Data, Stats and Daily Numbers started 17th March

[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

So, now up to 43% of sundays LFD positives that have become confirmed. It's now 5 days later obviously, so I think we can confidently say anyone who PCR confirmed will have got their result (3 specimen days and 48 hours to get a result), so any further confimations will be double counted.

So, why the low number of confirmations? I have to conclude they're false positives, I simply cannot believe that individuals taking their test at home would force their school friends to isolate for 10 days without confirming it's required.

If they are false positives, then it much more matches the previous trajectory and cases are still dropping along the previous R rate, that Zoe still indicates is continuing.

If you believe the dashboard cases are all true positives, then how do you explain the low confirmatory rate from a sunday?

I have to conclude they're false positives, I simply cannot believe that individuals taking their test at home would force their school friends to isolate for 10 days without confirming it's required.

I wouldn't assume that. Of the three positives I've known from the LFDs this week only one has checked. Both of the others have direct contact with a confirmed positive (one family member, other one contact with the third one) so is unlikely they're false positives.
And plenty of people I've spoken to have not realised that it is a good idea to check, so it can be ignorance.

I wouldn't say there were no false positives, however you cannot assume all unconfirmed ones are false. It would however be a good measure if we knew how many/what percentage did get a negative on the PCR tests. I hope they will at some point feel able to give that data, as I would be interested to see it.

I think double counting is potentially skewing the figures quite a bit. If you look at the raw pcr only numbers I think they’re still failing

fred, I am still not clear on this : my understanding is that those who are isolating remain at home.

To give an example .. my sixth form was closed down because of 16 positive LF cases. Even if some of them had come back as negative on PCR the sixth form was closed. I can see many then would not be able to see the point of confirming something when it made no difference ot the state of play.

Given that cases now include people with no symptoms and who may not even feel unwell I'm not sure how useful a metric it is for comparison or analysis purposes.

IMO hospital admissions are the only fairly static and reliable metric to compare (but even then you would have people admitted now as a precaution that may have been told to wait back at peak admission time)

Couldn’t see that anyone had posted the latest ONS infection survey
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/26march2021

Infection rates levelled off in the week ending 20 March

however you cannot assume all unconfirmed ones are false

I certainly don't assume they all are (some will be from walk in centres too, so won't be checked, but I think that would be the low numbers on previous sundays and not the huge increase on last sunday)

But we have a situation where only LFD's are rising, symptomful PCR's haven't, they still continue to drop at the same rate (R around 0.7 / 0.8) and I do not have a realistic hypothesis of why only symptomless people are being detected (I would expect a genuine increase to have increased the number of people with symptoms as well as the number without, even if a few of those were picked up by LFD before getting symptoms)

To be honest, the dashboard has only ever shown part of the story - those people who have taken a test and tested positive, which you would assume should only include symptomatic cases. Asymptomatic cases have never previously been included, hence the massive differences between ONS estimates and the dashboard (particularly in the younger ages groups who tend not to show symptoms)

So the rising cases may just be closing the gap between reported cases and actual cases rather than an actual rise.

(Obviously its important to find asymptomatic cases to prevent transmission before anyone thinks im advocating that testing should be stopped or that we should ignore these cases)

To give an example .. my sixth form was closed down because of 16 positive LF cases. Even if some of them had come back as negative on PCR the sixth form was closed

Well one of those coming back as positive would have continued (or at least complicated the track&trace work of the school) but it's also obviously much more likely in such a situation that the cases are not false positives, such clusters increase the likelihood of them being genuine, so yes, perhaps the cases are all so extremely clustered like that, I guess that is a hypothesis that could fit.

The thing against that would be the relative lack of clusters, it's much more that there's a few cases in lots of parts of the country isn't it?

@sirfredfredgeorge

however you cannot assume all unconfirmed ones are false

I certainly don't assume they all are (some will be from walk in centres too, so won't be checked, but I think that would be the low numbers on previous sundays and not the huge increase on last sunday)

But we have a situation where only LFD's are rising, symptomful PCR's haven't, they still continue to drop at the same rate (R around 0.7 / 0.8) and I do not have a realistic hypothesis of why only symptomless people are being detected (I would expect a genuine increase to have increased the number of people with symptoms as well as the number without, even if a few of those were picked up by LFD before getting symptoms)

Part of the reason could be that easy access to LFTs means that some people don't bother going for a PCR test if they do have symptoms, but instead take a LFT that they have to hand and know will give them a result in minutes. I know that's not what you're supposed to do, but the instant result would be very tempting and I'm sure I'd do that, to get the instant answer and am not sure I'd bother driving off to a test centre if it was positive, especially if I knew I'd had contact with someone with Covid.

All in all, the changes to testing to make it harder to track case rates currently - we'll just have to use the ONS survey instead or Zoe app - both of which suggest cases are broadly flat overall.

fullfact.org/health/covid19-behind-the-death-toll/

Interesting summary of research looking at the impact of Covid and comparing it with the impact of other things such as civilian deaths in the second world war

Zoe was showing an upward trend for a few days but the numbers have now gone back down. I am hoping that the decrease will continue.

The latest from Tim Spector:

covid.joinzoe.com/post/covid-rates-hold-steady-as-cases-rise-in-school-aged-children

As expected, cases in children are rising slightly off the back of schools reopening, and this effect is felt more strongly in Wales and Scotland where schools went back earlier. This is a necessary impact of unlocking society and numbers are currently well under control and aren’t a cause for concern.

LFD as substitute when symptomful would show up as a reduction though (since it's maybe 75% at best accurate?) So perhaps cases are really going up more, but we're no longer detecting them?

