Data, Stats, Daily Numbers started 22nd October 2021

[boys3]

This is the DATA thread.

Our preference is for factual, data driven and analytical contributions.

Please try to keep discussion focused on these.

The links below cover a range of data sources. Ideas for additions or deletions always welcome. PHE probably should be referenced at UKHSA.

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/ includes R estimates
PHE Weekly Flu & Covid Surveiilance Reports 2021-22 Season www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports-2021-to-2022-season
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/
Sewage www.gov.uk/government/publications/wastewater-testing-coverage-data-for-19-may-2021-emhp-programme/wastewater-testing-coverage-data-for-the-environmental-monitoring-for-health-protection-emhp-programme.
Sewage reports www.gov.uk/government/publications/monitoring-of-sars-cov-2-rna-in-england-wastewater-monthly-statistics-june-2021
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

I honestly wonder whether we can trust any test figures any more.

There are early indicators that can flag testing issues (like they did with the Immense lab). The most obvious one would be a disproportionate increase in positive LFTs not confirmed by PCRs. There are a few twitter users who track this numbers and for now they do not appear concerning.

Testing is never 100% perfect but during the few weeks of Immensa fiasco many of the SW (and some of the WM/Wales) numbers were flashing red. They just didn't make sense. Right now all the regional and local trends appear much more consistent.

@wintertravel1980

I am not sure we are really "behind" Europe. It looks like we are further along in the pandemic curve. We vaccinated people earlier so we have got to deal with waning immunity before other countires but our trajectories on logarithmic scale look surprisingly similar.

Except Israel who has been way ahead of everyone highlighted the waning immunity issue. We knew this was coming.

We knew this was coming.

Yes, and we (i) ordered extra Pfizer and (ii) launched the vaccine "mix and match" trial. We did make a judgement call not to start booster campaign until mid-September but I assume the delay was driven by our lack of knowledge about booster immunity. If it also wanes within months, going ahead too early would have been a mistake - we might have ended up leaving our most vulnerable population (80s+) with less protection over winter.

Launching boosters "by invite only" was a mistake but it has now been corrected.

@wintertravel1980 my comment wasnt even a comment on the government strategy. But this is a data thread so I wanted to point out that we did know about waning immunity and roughly when that would kick in.
Israel has been a testing ground for a vaccination programme against covid. Except when their advice with waning immunity was to introduce other mitigations and then boosters. The UK response has been spread it as much as possible, then boosters.
I can see the thinking behind the UK policy. But as there has been no protection in place for the ecv population, shielding was ended, then its aim seems to be to protect the economy and the middle aged, not those most vulnerable. I guess that is why we have continued to have had such a high death rate.

The big mistake we made v Europe was not vaccinating 12 to 16 year olds before they went back to school.

Cases could fall to around 5,000 a day before Christmas - reports
Modelling seen by ministers suggests coronavirus infections will fall next month even without Plan B restrictions being introduced, according to reports.
Projections from several groups are said to show cases dropping rapidly within weeks, with experts reportedly indicating they could plunge to around 5,000 a day before Christmas.

It will be interesting to see if this actually happens. 5000 in December. Well we will see.

Modelling from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is better at showing my previous thoughts on pre winter peak, and why high immunity will help us avoid restrictions

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/24/coronavirus-cases-slump-winter-say-scientists/

I admit I’ve only scanned it quickly but looks interesting

@JennyofLancashire. Exactly. And also not permitting two doses for under 18s (though I totally get how finely balanced that decision is).

@edisonbulb

Cases could fall to around 5,000 a day before Christmas - reports Modelling seen by ministers suggests coronavirus infections will fall next month even without Plan B restrictions being introduced, according to reports. Projections from several groups are said to show cases dropping rapidly within weeks, with experts reportedly indicating they could plunge to around 5,000 a day before Christmas.

It will be interesting to see if this actually happens. 5000 in December. Well we will see.

Hmmm... at what cost?

This is the ES reporting on the same story. It's all a bit vague and seems to be based on modelling from some time ago:

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/covid19-cases-fall-november-plan-b-government-modelling-b962272.html

I’m wondering whether that one model takes into account the current slow pace of vaccine roll out and the new variant variant. (And COP26 although I don’t know if effects of that will be solely limited to Scotland.)

