Corona Virus main thread

[T 190]

36 minutes ago, Ian said:

Agreed, and it's obvious that this isn't anywhere near approaching an exact science, and it will take some time to get an accurate global picture of exactly what has happened.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have a specific narrative (one way or the other), which means the huge uncertainty gets lost or ignored.

I’d fully agree that you have to be careful when making comparisons given the data isn’t always on a consistent basis and because  the circumstances of countries eg density and the outbreak eg timing is different. However there are some stark differences and it is clear that the UK along with some other contries has not performed well. It therefore ialso appears an agenda to simply ignore the stark reality of 26k deaths with a you can’t compare and you have to wait until later. You can make comparisons if you go below the headline numbers. The UK has plainly done poorly compared to the likes of Germany and S Korea and there is no escaping that and it is neither respectful of those that have suffered or helpful going forward to deny that harsh reality. 

[Surfer 1,547]

In earlier posts I said that Belgium was "off the chart bad" and that's why I left them off these comparisons. However with the updated deaths reported there is a spike in UK data so they are no longer the outlier. This spike should decline as it is averaged out over the coming days, however these two charts show how poorly the UK has done against similar countries. Note the US average deaths curve is starting to trend back up, that is because New York has been getting on top of it's major outbreak but several Republican led states like Florida and Georgia and Texas are now re-opening their economies as "the cure is worse than the disease" 

 

 

[Van wink 2,994]

Have to say I would prefer the view of Chris Whitty on this one.

[T 190]

Germany announcing further lifting of restrictions contrary to earlier comments from some. Religious services, public attractions and playgrounds will open soon with distancing. 

[Van wink 2,994]

1 minute ago, T said:

Germany announcing further lifting of restrictions contrary to earlier comments from some. Religious services, public attractions and playgrounds will open soon with distancing. 

Good news. 

[Ian 1,129]

11 minutes ago, Surfer said:

In earlier posts I said that Belgium was "off the chart bad" and that's why I left them off these comparisons. However with the updated deaths reported there is a spike in UK data so they are no longer the outlier. This spike should decline as it is averaged out over the coming days, however these two charts show how poorly the UK has done against similar countries. Note the US average deaths curve is starting to trend back up, that is because New York has been getting on top of it's major outbreak but several Republican led states like Florida and Georgia and Texas are now re-opening their economies as "the cure is worse than the disease" 

 

 

What exactly are you comparing?

[Ian 1,129]

28 minutes ago, T said:

I’d fully agree that you have to be careful when making comparisons given the data isn’t always on a consistent basis and because  the circumstances of countries eg density and the outbreak eg timing is different. However there are some stark differences and it is clear that the UK along with some other contries has not performed well. It therefore ialso appears an agenda to simply ignore the stark reality of 26k deaths with a you can’t compare and you have to wait until later. You can make comparisons if you go below the headline numbers. The UK has plainly done poorly compared to the likes of Germany and S Korea and there is no escaping that and it is neither respectful of those that have suffered or helpful going forward to deny that harsh reality. 

I don't really disagree with anything you say there T. I don't doubt there are lessons to be learned in the UK response, and that tragically, preventable deaths are likely to have occurred in this country. Having listened to the expert modellers, I was expecting things certainly to have been a lot worse, and thankfully the predicted overwhelming of the NHS thankfully does not seem to have occurred.

It does indeed seem, on the face of it, that Germany has coped admirably well to this point. That said, I would like to wait for relatively calibrated figures, not only in terms of excess mortality, but the occurrence of second spikes and/or longer term deaths indirectly linked to the lock-down.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Ian
Typo

[The Real Buh 3,432]

9 minutes ago, T said:

Germany announcing further lifting of restrictions contrary to earlier comments from some. Religious services, public attractions and playgrounds will open soon with distancing. 

Germany also announcing increasing infection rates

[Van wink 2,994]

55 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Really, so what's your explanation then - simple or complex take your pick, I'd love to hear it.

