Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Healdplace]

Regional summary:

South:

East down 53 to 407

London up 15 to 495

South East down 67 to 455

South West down 21 to 242


Midlands:

East down 92 to 472

West up 53 to 569


North:

North East up 109 to 323

Yorkshire up 27 to 878


And

North West down 148 to 738


So Zoe App got the fact that NW falls the most today right.

Yorkshire top scorer again.

Though the fall not shared by GM to the same degree sadly.

 

[Manc in London]

A rather disappointing England hospital fall this week.

98 deaths with 19 from the NW.

Though that is the first sub 100 on Tuesday in ages.

Only down 3 from 101 and 26 last week.

Tuesday is always a big catch up day as we know but this is a pretty small weekly fall.


That said 16 are more than 4 weeks old.

11 University College London the only double figures

Bolton and Pennine Acute at 3 each are the most in the NW.

UCLH has had double figures for a couple of days or so. A complete outlier in London. The aggregate of the four hospitals closest to me average one death per day. I would suggest this may, in part, be due to an audit.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

112 all settings deaths

5379 cases

up 37 day to day and 95 week to week

1, 169 , 000 tests - way down 700 k or so on yesterday


Not sure of the significance of cases being so flat almost regardless of gigantic day to day shifts in test numbers by over half a million.

So is that up from 110 deaths a week ago?

 

[M18CTID]

So is that up from 110 deaths a week ago?

Yep. Not great but I'm guessing it's an anomaly and the downward trend will continue

 

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

Yesterday's vaccination numbers

First doses: 329,897

Second doses: 82,300

 

[feelymcfeel]

Well, very few people have increased incomes. I would think the search for a quick buck will impact on demand in the future. It's not rational but then it is a market with a lot of sellers.

It's not 'economics' either, as such. Unless the 5 years I spent studying another subject.

The laws of supply and demand are basic economics. As demand increases relative to supply, so does price.

i suppose we could get into substitute goods, and whether in current circumstances you would class a domestic holiday as a normal or inferior good, but provided the increase in utility via domestic holidaying more than offsets the decrease caused by an increase in price, it's perfectly rational to buy it.

It was one of the first things I learned at the start of my economics degree.

 

[Healdplace]

Greater Manchester summary:

Total cases 386 - a fall of 16 - but as NW had a much bigger fall today (148) that creates a big jump up in the percentage of GM from the NW.

This goes up from 45.4% yesterday to 52.6% today - almost exactly where it was (52.5%) last Tuesday.

Cases wise GM today is 1 higher than last Tuesdays 385 but down on 449, 400 and 550 previous weeks.

Though cases have in effect flattened off as testing has increased. Good or bad however you look at it.

Summary here of how each borough did and if weekly Pop will rise or not.



Manchester top scores on 78, but that is down on 83 past 2 days whilst well up on 56 last Tuesday. So Pop rise.

Wigan next on 64 - up from 57 but down 1 on last week's 65. Pop likely unaltered.

Tameside on 47 - up from 44 and up slightly from 43 last week so minimal Pop rise.

Oldham then on 43 - up a lot from 29 and also up on 35 last week so Pop likely rising too.

Stockport at 30 is down from 35 and from 40 week to week so has done well and will see its Pop fall.

Bolton has 28 - a big drop from 61 and from 48 last week so will have a really good fall in Pop score.

Rochdale on 26 is down from 33 and slightly from 28 last week so Pop little changed but maybe jut down.

Salford at 25 had a good day - down from 32 yesterday and 34 last week so Pop will be down

Trafford at 23 has a big rise from 7 yesterday and 9 last week and will have dented its Pop quite a but today. Indeed for the first time in a good while it did NOT gain on the overall Pop score lead on Stockport today. They had identical relative scores today. As Stockport is larger than Trafford.

