COVID19

[Galfon]

SK infallible tracking system undermined by an unlikely group..

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... d-11990549

[Son of Mathonwy]

I don't follow United against Separation, I don't think my blood pressure could take it. They have a habit of fabricating stuff and passing it off as official, which gets picked up by the gullible and reposted. This has happened several times, and it took me a while to discover the source. Now when I see something suspect, UaS Facebook page is the first place I go to check.

Incidentally, I think the UK Government has been highly culpable of massaging the figures as well. All of the UK briefings have concentrated on what they call deaths where COVID has been proven by a test, or listed as a factor. I think we all know that the real figure to be concerned about is the excess deaths above the 5 year average, which the ONS also publish but which is never talked about.

Up to week 18, the accumulated excess deaths in England was 44,890 which is quite a bit more than the 28K figure they use. For Scotland it was 3,722 and for Wales 1,839.

This means that the accumulated excess deaths for Scotland, Wales, and England so far are 689, 592 and 801 per million respectively.

You can check these numbers on the ONS website at
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ed-by-week

Agreed about the excess deaths being the most important number.

Where on that ONS page do you get the excess numbers split for England, Scotland and Wales? I've been struggling to find them.

Sorry, wrong page. The ONS website is a nightmare.

Go this page.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ndandwales
and download the XLS file

Go to the tab entitled Weekly figures 2020 and you find the numbers of total deaths and COVID deaths allocated to week numbers for both England and Wales.

The numbers for Scotland are on the National Records for Scotland website at
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats
At the icon "Data and Charts" download the XLS file (which actually has the title covid-deaths-data-week-19.xls)
This has a contents page, so clicking on Figure 5: Deaths by week of registration, Scotland, 2020 takes you to the Scottish data

Thanks - I had the ONS data but they give almost nothing for the whole of the UK - I thought I might have missed something!

Thanks for the Scotland link - looks like we need to get the data from each part of the UK separately... it's so helpful!

Now to track down the NI numbers....... if I can face it

[Stones of granite]

Agreed about the excess deaths being the most important number.

Where on that ONS page do you get the excess numbers split for England, Scotland and Wales? I've been struggling to find them.

Sorry, wrong page. The ONS website is a nightmare.

Go this page.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ndandwales
and download the XLS file

Go to the tab entitled Weekly figures 2020 and you find the numbers of total deaths and COVID deaths allocated to week numbers for both England and Wales.

The numbers for Scotland are on the National Records for Scotland website at
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats
At the icon "Data and Charts" download the XLS file (which actually has the title covid-deaths-data-week-19.xls)
This has a contents page, so clicking on Figure 5: Deaths by week of registration, Scotland, 2020 takes you to the Scottish data

Thanks - I had the ONS data but they give almost nothing for the whole of the UK - I thought I might have missed something!

Thanks for the Scotland link - looks like we need to get the data from each part of the UK separately... it's so helpful!

Now to track down the NI numbers....... if I can face it

I haven't bothered with NI. Finding the Scottish, English and Welsh datasets was a big enough ballache.

[Digby]

SK infallible tracking system undermined by an unlikely group..

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... d-11990549

I'd have guessed Christians, or at least religious types, but then I thought it probably wasn't that unlikely they'd be undermining a scientific programme

[Which Tyler]

Latest Excess Deaths stats from the ONS.
By my reckoning, that's 49647 excess deaths since March 14th. 60.5% increase, despite this week seeing the non-Covid deaths below the average

They've also included the "normal" range, rather than just the average this week.


I've also gone throught the official infection rates stats for my local area; for anyone who's interested (or inspired to do their own)

[Son of Mathonwy]

Thanks - I had the ONS data but they give almost nothing for the whole of the UK - I thought I might have missed something!

Thanks for the Scotland link - looks like we need to get the data from each part of the UK separately... it's so helpful!

Now to track down the NI numbers....... if I can face it

I haven't bothered with NI. Finding the Scottish, English and Welsh datasets was a big enough ballache.

Just noticed in the data, in England and Wales weeks start on Saturdays, in Scotland they start on Mondays. So they can only give an approximate total for the week in question.

