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/

@treeflowercat

Thank you *@boys3* for your informative analysis. I'm wondering why the North appears to be harder hjt and approaching, or at, last year's levels. Clearly in 2021 we'd been in lockdown for a while by this point when now there are very few restrictions, so parity is an improvement in terms of how the population is coping with Covid, but apart from that, I'm thinking the North didn't have quite the rates of Alpha that London and the SE had.

Yes lockdown was very effective here. We really never saw the kinds of levels London had.

We did though have a v big wave of delta in the summer, but many had had vaccines by then.

@Reastie

I think I’m right in saying that the daily cases have been decreasing from their upward trajectory (or at least levelling off somewhat when looking at cases by reported date) since govt said no pcr required for positive lft. So, is this making stats less accurate as there could be increasing cases, just unreported? It feels very coincidental and the cases may not yet have translated to hospitalisations. Percentage positive, last time I saw, was increasing implying community cases increasing.

Where I am we still can't get LFTs!

The No PCR was from yesterday so it shouldn’t have effect yet plus testing seems to increase

Plus it is only for asymptomatic infections - before it was to ensure that it wasn’t a false positive now you have to assume it is

Symptomatic infection should always have been PCR anyway rather than relying on a negative LFT

Thank you @boys3 for your informative analysis. I'm wondering why the North appears to be harder hjt and approaching, or at, last year's levels

I've not been able to actually invest the time in validating this with actual spreadsheets, but I think that "number of cases detected" is related to health deprivation score, and typically "the north" has more areas with worse health deprivation score. I think this isn't because there are more cases, but there's more detection, perhaps because higher health deprivation means worse symptoms on average, perhaps because more people spend time with people who are more ill, or maybe some other reason.

Also, detection is almost certainly higher in specific jobs/industries - ones where you're working with vulnerable, ones where your employer mandates/encourages extra testing, and I suspect the different working demographics in different regions could also impact this.

I think a lot of the difference could be in testing behaviour, and not simply case rates - also remember, if isolation reduces spread , the high case rates stay around longer because it's not all compressed into a few days.

I spent time with friends from the north of England at the weekend who were convinced that Omicron hadn't yet really got to then yet and was still a London thing. . If that's a widespread view there might not have been the same voluntary curbs on mixing over the last few weeks.

I thought this was interesting and might explain regional difference in hospitalisation eg London vs Scotland

@sirfredfredgeorge

Thank you @boys3 for your informative analysis. I'm wondering why the North appears to be harder hjt and approaching, or at, last year's levels

I've not been able to actually invest the time in validating this with actual spreadsheets, but I think that "number of cases detected" is related to health deprivation score, and typically "the north" has more areas with worse health deprivation score. I think this isn't because there are more cases, but there's more detection, perhaps because higher health deprivation means worse symptoms on average, perhaps because more people spend time with people who are more ill, or maybe some other reason.

Also, detection is almost certainly higher in specific jobs/industries - ones where you're working with vulnerable, ones where your employer mandates/encourages extra testing, and I suspect the different working demographics in different regions could also impact this.

I think a lot of the difference could be in testing behaviour, and not simply case rates - also remember, if isolation reduces spread , the high case rates stay around longer because it's not all compressed into a few days.

But if this were the case, you wouldn't see it translating into hospital admissions/inpatients would you? As it is, the North has similar levels of hospitalisation to last year which I find curious comparing it to other regions and also worrying.

But if this were the case, you wouldn't see it translating into hospital admissions/inpatients would you?

If it was due to more symptoms, yes - particularly presumptive monitoring admissions, but I'm not sure where you get the more admissions from?

London is 99k admissions on 2030k cases (4.87%)
North West is 88k admissions on 1847 cases (4.76%)

Now we have a problem with health regions and case regions not matching up, but I wouldn't say that the north is getting more hospitalisations in line with the cases, and very much as noted by @containsnuts the actual hospitalisation rate we would expect in the more health deprived and older (although they're linked of course!) areas would expect to be higher.

@Firefliess

I spent time with friends from the north of England at the weekend who were convinced that Omicron hadn't yet really got to then yet and was still a London thing. . If that's a widespread view there might not have been the same voluntary curbs on mixing over the last few weeks.

I live in the North. I really don't think most of us are that stupid. We have access to the news etc just the same as Londoners....

I meant a more cases as a proportion of last year's peak. Looking at Boys' graphs, other regions have a clearly lower level of hospitalisation than last year. The North has levels approaching last year's.
I don't understand why hospitalisations are approaching last year's levels in the North but nowhere else and I don't see how your idea about increased monitoring in the North fits with this. Increased monitoring would show and increased level of cases the hospitalisations showing as near last year's levels must surely be due to something else?

Increased monitoring would show and increased level of cases the hospitalisations showing as near last year's levels must surely be due to something else?

