Data, Stats and Daily Numbers started 1st January 2022

[boys3]

Whilst I'd love to say all is quiet on New Years Day the reality is:

Welcome to yet another DATA thread.

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

Please try to keep discussion focused on these.

All the usual links below; New for '22 suggestions always welcome, and there may well be some that just need to go.

UK govt press conferences slides & data www.gov.uk/government/collections/slides-and-datasets-to-accompany-coronavirus-press-conferences#history
UKHSA Variants of Concern Technical Briefings www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-sars-cov-2-variants-technical-briefing
UKHSA Vaccine efficacy www.gov.uk/guidance/monitoring-reports-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
UKHSA 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/

Health metric graphics for England based on the data published up to this afternoon.

Usual format - so year on year comparison, full year and just for the Dec-Jan period. Latter includes daily figures for patients in hospital and admissions, as well as the seven day average.

Admissions

Patients in Hospital

Deaths within 28 days by date reported will follow shortly; along with NHS region graphics for admits and patients in hospital.

ONS claiming 'deaths by all causes' up more than 12% on the previous 5 years (previous 5 years now includes the pandemic). I wonder if this will rise further given the problems with staffing and delays to treatment? sad

But it highlights very much why looking at "Covid deaths" is deeply misleading, there were again more excess non-covid deaths, than all covid deaths (some covid deaths won't be excess, remember it's replaced other respiratory illnesses that finish off the vary vulnerable) So either identifying deaths as covid ones is going wrong, or covid really isn't the big problem in the nations health at the moment.

btw, I won't accept "demands of covid cases causing harm elsewhere" as an explanation for the other excess deaths as they were happening in early december and even november too when there weren't demands from omicron cases. Of course that could certainly be a reason for excess deaths from now on as the healthcare demands from omicron are high.

It's a bit annoying that they show the covid/pneumonia cause of death data in these weekly ones, but not other causes, so we don't know what the identified cause for the other excess deaths is. As noted 12% up is pretty high, not until the monthly release will we get it.

Well, apparently only a minority of cases are incidental covid, aren't they

We have no data on this, only on the ratios of in-patients, and if home covid monitoring in a virtual ward is an in-patient then this makes the stat extremely dubious (as such a person who actually needs no care for their 10 day period as a virtual patient will appear in the stats for the full 10 days as primary covid) But how virtual wards are handled and the numbers in them is not known, so it still doesn't help us know how many are how many.

If you're on a virtual ward ward then you're still receiving care of a sort, aren't you?!

*virtual covid ward

Jangly Yes and no - you're receiving some care, you have the machinery and the occasionally check up - but that can be done by isolating staff it's not in person, and you're not occupying space in a hospital, so it's quite a bit different.

We have no idea on the numbers or if they are in the actual in-patient stats, I don't want to make a big thing about it when it might be irrelevant, getting clarity on it would be good.

Thank you @boys3
Nice to see the graphics or hot choc with baileys

Part of the excess deaths are thought to be the result of lack of early diagnosis back in spring 2020 when people stayed away from healthcare/couldn't access it. So probably little that can be done now sadly to prevent them. I thought the large majority of the excess deaths were covid though? When you look at the charts that show covid deaths and excess deaths the two lines seem pretty close except during spring 2020 (when there were significant numbers of covid deaths not diagnosed as such)

I'd agree that it would be interesting to know how many cases are in a "virtual ward "but it seems highly unlikely that this would be so many that incidental cases would outnumber primary ones, given the figures we have.

I thought the large majority of the excess deaths were covid though?

In 2020 for sure, but not the recent ones, unless something has got badly wrong with the identification of it as covid (long covid deaths do have a code, but they might not be coded of course)

Week 51 13,000 deaths in 2021, 11548 is the 5 year average (btw this was incorrectly said before to be the 5 year average including the 2020 data, but this is excluded in the comparison, the comparison 12.6% is against the 2015-2019 time period) So that's 1463 "excess deaths", but only 718 were 28 days definition and only 591 coded (some of that difference will be timing of coding btw as cause not necessarily final but 28 days is) And influenza also down.

So we have 700 odd excess deaths which are non covid, and probably more, it would be really good to get more detail. (numbers are similar for the rest of end of 2021.