Fucking hell, it's almost like they don't want us to be able to put these numbers together.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Looking at the latest ONS numbers (and others from Scotland and Northern Ireland):
Up to 8 May, we have:
Positive test UK Covid-19 deaths: 31,241
All UK Covid-19 deaths: 41,020
So the total UK number is 31% higher than the government number. (33% last time)

Assuming this ratio holds to date, we have as of 19 May:
Positive test UK Covid-19 deaths: 35,341
All UK Covid-19 deaths (extrapolated): 46,403

Ultimately a more important number is the excess deaths for any cause, if we assume Covid-19 is the main driver of the excess.
Up to 8 May, we have:
All UK Covid-19 deaths: 41,020
Excess deaths compared with 5 year average: 54,294
We see that total excess deaths are 32% higher than ONS reported Covid-19 deaths. This was 39% last time - because for the most recent week the Covid-19 death certificate number is much closer to the excess deaths number than before.

Assuming this ratio holds to date, we have:
All UK excess deaths (presumably due to Covid-19) to 19 May: 61,419
which is 74% higher than the government number. (85% last time)

[Son of Mathonwy]

Looking ahead to next week's ONS numbers, I'll make the following:
Prediction for 8 May (based on 1 May ONS + 8 May gov numbers):
All UK, positive tests only: actual = 31,241
All UK, deaths involving COVID-19: prediction: 41,554
All UK, excess deaths: prediction: 57,872

How did the prediction turn out?

For 8 May
All UK, positive tests only: actual = 31,241
All UK, deaths involving COVID-19: prediction: 41,554 actual: 41,020 actual/prediction: -1.3%
All UK, excess deaths: prediction: 57,872 actual: 54,294 actual/prediction: -6.6%

New prediction:
For 15 May (based on 8 May ONS + 15 May gov numbers):
All UK, positive tests only: actual = 33,998
All UK, deaths involving COVID-19: prediction: 44,640
All UK, excess deaths: prediction: 59,085

[Digby]

Coming up on Radio 4 at 9am this morning, just under 10 minutes from now, More or Less will be considering amongst other things whether the government is conducting 100,000 tests a day. Which might prove interesting, though I am biased as I think it one of the outstanding programmes put out by the BBC (it'll be available online for anyone unable to catch it live)

Please note if you're a fan of Brexit or Corbyn (either Piers or Jeremy) you might not like More or Less given it's a fact based programme rather than a belief based one

[Donny osmond]

"Interesting" stuff apparently from an NHS doc @mancunianmedic


HERESY WARNING
Re Care Home Covid Deaths

Once a particular narrative, framing, received wisdom takes hold in media/public consciousness it is hard to shift or challenge and ands up looking heretical or uncaring but I *do* think this issue needs a slight re-balancing 

The decisions to transfer residents from acute hospitals, with or without suspected Covid-19, with or without a test or a test result, back in the first weeks of the pandemic in March were *not* made by ministers or NHSE or PHE officials but my local clinicians and ops managers 

that is how things work - medics make decisions on admission and discharge, and managers/clinician-managers in operational roles help set an overall atmosphere and system and negotiations with local community partners around arrangements 

Sure, when letter came down from NHSE CEO and COO on 17th March urging acute trusts to reconfigure operations, clear more acute beds etc. it might have confirmed to local teams they were already on the right track but pretty much everything in that letter we were already doing 

Just as most of the credit for that radical transformation of local services (e..g tripling of ICU capacity, separation of ED/AMU streams and bed base into "hot" and "cold",) sits with local teams not central agencies, we should own many actions re rapid transfer to care homes 

And in the context of March and early April when we were snowed under with very sick people with respiratory manifestations of Covid-19. where we all thought (as did national and local models) we risked Italy/NYC style overwhelm, it was absolutely understandable to want beds free 

The proposition of working with local community health and social care services to try and get more people into community hospitals, home with intermediate care or home care support, back to care homes they lived in or into new care home placements seemed right and reasonable 

