Coronavirus (2021) thread

[unicorn]

Zoe App today shows biggest day to day drop in a while on both measures.

Number of estimated cases based on reported to App is 4545 - down 236 on yesterday Though that was way below the number recorded by Gov UK (the school testing is why this gap seems to have widened I think - as Zoe is basically the symptomatic cases reported with few of the school ones that largely are just found and children can have no idea.)


The other big Zoe App fall today is in the total number still proclaiming to them Covid symptoms so still active cases.

Six weeks or so ago this was over 100,000. It had fallen every single day by several hundred.

Today it fell from 72, 598 to 71, 168 in 24 hours.


Slightly less good news from Zoe is that North West has slipped to third from best in the cases not second as pst few days. Owing to a big drop in London numbers.

But North West stays in the lowest band alongside South East (best) and now London. All the other regions in the north and the three nations outside England are in higher bands.

Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are the only ones in the highest band.

Great to hear. Looks like we're heading towards 1 in a 1,000 with Covid.

I know the key metrics now should be hospitalisation and deaths not cases, but I still feel immense relief each day when cases are stable.

.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

Cases as you know are largely irrelevant now. Especially as the school testing often calls a case a case even if the schoolchild has no symptoms and even if the lateral flow test says they are positive and then a lab test is done to check and says they are not. You would think the better test should overwrite the less accurate one.

Im pretty sure they are not even checking positive LFTs on school children with the accurate lab testing.

Kids and their bubbles are just being sent straight home to isolate.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Cases as you know are largely irrelevant now. Especially as the school testing often calls a case a case even if the schoolchild has no symptoms and even if the lateral flow test says they are positive and then a lab test is done to check and says they are not. You would think the better test should overwrite the less accurate one.

So inevitably that is creating false cases. And even non false cases that would never have been found in the past.

I suspect that the Zoe numbers are more accurate as to cases now - we have flatlined around the 4500 mark.

The ONS data today on case numbers suggests that very clearly. They say we have flatlined. And also suggests that there are around 40 000 more active cases in the UK than the Zoe app is showing and that these are NOT falling but staying steady when Zoe - using symptomatic cases - IS falling daily.

So I think we have two different measures here - the one we get published - which is higher than the Zoe one and has risen a bit this week - but the Zoe one that is static in the mid 4000s is more akin to where we would be without all the school testing.

Another pointer here is that the number of positives in the older ages (the vaccinated) is dropping and the number in the under 18s (at school) is rising.

All this shows what is going on right now and why the data is misleading and why hospital numbers (which ARE still dropping) are the key not case numbers. Which have become quite deceptive now as a measure to rely upon.

I agree with much of this, but not that cases are irrelevant, or near to that.

Cases have always been difficult to interpret as testing changes, and that's particularly volatile now with LFTs and schools.

But nevertheless, cases give a leading indicator of problems coming elsewhere down the line. Kent cases showed the variant arriving; cases rising through last summer were ignored leading to the disastrous autumn and winter, etc.

But they need to be taken in context of all the measures of cases (headline, PCR, LFT, ONS, REACT)

The current rough plateau isn't good news. It's a high enough level of prevalence that a relatively short period of exponential growth, enabled by the ~50% unvaccinated, still has the potential for significant hospitalisation and death in the unprotected.

We should continue to keep an eye on cases and proceed with caution IMO (I'm not arguing for holding the relaxation, just being open to the whole of the evidence).

 

[Healdplace]

Great to hear. Looks like we're heading towards 1 in a 1,000 with Covid.

I know the key metrics now should be hospitalisation and deaths not cases, but I still feel immense relief each day when cases are stable.

.

Me too. It is hard to get away from the cases as for 12 months we have had this number drummed into us as the key.

The need to measure them goes on as we have to find outbreaks and new variants and isolate.

But there should be less emphasis on announcing them as the big deal they are now not.

As Roubaix said the other day they should be more discriminatory on what they publish and how on cases as right now the data is not really saying what people think as they will not understand the nuance.

Cases need recording but we should have shifted to the days hospital figures as I post every evening around 6 or 7 pm. The government still do not update them even though the last few days they have posted the cases data an hour or so later than they used to do and by then the hospital data is out and could be loaded too.

Instead they leave up the old data and the news report that later even if when they do the current data has been easily accessible for hours.

They need to agree a better strategy with the media on this. And emphasise why cases now matter less. And at very least the difference between actual symptomatic cases and the ones they are recording by the hundreds of thousands. And give the number of tests done versus cases found (the positivity rating is the easy way but if not that just the tests number each day too)

England always has for some reason totally ignored this crucial thing despite the WHO emphasising why it matters throughout the entire pandemic.

And ensure the up to date key hospital metrics are stressed over cases as that is more important now day to day.

Deaths matter too, of course, but at the low level they are ups and downs are exaggerated like all statistics so it is easy to be mislead by them too. Week to week fall might help more.

 

[Healdplace]

I agree with much of this, but not that cases are irrelevant, or near to that.