Well it certainly isn't simple. Any attempt to draw comparisons at this stage is hugely problematic and riddled with error, if you do have the answers give Chris Whitty a call.

Have a read of this if you want to begin to grasp some of the difficulties. 

Coronavirus deaths: how does Britain compare with other countries?

David Spiegelhalter

It’s tempting to try to construct a league table, but we’ll have to wait months, if not years, for the true picture

• Coronavirus latest updates

• See all our coronavirus coverage

Thu 30 Apr 2020 14.56 BSTLast modified on Thu 30 Apr 2020 18.00 BST

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 On 29 April, Dominic Raab reveals the coronavirus death toll rose by nearly 5,000 after including non-hospital deaths for the first time. Photograph: Pippa Fowles/10 Downing Street/AFP via Getty Images

At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Keir Starmer said he had added up a total of 27,241 coronavirus deaths so far, leaving the UK “possibly on track to have the worst death rate in Europe”.

Is he right? Unfortunately, measuring the impact of the virus is a fiendishly complex task. It’s nothing like keeping score in a game. Starmer, as a lawyer, would know that we have to define our terms carefully. And so, assuming we want to make a comparison based on death rates, we first need to decide what a death rate is.

You would think it would be easy for a bean-counting statistician to count deaths – the one certain thing (apart from taxes). But it is remarkably difficult. I have stopped taking much notice of the number given out at the daily press conferences, as it is only based on reports from hospitals, oscillates wildly around weekends, and recently included deaths that occurred a month ago. And this week the number of UK deaths jumped up by nearly 5,000 to 26,097 in one day – rather close to Starmer’s count – by retrospectively including non-hospital deaths that had tested positive for the virus.

But even this is too low, as it does not include the many deaths of people who were not tested. The Office for National Statistics data on death registrations is the last word, although inevitably delayed by around 10 days, and these figures would be expected to take the current total to significantly more than 30,000. But we should be very cautious in comparing even this uncertain total with those of other countries.

Every country has different ways of recording Covid-19 deaths: the large number of deaths in care homes have not featured in Spain’s statistics – which, like the UK’s require a positive test result. The numbers may be useful for looking at trends, but they are not reliable indicators for comparing the absolute levels. If we were naive enough to take the counts at face value, the new figures propelled the UK past France and Spain into second place in Europe behind Italy, which is not encouraging because we are behind Italy in terms of what stage of the epidemic we are at. A more equitable metric might be Covid-19 deaths per million. Ignoring tiny countries, our current score of 388 puts us third, behind Belgium (632) and Italy (452).

 

People are not so interested in the numbers themselves – they want to say why they are so high and ascribe blame

But these are still deeply unreliable numbers, as it is not clear if we should just be looking at Covid-19-labelled deaths anyway. The effects of seasonal flu are not based on tests or death certificates, but at looking at the total number of deaths over the winter, seeing how many extra there are than a baseline, allowing for climate, and assuming these excess deaths were linked to flu. On average, over the last 10 years this has come to about 8,000 flu-related deaths, rising to 26,400 in 2017-2018 and 28,300 in 2014-15.

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Many feel that excess deaths give a truer picture of the impact of an epidemic. The latest ONS figures reveal that in the week ending 17 April, the week after Easter, around 22,500 deaths were registered in England and Wales, compared with an average of around 10,500 a week at this time of year. Nearly 9,000 of these had Covid-19 on their death certificate, but that leaves 3,000 extra deaths – more than 400 a day – essentially unaccounted for. Many of these will be indirect effects from the disrupted health service: routine treatments have been largely abandoned, A&E attendances and non-Covid-19 hospital admissions have plummeted.

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But, of course, people are not so interested in the numbers themselves – they want to say why they are so high, and ascribe blame. But if it’s difficult to rank this country, it’s even trickier to give reasons for our position. Covid-19 mainly harms the elderly, with the average age of deaths above 80, and its fatality rate doubles every seven years as a person ages. Italy’s population is elderly (it has a median age of 47), while Ireland’s is much younger (a median age of 37), so we would expect different effects. And Covid-19 is a disease of crowded areas – New York is rather different from Reykjavik. An obsessive comparison is being made between Norway and Sweden: Sweden’s more relaxed social distancing policies may or may not have been instrumental in their current death rate being 233 per million, compared with Norway’s 38.