Of course a letter coming from PHE/NHSE on 2n April saying that there was no need to wait for Covid testing may have given air cover for what we were already doing but it wasn't the main driver as we were well underway 

and of course new permissions/money around Coronavirus act were an accelerator or enabler but I don't think loads of acute medics and managers were being pushed into discharging people against their better judgement 

then we come to testing. I know March might seem like another country by now but back then, even in acute care, testing capacity was very limited to begin with and even for people where clinically we *knew* they had Covid-19 it was hard to get tests and those test took days 

and remember that Covid-19 tests have an initial "false negative" rate estimated at anything from 20 to 50% and many people initially test negative when it is obvious they have Covid-19 or when they subsequently go on to test positive a few days later 

at the same time, by later March and into April once we *were* able to test most admitted patients and turn round results more quickly, we saw many patients who did *not* have any typical (as we then thought) Covid-19 features and came with other problems yet *still* tested +ve 

being novel virus with a lot of emerging science, it was not clear precisely how long someone would remain infectious to others and capable of transmitting or how long they would typically wait to test negative having initially tested positive to 7 or 14 days were best guesses 

It was also perfectly possible that someone could leave hospital having tested negative, but then test positive 5 or 7 days later in a care home having been "cleared" to leave.

And possible that by keeping them in hospital we would avoidably expose them to catching Covid-19 

so if we think about counterfactual, the road not taken, what we should or could have done instead in a context where we did not have testing capacity at scale or speed, the notion of keeping thousands of care home residents stranded in acute hospitals waiting for serial tests 

and keeping them in those acute beds when there was no acute medical treatment required in many cases and whilst everyone was understandably concerned about the acute bed base being overwhelmed would not have looked great either 

Not to mentionbeing stuck in a busy, noisy, unfamiliar environment of an acute hospital ward is not what most care home residents (many with dementia, severe frailty, sensory/functional impairment, dependence, multiple conditions and at risk of harms of hospitalisation) want/need 

and in this case, it would have been compounded by bans on visitors. And remember even in non pandemic times around 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 residents will die during admission 

The other context is that for several years before the pandemic there had been a major (and welcome) push to support more care home residents more of the time to remain at home and out of hospital or leave hospital sooner 

via advanced care planning (yes, including "non conveyance to hospital, DNACPR/ReSPECT decisions but broader than that) and enhanced health care support/in reach from community health services/primary care, crisis teams, palliative care teams. *good* practice we wanted more of 

and there was a more general push - especially given England/UK very low and very full acute bed base, and rising/record numbers of delayed transfers of care not to have patients stranded in acute hospital beds who were receiving no acute hospital treatment 

and an equal push to assess more people at the acute front door and try to manage them in community/ambulatory care. This was a local and national direction of travel 

so if we go back to March/early April context it would have gone against every grain to start using acute beds to cohort large numbers of care home residents waiting for Covid tests which were unreliable, of uncertain significance, initially hard to get and slow to turn round 

Also important to realise you can have "zero deaths in care homes" if you admit all the residents with Covid to hospital or keep them in hospital for weeks. The deaths could still happen in residents who were now in hospital (even though we *can* count this as @HealthFdn have) 

And important to realise that across Western Europe (Germany exempted) even in nations with better resourced, better bedded health and care systems than UK, Covid-19 care home death numbers have been high - this has not been a problem unique to the UK 

So do I think there were no mistakes or no avoidable deaths? Absolutely not!

But they lie outside much of now accepted narrative about this isssue 

1 The existing structural problems of an underfunded, fragmented, short staffed social care system with variable support from and variable integration with NHS services (which those of us in the Health and Care sector have campaigned on for years) 

2. The failure of pandemic preparedness after Cygnus and other reports so we did not have sufficient PPE. testing capacity etc
3. The slowness out of the blocks with national policy in Jan/Feb after WHO declared a pandemic
4. Failure to adopt successful/recommended approaches 

e.g. mass testing, contact tracing, isolation, earlier lockdown etc or follow WHO guidance

5. Insufficient alternative "step down" or "discharge to assess" capacity so that new or returning care home residents could be quarantined/observed/tested away from acute bed base 

6. In local (and national) escalation plans, i think assumptions were made about care home's ability to isolate or prevent outbreaks
7 Insufficient regard was taken of their significant workforce challenges (including reliance on agency staff working multiple sites) 

