Re: Coronavirus - Numbers and Statistics

[redsturgeon]

I understand your desire to get answers at trust level but surely for practical purposes data at regional level would suffice and some national figure would be quick and easy to do.

The reason for doing things at the trust level is that this is the lowest point at which we have information. What happened this season is that some areas which had not had much infection started getting infected somewhere in November. This then started showing up on hospital admissions in late November/December/January.

Doing the same calculations at a regional level or national level will not work because it does not take into account the variation between areas.

The yellow dots are hospital admissions and the red lines are gompertz first differential curves calculated from the fitting of the total number of admissions by date to the actual gompertz curve which I think is the best way of dealing with daily variation.

I may look at presenting instead the actual gompertz curve which will show better the link between actual and model.

In the end, however, what we really need to have are the number of people living in each Trust area. We can then work out how many people one would estimate would go to hospital before the virus controls itself (as it has been doing in certain defined areas)

If you are talking about a peak in hospital admissions then surely you are looking at a peak after the peak in cases which to me does not look to have happened yet, let alone before Xmas.

The "cases" figures depends on PCR. Hospital admissions follow infection by about a fortnight.

I think you have got so tied up in the minutiae of the figures that you have lost sight of the more important bigger picture.

Why in fighting a pandemic do you need to worry about what is happening on one street in London vs another street? London is going up in flames at the moment, a couple of weeks after you were telling us how low the admissions rate at Guys was.

So what? I told you then and I will repeat it now. So what?

You are clearly a clever guy, please look up from the spreadsheets and see.

See the staff in ITUs across our country at breaking point.
See the ambulances lined up outside A&E depts .
See the numbers of dead per day north of 1000 and don't be surprised if that number hits 2000 before the end of the month.

But I guess we needn't worry since Guys had low number of admissions a couple of weeks ago, nothing to see here.

It's just the seasonal peak, nothing to see here.

John

[swill453]

In the end, however, what we really need to have are the number of people living in each Trust area. We can then work out how many people one would estimate would go to hospital before the virus controls itself (as it has been doing in certain defined areas)

For many weeks we've known that people are being hospitalised outside their local area for operational reasons. I don't think you can learn very much looking at such a low granularity.

Scott.

[jfgw]

My thought,

Spot the wood...


https://www.theurbanlist.com/melbourne/ ... zine-trees


Julian F. G. W.

[johnhemming]

I think you have got so tied up in the minutiae of the figures that you have lost sight of the more important bigger picture.

Why in fighting a pandemic do you need to worry about what is happening on one street in London vs another street? London is going up in flames at the moment, a couple of weeks after you were telling us how low the admissions rate at Guys was.

It is worth knowing where things are going.

We don't really have the information for that beyond what is happening internationally and the little data we have from government. I am not sure that the government actually have that good an idea as to what is happening.

It is possible to work things out from as I said the Guy's figures and that would be useful to know.

In the end, however, we have to live with whatever the government is doing. I am inclined to go with the flow on that so I wear my mask (where legally required) and we always planned to stay at home for Christmas so none of our plans changed with the changes in government policy.

They are saying the virus is out of control. My view is that the virus was not actually controlled anyway. It did its own thing.

I would like to know what is going on, but I also accept that I don't have the figures to enable me to properly work it out. I can make rough estimates, but without the right data they are going to be less accurate than I would wish.

[funduffer]

Now vaccinations are underway in the over-80's (a quarter of them so far?), we should start to see hospital admissions start to fall, even though case numbers may continue to rise. In a month or so, we should then start to see an impact on the deaths data, as the over-80's, who are most likely to die, gain their immunity.

I would have thought we would see the impact of vaccination affect data in the following order:

1. Infection rates in the Over-80's
2. Overall Covid Hospital admissions
3. Overall Covid Deaths
4. Overall case numbers

In fact the latest ONS survey, up to 24/12 already shows a declining rate in cases in the over 70's, although this is clearly not vaccine related.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... cember2020

Not sure where to find more recent data of over-80's case numbers, but there should be some around.

[redsturgeon]

I think you have got so tied up in the minutiae of the figures that you have lost sight of the more important bigger picture.

Why in fighting a pandemic do you need to worry about what is happening on one street in London vs another street? London is going up in flames at the moment, a couple of weeks after you were telling us how low the admissions rate at Guys was.

It is worth knowing where things are going.

We don't really have the information for that beyond what is happening internationally and the little data we have from government. I am not sure that the government actually have that good an idea as to what is happening.

It is possible to work things out from as I said the Guy's figures and that would be useful to know.

In the end, however, we have to live with whatever the government is doing. I am inclined to go with the flow on that so I wear my mask (where legally required) and we always planned to stay at home for Christmas so none of our plans changed with the changes in government policy.

They are saying the virus is out of control. My view is that the virus was not actually controlled anyway. It did its own thing.

I would like to know what is going on, but I also accept that I don't have the figures to enable me to properly work it out. I can make rough estimates, but without the right data they are going to be less accurate than I would wish.

Thank you for your reply that helps me understand where you are coming from a little more clearly.

At one stage my worry was that you were somehow trying to use the figures to downplay the seriousness of the situation we were finding ourselves in before Xmas.

I hope that nobody out there is in any doubt now about how close we are to the edge. Hopefully we will just pull through by the skin of our teeth but with many more deaths to come over the next few weeks and much hardship for many in the UK and around the world, we all need to do everything we can to minimise/mitigate contacts with others.


