Data, Stats Thread June 11

[PatriciaHolm]

UK govt pressers Slides & data

www.gov.uk/government/collections/slides-and-datasets-to-accompany-coronavirus-press-conferences#history

Data Dashboard coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Covid 19 Genomics www.cogconsortium.uk/tools-analysis/public-data-analysis-2/
Covid 19 Variant Mapping Sanger Institute covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw
NHS Vaccination data www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/
Global vaccination data ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
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 imperialcollegelondon.github.io/covid19local/#map
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 area 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, cases, tests, deaths Dashboard public.tableau.com/profile/public.health.wales.health.protection#!/vizhome/RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary
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 (from last summer) 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 (European Centre for Disease Control rolling 14-day incidence EEA & UK www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-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=eur&areas=usa&areas=bra&areas=gbr&areas=cze&areas=hun&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=ussd&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths
PHE local health data fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/health-profiles
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

Sorry if im understating your data wrong @herecomesthsun are you assuming 12.7m kids in the uk and all of them have had covid in your data?

According to the ons, around 0.5 have had covid in that age gap of those 5-17y , out of these 2% will have had covid for longer than 8w

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/11june2021#age-analysis-of-the-number-of-people-who-had-covid-19

@EasterIssland

No he's saying what the % long covid translates into in the event of letting infections spread.

Note - unless we vaccinate children, or take a zero covid approach, it is absolutely inevitable that every child in the UK will contract covid at some point.

Incidentally, nobody has questioned the Telegraph study - a shame, but an issue I often notice - people are easily impressed by the word "study" and never stop to look at quality of study and/or whether there is widespread consensus on the issue. I would argue that a study based solely on symptoms self-reported by people via the app is almost useless. I'd call it a bad gaslighting effort tbh.

The best paper I've found on the subject paints a very different picture.
adc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/05/27/archdischild-2021-321882

A figure of 7.4% reporting health issues after 12 weeks - backed up by an Australian study which gave 8%.

But this quote from the above stood out:
The issue of not being believed is a common one, and the fear of being considered over-anxious and/or Munchausen’s by proxy is very difficult. There has been a real resistance to exploring the situation around children, and the narrative that most children are fine and unaffected has been unchallenged. This leaves parents of children with ongoing symptoms in a very difficult position, in terms of being supported by healthcare practitioners and believed by schools etc. Feels like a vicious circle—without evidence nobody will research it but without research there is no data!

[quote EasterIssland]Sorry if im understating your data wrong @herecomesthsun are you assuming 12.7m kids in the uk and all of them have had covid in your data?

According to the ons, around 0.5 have had covid in that age gap of those 5-17y , out of these 2% will have had covid for longer than 8w

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/11june2021#age-analysis-of-the-number-of-people-who-had-covid-19[/quote]
Where exactly are you seeing stats for the number who've had Covid at some point previously? I recall it being about 20-30% in something I read previously but can't find that stat in the infection survey data you linked to. I can't see a 50% figure. It sounds quite high

Looking at specimen dates in England and comparing with position as being reported this time last week, and also referencing the position a further week back.

Monday 14th. First day of reporting, 3271 cases added.

44% up on this time last week, which in turn was 101% up on the previous Monday, although with that being a Bank holiday the numbers are a bit distorted.

Sunday 13th. 5274 after two days of reporting, up 22% on previous week, that in turn was 88% up on the week prior. Again though the distortion of school testing / not testing during half term as opposed to term time.

Saturday 12th. Third day of reporting, 5025 cases so far, up 35/% on previous week, that in turn was 64% up on the week before.

Friday 11th. 6281 cases , 34% up on week before, that in turn was 70% up on the week before.

Thursday 10th. 6492 cases, up 32% on week before; in turn last week’s number was 69% up on the previous week.

Wednesday 9th. 6682 cases, up 37% on the week before; in turn that was 62% higher than the previous week

Tuesday 8th. 6408 cases up 48% on week before; in turn that was up 63%.

@Firefliess 0.5% (it says daily tho which sounds loads as it'd be 60k every day which it's not)

[quote EasterIssland]Sorry if im understating your data wrong @herecomesthsun are you assuming 12.7m kids in the uk and all of them have had covid in your data?

