COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[Healdplace]

From interviews this morning it looks as if most of the missing data was from the North West. Which I think my scoreboard reports very late last night (if you missed it - round midnight!) and late at night Saturday when they first admitted make sense. As everywhere in GM went very high.

The % split betweeb GM and the NW rose too - so I suspect it was largely in GM that they messed up.

And now admittedly did not track and trace some contacts because of it for up to a week.

This might be the cue for Andy Burnham and the NW mayors to get tough as it is serious,

 

[peoffrey]

It's about time Burnham did something. He doesn't resemble authority in the slightest.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Dido Harding is in charge of this and has brought in her own people. Ideologically, the Government favoured privatising track and trace and in doing so sidelined local public health teams. I am not a big fan of Local Government but track and trace couldn’t be done in the UK without giving them a leading role. Dildo and Serco need to own this I’m afraid.

Give over PHE is bag of shit.
I did some work for them 4 years ago. Incompetent from top to bottom.
The fact that Serco aren't much better is neither here nor there.

 

[BlueAnorak]

right, this is utterly shambolic;

the 16,000 missed cases are apparently because test results are being shifted around EXCEL FILES, that exceeded maximum row number. Anyone who isnt as tech savvy, excel is useless and this sort of stuff should autometically be done in a robust SQL database, this is really 101 stuff. I am quite shocked.

Blame game after 16,000 Covid cases missed due to Excel glitch

A clearer picture of the country's outbreak has emerged after some 16,000 confirmed infections had to be added to the daily totals running back more than a week.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Failure to record thousands of confirmed Covid-19 cases branded ‘shambolic’

The blunder came as the total number of lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK passed 500,000.

www.bracknellnews.co.uk

Dear God.
We're fucked.

 

[Healdplace]

Scottish data:

0 deaths (reminder this is Sunday data from Nicola Stuegeon and me).

697 cases at 12.8 % - unfortunately going back up daily to biggest number testing positive yet.

242 from Greater Glasgow, 145 Lothian and 130 Lanarkshire

218 now in hospital (up 8 in day)

22 on icu ventilators (same)

 

[bluejon]

Looks like the data was being exported into the Excel files for transfer to other systems. I've worked in NHS IT systems and they are quite often transferring data between organisations using Excel files (or were when last in the NHS in 2017) usually uploading via secure portals. My guess is they are piggy backing the data sharing using existing systems but the files are much bigger than they're expecting. An automatic export of data from a database should report an error if it doesn't complete (if it was me I would re-import the exported file and compare row counts but no-one ever does that because they're lazy and think they have covered every possibility. You never can.)

So they didn't stress test their system in any way shape or form. Brilliant.

 

[Healdplace]

Dear God.
We're fucked.

Don't have a clue about computers but it was obvious from the constant failures to get data working properly on their dashboard as long as 2 months ago that they were employing less than the best tech people when keeping atop of this data was obviously vital. Even if you had no clue about how computers work the signs were clear and the excuses they posted looked increasingly fatuous.

Time after time they messed up if you recall and I had to keep saying in here that the reports were late or did not appear for a day and said that a more serious consequence could occur if this was symptimatic of something endemic in their approach to IT.

I never expected it to happen as they seemed to have mostly got on top of it in the past few weeks. On the website at least. And the last outage of data was not their fault but common to all who used it in London it seemed.

But this problem was a disaster waiting to happen back all Summer as they seem to have been miles off the pace with this kind of thing throughout when aware of why it mattered so much as and when the virus was back peaking.

And this time people might die if it can be proven they lost the data to trace them for a week as seems true from what they admitted earlier in TV interviews, Thus losing days to isolate before they got sick enough to know or be hospitalsed. Or infect others who gewt sick and die because the warning was days too late.

Thankfully deaths are still relatively low so it very probably will not. But this is a real world problem that they have just sleepwalked into after multiple warnings they were messing up this side of things and needed a rapid shake up of what I fear were friends of friends given jobs on mates rates.

 

[Manc Born & Bred]

Both tbh.

The regular barmaid is a funny one. She once refused to serve someone who didn't say please (he could barely speak English) but was happy to gossip on the phone whilst she poured other pints. I don't particularly like her but it's where I drink so c'est la vie. She's a U****d fan btw.

She's so stuck in her ways that the gaffer hasn't made her do what she's supposed to. It's one of those locals that's a bit cliquey. Certain regulars control the remote for the TV so it's horse racing regardless of how many want to watch the match.

I'm really not selling it, am I?!

No not really. Ignorance is no excuse and to not protect the customers by wearing masks etc is unforgivable.

 

[TheRemainsOfTheDave]

So they didn't stress test their system in any way shape or form. Brilliant.

That's a tough one to answer. There may not be stress testing involved if it's uploading via a secure portal, or not much anyway. They probably feel comfortable with the existing solution that has run for many years, sadly it's how the NHS (and a lot of other companies to be fair) do this sort of thing. It really comes down to someone spotting the limitation before it happens. I could be wrong of course.