So Bury was number one today on 22 cases - though up i from 21 yet down from 27 last week. So its Pop will fall.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

these LFD in schools are really buggering up the numbers now.

on one hand you have a very steady state of PCR tests these last few weeks, following a very steady repeating pattern from Monday to Sunday (i suspect this is now primarily regular staff testing and much less ad-hoc members of the public? a guess).

on the other hand you have huge fluctuations in the school tests as some do particular days of the week. There were a million LFD tests yesterday and 1.8m on Sunday. on Sunday they found ca. 1900 +ves (for what it's worth) and today in the LFD they found another 2k +ves. So yeah, any case reductions in population are likely to be buoyed by the schools for a while. I expect in Easter hols we'll see more jumping around all over the place. it's getting very very hard with cases now.

edit: furthermore, if you look at cases by test type by specimen date, i would say the PCR tests are going steadily down but still adhere to the few days behind principle. However when you throw in the LFD obviously they are much much closer to the reporting date number, so you are now mixing two very different data streams in the cases by date reported;

View attachment 13030

the reason the case numbers by reporting date are not <3,500 is the LFD spike at the end of that graph.

I know someone who supervises LFT in schools and he said very few kids are doing the test correctly. Also add in the fact that the LFT apparently give a high percentage of false positives which are not being confirmed by PCR testing and you have to surely question the benefit of the LFT of school children and certainly treat the data with caution.

 

[Healdplace]

So is that up from 110 deaths a week ago?

As I explained earlier when posting them the England hospital death numbers were the reason today. They all but stalled week to week. It happens sometimes when at low numbers. Just one or two cases impact more than when we are talking hundreds.

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

Shameful? Really?

Economics 101 mate.

And after 12 months of zero business you're seriously going to give grief for wanting to make as much money back, as quickly as possible? Dear me.

No i can see why they will do it.

Although i reckon once things are back open they will earn just as much charging same prices, rather than upping them,

 

[shemnel]

I know someone who supervises LFT in schools and he said very few kids are doing the test correctly. Also add in the fact that the LFT apparently give a high percentage of false positives which are not being confirmed by PCR testing and you have to surely question the benefit of the LFT of school children and certainly treat the data with caution.

i posted a link to the BMJ which stated the sensitivity of the Liverpool LFD testing was ~40% and i think they had some trained individuals (though i expect the training was quite mixed). Now throw into the hat the fact that kids and parents are doing them and i expect it's a bit of a mess, like you say.

without labouring a point, the govt spent £500m >£1bn on these tests and the MHRA said no to tests on kids, they werent good enough. the gov made it voluntary with a heavy lean on schools, they need these things using up. i honestly think this is the reason, might just be connecting two dots with a very wiggly line though!!

christ, the gov are going to try and do 2m LFD tests a day in April if this article is to be believed;

Government and PA select three rapid Covid-19 test producers

The UK Government has selected three British companies for a contract to manufacture up to 2 million rapid Covid-19 tests per day. The selection process was overseen by PA Consulting.

www.consultancy.uk

that means cases will NEVER go away, it'll just be a mix of false positives and some true positives. Come on, this is just silly. They have to know PCR true positives as well. what a waste of money.

 

[Manc in London]

I travelled the country till the last Lockdown and I love Barrow area. Mind, I've spent many nights in Rochdale and Oldham and enjoy them too.

North West London is the only part of the UK I find really grim and even then you've got good South Asian food.

I always thought North West London was grim. What I mean by North West, is west of Mill Hill. Places like Brent and Harrow. I'd happily holiday in SW London. Would be nice to spend a weekend in Richmond.

 

[unicorn]

I always thought North West London was grim. What I mean by North West, is west of Mill Hill. Places like Brent and Harrow. I'd happily holiday in SW London. Would be nice to spend a weekend in Richmond.

Exactly. Mill Hill/Hendon out to Ruislip and down to Hillingdon.

Try finding a good pub anywhere there (not counting the Green Man at Wembley, obvs).

 

[somapop]

I always thought North West London was grim. What I mean by North West, is west of Mill Hill. Places like Brent and Harrow. I'd happily holiday in SW London. Would be nice to spend a weekend in Richmond.

