Corona Virus main thread

[Surfer 1,547]

This illustrates the death rates per million population over time - first chart top five EU countries by population. Second a selection of countries. FWIW Belgium's numbers are just "off the chart" bad so there may be a reporting issue there.

Source:  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=GBR+SWE+USA+CAN+KOR+ITA

Notes 

- UK in statistical tie with France for worst rate of all major European countries - but both rates falling.

- UK almost perfectly tracks Italy with a  lag of ~ 2 1/2 weeks. When did respective lockdowns start?

- Sweden's rate is rising quickly and (excepting Belgium) may very soon have worst rate in Europe.

- Why is Canada's rate so much lower than US? Healthcare system (public v private), population health? 

- US likely very soon to get worse than Italy, which has been a poster child in the US for what NOT to do.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Surfer

[Van wink 2,994]

23 minutes ago, Surfer said:

This illustrates the death rates per million population over time - first chart top five EU countries by population. Second a selection of countries. Belgium's numbers are "off the chart" bad - so maybe reporting differences - and Ireland's numbers getting closer to UK's.

Source:  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=GBR+SWE+USA+CAN+KOR+ITA

Notes 

- UK in statistical tie with France for worst rate of all major European countries - but both rates falling.

- Sweden's rate is rising quickly and (excepting Belgium) may very soon have worst rate in Europe.

- Why is Canada's rate so much lower than US? Healthcare system (public v private), population health? 

- US likely very soon to get worse than Italy, which has been a poster child in the US for what NOT to do.

 

The graph shows how well we have done in the U.K. at flattening the curve, one of the key parts of our strategy. 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Van wink

[Surfer 1,547]

1 minute ago, Van wink said:

The graph shows how well we have done in the U.K. at flattening the curve, one of the key parts of our strategy. 

It does, and it says the same for everyone else too.  A question I have is given the evidence from Italy, why didn't we instigate social distancing earlier? It looks like there was a lost 2 1/2 window of opportunity there and if we had have started the policy a week earlier many deaths could have been avoided. 

[Indy 3,283]

9 hours ago, JF said:

Yes 384 in Denmark and 1987 in Sweden so seems like a incredibly flawed plan that would have proved catastrophic had it been used here.

Not really if you scale up the % of deaths against the populations of the UK and Sweden! UK deaths about 18,000 from a population of 50 million Sweden 2,000 from 10 million. That doesn’t back you catastrophic figures.

[Van wink 2,994]

16 minutes ago, Surfer said:

It does, and it says the same for everyone else too.  

Really? That’s interesting. You must be looking at a different graph to me.

[JF 694]

31 minutes ago, Indy said:

Not really if you scale up the % of deaths against the populations of the UK and Sweden! UK deaths about 18,000 from a population of 50 million Sweden 2,000 from 10 million. That doesn’t back you catastrophic figures.

67 million in the uk and London alone has nearly the same population as Sweden so scaling up won’t work in the approach Sweden have taken as rate of transmission in our large cities would be much higher, London would have been an absolute disaster zone 

Edited April 23, 2020 by JF

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

1 hour ago, Surfer said:

It does, and it says the same for everyone else too.  A question I have is given the evidence from Italy, why didn't we instigate social distancing earlier? It looks like there was a lost 2 1/2 window of opportunity there and if we had have started the policy a week earlier many deaths could have been avoided. 

 

42 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Really? That’s interesting. You must be looking at a different graph to me.

 

Not sure what point you're trying to make VW. Yes we've done considerably better than the USA, Sweden and Canada in flattening the curve (is Sweden even trying?) but other than that Surfer is right - 2 and a bit weeks late for the party and looking like Italy.

That the curve flattened if you 'lock-down' is no surprise to anybody - but a successful strategy to follow Italy ????

Don't think so.

[Indy 3,283]

54 minutes ago, JF said:

67 million in the uk and London alone has nearly the same population as Sweden so scaling up won’t work in the approach Sweden have taken as rate of transmission in our large cities would be much higher, London would have been an absolute disaster zone 

Even with 67 million it’s no where near our figures scaled up, I’m really not sure what your arguing about? How are you getting 250,000?

Edited April 23, 2020 by Indy

[Van wink 2,994]

What do you make of the French curve. ( and please interpret that remark appropriately)

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

52 minutes ago, JF said:

67 million in the uk and London alone has nearly the same population as Sweden so scaling up won’t work in the approach Sweden have taken as rate of transmission in our large cities would be much higher, London would have been an absolute disaster zone 

I think Sweden is best compared to Norway - their little brother (the Norwegians won't like that - they've only been independent a little over 100 years). 