According to the ons, around 0.5 have had covid in that age gap of those 5-17y , out of these 2% will have had covid for longer than 8w

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/11june2021#age-analysis-of-the-number-of-people-who-had-covid-19[/quote]
excuse bolds (for clarity)

So

the % with symptoms over 8 weeks is said to be1.8%

the study in fact followed children/ young people aged 5-17 - the best number I can get for this is 10.6 million

with a very effectively spreading variant and little mitigation in classrooms then there will be very wide spread of covid through schools eventually

If covid went through this whole 5-17 population then we could be looking at up to 1.8% of it having persistent symptoms, and then the figure could be up to 190k.

So on an individual level the chances of an individual child having persistent covid symptoms would be quite low (which might be very reassuring if your child has covid).

On a societal level, the government is taking the potential numbers pretty seriously and is opening 15 hubs which will be able to manage paediatric covid.

if allowed to be transmitted unchecked through school population,

and we have a population 5-17 of 8.8 million

and the rate of symptoms is 1.8%

the potential for having symptoms longer than 8 weeks is 1

whoops

excuse bolds (for clarity)

So

if allowed to be transmitted unchecked through school population,

and the % with symptoms over 8 weeks is said to be1.8%

and the study in fact followed children/ young people aged 5-17 - the best number I can get for this is 10.6 million

with a very effectively spreading variant and little mitigation in classrooms then there will be very wide spread of covid through schools eventually

If covid went through this whole 5-17 population then we could be looking at up to 1.8% of it having persistent symptoms, and then the figure could be up to 190k.

So on an individual level the chances of an individual child having persistent covid symptoms would be quite low (which might be very reassuring if your child has covid).

On a societal level, the government is taking the potential numbers pretty seriously and is opening 15 hubs which will be able to manage paediatric covid.

thanks ! so this is in the scenario that all children would get infected, I misunderstood and thought this was the current case. hence why I wasn't understanding the scenario. I

[quote EasterIssland]Sorry if im understating your data wrong @herecomesthsun are you assuming 12.7m kids in the uk and all of them have had covid in your data?

According to the ons, around 0.5 have had covid in that age gap of those 5-17y , out of these 2% will have had covid for longer than 8w

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/11june2021#age-analysis-of-the-number-of-people-who-had-covid-19[/quote]
I was trying to estimate the maximum total potential numbers altogether that could go on to have persistent problems

[quote MarcelineMissouri]@herecomesthsun I am responding to your message at 14:42 which does not mention vulnerable children at all and basically says that if people don’t view long covid as a big risk to children then they lack compassion and intelligence 🤷🏼‍♀️ So yes I consider that rude.[/quote]
I reserve judgement on how we are going to understand "long covid" as I haven't get my head around the data yet.

It is a small risk to an individual child.

Over all of society there is the potential for cumulatively a significant number of children to be affected. A small % of a huge number is a biggish number (though it can be hard to conceptualise that)

I think it is more compassionate to consider that this may become a problem, even if one's own child doesn't get affected. Personally, I think we need to give careful thought to the situation in schools and how that is being managed.

I have not made any comment about your intelligence.

get= got

Thanks, boys3, very useful as always.

Note - unless we vaccinate children, or take a zero covid approach, it is absolutely inevitable that every child in the UK will contract covid at some point.

Note - it is an opinion, not a fact:

• Not all children (or individuals) might be susceptible. Even for HIV roughly 10% of the population have got innate resistance to the virus. We do not know what the percentage is for Covid.
• Covid transmission is over-dispersed so the standard formula for estimating herd immunity does not work (we discussed it here previously).
• Covid K value (especially post new variants) is still up for debate but we can say with a reasonable degree of confidence it is much lower than 1. A significant percentage of infected individuals do not transmit virus to anyone else while relatively few superspreaders might infect dozens of others.
• I am not aware of any cases of superspreading events where the index case was a young child. It does not mean it has never happened but it is not unreasonable to assume these cases are rare.
• To achieve herd immunity, we need to vaccinate sufficient number of potential superspreaders. If superspreading within children is low or relatively low, we may get there with targeting adults or adults & teenagers.
• The most logical approach to vaccinations is to continue going down age buckets and monitor the dynamics of the virus. With Alpha, we pretty much vaccinated it out. We will see if we get there with Delta.

@sirfredfredgeorge

Vulnerable children are irrelevant to my question, your concern was with "long covid", these are not in vulnerable children by your own quoted statistics, my question was how to prevent it?

