Corona Virus main thread

[Van wink 2,994]

10 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

My suspicion is huge issues in the NW and NE plus other hotspots but very unbalanced elsewhere. I think these daily figures should as discussed before be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Either way not good.

Yep the daily figures actually say very little when   community infection appears to be so regionalised at the moment.. 

[ricardo 7,385]

The actual numbers from yesterday were 7077 - 49. The additional numbers include backdating over the last ten days.

265k tests

Inpatients  2428 up  52 since friday

 

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Yesterdays European.

Italy   2499 -23

France 12148 - 136

Spain  3722 - 113   incomplete

Germany  2833 - 10

 

[Aggy 755]

12 minutes ago, ricardo said:

The actual numbers from yesterday were 7077 - 49. The additional numbers include backdating over the last ten days.

265k tests

Inpatients  2428 up  52 since friday

 

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Yesterdays European.

Italy   2499 -23

France 12148 - 136

Spain  3722 - 113   incomplete

Germany  2833 - 10

 

So around 500 a day on average not reported over the last ten days? 

[ricardo 7,385]

1 minute ago, Aggy said:

So around 500 a day on average not reported over the last ten days? 

I think this is right. If you look at the Spanish numbers they seem to jump about a lot because of this back dating factor.

[Van wink 2,994]

The Italian figures continue to show that it is possible to keep things under control with the correct policy and individual behaviour. 

[Aggy 755]

6 minutes ago, Van wink said:

The Italian figures continue to show that it is possible to keep things under control with the correct policy and individual behaviour. 

How does their policy differ to ours?

[ricardo 7,385]

4 minutes ago, Aggy said:

How does their policy differ to ours?

This from Worldometer

• 3,722 new cases and 113 new deaths in Spain. Data are provisional and subject to change. From Sept. 30 onward, figures for daily new cases only include cases already validated by the Ministry of Health in the daily PDF report. Since the validation process takes time to complete, additional cases are expected to be added retroactively once the weekly historical dataset revision is released by the Ministry of Health on Friday, Oct. 9. Data up to Sept. 30 reflects the latest release of the official "Historical Series of Cases by Autonomous Community" dataset released by the Ministry of Health. [source] [source]

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

16 minutes ago, Van wink said:

The Italian figures continue to show that it is possible to keep things under control with the correct policy and individual behaviour. 

This  ^

The Germans and quite a few other countries, both European and non-European, also demonstrate that it can be done but given how bad things were initially in Italy they are a very striking example.

[Aggy 755]

2 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

This  ^

The Germans and quite a few other countries, both European and non-European, also demonstrate that it can be done but given how bad things were initially in Italy they are a very striking example.

What are the policy differences between those countries and here? Are there different restrictions in Germany/ Italy?

Italy seems to have about the same level of restrictions as we do - looser really. As far as I can tell online, masks seem to be mandatory in virtually the same circumstances as here. I can’t see any equivalent of the rule of six. Sounds like nightclubs are banned to stop dancing, but no “curfew” for bars, pubs, restaurants (as long as they have adequate social distance measures in place). 

Is Germany doing anything different?

[Aggy 755]

28 minutes ago, ricardo said:

This from Worldometer

• 3,722 new cases and 113 new deaths in Spain. Data are provisional and subject to change. From Sept. 30 onward, figures for daily new cases only include cases already validated by the Ministry of Health in the daily PDF report. Since the validation process takes time to complete, additional cases are expected to be added retroactively once the weekly historical dataset revision is released by the Ministry of Health on Friday, Oct. 9. Data up to Sept. 30 reflects the latest release of the official "Historical Series of Cases by Autonomous Community" dataset released by the Ministry of Health. [source] [source]

Spanish numbers have been jumping around for ages. 

The seven day rolling averages are interesting both there and France. The infections started jumping up significantly in mid July in Spain, by mid August they were as high as they’ve ever been, now they’re on the way back down (on the seven day average so not just daily misreporting). Yet the deaths have seen no such jump. Even factoring in a “death lag”, the death increase isn’t even as significant (proportionately) as the infection increase in early August - which is now two months ago. The seven day average in Spain has got To about 125 deaths a day in Spain and that’s it, despite highest numbers of infections on their records. Deaths dropped again a bit recently.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Aggy

[Van wink 2,994]

1 hour ago, Aggy said:

How does their policy differ to ours?