 

[grunge]

Assessing the Age Specificity of Infection Fatality Rates for COVID-19: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Public Policy Implications

Objective Determine age-specific infection fatality rates for COVID-19 to inform public health policies and communications that help protect vulnerable age groups. Methods Studies of COVID-19 prevalence were collected by conducting an online search of published articles, preprints, and...

www.medrxiv.org

Maybe behind on this one as I didn't check over the weekend.

a breakdown on ages and IFR per age group.

The estimated IFR
close to zero for children and younger adults
reaching 0.4% at age 55,
1.3% at age 65,
4.2% at age 75,
and 14% at age 85.

Dr Campbell added 25+% for over 90.

 

[bluejon]

That's a tough one to answer. There may not be stress testing involved if it's uploading via a secure portal, or not much anyway. They probably feel comfortable with the existing solution that has run for many years, sadly it's how the NHS (and a lot of other companies to be fair) do this sort of thing. It really comes down to someone spotting the limitation before it happens. I could be wrong of course.

I meant the end to end system. They can't have run a proper stress test on it because if they had this problem would have been flagged. It's clownshoe stuff but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

 

[lancs blue]

The fact that Serco aren't much better is neither here nor there.

It is when they keep getting lucrative contracts in spite of their record.

Let's not pretend that it's just public sector IT that's a shambles, after spending 30 years working in IT on different financial services systems I know that the private sector is equally as riddled with shoddy practices and corner-cutting.

 

[peoffrey]

No not really. Ignorance is no excuse and to not protect the customers by wearing masks etc is unforgivable.

Honestly. They're behind shields but I can think of at least one who wasn't wearing it. I literally go because it's cheap and they show the football.

 

[ganganvince]

From interviews this morning it looks as if most of the missing data was from the North West. Which I think my scoreboard reports very late last night (if you missed it - round midnight!) and late at night Saturday when they first admitted make sense. As everywhere in GM went very high.

The % split betweeb GM and the NW rose too - so I suspect it was largely in GM that they messed up.

And now admittedly did not track and trace some contacts because of it for up to a week.

This might be the cue for Andy Burnham and the NW mayors to get tough as it is serious,

They do have a range of powers they can use whether it would be enough I doubt but would be a start.

[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] Local authority powers to impose restrictions: Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No 3) Regulations 2020

www.gov.uk

 

[Healdplace]

Nicola Sturgeon confirmed this IS what she referred to last Mondayabout a suspected issue over low case numbers but after investigating was satisfied it was in an England only system. She claims to have noticed how the % positive tests and new England cases were too low compared with Scotland and so suspected a problem but was reassured when looking into it.

The importance of that % testing number which Nicola Sturgeon has always stressed but England alone seems to ignore may have bitten back as it was expected - she said - that the nations should broadly follow the same pattern.

What this means - if true and not just point scoring - is the Scottish data path over the past month will be a more reliable guide to the true picture UK wide.

 

[ganganvince]

Honestly. They're behind shields but I can think of at least one who wasn't wearing it. I literally go because it's cheap and they show the football.

If they are behind perspex sheeting a mask isn't required.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Give over PHE is bag of shit.
I did some work for them 4 years ago. Incompetent from top to bottom.
The fact that Serco aren't much better is neither here nor there.

What were you doing that you met everyone working for PHE?

 

[BlueHammer85]

the whole walk round the pub with a mask but take it off when sat at table just doesn't really work

was about 20+ football team lot and others yesterday in pub, whole thing was a shambles - wasn't enough table and chairs, barmen going mad at some people for sitting more than 6, waitress never come over to ask if needed a drink but we weren't allowed to go up to the bar. not worth the hassle.

 

[Healdplace]

It is worth asking WHEN they knew there was a problem and if what Nicola Sturgeon says is true (and she certainly did refer to this low cases issue in her speech last Monday as I posted in here about it) then why was the publiuc in England not warned that there was a problem and the case numbers may actually be a lot higher?

Indeed the way they acted by talking up more serious measures and locking down northern regions make sense in light of them knowing there had been many missing cases from here not made public for days already.

So I hope some on the ball journalist (if one exists) asks why NIcola Sturgeon could spot the issue a week ago and tell her people that she was investigating and then the next day it was cleared up in so far as Scotland was concerned at least - but in England where it was then having serious impact we were kept in the dark all week?

Just confirmed on BBC News that the NW and Yorkshire is the most seriously impacted by all the missing cases. But that this is just inevitable as we were doing more tests here.

It may be so but Andy Burnham and the other northern leaders need to use this to force much more local involvement in handling this data from now on given that I assume even they were not warned all last week. Which surely they must be angry over now if that is true.

 

[lancs blue]

So I hope some on the ball journalist (if one exists) asks why NIcola Sturgeon could spot the issue a week ago and tell her people that she was investigating and then the next day it was cleared up in so far as Scotland was concerned at least - but in England where it was then having serious impact we were kept in the dark all week?

Unfortunately the instincts of most government/civil service departments dictate that a cover-up is the default reaction in the hope that it can be sorted out quickly and then they can pretend it never happened. In this instance of course that approach was probably doomed from the start.