Remember my theory is there was increased monitoring last year too - as in literally throughout the pandemic the more health deprived, the more detection, so last year would've been higher hospitalisation on lower genuine cases than the equivalent in less deprived areas.

I could of course be completely wrong, and we have the difference in Scotland where serious admissions do seem to be up unlike elsewhere, suggesting maybe there is a link to worse outcomes in the north (Vitamin D!) maybe I need to test my theory on more southern locations but the problem then is the health data not matching up as that's so gross or tied to hospitals.

I think my query is that the North is now showing say 80-90% of the level of last year's wave of hospitalisations in the North compared with another region which might be showing say 50% of last year's wave of hospitalisations in its own area
This is what is concerning me and what I don't understand and I don't see how it can be explained by increased levels of testing in the North as surely everyone is tested on admission to hospital anyway.

@Firefliess

I spent time with friends from the north of England at the weekend who were convinced that Omicron hadn't yet really got to then yet and was still a London thing. . If that's a widespread view there might not have been the same voluntary curbs on mixing over the last few weeks.

As above, your friends sound a bit thick and that is not the widespread view of “the north”

Long time (Northern!) lurker here (hello everyone and thanks to you all for such interesting threads).

I have no specific data to hand to back this up but I think part of why the hospitalisations in the North are near / have hit those from a year ago is that we never really had a big wave over xmas/January last year. So we're comparing a peak now with the same date last year where the North wasn't really experiencing a huge peak/wave. We were hit hard in October time (2020) when that may not have been the case across the rest of the country and when alpha emerged it never really got that bad up here. Perhaps some protection from high covid rates in autumn?

I guess, certainly here in the NW we were hit by the wearying level 3 restrictions from August onwards whereas I don't think London had anything like that until rates started skyrocketing in December. So maybe our rates were held proportionally lower last winter relative to eg London and we are playing catch up now?

Yes I think you're right @EducatingArti.

I don't want to downplay the current hospital data for NE but comparing with 12m ago isn't really comparing like with like. I found a graph of cases taking newcastle as an example from the gig dashboard. You can see the peak around October time and the less significant spike over festive period.

Oh, I think here in the NW, our highest peak was in January rather than November but might still have been lower than it would have been without the tier 3 restrictions.

Everything in England still moving in the right direction (in patients down across the country again as well as admissions and cases, further fall in ventilation)

Scotland though, another 10% increase in ventilation beds and in hospital accelerating again (daily admissions too lagged) Total numbers are still not high, but ventilation beds almost doubled, against the England experience of them actually declining (possibly of course that is England having more lag in the numbers from delta, but still, it absolutely did not go up at all with omicron)

So to me, all fine and continuing positive, as long as you're not Scottish!

The ONS to the week to the 6th say 1 in 15 and this is an INCREASE, but remember the ONS figure for "testing positive in that week", will include the positive cases detected in the case reports on the 29th December and even before, so this period is still covering the peak cases in the report and would not be expected to yet be following the case reports decline. Next week it should, as those peak times will still be included, so that will be the indicator of if the cases are still reflective.

as those peak times will still be included

as those peak times will not be included

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/12january2022

Apologies if I've accidentally offended northerners! My friends aren't thick at all, but just hadn't been following the data and news about covid in the way that most of us on this thread do. I do think we need to remember that not everyone does follow data avidly and can be out of date in terms of what they know.

Another reason why the north of England seems to have been worse hit than London may be that its Omicron peak hit at Christmas, a time when people were unwilling to cancel plans, whereas London's hit earlier so a lot of people were in isolation in the run up to Christmas either cause they had it or because they could see everyone around them did and wanted to be safe to see family at Christmas - causing a flatter peak.

Didn't the ONS say 1 in 15 people were infected last week too? So just a slight increase/flatlining? Yes I agree with you that their date range which includes people who caught it up to 10 days previously is too early to be expected to reflect the very recent fall in cases reported. Their data on London might show a fall - presumably that'll be out in a couple of days?

Denmark possibly turning the peak again, but of course they did that over NY but it turned out to be reporting/behaviour change, I really can't imagine how much longer it can go (7 day rate of over 5.6% detected cases, and it's been at least 3% since beginning of December, which means 20% of Danes have recorded a positive case of omicron, let alone all the undetected cases.)

I do have to wonder why Germany / Netherlands etc. are continuing their lockdown strategies, why the difference in approach given that it's not stopping the spread of omicron, why not either tighten restrictions so it is (if you believe spread is more harmful than restrictions) or loosen restrictions (if you believe spread is less harmful than restrictions). Leaving severe but ultimately pointless restrictions seems the worse all round?

Their data on London might show a fall - presumably that'll be out in a couple of days?

Yep, should be in the friday release.