However - as in the FT a month ago absolute number may make more sense in comparisons assuming you are nowhere near saturation or 'herd' immunity. 

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

4 minutes ago, Van wink said:

What do you make of the French curve. ( and please interpret that remark appropriately)

Haven't the French included care homes etc as well. If we did too our numbers may still be increasing.

[Van wink 2,994]

It’s not flattened is it?

[Badger 2,405]

2 minutes ago, Van wink said:

What do you make of the French curve. ( and please interpret that remark appropriately)

I think that it is far too early to start discussing which approaches worked best or worst.

1. I fear that we may be nearer the start of the pandemic than the end, in which case the figures are just an early snapshot and certainly not a full enough picture to draw firm conclusions.

2. I am not at all sure about the validity of any of the statistics in any case. We know that there is significant dispute about the accuracy of our own figures and this is likely to be repeated everywhere. It is very difficult to obtain valid data sources and imo the best data will emerge later when overall deaths are compared to historic trends (with other variables factored in).

Where the data is of use is in identifying trends, so long as we continue to use the same source. In other words, we can tell the curve has flattened but international comparisons are only rudimentary at best.

[sonyc 5,492]

3 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Haven't the French included care homes etc as well. If we did too our numbers may still be increasing.

This is my take on those figures too. Can see that every country noted has flattened the curve. Ultimately it will be about absolute (and comparative numbers).

The point about Sweden is that most of society functions have continued.

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

2 minutes ago, Van wink said:

It’s not flattened is it?

On all the curves Surfer put up France has flattened and declined.

[Van wink 2,994]

It spiked, that’s what we wanted to avoid to prevent NHS collapse and so far in this current wave we have achieved that. 

[Rock The Boat 1,325]

12 hours ago, T said:

Some should be squirming uncomfortably with the following but no doubt there self righteousness will prevail what ever the reality.
 

Years of underinvestment in healthcare has hampered the UK's ability to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, the boss of Roche, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies, has told the BBC.

"The real issue here is that the UK has probably not invested enough into healthcare," Severin Schwan, Roche chief executive, told the Newsnight programme in an interview to be aired on Wednesday evening. 

"It really shows up in such a crisis when the system is more stressed."

Roche is a key partner of the government and Public Health England in ramping up testing for Covid19. 

Mr Schwan added: “You can't fix the infrastructure in a couple of weeks. I mean, if there is too little investment over many years into the healthcare system, then it's simply not possible to ramp up as fast as you would wish in such a challenging

I'm not sure if infrastructure is really the problem here. The issues are more to do with consumables and distribution, both of which are problems due to having a centralised procurement system that hasn't ramped up in scale when needed. 

The infrastructure hasn't collapsed. It's actually held up very well, and the new nightingale hospitals did literally appear within a couple of weeks. 

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

4 minutes ago, Badger said:

I think that it is far too early to start discussing which approaches worked best or worst.

1. I fear that we may be nearer the start of the pandemic than the end, in which case the figures are just an early snapshot and certainly not a full enough picture to draw firm conclusions.

2. I am not at all sure about the validity of any of the statistics in any case. We know that there is significant dispute about the accuracy of our own figures and this is likely to be repeated everywhere. It is very difficult to obtain valid data sources and imo the best data will emerge later when overall deaths are compared to historic trends (with other variables factored in).

Where the data is of use is in identifying trends, so long as we continue to use the same source. In other words, we can tell the curve has flattened but international comparisons are only rudimentary at best.

 

Not wishing to  ignite a nonsense debate but I see that looking back now they think China's number may be 4 times (250K infected) applying the latests definitions. Deaths remain largely the same.

That does of course include asymptomatic and those that were never tested - our number today by 'estimate' are 4% of 60M or so !

Yes - we need to compare apples with apples not oranges.

[sonyc 5,492]

Has the French health system collapsed then? Not read about that. Our two countries have had different trajectories for sure.

[Van wink 2,994]

8 minutes ago, Badger said:

I think that it is far too early to start discussing which approaches worked best or worst.

1. I fear that we may be nearer the start of the pandemic than the end, in which case the figures are just an early snapshot and certainly not a full enough picture to draw firm conclusions.