The trouble with cases rising in children is that they're likely to go on doing exponentially until we have a vaccine for children. We don't get to reach herd immunity by vaccinating 70% of the population if those 70% are all adults, because age groups don't mix randomly with one another - children mix a lot with other children, so it will go on spreading, irrespective of how many adults are vaccinated. That may not result in many deaths (depending how effective the vaccine is in the older age groups) but it's going to go on causing huge disruption to education and children's lives.

@Firefliess

The trouble with cases rising in children is that they're likely to go on doing exponentially until we have a vaccine for children. We don't get to reach herd immunity by vaccinating 70% of the population if those 70% are all adults, because age groups don't mix randomly with one another - children mix a lot with other children, so it will go on spreading, irrespective of how many adults are vaccinated. That may not result in many deaths (depending how effective the vaccine is in the older age groups) but it's going to go on causing huge disruption to education and children's lives.

Yes that’s very true. Unfortunately it means the choice is not worry about cases rising and in children, or children have to homeschool again or carry on isolating occasionally. There’s no easy option there.

@Firefliess

The trouble with cases rising in children is that they're likely to go on doing exponentially until we have a vaccine for children. We don't get to reach herd immunity by vaccinating 70% of the population if those 70% are all adults, because age groups don't mix randomly with one another - children mix a lot with other children, so it will go on spreading, irrespective of how many adults are vaccinated. That may not result in many deaths (depending how effective the vaccine is in the older age groups) but it's going to go on causing huge disruption to education and children's lives.

Trying to keep cases very low will bring disruption to education

At what point do people accept that a child stays home if unwell but otherwise we don’t close classes?

I would hope that once all parents are vaccinated we can move to the point that only positive cases and perhaps their siblings isolate

@sirfredfredgeorge

LFD as substitute when symptomful would show up as a reduction though (since it's maybe 75% at best accurate?) So perhaps cases are really going up more, but we're no longer detecting them?

It might be. Depends on a lot of factors - whether people seek a PCR test if they have symptoms even if their LFT is negative, whether they're more likely to test at all for minor symptoms, etc. There's things pull both ways. I think the interaction between LFTs and PCRs is complex and depends on how people use them (which may or may not be how they are told to use them) making it hard to untangle from published figures (even if those figures did tell us how many LFTs are found to be false positives via PCR tests)

I really don’t understand the decision to do these tests on school children now, would’ve made sense in September but not now. I am in the ‘we need to get on with life’ camp.

@sirfredfredgeorge - I'm not sure about that. Older kids outbreak near my parents is clearly within the school MSOA plus a few nearby. (Rumours of a back to school party .)

I find the number of people on ventilation reducing fascinating.

As I pointed out previously. We hit a peak (U.K.) of 4077 on 24th January. It took 30 days to halve to 2047 (25th Feb). It took 18 days to halve to 1016 (15th March). And we are currently on 630 after 10 days since then, so will likely hit 500 in 4/5 days.

Much much better than in anticipated.

Plus we are going to have a warm snap for two days soon (20dc! Maybe) so I can see if that has any effect on hospital admissions a week or so after...

I've just had a chat with a GP surgery (to register after moving) and the lady said that 16+ kids who are e+cv can be vaccinated with Pfizer. The problem is that there is none left. and they have no indication of when a next shipment is due. :(

Slight derail: I remember one or 2 ppl here have some form of IBD or know someone with IBD. The question is: have you/they had their jab? Which one? and did you/they do a followup antigen test to see if it "took" or to what extent did it evoke an immune response?

I'm in a huge dilemma of potentially getting the AZ vacc in a week or so, but...

• overall it's only 62% - which is only a bit more than 50/50 chance of it even stopping getting covid
• I am in a position to actually wait if needed* - but only to the extent that if a P. delivery to this country is actually scheduled. - so not indefinitely. which looks very uncertain atm.
• I can't find any data on how well the AZ works in IBD patients. Again: if they are like the genpop - then it'll be a ~62% "shield".

I'd love to be vaccinated, but having a partial protection might actually be counter productive. And if I had the AZ as a first jab, the second has to be AZ as well.... meaning that I don't think I can't get a ""booster" in 6-8 months potentially**. And that would also be a bit unethical, because then I'd use up more vaccs than should do.

*can't find a job, have no place to be every day and have been super careful so far when shopping which I can keep up. Yes, I'd like to be more outgoing, but it's not a necessity like for eg a teacher.

**Also have reservations on ramping up manufacturing capacity in a few months in Europe. So don't think there'll be an abundance of vials of either P. or AZ just waiting for someone to claim/pay for it.

I don't know where you get 62% from, the latest trial was the US one at 76%. This site suggests any of the vaccines are suitable for you: www.crohnsandcolitis.org.uk/news/latest-coronavirus-vaccine-for-people-with-crohns-or-colitis#preferred.

Pfizer second doses seem to have arrived as the EU grumble machine moved from saying 11m doses to saying 21m doses sent to the UK. So they will probably be distributed soon; worth keeping in touch with the GP for your DS.

I don't know where you get 62% from, the latest trial was the US one at 76%

And that is 76% of symptomful disease, it still lowers the severity above that, such that they can still claim 100% of that.

Interestingly I have just realised that our 70% effective of symptomful, actually means less 50% removed from the infectious pool if the ratio of asymptomatic remains as now, so it actually does need well over 90% vaccine take up to actually keep R below 1 with no measures at all, although there's still the super-spreader complication and we don't know if it would increase or decrease those individuals as still not enough info on them at all.