Even – if we can imagine it – we reach some sort of stable situation, will we ever know the direct and indirect health effects of the epidemic, taking into account reduced road accidents, the benefits of reduced pollution, the effects of recession and so on? Many studies will try to disentangle all these, but my cold, statistical approach is to wait until the end of the year, and the years after that, when we can count the excess deaths. Until then, this grim contest won’t produce any league tables we can rely on.

• David Spiegelhalter is a statistician and professor of the public understanding of risk

Edited April 30, 2020 by Van wink

[ricardo 7,395]

An exellent simulation that shows population densities which explains why the covid 19 cases are where they are in greater numbers.

http://www.statsmapsnpix.com/2020/04/population-density-in-europe.html

Edited April 30, 2020 by ricardo

[The Real Buh 3,432]

This whole situation is so complex and people without scientific mindsets are clearly finding it difficult to grasp some concepts, that’s why the government shows videos like the one in the briefing today with graphics to explain the R value.

To oversimplify is to panic because you lack understanding. I will just say again don’t trust politicians but trust scientists like Patrick Valance and Chris Whitty. They have our best interests at heart. 

[BigFish 1,987]

2 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

 I will just say again don’t trust politicians but trust scientists like Patrick Valance and Chris Whitty. They have the government's interests at heart. 

Both of whom are Civil Servants working for the government. They are experts, but their job is to explain the policy of politicians in the government.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

2 minutes ago, ricardo said:

An exellent simulation that shows population densities which explains why the covid 19 cases are where they are in greater numbers.

http://www.statsmapsnpix.com/2020/04/population-density-in-europe.html

This is really good and explains the link between population density really well.

 

It still doesn’t demonstrate though why this virus is now everywhere on the planet and doesn’t seem to be hitting really really dense populations, particularly in the developing world, where it should be running rampant. PPE and lockdown timing is one thing but these places don’t have running water, sanitation, outside toilets.

whats going on there?

[Van wink 2,994]

9 minutes ago, BigFish said:

Both of whom are Civil Servants working for the government. They are experts, but their job is to explain the policy of politicians in the government.

ouch.....are you sure?

I certainly dont like the way they are drawn in to the daily presser but you really are pushing the limits there. They certainly explain the evidence based stuff which is hugely complex, you seem to be implying they are lap dogs which imo is far from the truth.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Van wink

[The Real Buh 3,432]

3 minutes ago, BigFish said:

Both of whom are Civil Servants working for the government. They are experts, but their job is to explain the policy of politicians in the government.

They are extremely respected scientists and we are lucky to have so many working for this country right now. Our technical people undoubtedly committed and accurate unlike a lot of other countries.

[Van wink 2,994]

3 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

This is really good and explains the link between population density really well.

 

It still doesn’t demonstrate though why this virus is now everywhere on the planet and doesn’t seem to be hitting really really dense populations, particularly in the developing world, where it should be running rampant. PPE and lockdown timing is one thing but these places don’t have running water, sanitation, outside toilets.

whats going on there?

I wonder if in the developing world, because mortality rates are higher than ours, excess deaths from cv19 would probably not be so evident. 

[Ian 1,129]

 

1 minute ago, Van wink said:

I wonder if in the developing world, because mortality rates are higher than ours, excess deaths from cv19 would probably not be so evident. 

It could be that. There are so many factors at play it will be months before any meaningful comparisons can be made.

That said, I don't think we've even seen calibrated excess death figures for this country yet have we?

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

2 minutes ago, Ian said:

Simple answer is we do not know enough yet to make such a judgement, and I would certainly not have any confidence to make that statement.

