positive rate, but people advocating this testing need to justify it with real numbers.

Ah apologies @sirfredfredgeorge ! I misinterpreted your comments because the Guardian article I posted talks about people having to isolate without justification.

Good statistics with maps article from BBC re vaccine roll out: www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-56293839

Schools can only really require students with positive LFTs to isolate for 10 days (regardless of whether they go on have a negative PCR test) for the first three tests that are carried out in school. After that tests are being done at home, if DD tests positive I plan to take her for a PCR test before anything is logged. I think we'll just let the school know the PCR result. If that's positive, she isolates. If it's negative, we ignore the LFT and she's back to school. We could just make up some excuse for her being off until the PCR result is back - most are back the next day currently. I'd have thought others might well do likewise, regardless of what the guidance says - though do think they should change the guidance to acknowledge that LFTs are essentially screening tests - so a positive test requires follow up with PCR, and a negative means "probably negative" but doesn't remove all requirements to socially distance just yet.

if DD tests positive I plan to take her for a PCR test before anything is logged. I think we'll just let the school know the PCR result
This sounds very sensible

@Firefliess I obviously support your rational view on it, but it has a few impacts:

It harms the least able to make that decision, likely the more disadvantaged families in themselves who aren't reading this thread.
It removes false positives from the testing record, so we get even less information on the prevalence of false negatives, which may change the rules and thus harm those using LFT's in other areas if "no confirmation required" becomes more widespread.
It's rule breaking, and the problem with that is once you start breaking rules, you're more likely to break more, and others are likely more relevant (not you of course, as it's clear you have a good idea of the various different risks, but as a general point)