8. Insufficent access to PPE (with the NHS having prior claim and the size and clout and supply chain in a national organisation vs a fragmeented, marketised sector with 11,000 homes and 5,000 provides) 

9 Preferable if the care home sector, social care leads, inc local Public Health and Specialist infection control teams had been fully involved in fast moving local escalation plans/policies and in national guidance/permissions rather than assumptions being made& them done unto 

10 All of thismiles from headlines about eugenics or older people people "sent to their deaths" or "abandoned to die" by cruel uncaring managers and officials hell bent on "eugenics" or a "cull". These were decisions made in good faith & context some of which now look misguided 

and those of us who have been looking after older people with Covid-19 (whether in acute hospital or care homes, or community health teams or at home) know that when this virus hits those with frailty, multiple long term conditions, age related disability, dementia it hits hard 

they often do very badly and often die, whatever we do because that is the nature of the disease. Remember care home residents have a median survival of 15-18 months from admission and c 1 in 3 die each year because they are in most cases people near the end of life 

the notion that they would be candidates for ICU, ventilation or even successful CPR is wrong in most cases. And supporting someone to die in familiar surroundings with familiar staff who care about them rather than in an unfamiliar hospital ward is not being "abandoned"

ENDS 




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[Donny osmond]

Another "interesting" pic, this was in the Times apparently. I don't present here as 'the truth' just something to ponder.

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[morepork]

You a bit gun shy there Donny mate?

[Donny osmond]

You a bit gun shy there Donny mate?

Just minding my Ps and Qs mate. [emoji16]

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[Digby]

Coming up on Radio 4 at 9am this morning, just under 10 minutes from now, More or Less will be considering amongst other things whether the government is conducting 100,000 tests a day. Which might prove interesting, though I am biased as I think it one of the outstanding programmes put out by the BBC (it'll be available online for anyone unable to catch it live)

Please note if you're a fan of Brexit or Corbyn (either Piers or Jeremy) you might not like More or Less given it's a fact based programme rather than a belief based one

Some interesting stuff in there, and not just on the testing but also around the timing of the shutdown and how one thinks about that and the numbers who've died Vs Germany in particular.

Though actually on the testing with the government claiming a daily test number that's consistently now going over 100,000 (around 120-230k some days) they note if one wanted to talk about the number of diagnostic tests done at a patient level you could quite reasonably talk about a daily number much closer to 45k, some will no doubt have spotted that a very different number to the one Hancock and company are claiming

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Coming up on Radio 4 at 9am this morning, just under 10 minutes from now, More or Less will be considering amongst other things whether the government is conducting 100,000 tests a day. Which might prove interesting, though I am biased as I think it one of the outstanding programmes put out by the BBC (it'll be available online for anyone unable to catch it live)

Please note if you're a fan of Brexit or Corbyn (either Piers or Jeremy) you might not like More or Less given it's a fact based programme rather than a belief based one

Some interesting stuff in there, and not just on the testing but also around the timing of the shutdown and how one thinks about that and the numbers who've died Vs Germany in particular.

Though actually on the testing with the government claiming a daily test number that's consistently now going over 100,000 (around 120-230k some days) they note if one wanted to talk about the number of diagnostic tests done at a patient level you could quite reasonably talk about a daily number much closer to 45k, some will no doubt have spotted that a very different number to the one Hancock and company are claiming

I'm a More or Less fanboy. I would make it mandatory listening if I ruled the world.

Yes the claiming of tests that have been posted out is bad enough but the other swizzes of saying "Ah but we swabbed a nose and throat so that's 2 tests" and the non-diagnostic research tests is outrageous.

I was quite shocked to hear that the timing iof the lockdown was quite so influential. Maybe test and trace is absolutely pointless until you've got infections down in the tens.

[Galfon]

This was never not going to happen - the locals will be holding their heads in their hands, unlike the Covidiot hordes who will be holding something else ( the public lavs. are closed ), and waiting on nice letters from the local Dibble for parking offences.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-52742519

[Stones of granite]

Another "interesting" pic, this was in the Times apparently. I don't present here as 'the truth' just something to ponder.