If you are an expert in the area, by all means correct me, otherwise I expect you have an opinion or agenda that you are looking to validate. Like most media commentators who disrespectfully jump all over the "death comparison" charts without making any attempt to understand what they represent, and the limitations of them.

I'm baffled really as what point you are trying to make - pretty much everyone, so far as I'm aware, understands that most of the data from all over the world is to some extent incomplete and inaccurate, and also there is inconsistency even in the basic classification of it. Everybody accepts that there is still a huge amount to learn about how this virus works.

But you appear to be saying that despite the fact that we have two similar neighbouring countries whose governments have taken completely different strategies and actions, and have had totally different outcomes that we shouldn't make the very obvious and clear correlation between the strategies and the outcomes because we don't fully understand some other minor factors which may also have played a small part. Especially when similar correlations also hold true in other countries, it just happens that Spain v Portugal produces a very strong correlation between radically differing strategies and outcomes in two very similar countries.

I thought experts had gone out of fashion in this country but even if they are back in vogue this spring I would point you to the fact that a large majority of European countries have ultimately gone for some form of lockdown as their main strategy to combat the virus and 'flatten the curve'. Not a huge amount of expertise required to work that out given that China, quickly followed by some other Asian countries, had provided us with working demonstrations. Nor do you need to be an expert to understand that locking down early is always going to be vastly more successful and need a shorter lockdown period than locking down late - that is just very, very simple mathematics and that, at least, we do understand and can make judgements on.

 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

3 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I wonder if in the developing world, because mortality rates are higher than ours, excess deaths from cv19 would probably not be so evident. 

It’s definitely a contributor but I watched a team of scientists from Iceland the other day investigating the genetic link and they believe there is one. They also said the majority of their early cases were from Britain.

 

I believe we had this virus and had it bad early on. China knew and obstructed is from responding.

[ricardo 7,395]

5 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I wonder if in the developing world, because mortality rates are higher than ours, excess deaths from cv19 would probably not be so evident. 

Far fewer types of people who are liable to die from the disease i.e. much smaller elderly population with underlying health issues. The younger the population average the fewer the deaths there will be.

[Van wink 2,994]

Just now, ricardo said:

Far fewer types of people who are liable to die from the disease i.e. much smaller elderly population with underlying health issues. The younger the population average the fewer the deaths there will be.

Yes, to put it bluntly the vulnerable population will have already moved on.

[Ian 1,129]

5 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

I'm baffled really as what point you are trying to make - pretty much everyone, so far as I'm aware, understands that most of the data from all over the world is to some extent incomplete and inaccurate, and also there is inconsistency even in the basic classification of it. Everybody accepts that there is still a huge amount to learn about how this virus works.

But you appear to be saying that despite the fact that we have two similar neighbouring countries whose governments have taken completely different strategies and actions, and have had totally different outcomes that we shouldn't make the very obvious and clear correlation between the strategies and the outcomes because we don't fully understand some other minor factors which may also have played a small part. Especially when similar correlations also hold true in other countries, it just happens that Spain v Portugal produces a very strong correlation between radically differing strategies and outcomes in two very similar countries.

I thought experts had gone out of fashion in this country but even if they are back in vogue this spring I would point you to the fact that a large majority of European countries have ultimately gone for some form of lockdown as their main strategy to combat the virus and 'flatten the curve'. Not a huge amount of expertise required to work that out given that China, quickly followed by some other Asian countries, had provided us with working demonstrations. Nor do you need to be an expert to understand that locking down early is always going to be vastly more successful and need a shorter lockdown period than locking down late - that is just very, very simple mathematics and that, at least, we do understand and can make judgements on.

 

That's a good reply, and ultimately it is very difficult to disagree with such truisms. My point was simple, and I am surprised you are baffled by it - perhaps I'm not good at explaining myself. I'll try again.

My point was simply that it's far too early to make any sort of judgement about why outbreaks have differed so radically between countries, even ones that seem similar socially and culturally, when we know so little, and the figures we do have are sketchy as best.  Certainly, it's misleading to make these sort of comparisons with any real level of certainty.