On vulnerable kids, Could you point to the US authorization, I've not seen anything under 12 anywhere (other than the start of the trials obviously, but they cannot report until September at the earliest)

re how to prevent it - vaccination for 12 -15, yes.

the study by Prof Duncan's team suggested older children were more likely to develop long term symptoms, according to the preprint abstract.

So there would be more urgency in addressing vaccination for 12 015 anyhow. Vaccination off licence in younger children might be possible perhaps but couldn't swear to that.

The article cited from the Telegraph (which was also quoted in the Sun, also referenced here) says that

"The researchers found ....that there was a greater "burden of disease" for children sick with something other than the virus."

That makes sense intuitively and I would guess there is more data that they will include in the full version of the paper.

In the outbreak in my extended family, no child under 12 caught it, when it was in their households/ very close contact. There's a chance they would have tested positive I suppose, as none were tested.

Either way, they definitely weren't affected by it compared to the adults.

Also, not every adult caught it despite being exposed, myself included.

I would argue that a study based solely on symptoms self-reported by people via the app is almost useless. I'd call it a bad gaslighting effort tbh.

Interesting because I have found Zoe to be one of the most useful and reliable sources of information throughout pandemic:). Most other studies are also based on self-reporting, including the ONS survey referenced in the BMJ article above.

Clearly strangeshapedpotato and I cannot agree on anything but I personally welcome the diversity of thought:). I just wish alternative opinions were better supported by data and articulated with a bit more courtesy.

@wintertravel1980

Thanks, boys3, very useful as always.

Note - unless we vaccinate children, or take a zero covid approach, it is absolutely inevitable that every child in the UK will contract covid at some point.

Note - it is an opinion, not a fact:

• Not all children (or individuals) might be susceptible. Even for HIV roughly 10% of the population have got innate resistance to the virus. We do not know what the percentage is for Covid.
• Covid transmission is over-dispersed so the standard formula for estimating herd immunity does not work (we discussed it here previously).
• Covid K value (especially post new variants) is still up for debate but we can say with a reasonable degree of confidence it is much lower than 1. A significant percentage of infected individuals do not transmit virus to anyone else while relatively few superspreaders might infect dozens of others.
• I am not aware of any cases of superspreading events where the index case was a young child. It does not mean it has never happened but it is not unreasonable to assume these cases are rare.
• To achieve herd immunity, we need to vaccinate sufficient number of potential superspreaders. If superspreading within children is low or relatively low, we may get there with targeting adults or adults & teenagers.
• The most logical approach to vaccinations is to continue going down age buckets and monitor the dynamics of the virus. With Alpha, we pretty much vaccinated it out. We will see if we get there with Delta.

Not all children (or individuals) might be susceptible

Seriously?? This was being trotted out last year by various types, most of whom have long since vanished into the woodwork. There's not one single shred of evidence that anyone has any existing immunity to covid - not a trace, despite being intensely investigated for 18 months.

Covid K value (especially post new variants) is still up for debate but we can say with a reasonable degree of confidence it is much lower than 1

No we can't - it's possible to determine it for a single variant of covid, although I'm unaware of any high quality study on this - But any data of this type for one variant becomes utterly irrelevant when the next one comes along.

To achieve herd immunity, we need to vaccinate sufficient number of potential superspreaders
Whom you cannot identify, nor have any confidence that vaccination will suppress transmission.

There's not one single shred of evidence that anyone has any existing immunity to covid - not a trace, despite being intensely investigated for 18 months.

This is the reason why I have used the word might. Absence of evidence does not equal to evidence of absence.

What we do know though that even at superspreading events there is always a percentage of people who do not get infected. The percentage is lower when the contact is extended (e.g. on a small fishing boat) and higher when the contact lasts a few hours (e.g. on a traditional superspreading event like a birthday party or a wedding). This indicates that not all people are equally susceptible.

I was part of the mini spreading event in my office in March 2020. There were 12 of us in the room. The person doing most of the talking turned out to be pre symptomatic. He got tested positive a couple of days later (confirmed by a private test). Three of the attendees ended up catching Covid (which was again confirmed by private testing). The rest of us were absolutely fine. Some people are harder to infect than others.

@wintertravel1980

I would argue that a study based solely on symptoms self-reported by people via the app is almost useless. I'd call it a bad gaslighting effort tbh.

Interesting because I have found Zoe to be one of the most useful and reliable sources of information throughout pandemic:). Most other studies are also based on self-reporting, including the ONS survey referenced in the BMJ article above.