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

Well, the numbers are easily checked, and there is no dodgy arbitrary metric thrown in to muddy the waters. Assuming they are correct, there appears to be an “interesting” vague correlation in terms of degrees of latitude.

[Digby]

Coming up on Radio 4 at 9am this morning, just under 10 minutes from now, More or Less will be considering amongst other things whether the government is conducting 100,000 tests a day. Which might prove interesting, though I am biased as I think it one of the outstanding programmes put out by the BBC (it'll be available online for anyone unable to catch it live)

Please note if you're a fan of Brexit or Corbyn (either Piers or Jeremy) you might not like More or Less given it's a fact based programme rather than a belief based one

Some interesting stuff in there, and not just on the testing but also around the timing of the shutdown and how one thinks about that and the numbers who've died Vs Germany in particular.

Though actually on the testing with the government claiming a daily test number that's consistently now going over 100,000 (around 120-230k some days) they note if one wanted to talk about the number of diagnostic tests done at a patient level you could quite reasonably talk about a daily number much closer to 45k, some will no doubt have spotted that a very different number to the one Hancock and company are claiming

I'm a More or Less fanboy. I would make it mandatory listening if I ruled the world.

Yes the claiming of tests that have been posted out is bad enough but the other swizzes of saying "Ah but we swabbed a nose and throat so that's 2 tests" and the non-diagnostic research tests is outrageous.

I was quite shocked to hear that the timing iof the lockdown was quite so influential. Maybe test and trace is absolutely pointless until you've got infections down in the tens.

and that's the non-diagnostic research tests they don't even count themselves that they're lumping into the daily numbers being tested. mind what do I know, I think continually being honest, as honest as you can, so you can stand in front of the electorate with as much credibility as possible is important. they'd likely retort they don't win votes by doing anything as stupid as being honest

[cashead]

Sweden's got the highest death rate per capita.

I guess that's one way to mitigate the second wave they're expecting - leave no one around to catch it a second time.

[morepork]

Sweden's got the highest death rate per capita.

I guess that's one way to mitigate the second wave they're expecting - leave no one around to catch it a second time.

Ace of Base draws the ire of Jebus more than A-Ha.

Take on me bro.

[Donny osmond]

Sweden's got the highest death rate per capita.

I guess that's one way to mitigate the second wave they're expecting - leave no one around to catch it a second time.

6.08 deaths per million. Yes, there "won't be anyone around to catch it second time" is true if you can make 999,993.92 = 0.

That's some Dianne Abbot style maths right there.

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[cashead]

Sweden's got the highest death rate per capita.

I guess that's one way to mitigate the second wave they're expecting - leave no one around to catch it a second time.

6.08 deaths per million. Yes, there "won't be anyone around to catch it second time" is true if you can make 999,993.92 = 0.

That's some Dianne Abbot style maths right there.

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

Beep beep boop boop what is a hyper-bole beep beep boop boop.

You must be a real hit at parties.

[cashead]

Sweden's got the highest death rate per capita.

I guess that's one way to mitigate the second wave they're expecting - leave no one around to catch it a second time.

Ace of Base draws the ire of Jebus more than A-Ha.

Take on me bro.

Of course, A-ha is legit as dicks. Ace of Base is, well, Ace of Base. Plus one of them was in a white power band, so take that for what it is.

[Donny osmond]

Sweden's got the highest death rate per capita.

I guess that's one way to mitigate the second wave they're expecting - leave no one around to catch it a second time.

6.08 deaths per million. Yes, there "won't be anyone around to catch it second time" is true if you can make 999,993.92 = 0.

That's some Dianne Abbot style maths right there.

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

Beep beep boop boop what is a hyper-bole beep beep boop boop.

You must be a real hit at parties.

I'm ok once I've understood the joke

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[cashead]

6.08 deaths per million. Yes, there "won't be anyone around to catch it second time" is true if you can make 999,993.92 = 0.

That's some Dianne Abbot style maths right there.

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

Beep beep boop boop what is a hyper-bole beep beep boop boop.

You must be a real hit at parties.

I'm ok once I've understood the joke

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

hth

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hyperbole