Your risk of a heart attack doubles for a month after having covid. For most people that is fine as their risk is still low, but for those already at a high risk of a heart attack, covid could be the trigger.

but it seems highly unlikely that this would be so many that incidental cases would outnumber primary ones, given the figures we have

You can get the number of in patients as primary covid with 90% of admission being incidental, the measures of incidental admission is completely unknown.

Your risk of a heart attack doubles for a month after having covid. For most people that is fine as their risk is still low, but for those already at a high risk of a heart attack, covid could be the trigger

Majority of that would be within the 28 days, so would not explain the missing increase, it would also, if attributed to the covid be coded as covid death even if outside the 28 days.

@RoyalFamilyFan

Your risk of a heart attack doubles for a month after having covid. For most people that is fine as their risk is still low, but for those already at a high risk of a heart attack, covid could be the trigger.

Eh? Where did you get this from please? My DH has had enough of those already.

Is there a link to the excess deaths for 2021? I can't seem to find good data

This links to the week 51 weekly stats
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
it contains little in the way of causes other than covid
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/latest
Has more info on causes, but only available quite a bit later, so latest is November, where there were excess non-covid deaths too, but not to the same degree as the over 12% in the later week.

Hmm, quite a few patients appear to be re-hospitalised or die in the months after a covid illness. I think there is a body of literature accumulating on this.

"In fact, the risk of 12-month mortality among adults under 65 who are hospitalized with COVID-19 is increased by 233% over those who are COVID-19 negative. Nearly 80% of the downstream deaths among patients with COVID-19 were for causes other than respiratory or cardiovascular. Since these deaths were not for a direct COVID-19 cause of death among these patients who have recovered from the initial episode of COVID-19, this data suggests that the biological insult from COVID-19 and physiological stress from COVID-19 is significant."

It also says "Patients who died within the first 30 days of their baseline COVID-19 test were excluded from the analysis "

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.778434/full

I think people who are on the caseload of community care teams are described as being on a virtual ward. The main difference is the capacity, we don't run out of beds.

Some people will not be escalated to being an inpatient even if dying from covid, often because it is deemed not to be in their best interests and they would not be escalated to an ICU bed, so best supportive care is appropriate. There are people with long term conditions who reach a point where they no longer wish to be admitted if they have another exacerbation of their illness ( which could have been precipitated by covid ) and have reached a point where they know that any hospital intervention would likely be futile and have chosen home as their prefered place of death. Community teams will then offer supportive/palliative care.

We use the same scale as the acute sector for assessing the deteriorating patient, we escalate anyone with reversible/treatable conditions, and we escalate anyone who is deteriorating to their GP for a plan going forward, sometimes that treatment will require inpatient care, sometimes the wishes of the person require a more pragmatic approach.

What if people would prefer to be in hospital though? Could they and/or their families choose to be admitted instead, if they don't fancy dying of covid at home?

Correction to a point I made in my post earlier about 'all causes of death' -

I said that the previous 5 year average included the pandemic but this was incorrect as stated below on ONS website -

"The average for 2015 to 2019 provides a comparison of the number of deaths expected per week in a usual (non-pandemic) year".

Thanks for spotting that @sirfredfredgeorge

Still not great numbers though.

@herecomesthsun for people who have reached the point where this discussion has been had, as in preferred place of death, then absolutely some people choose hospital, especially if they do not have family or friends who are able to take on the lions share of caring for someone who is dying.
I think the hardest thing about the pandemic has been the fact that people have died without their family with them, which isn't neccessarily the scenario they envisaged when they previously made a decision to be admitted. So we do try to have conversations detailing any restrictions on visitors, so people are aware and can make the best decision for them at that time.

I think it is also worth mentioning that a lot of frail or elderly people do recover from covid at home or in care settings, it is not an automatic death sentence. Humans of all ages are a contrary bunch

continuing from earlier deaths within 28 days by date of death in England

I know about virtual wards to some extent, and also that in the first wave people were cared for in settings other than ICUs and some recovered well.

However, a lot of people were encouraged to stay at home when very ill with covid and some died at home, while being told they were not ill enough to come to hospital (lips not blue enough etc)

I am curious about the virtual ward arrangement and the reality it might encompass as the number of cases & very ill people increases.