2. I am not at all sure about the validity of any of the statistics in any case. We know that there is significant dispute about the accuracy of our own figures and this is likely to be repeated everywhere. It is very difficult to obtain valid data sources and imo the best data will emerge later when overall deaths are compared to historic trends (with other variables factored in).

Where the data is of use is in identifying trends, so long as we continue to use the same source. In other words, we can tell the curve has flattened but international comparisons are only rudimentary at best.

That’s a very fair point Badger, and the crucial point you make is that it is far to early know how this will play out and to predict how successful we will be in controlling it. 

[BigFish 1,986]

10 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Haven't the French included care homes etc as well. If we did too our numbers may still be increasing.

It is an intersting point, the UK's statistics are crap (in qualitive terms). This may well be deliberate propaganda by the government or it may be part of the government's general level of incompetance.

The figures the government try and get away with is around 16k, yet excess deaths figure is 43k.

This raises the question that are the government letting the elderly die in care homes because it keeps them off the stats rather than the bromide "protect the NHS"

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

2 minutes ago, Van wink said:

It spiked, that’s what we wanted to avoid to prevent NHS collapse and so far in this current wave we have achieved that. 

Add in the care (or is it no care) care homes deaths. Then compare. It's a nonsense argument turning a blind eye to the most vulnerable deaths.

[Van wink 2,994]

Just now, Yellow Fever said:

Add in the care (or is it no care) care homes deaths. Then compare. It's a nonsense argument turning a blind eye to the most vulnerable deaths.

Do you know how the rolling seven day average graph would look with all other deaths for CV 19 added? 

[sonyc 5,492]

1 minute ago, BigFish said:

It is an intersting point, the UK's statistics are crap (in qualitive terms). This may well be deliberate propaganda by the government or it may be part of the government's general level of incompetance.

The figures the government try and get away with is around 16k, yet excess deaths figure is 43k.

This raises the question that are the government letting the elderly die in care homes because it keeps them off the stats rather than the bromide "protect the NHS"

Cynically, it helps with the social care strategy. Cannot believe though it was intentional whatsoever. Yet, with care home deaths (alone) we might add another 7500 on latest estimates. The ONS figures are even more interesting. Yet as Badger and YF note, too early to interpret clearly.

[sonyc 5,492]

It is still a possibility that despite being behind other EU countries in the timeframe of the progression of this virus, we will end up with the highest death totals. And of course, having "protected the NHS and saved lives"....

Edited April 23, 2020 by sonyc

[Creative Midfielder 1,985]

14 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Haven't the French included care homes etc as well. If we did too our numbers may still be increasing.

Yes, the French have included care homes as have most other European countries - I'm really wondering when most people are going to finally wake up to the fact that the published UK figures are only somewhere around half the real total.

This has been clear for at least two weeks but has effectively been confirmed this week - we are already by far the worst European state, the US is going to be the only place which makes our performance look acceptable.

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

Just now, Van wink said:

Do you know how the rolling seven day average graph would look with all other deaths for CV 19 added? 

No - but it's not me thats trying to draw an odd conclusion from dodgy data that doesn't bear any such direct comparison. 

Our curve is flattening or even receding - that's all you can really say at the moment and good enough for me.

The ONS figures will catch up in due course and later still there will be an 'excess' deaths statisical analysis.

[JF 694]

31 minutes ago, Indy said:

Even with 67 million it’s no where near our figures scaled up, I’m really not sure what your arguing about? How are you getting 250,000?

I didn’t get 250,000 the model that was presented to the government did. And again it can’t be scaled up as the levels of transmission here would be many, many times more. If the people of London and Birmingham ect were left to go about it as they have in Sweden how do you think that would have transpired?

Edited April 23, 2020 by JF

[Van wink 2,994]

2 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

 

Our curve is flattening or even receding - that's all you can really say at the moment and good enough for me.

Yep and we avoided a spike in cases which would be the normal distribution for an epidemic/ pandemic, that’s good news for us all and particularly the NHS. One of the key points in our strategy so far had been achieved.

[Rock The Boat 1,325]

14 minutes ago, BigFish said:

It is an intersting point, the UK's statistics are crap (in qualitive terms). This may well be deliberate propaganda by the government or it may be part of the government's general level of incompetance.

The figures the government try and get away with is around 16k, yet excess deaths figure is 43k.

This raises the question that are the government letting the elderly die in care homes because it keeps them off the stats rather than the bromide "protect the NHS"

I think our care home figures are included in ONS statistics but there is a two week lag due to collecting process