On boosters, don't forget we (in the West) came under a lot of external pressure from WHO and the scientific body, including Oxford, NOT to boost our vulnerable population before the rest of the world has had even one dose. As always, all these decisions are very finely balanced health, economic, diplomatic, issues.

Personally I think we should have opened up vaccination to 12-16's earlier, but again, the jury was out at the time it was up for debate. Some went for it early, some countries only vaccinated vulnerable youngsters, Germany decided against, and then changed their mind, much like us, but then got going earlier. China (and Chile) vaccinates 3 year olds and potentially soon to go younger. Not sure how that would go down here.

GP on TV this morning pointing out that the models suggesting drop in rates in November rely on most children having had Covid by then
twitter.com/dramirkhangp/status/1452584587255861250?s=21

Anecdata, but my 14 year old son again had symptoms bad enough to keep him off school on Friday, 5 weeks after testing positive.

I don’t believe the models that say we will be at 5,000 a day by Christmas any more than I believed them when they said there would be 100,000 cases a day in the summer. The only thing that has been predictably true throughout this crisis is that projected models have been wildly off every single time. When will we accept that this kind of forecasting is wildly inaccurate/ voodoo science and we should stick to closely follow the data that we actually have in front of us?

On that note. The last few days have seen a slowing in growth following by a drop 🤞🏻🤞🏻. Lord knows what will happen this week- especially given how up and down we’ve been since the summer, but it is encouraging. At least we can say that case numbers do not (yet) appear to be currently sky rocketing out of control even without “plan b” measures.

On the other hand Zoe is still going up.. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Zoe showed a massive spike for my district starting around 10 days ago (massive is relative, I'm sure for some areas 3000 cases is still quite low, but we are in a many rural area with a couple small towns). It seems to have now started dropping as quickly as it rose, certainly not in the same way as it did during lockdown (where the reduction was much more gradual), more as if it ran out of steam. I'm guessing that this pattern is being repeated up and down the country, with different areas being at different points on the curve. Eventually, it should run out of areas where this happens as more and more of the most vulnerable to being infected (children) catch it and build up a level of immunity.

I agree that the forecast of 5,000 cases a day by Christmas is as “reliable” as 100,000 cases a day in August and should be ignored.

However, all the “official” models now seem to diverge with twitter models (e.g. Andrew Lilico”s) and they all suggest cases in winter will be lower than cases we are seeing now. The numbers of hospitalisations and deaths will depend on the effectiveness of booster campaign. As of today, England only has triple vaccinated 5.2 million people which, in my personal opinion, is pretty good. Boosters are being rolled out much faster and more efficiently than vaccines for teens.

Re: 100,000 cases a day - Andrew Lilico’s model has never produced such high numbers and when he benchmarked it to others, he concluded that all the SAGE models underestimated one particular variable - impact of vaccines on reducing transmission. It was a complete guesswork and SAGE advisors went for conservative estimates knowing that vaccines are not perfect and do not produce sterilising immunity. However at a population level they still worked better than expected and might have been the number one reason why the August wave was never as high as it was predicted.

Sorry - a correction to the previous post - all the official models now seem to finally converge with the twitter models…

I am really bad at multi-tasking…

Also, looking at the London numbers…

The high level of pre-existing immunity has held up surprisingly well and might have deferred the “back to school” wave in many of the boroughs (especially in the East and South East). However, I do not think it can be avoided completely - it is a matter of “when” not “if”. If I had been a parent of a teenager, I would have strongly recommended that they make use of the half-term and get a vaccine. The first dose should be sufficient to significantly reduce severity of outcome.

36k cases today....

Half term this week in England (for most, as far as I know) will mean fewer tests carried out. So not entirely unexpected.

Huge drop today.... another couple of this and I'll be thinking very positively

@ILookAtTheFloor

Half term this week in England (for most, as far as I know) will mean fewer tests carried out. So not entirely unexpected.

Testing isn't down so definitely not that. 13 k cases drop week on week would have to be a huge drop in testing if you wanted to put it down to that.

It is a Monday, cases always drop today. Lets wait and see for tomorrow.

@julieca no they don't. The last few weeks or more have seen a spike on a Monday.