Clearly strangeshapedpotato and I cannot agree on anything but I personally welcome the diversity of thought:). I just wish alternative opinions were better supported by data and articulated with a bit more courtesy.

To what are you referring?

Data? Which particularly study in the letter I referenced are you challenging as lacking data?

Courtesy? Either the simple fact of disagreement chides you, or you assumed my comment about the Telegraph gaslighting was aimed at you? Nope - you're not that important .

Note - it is an opinion, not a fact:

This is certainly true, remember chicken pox is considerably more transmissible than covid, would be similar other situation though, but it takes many years for chicken pox to spread throughout children - so whilst I do think the vast majority of children will catch it, it will take time to spread within them, potentially even years.

And there are certainly questions about low spreading if only children are there - but it does seem that there is sufficient vaccine infection breakthrough to render a "just children have it" as not going to be the realistic option, so there will always be some continued spread in adults.

@wintertravel1980

There's not one single shred of evidence that anyone has any existing immunity to covid - not a trace, despite being intensely investigated for 18 months.

This is the reason why I have used the word might. Absence of evidence does not equal to evidence of absence.

What we do know though that even at superspreading events there is always a percentage of people who do not get infected. The percentage is lower when the contact is extended (e.g. on a small fishing boat) and higher when the contact lasts a few hours (e.g. on a traditional superspreading event like a birthday party or a wedding). This indicates that not all people are equally susceptible.

I was part of the mini spreading event in my office in March 2020. There were 12 of us in the room. The person doing most of the talking turned out to be pre symptomatic. He got tested positive a couple of days later (confirmed by a private test). Three of the attendees ended up catching Covid (which was again confirmed by private testing). The rest of us were absolutely fine. Some people are harder to infect than others.

Absence of evidence does not equal to evidence of absence.

In the absence of contrary evidence, it's normal in science to assume whatever best fits in with existing knowledge.
It's normal NOT to have immunity to a NEW virus - ergo, the burden of proof is on you to support your claim that not all children will contract it.
Furthermore, in risk management, where you cannot exclude a risk because of lack of evidence to the contrary, it's normal to asssume the worst. Again, the burden of proof is on you, if you want to reject this risk, to prove that not all children will contract covid.

This indicates that not all people are equally susceptible

No it doesn't. Not even remotely! For THAT to be true, everyone would have to have been equally exposed - that entails SAME amount of virus, the SAME amount of time after shedding (as viral viability falls over time outside the body). There's absolutely no way of doing that outside laboratory conditions.

A lot of very smart people have looked into this - I'm fairly sure that if there was anything to this claim, a high quality study would exist backing it up.

@sirfredfredgeorge

Note - it is an opinion, not a fact:

This is certainly true, remember chicken pox is considerably more transmissible than covid, would be similar other situation though, but it takes many years for chicken pox to spread throughout children - so whilst I do think the vast majority of children will catch it, it will take time to spread within them, potentially even years.

And there are certainly questions about low spreading if only children are there - but it does seem that there is sufficient vaccine infection breakthrough to render a "just children have it" as not going to be the realistic option, so there will always be some continued spread in adults.

but it takes many years for chicken pox to spread throughout children

Huh?

We err vaccinate against it and immunity is life-long so I'm not really sure what you're referring to here?

Data? Which particularly study in the letter I referenced are you challenging as lacking data?

I am referring to the BMJ article that was presented as better quality information than Zoe. I found it ironic because the article was full of anecdotal evidence and personal opinions. The only factual piece of data was the reference to the ONS study which was also based on self-reporting and lacked the control group. Is the only problem with Zoe the app interface?

The chicken pox vaccine is not on the standard childhood vaccination schedule in the U.K. You can pay for it privately but I'm not aware that the take up is high.

You can pay for it privately but I'm not aware that the take up is high

I don't believe it's high, tends to just be vulnerable and their family (where it would be prescribed and free) and I think even where it is taken up, it's often taken up by older children who have missed catching it rather than young children. It's over 100 quid I believe.

@sirfredfredgeorge

It is, about £70 a dose with two doses required 4 weeks apart.

I've just booked DS2 in to have it as my sister had a terrible time with chicken pox as a child and was really poorly. DS1 caught CP two weeks before he was due to be vaccinated (fortunately he had a relatively mild case although still had a temp of over 40 for 2 days).