Once stayed on the Chiswick/Hammersmith border (gig at the Hammersmith Apollo) and appeared that Richmond was close.
Nice round there.

 

[LangleyBlue1970]

The journalist from the ITV was an absolute dick. Ask about the virus but then straight into something that had nothing to do with it.
'i believe that's a labour seat'
Good come back from Boris.

 

[Len Rum]

See the boy Whitty said nearly 150k had died from Covid.
Remember Liberty Vallance once saying 20k would be a 'good' outcome.
Also (apparently) lack of knowledge of the vaccine in the early days contributed to many of the deaths and yet most deaths have occured in the second wave when we had a lot more knowledge.
It's a strange world isn't it?

 

[Manc in London]

The laws of supply and demand are basic economics. As demand increases relative to supply, so does price.

i suppose we could get into substitute goods, and whether in current circumstances you would class a domestic holiday as a normal or inferior good, but provided the increase in utility via domestic holidaying more than offsets the decrease caused by an increase in price, it's perfectly rational to buy it.

It was one of the first things I learned at the start of my economics degree.

Haha thank you for the economics lecture. Wish I had you around when I was doing my exams. ;)

I would suggest economics is rather more refined than a basic 'supply and demand' model. Granted, the model has its purpose but it is rather limited. Especially when it comes to choice. I won't enter into a debate on economic theory, as it would be rather pompous. However, I made my point that economics is not simply 'supply and demand'. In fact, the SS/DD model was not referred to once during my degree. Discussions around perceptions and preferences are rather more nuanced.

This was not mentioned in your microeconomics textbooks (remember my textbook in microeconomics, it was written by my tutor) but people don't appreciate having the piss taken out of them. Perceptions are easy to damage and difficult to repair.

 

[Healdplace]

Hospital data has resumed its down track I should add. Will post the full data later but everywhere down today and also a fair drop in Wales patients too over the weekend. Meaning we are 300 or so down day to day. Much as was happening day to day last week.

North West - though - is still not doing quite as well as some other though it was down on both patients and ventilators today its fall over the weekend has been less than it should have been. In 4 days just 30 patients and 4 ventilators.

Still down is down. And we are at 4245 patients in England only and 5139 in the UK. Could be below 4K and 5K respectively tomorrow.

Remember at the height in third week of January we were at just under 40,000 in UK hospitals and several regions in England - in fact all the main ones such as London, South East. North West, Yorkshire and Midlands EACH had more patients in just that single region than are in hospital in England today and in most of those regions more than are in the entire UK today.

A sobering illustration of how fast we have brought this virus under control.

 

[Manc in London]

Exactly. Mill Hill/Hendon out to Ruislip and down to Hillingdon.

Try finding a good pub anywhere there (not counting the Green Man at Wembley, obvs).

Ha. I didn't get to the Green Man even thought I have been to almost all our Wembley fixtures. Yes, none of those places are on many peoples list of a 'good night out'. To be honest, I think nort London as a whole is pretty poor a night. Much better central, east and east. These three are great places for a beer.

 

[feelymcfeel]

Haha thank you for the economics lecture. Wish I had you around when I was doing my exams. ;)

I would suggest economics is rather more refined than a basic 'supply and demand' model. Granted, the model has its purpose but it is rather limited. Especially when it comes to choice. I won't enter into a debate on economic theory, as it would be rather pompous. However, I made my point that economics is not simply 'supply and demand'. In fact, the SS/DD model was not referred to once during my degree. Discussions around perceptions and preferences are rather more nuanced.

This was not mentioned in your microeconomics textbooks (remember my textbook in microeconomics, it was written by my tutor) but people don't appreciate having the piss taken out of them. Perceptions are easy to damage and difficult to repair.

Fair comments particularly about perception, and economics is far more nuanced than i suggested, you're right, considering it virtually all boils down to, certainly regarding consumer theory, what an individual wants. I'd still maintain though that as a simple explanation of a pretty complex topic, using the basics of demand theory can be useful in a situation like this.