I would suggest that it would be more appropriate to measure "success" over a longer time period; what is not to say that European countries who locked down early will continue to suffer with outbreaks later on, which hampers them massively economically and causes extreme hardship and excess deaths? And that's before we even consider the Swedish approach...

[BigFish 1,987]

17 minutes ago, Van wink said:

ouch.....are you sure?

I certainly dont like the way they are drawn in to the daily presser but you really are pushing the limits there. They certainly explain the evidence based stuff which is hugely complex, you seem to be implying they are lap dogs which imo is far from the truth.

Whitty is employed by the Department of Health, Valance by the Government Office for Science. I make no implications on their integrity and they are certainly very capable. I was just pulling up the suggestion that they are independent, which clearly they are not. Their presentations are very informative, but it is the government line.

[Surfer 1,547]

55 minutes ago, Ian said:

What exactly are you comparing?

Hi Ian, the charts already say what is being compared. What exactly is your question... ?

[Mark .Y. 352]

18 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Far fewer types of people who are liable to die from the disease i.e. much smaller elderly population with underlying health issues. The younger the population average the fewer the deaths there will be.

Obesity appears to be a major factor................ and we all know which particular country comes out bad for that ☹️

[The Real Buh 3,432]

9 minutes ago, BigFish said:

Whitty is employed by the Department of Health, Valance by the Government Office for Science. I make no implications on their integrity and they are certainly very capable. I was just pulling up the suggestion that they are independent, which clearly they are not. Their presentations are very informative, but it is the government line.

Oof, found the art student.

[Surfer 1,547]

2 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

Obesity appears to be a major factor................ and we all know which particular country comes out bad for that ☹️

Yes I think you are correct about that. A proper low-fat diet would help to explain why Japan and Taiwan which both have a lot of elderly people and very densely packed cities have been relatively unaffected... 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

2 minutes ago, Surfer said:

Yes I think you are correct about that. A proper low-fat diet would help to explain why Japan and Taiwan which both have a lot of elderly people and very densely packed cities have been relatively unaffected... 

Obesity is a major factor to a lot of other health conditions. Diabetes especially which hits the immune response badly.

[Essjayess 307]

44 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

This is really good and explains the link between population density really well.

 

It still doesn’t demonstrate though why this virus is now everywhere on the planet and doesn’t seem to be hitting really really dense populations, particularly in the developing world, where it should be running rampant. PPE and lockdown timing is one thing but these places don’t have running water, sanitation, outside toilets.

whats going on there?

The early history of the virus, back in January / February time, was a time when many had left China to travel to other  countries of the world, taking the virus with them, to Northern Italy for one example as we all know to well. Then from Italy others took the virus to most EU nations and beyond and so on and so forth. This brings up yet another point as to why  for example some nations in Europe seem more affected than others. Its been well documented concerning different health care systems...over and over and over again...and to lockdowns...if they happened to early or to late...once again repeated over and over.

But those early days...how many tourists in Northern Italy caught the virus, brought it home to their home nations and thus started the spread in their countries? This is just unknown, but this unknown factor could  be another of key importance in how  the original spread happened in Europe and if it played a part in making some nations affected  more badly than others. In anycase, that this pandemic is far from over means comparing nations to each other is like giving 200 people a massive jigsaw puzzle each and asking them to complete it...but knowing that the giver of the jigsaw tossed away a few pieces from each puzzle.

[Surfer 1,547]

5 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

Obesity is a major factor to a lot of other health conditions. Diabetes especially which hits the immune response badly.

Yes and we are seeing that reflected in a growing differential in outcome by race here; African Americans tend to have the worst diet (economic reasons mainly) hence worst obesity and diabetes issues, and they are being hit hard. That said there are A LOT of obese people of all races in the US, especially in the Mid West and South East. That is where the virus is now migrating as the initial phases of infection on the West Coast and Metro New York are starting to ramp down.