Cases have always been difficult to interpret as testing changes, and that's particularly volatile now with LFTs and schools.

But nevertheless, cases give a leading indicator of problems coming elsewhere down the line. Kent cases showed the variant arriving; cases rising through last summer were ignored leading to the disastrous autumn and winter, etc.

But they need to be taken in context of all the measures of cases (headline, PCR, LFT, ONS, REACT)

The current rough plateau isn't good news. It's a high enough level of prevalence that a relatively short period of exponential growth, enabled by the ~50% unvaccinated, still has the potential for significant hospitalisation and death in the unprotected.

We should continue to keep an eye on cases and proceed with caution IMO (I'm not arguing for holding the relaxation, just being open to the whole of the evidence).

I did not mean to say they were irrelevant and noted elsewhere the need to track them for outbreaks and new variants.

But I mean for public perception - which is what the media is providing based on them. There has been no change of strategy on the reporting of data as the metrics have shifted.

We will always need to track and record cases but it is misleading to let the media use them as if you can compare this week with say mid January in any meaningful way without knowing the nuance behind the testing.

99% of people see a number on the news and it compared with yesterday and think - ooh - it is going up or down. The end. But it really is not that simple now. As we know in here because we discuss it. But as the public need to be guided to know as most of them will not and can easily take the wrong direction from something they have assumed to be obvious.

Found cases rise - the disease is spreading.

That is far less true now than it was even a month or so ago but that message is unlikely to be well understood if you are just tracking the pandemic via the media.

Nor how WHO is testing positive makes a gigantic difference to what kind of case is reported now as tse not bothering the NHS are far less relevant than those that might.

 

[Healdplace]

Good news - 43 England hospital deaths - down from 74 last Friday.

Sadly a huge 15 of those 43 are from the NW which is struggling a bit this week in the hospital data too. And has the same number on ventilators last night as it did 5 days ago. This number likely helping to explain why.

That is pushing 40% of all todays deaths and it is very unusual for such a high focus on one region. Though as I said above low numbers distort changes. So easily deceiving.

Manchester with 7 far and away the most in England today too.

Next nearest Liverpool and Portsmouth both on 3.

Yorkshire at 10 was the only other region not in single figures.

London just had 2 and South West 1

 

[unicorn]

I did not mean to say they were irrelevant and noted elsewhere the need to track them for outbreaks and new variants.

But I mean for public perception - which is what the media is providing based on them. There has been no change of strategy on the reporting of data as the metrics have shifted.

We will always need to track and record cases but it is misleading to let the media use them as if you can compare this week with say mid January in any meaningful way without knowing the nuance behind the testing.

99% of people see a number on the news and it compared with yesterday and think - ooh - it is going up or down. The end. But it really is not that simple now. As we know in here because we discuss it. But as the public need to be guided to know as most of them will not and can easily take the wrong direction from something they have assumed to be obvious.

Found cases rise - the disease is spreading.

That is far less true now than it was even a month or so ago but that message is unlikely to be well understood if you are just tracking the pandemic via the media.

Nor how WHO is testing positive makes a gigantic difference to what kind of case is reported now as tse not bothering the NHS are far less relevant than those that might.

I agree that public perception is easily distorted and the media need for clicks means it's more important to scare than to inform.

Perhaps conversely, there's also far too many metrics thrown about for the average person. 99% of the public couldn't explain the "R" rate and why it's less relevant at low levels, they can't differentiate between day-on-day and week-on-week rises, they're bombarded with Daily rate per million, Weekly rate per 100,000, Pop scores and excess deaths.

Too much information can be bad as too little.

 

[Healdplace]

Scottish data:

6 deaths - was 8 last week

543 cases - was 655 last week

2.4% positive - was 2.9% last week

296 patients - down 14 in day - was 357 last week

26 on icu ventilators - down 6 in day - was 35 last week


Good data again here today.

 

[BobKowalski]

I think last night's decision by the EU Member States had more of an eye to the future; they realize that they need more facilities on the continent if/when they need a booster. They'll also be stricter with companies in regard supply.
Had India/China approved all of these vaccinations, there would have been even more demand.

Agreed. Focus should be on Q2 and Q3 production and delivery, using lessons learnt from Q1 issues. Projections are by end of Q2 there should be a surplus of vaccines in Europe, but there are still issues with getting vaccines into people‘s arms and some national Govts need to be doing better with the logistics of vaccine delivery.

Two additional plants likely to come online in Q2.

‘The EU drugs regulator is expected to approve two vaccination plants in the Netherlands and Germany as soon as today.’ @Bloomberg

 

[Healdplace]

England hospital deaths wk to wk:

315 / 64 NW / 20%

307 / 106 NW / 35% (3 % fall wk to wk)

174 / 40 NW / 23% ( 43 % fall wk to wk)

132 / 20 NW / 15% (24% fall wk to wk)

74 / 14 NW / 19% (44% fall wk to wk)

43 / 15 NW / 35% (42% fall wk to wk) TODAY

Three of the last 4 weeks with big falls of over 40% wk to wk is really good to see.