Data, Stats & Daily Numbers started 23rd JULY

[boys3]

This is the DATA thread. We welcome factual, data driven and analytical contributions
Please try to keep discussion focused on these

UK govt press conferences slides & data www.gov.uk/government/collections/slides-and-datasets-to-accompany-coronavirus-press-conferences#history
PHE Variants of Concern Technical Briefings www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant-variant-of-concern-20201201
PHE Vaccine efficacy www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-monitoring-of-the-effectiveness-of-covid-19-vaccination
SAGE : Minutes and Models www.gov.uk/government/collections/scientific-evidence-supporting-the-government-response-to-coronavirus-covid-19
Data Dashboard coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Dashboard Vaccine Map to MSOA level coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/vaccinations
Covid 19 Genomics www.cogconsortium.uk/tools-analysis/public-data-analysis-2/
Sanger Genome Maps & Data covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw
UCL Virus Watch ucl-virus-watch.net/
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 MSOA Map English deaths www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/

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

Jason Leitch and Neil Ferguson on R4 this morning, trying to answer “What’s going on with the figures?” They couldn’t. NF said how difficult it was to predict human behaviour and maybe that was the main factor. (I’m not convinced that could account for the huge drops.)

Yeah, I'd be much more heartened by the numbers if there was a clear reason for the drops. As it is, it could be anything from a genuine drop due to a mixture of increasing immunity, school finishing, the pingdemic etc to a large section of society believing it's all over and thus not bothering to test and isolate if they have symptoms. We won't know where we stand until we see the hospitalisation figures in a week or two.

I can’t see anyone anywhere talking about population heterogeneity and I think it could be significant here. Everyone’s immunity is not worth the same in terms of its impact on transmission. My own feeling is that even though the vaccination programme is quite slow just now, we may have recently immunised some of the key spreaders, both through vaccination and through their self-selection for infection by attending the Euros. This may have had a disproportionate impact on spread vs their absolute numbers and led to a sudden slow down, which is now flattening off.

Here is a preprint on England and Scotland incorporating heterogeneity and its impact on HIT www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.25.21257766v1.full-text

@QueenStromba

Yeah, I'd be much more heartened by the numbers if there was a clear reason for the drops. As it is, it could be anything from a genuine drop due to a mixture of increasing immunity, school finishing, the pingdemic etc to a large section of society believing it's all over and thus not bothering to test and isolate if they have symptoms. We won't know where we stand until we see the hospitalisation figures in a week or two.

That's why it's important that we're still as cautious as possible - wear a mask, SD, avoid indoor spaces etc.

If (when?) it turns out that the drop is merely artificial, we'd be really in the shit if everyone had dropped all precautions.

There’s probably an argument for stopping giving the daily figures headline space for that reason @NannyAndJohn. Persistent falls are going to give people a sense of security and only time will tell if that is a false one or not by which time the genie is well and truly already out of the bottle.

Yes. I’m giving it a week to see if the hospitalisation numbers move. Then I’ll exhale.

@QueenStromba

We've got almost 50% more people in mechanical ventilation beds than when we first hit this number of people in hospital in the Autumn wave (13/10/2020 - 5,293 in hospital, 516 in mechanical ventilation beds; 23/07/2021 - 5238 in hospital, 715 in mechanical ventilation beds) so it doesn't look like a case of people being less sick this time or more often being in for something else.

Wow, that's really interesting! Anyone have any suggestion as to why?

@Quarantino suggestion above that in previous waves many of the patients admitted were older and too frail for mechanical ventilation, whereas younger patients are being ventilated. So in a twisted way it may not be an outright negative.

We do need to remember that currently we have less people currently in hospital than are being admitted per week. So we are having more people discharged per day than people who are admitted.

ATieLikeRichardGere

Yes, I fully agree that population heterogeneity may be as important (if not more important) than the human behaviour.