I don’t know, I have seen coverage suggesting that because they were hit so badly first time round they have a much more compliant population.

[Barbe bleu 823]

1 hour ago, Creative Midfielder said:

This  ^

The Germans and quite a few other countries, both European and non-European, also demonstrate that it can be done but given how bad things were initially in Italy they are a very striking example.

Of course the fact that italy did so badly initially might be the biggest clue as to the reasons for the figures we are now seeing.  Or it could be the government measures. Or it could be public compliance with basic advice. 

I think we need to know a bit more about what is happening in these places before coming to a conclusion.

 

[horsefly 4,298]

47 minutes ago, Aggy said:

What are the policy differences between those countries and here? Are there different restrictions in Germany/ Italy?

Italy seems to have about the same level of restrictions as we do - looser really. As far as I can tell online, masks seem to be mandatory in virtually the same circumstances as here. I can’t see any equivalent of the rule of six. Sounds like nightclubs are banned to stop dancing, but no “curfew” for bars, pubs, restaurants (as long as they have adequate social distance measures in place). 

Is Germany doing anything different?

I think one of the key differences is that Germany had a well functioning track and trace system from the beginning. Sadly our government twiddled its thumbs while watching Rome (and Madrid) burn. I highly recommend the Sky News Hotspots documentary on the global pandemic as it provides a detailed account of the many mistakes made in responding to the crisis through a collation of contemporaneous news reports. One interview with an Italian mayor in particular stands out for me. He actually sent a warning to the UK government that it would be hit worse than Italy because it was doing nothing to prepare adequately for the coming catastrophe (at that time we had a handful of cases). He had even flown his two children home from UK universities because he was convinced that the UK was on course for a much worse outcome than his own country (which had a huge number of cases at the time).

[Yellow Fever 3,772]

26 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I don’t know, I have seen coverage suggesting that because they were hit so badly first time round they have a much more compliant population.

I think it's exactly that - populations that are educated, compliant and largely follow the rules for the greater good.

It explains for me not only some European examples but also the Asian ones - Japan, China, Korea - and in the negative the UK, USA, Brazil. Our 'liberal' freedoms come at price as far as CV-19 is concerned! 

[Aggy 755]

33 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I don’t know, I have seen coverage suggesting that because they were hit so badly first time round they have a much more compliant population.

Ah ok. I thought when referencing policy you were suggesting they were doing something differently to how we were.

Re compliance - not sure. Italy has introduced stricter measures fairly recently. Rome has widened locations where masks are required in the last couple of days. Having to increase measures would suggest not as compliant as the government would have wanted. My guess is that this is probably a bit too simplistic of a reason.

[Van wink 2,994]

39 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Ah ok. I thought when referencing policy you were suggesting they were doing something differently to how we were.

Re compliance - not sure. Italy has introduced stricter measures fairly recently. Rome has widened locations where masks are required in the last couple of days. Having to increase measures would suggest not as compliant as the government would have wanted. My guess is that this is probably a bit too simplistic of a reason.

Absolutely, there will undoubtedly by policy differences as well which taking behaviour and policy into consideration seems to be delivering better control than in the U.K. atm, as I said earlier.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Van wink

[dj11 377]

I went to Hamburg a couple of weeks ago, and the difference in compliance compared to London, was worlds apart. We downloaded the Hamburg trace and track app, which we used in every bar and restaurant. Every single person on the train from the airport was wearing a mask, and correctly, there were plenty of police on the streets, and even in the St Pauli area, which was very busy, there was 100% compliance. It certainly didn't feel that mask wearing was a personal choice as seems in London. As an aside, Hamburg is a great city to visit for a long weekend.

[Aggy 755]

21 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Absolutely, there will undoubtedly by policy differences as well which taking behaviour and policy into consideration seems to be delivering better control than in the U.K. atm, as I said earlier.

Not so sure. There don’t seem to be too many policy differences and as above, they’re having to increase restrictions there (either suggesting they’ve got the level of restrictions wrong previously or people aren’t complying).