The pre-print is interesting and appears consistent with earlier studies that also suggested that HIT by infection can be achieved at a much lower level than HIT through vaccination. The authors used R0 of 3.6 and ended up with the HIT by infection threshold of 29% (for England). I am wondering what the models would be for R0 of 6 (the Delta estimate). The relationship is non-linear so I cannot run the maths myself - but I am guessing the number will be closer to 50%. It is feasible we are indeed getting there.

We do need to remember that currently we have less people currently in hospital than are being admitted per week.

The UK numbers are misleading because of the way Wales counts hospital admissions. They report all admissions with Covid symptoms as Covid. The number of patients in hospitals, however, only includes confirmed Covid cases.

As a result, it makes more sense to look at the numbers for England, Scotland and NI separately.

In England, the number of patients in hospitals is still going up which means we are discharging fewer patients than we are admitting. This is expected - hospitalisations lag cases and numbers of people in hospitals lag hospitalisations.

During the winter wave, Covid cases peaked at the end of Dec (according to ONS - around Dec 29), hospital admissions peaked on Jan 14 and the number of patients peaked on Jan 19.

If cases are indeed dropping and the Delta follows the trend of Alpha, we can expect:

• Peak of cases - July 15
• Peak of hospital admissions - July 31 (+/- a few days)
• Peak of patients in hospitals - August 7

[quote GingerAndTheBiscuits]@Quarantino suggestion above that in previous waves many of the patients admitted were older and too frail for mechanical ventilation, whereas younger patients are being ventilated. So in a twisted way it may not be an outright negative.[/quote]
Thanks and sorry bordois, completely missed your post making same point!

And another consideration that may change the dynamic in the current wave - hospitalisations do not lag cases by more than 2 weeks because people get admitted to hospitals so late after getting infected.

The peak of cases occurs in younger groups. Cases in more vulnerable population lag cases in young adults. Hospitalisations lag cases in vulnerable groups.

Now when many vulnerable individuals are vaccinated, the time lags may be very different from the winter wave.

Threads like this one make me think that people are just cracking on with it now.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4307316-husband-s-work-positive-results

@wintertravel1980

And another consideration that may change the dynamic in the current wave - hospitalisations do not lag cases by more than 2 weeks because people get admitted to hospitals so late after getting infected.

The peak of cases occurs in younger groups. Cases in more vulnerable population lag cases in young adults. Hospitalisations lag cases in vulnerable groups.

Now when many vulnerable individuals are vaccinated, the time lags may be very different from the winter wave.

The lag looks to be about a week in this wave and following the rises and falls in cases very closely.

twitter.com/i/status/1418602366799163392

@QueenStromba

Plus PCR tests aren't all that reliable, especially when not done by a HCP.

What's the point of them, then?

If they only give a vague idea of the numbers, other than a sort-of upward trend or a sort-of downward trend, what can we use the data for? Not as a basis for a strategy that has the potential to harm the lives of the public (eg banning people from work or education), I hope.

Positive tests are very reliable but negative tests are not.

Ok sure it's been mentioned but with children in school and college being the main driver surley them being off has helped massive?

Ok sure it's been mentioned but with children in school and college being the main driver surley them being off has helped massive?

Yes, it was mentioned multiple times but we also discussed why some of us believe it could not be the number one driver.

School age children haven't had the highest case rate, 20-24 has. If that's all uni students and they're just planning to stay in their rooms all summer then great. More likely though that they'll be heading back home, seeing relatives and going out clubbing with their old mate's.

Research re transmission from children returning from summer camp:

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2031915?fbclid=IwAR0uiSwyt6n74vcced4pOCVkadjyVs9cNb81Zf9ydVqWwMKPTK6Ix3wbJL4

“Transmission occurred in 35 of 194 households (18%); in these households, the secondary attack rate was 45% (95% CI, 36 to 54) (48 of 107 households). Among the household contacts who became infected and who were at least 18 years of age, 4 of 41 (10%) were hospitalized.”

The 18-24 year olds are really piling into the vaccinations though. Much faster than the 25-30s.

Zoomed in graph

Zoomed in graph for readability