Not been mentioned yet but the UK is performing 3.4 tests per 1000 population vs Italy performing 1.55 per 1000.
 

Taking Ricardo’s most recent figures - UK (population 66.7mil) 7077 - 49. Italy (population 60.4mil ) 2499-23.

So if you bring Italy’s testing up to 3.4 per thousand, and increase the positive cases proportionately, you’d have 5481 cases. Given that they’ve got a population 6.3 million less than the UK, if you scaled their’s up for purposes of comparison, the difference is probably 7000 vs 6000 cases. Not really that significant.

The death figures also very similar between here and Itsly, especially when considering increased population in the UK.

Germany’s figures on Ricardo’s list the only ones which really look significantly better than ours. Italy slightly better, Spain and a France slightly worse, but all fairly similar really, other than Germany. 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Aggy

[Aggy 755]

And Germany testing below 2 per 1000 as well (1.97) ive just seen, so only just over half our number of daily tests. I’ll perhaps crunch the numbers later, but to me that looks like numbers of tests being done far more likely to explain the majority of the difference in stats than either compliance or government policy (which may well still be having some effect, but I’m not convinced it’s all that significant).

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

57 minutes ago, Aggy said:

So if you bring Italy’s testing up to 3.4 per thousand, and increase the positive cases proportionately, you’d have 5481 cases. Given that they’ve got a population 6.3 million less than the UK, if you scaled their’s up for purposes of comparison, the difference is probably 7000 vs 6000 cases. Not really that significant.

I don't think you can safely make that assumption at all - if Italy are testing all (vast majority)  of people showing symptons or thrown up by track & trace then increasing the volume of testing will make very little difference to positives. Granted they will pick up some asympiomatic cases but the fact that their numbers have been so steady for weeks now suggests (to me) that they will be few and that there is simply less infection\transmission going on over there.

Especially when you compare that to our testing, which even with its greater volume is still proving extremely difficult\impossible to access for many people.

Italy's numbers have been steady for weeks, our numbers have been rising steadily for weeks - that cannot be wholly explained by the testing volumes.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Creative Midfielder

[Aggy 755]

25 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

I don't think you can safely make that assumption at all - if Italy are testing all (vast majority)  of people showing symptons or thrown up by track & trace then increasing the volume of testing will make very little difference to positives. Granted they will pick up some asympiomatic cases but the fact that their numbers have been so steady for weeks now suggests (to me) that they will be few and that there is simply less infection\transmission going on over there.

Especially when you compare that to our testing, which even with its greater volume is still proving extremely difficult\impossible to access for many people.

Italy's numbers have been steady for weeks, our numbers have been rising steadily for weeks - that cannot be wholly explained by the testing volumes.

How do you know Italy are testing the vast majority? If, as you say, even here with our greater capacity for testing people are struggling to access tests, then I struggle to imagine that a country with almost the same population is testing everyone with symptoms by doing under half as many tests as we are.

 

Edit: and I’m not sure their numbers have been steady for weeks at all. Google Italy covid numbers and you’ll see a steadily increasing graph that looks very similar to ours. 295 cases on 1 August, 1365 on 30 August, 1907 on 19 September and 2400 on 2 October.

Edit 2 - 2800 yesterday. So that’s a daily increase from 295 at the start of August to 2800 on 3 October. Not sure that’s steady.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Aggy

[Aggy 755]

Also when you look at the percentage increase of those numbers from 1 August to now - 280 to 2800 In Italy they’re very similar to us - 780 on 1 August and c.7000 at the start of October.

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Aggy

[ricardo 7,385]

[Van wink 2,994]

2 hours ago, Aggy said:

Not so sure. There don’t seem to be too many policy differences and as above, they’re having to increase restrictions there (either suggesting they’ve got the level of restrictions wrong previously or people aren’t complying).

Not been mentioned yet but the UK is performing 3.4 tests per 1000 population vs Italy performing 1.55 per 1000.
 

Taking Ricardo’s most recent figures - UK (population 66.7mil) 7077 - 49. Italy (population 60.4mil ) 2499-23.

So if you bring Italy’s testing up to 3.4 per thousand, and increase the positive cases proportionately, you’d have 5481 cases. Given that they’ve got a population 6.3 million less than the UK, if you scaled their’s up for purposes of comparison, the difference is probably 7000 vs 6000 cases. Not really that significant.

The death figures also very similar between here and Itsly, especially when considering increased population in the UK.

Germany’s figures on Ricardo’s list the only ones which really look significantly better than ours. Italy slightly better, Spain and a France slightly worse, but all fairly similar really, other than Germany. 

More testing, particularly in schools/airports, a more effective T and T system and suggestions at regional levels of herd immunity, but their figures are nonetheless still on the increase it seems.

 

Italy: ‘Coronavirus is struggling to find new people to infect’

The country is determined to stave off a second wave of the coronavirus with its innovative test and trace system

 

Peter Conradi, Milan

Sunday October 04 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

Testing at Italy’s airports, such as Rome Fiumicino, was set up in August

ANTONIO MASIELLO

At the end of the arrivals hall in Terminal 1 of Milan’s Malpensa airport is a medical tent offering Covid-19 tests for those flying in from areas badly hit by the virus. One morning last week an eerie calm reigned as medical staff sat around the empty facility waiting for patients.

Arriving from Paris — recently added to the high-risk list — I was pleasantly surprised to learn all that was needed to obtain a free test was to fill in a brief online form with my contact details. Five minutes and some minor discomfort later and it was done. Within 24 hours an email arrived telling me I was negative.

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The US election debate: has voting by post been given too much press?

 

Refined French brand carving out a name for itself in urban fashion

 

The testing stations at Malpensa and Italy’s other airports, set up in August, are a symbol of the determination of the European country hit first and hardest by the virus in February to stave off a second wave.

In a further innovation, the government is ordering 5m antigen tests that give results within 15 minutes for schools. Though less accurate than molecular tests — which have to be sent to a laboratory — they can provide a quick indication of an outbreak.

“The situation remains critical, although the infections are under control,” Giuseppe Conte, the prime minister, said last week, announcing plans to extend the country’s Covid-19 state of emergency, due to run out in the middle of this month, to the end of January.

 

As elsewhere, the virus is coming back in Italy: authorities reported a jump in new cases yesterday to 2,844— the highest number since the end of April, though many more tests are now done. There were 27 deaths.

Both are nevertheless below half of Britain’s levels. Part of the explanation, at least in the northern region of Lombardy, which was at the epicentre of the pandemic, with 17,000 dead out of a population of 10m, was the sheer extent of the initial outbreak — which appears to have given those who survived something approaching herd immunity.

“The virus is struggling to find people to infect,” Giuseppe Remuzzi, head of a Milan-based pharmacological research institute, told a conference in the city. He estimates 15%-20% of people in the region could have antibodies to the virus and double that number a different sort of protection from T-cells in their blood.

Transmission also appears to be slowed by Italy’s use not of “contact tracing” but rather of “network tracing” — likened by Andrea Crisanti, a leading expert on Covid-19, to catching fish with a net rather than with a fishing rod.

“If someone is positive, everyone has themselves tested: relatives, friends, work colleagues and anyone who has come into contact with the positive person,” said Crisanti, professor of microbiology at Padua university.

Contact tracing, by contrast, “is a completely different thing based on someone’s memory, and it is very difficult for someone to go more than five days and recall everything they were doing”.

At Milan’s Malpensa airport, Covid swab testing takes a few minutes

PIER MARCO TACCA

Individual behaviour, too, has played a part — with people showing an unexpected willingness to respect rules. “The Italians, against every stereotype that we have had to deal with, have been the most orderly, loyal and extraordinary country ever seen,” said Roberto Speranza, the health minister.

Speranza nevertheless warned of a difficult seven to eight months ahead. Experts fear Naples and the surrounding Campania region, largely spared the first time as the virus moved only gradually south, could be hit badly. “The risk is that what happened here could happen there, though not with the same seriousness,” Remuzzi told his northern Italian audience.

For now, at least, though, the contrast in Lombardy with the dark days of the first wave is enormous. At the height of the pandemic, video footage showed army lorries carrying coffins from Bergamo, whose morgues could not cope with all the dead.

On Thursday, 324 people — 1.31% of the 24,691 tested — were positive; only one person in the whole region was admitted to intensive care and five died. From the worst region in Italy it has become the third least hard hit.

The fact most people there know someone who died or became seriously ill from the disease earlier this year could explain the respect for the rules hailed by Speranza. Many wear masks on the streets even when they are not obligatory.

Walking into a restaurant it is common to have a temperature gun pointed at your wrist. Often there is no menu; diners instead use a QR code to read the menu online.

Other aspects of the Italian approach also appear to have helped. The government reacted swiftly to the initial outbreak, sealing off 11 towns in the north in February when the virus first hit.

The national lockdown that followed a few weeks later was one of the toughest in Europe and was also relaxed relatively late. It was only in recent weeks that most children have finally returned to school.

Such thinking informed the authorities’ approach in August when there was a major outbreak of the virus in Sardinia, largely among people partying on the Costa Smeralda, on the island’s northeast coast: a drive-through testing point was set up at the ferry port of Civitavecchia, near Rome.

Many cases slipped through to the mainland undetected and are blamed for a surge in outbreaks in Lazio, the region in which Rome lies. Silvio Berlusconi, 84, who has a villa on the Costa Smeralda, was among those who tested positive but has since recovered.

@Peter_Conradi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Van wink

[Aggy 755]

“More testing, particularly in schools/airports, a more effective T and T system and suggestions at regional levels of herd immunity, but their figures are nonetheless still on the increase it seems.”

They haven’t got more testing though. Perhaps more specific testing - but then does that mean they’re doing better than us? If we were only doing fewer than half the tests we’re doing now and only testing in schools / airports, wouldn’t we have fewer cases? Perhaps about the same amount as Italy are finding with a more specific testing regime?

The percentages there sound about the same as here - 1.31 per cent infections in the third lowest affected area. The bigger areas probably up at 1.5-1.8 (possibly higher). That’s pretty much where we’ve been at for a long time. Slightly better yes, but not that much.

Id also argue a lot of that mentioned in the article is going on here. Certainly in the large towns - I’ve had temperature checks, scanned codes for track and tracing and ordered using menus popping up after scanning a code etc in virtually every restaurant and bar I’ve been in. 

As for herd immunity potentially there, interesting and again would have thought likely to be comparable to here (if the figures in the article are correct which of course they don’t know). We don’t know how many cases there were in Italy in March or how many there were here.  We had more deaths per day than Italy at the peak. If they’ve got 20-30 per cent immunity wouldn’t it be a decent conclusion we have as well?

Edited October 4, 2020 by Aggy

[Aggy 755]

On a different note, a bbc article today suggests that the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine estimated 115,000 infections a day at its peak in March, and c.500,000 infected at a specific time for a while.

i had missed this  - anyone have more detail re the methodology?

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/expert-opinion/100000-infections-every-day-why-uk-lockdown-came-just-time

Perhaps suggests c.1-1.5 per cent of cases result in deaths as we had 1000-1500 a day at the peak (which roughly correlates with what we’re seeing at current figures now that testing is wider - 7000 cases, 70 deaths). Although I imagine we’re still missing a lot of asymptomatic cases at the moment, especially with testing capacity issues - which might suggest we’re running at a lower percentage of deaths than was the case back in March (or that perhaps even more than 100,000k a day back in March?)

 

[Van wink 2,994]

Looks like another computer “glitch “ tonight!

[ricardo 7,385]

2 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Looks like another computer “glitch “ tonight!

Lost some positives down the back of the settee I reckon.

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

13 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Looks like another computer “glitch “ tonight!

Certainly does.

There have been plenty of (entirely justified IMO) complaints about the gross incompetence of this government but spending several billion pounds on a system that apparently can't reliably count monotonically to a total of a few thousand once every 24 hours would seem to represent a new low..............

...........and yet the debate still goes on as to what lies behind this country's exceptionally poor performance throughout the pandemic!!

[Van wink 2,994]

I wonder if it will be near 22k