John

[jfgw]

In fact the latest ONS survey, up to 24/12 already shows a declining rate in cases in the over 70's, although this is clearly not vaccine related.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... cember2020

Bear in mind that these data do not include people in care homes or hospitals.

Newer data now released, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... anuary2021

Apart from school year 12 to age 24, the curves have all peaked. This does not seem right to me, especially as London is the only region showing a clear peak, and...

The modelled estimates are presented at the reference value for a region which is the East Midlands.

...which is going up.

All results are provisional and subject to revision.

Julian F. G. W.

[johnhemming]

At one stage my worry was that you were somehow trying to use the figures to downplay the seriousness of the situation we were finding ourselves in before Xmas.

Clearly the virus is a nasty virus and with 3849 hospital on 7/1 (as opposed to 3967 on 6/1) a lot of people and their families are being affected.

[Arborbridge]

In the end, however, what we really need to have are the number of people living in each Trust area. We can then work out how many people one would estimate would go to hospital before the virus controls itself (as it has been doing in certain defined areas)

For many weeks we've known that people are being hospitalised outside their local area for operational reasons. I don't think you can learn very much looking at such a low granularity.

Scott.

Staring at the minute details, checking the Gompertz curve, over-analysing and waiting for admissions data on the ground - all very well but it puts us behind the curve as regards taking precautionary action. If this is the science Boriska is following, no wonder we're way behind in response at each step. Actually, I doubt that is the reason: it's just that his freedom loving Tory approach is the wrong weapon when at war with a virus.

Arb.

[scrumpyjack]

Great - the Queen and Prince Philip have been vaccinated but they don't say which one they got

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-famil ... announces/

[XFool]

Great - the Queen and Prince Philip have been vaccinated but they don't say which one they got

Why does it matter?

[funduffer]

Great - the Queen and Prince Philip have been vaccinated but they don't say which one they got

Why does it matter?

I can think of 2 reasons:

1) It shows that royalty, who many people respect, have confidence in the vaccine, and so may discourage vaccine refusal.

2) it shows they waited in the queue for a while, and weren't the first in line.

FD

[servodude]

My thought,

Spot the wood...


Julian F. G. W.

Got a bit of a flashback from your chosen trees..
- a good friend of mine was involved in the exhibition it was advertising
- and I was at the Mill brewery across Smith St from that gallery yesterday https://www.themillbrewery.com.au/


-sd
(worked 10 years in Fitzroy on moving to Melbourne - 7 on Argyle St)

[swill453]

Great - the Queen and Prince Philip have been vaccinated but they don't say which one they got

Why does it matter?

I can think of 2 reasons:

1) It shows that royalty, who many people respect, have confidence in the vaccine, and so may discourage vaccine refusal.

2) it shows they waited in the queue for a while, and weren't the first in line.

I think the question was "why does it matter which version of the vaccine they got?".

(IMO it doesn't)

Scott.

[servodude]

Great - the Queen and Prince Philip have been vaccinated but they don't say which one they got

Why does it matter?

I can think of 2 reasons:

1) It shows that royalty, who many people respect, have confidence in the vaccine, and so may discourage vaccine refusal.

2) it shows they waited in the queue for a while, and weren't the first in line.

FD

Perhaps the why was about the type of vaccine?
There's a perception by some that the AZ is lesser than the Pfizer
- so much so that some fuds might pass up the offer of it
- anything that could help overcome reluctance to vaccinate would help

-sd

[swill453]

There's a perception by some that the AZ is lesser than the Pfizer
- so much so that some fuds might pass up the offer of it

- balanced by the fuds that prefer an "English" vaccine...

Scott.

[servodude]

There's a perception by some that the AZ is lesser than the Pfizer
- so much so that some fuds might pass up the offer of it

- balanced by the fuds that prefer an "English" vaccine...

Scott.

Fuds do as fuds will!
- I don't care what they're thinking when they get vaccinated
- as long as they do as soon as they can!

I'm getting quite bored of this pandemic
- and those that would prolong it through inaction

-sd

[johnhemming]

I was thinking that although I don't have the trust figures I do have the population for the NHS regions (some sort of reasonable figure). Hence I have done a calculation to apportion hospital admissions by population and compare that to the number admittted. This has some potential of giving an indication of how much further the pandemic has to go in different regions.

This is what I get

area	England	East	Lon	Mid	NE	NW	SE	SW
pop	56.28	6.24	8.96	10.77	8.17	7.34	9.18	5.62
tot	263064	24127	49279	52195	45018	43371	33627	15447
w1	112123	10275	24592	21681	16667	18809	14033	6066
w2	150941	13852	24687	30514	28351	24562	19594	9381
								
tot	x	29167	41881	50341	38188	34309	42909	26269
w1	x	12432	17850	21456	16277	14623	18289	11196
w2	x	16735	24030	28885	21912	19686	24620	15073
								
tot	x	-17%	18%	4%	18%	26%	-22%	-41%
w1	x	-17%	38%	1%	2%	29%	-23%	-46%
w2	x	-17%	3%	6%	29%	25%	-20%	-38%

I have used 31st July as the delimiter.

[XFool]

Why does it matter?

I can think of 2 reasons:

1) It shows that royalty, who many people respect, have confidence in the vaccine, and so may discourage vaccine refusal.

2) it shows they waited in the queue for a while, and weren't the first in line.

I think the question was "why does it matter which version of the vaccine they got?".

(IMO it doesn't)

Scott.

Exactly.

Thinks: Shouldn't this be on the other thread?

[jfgw]

My somewhat educated guess, and that's all it is, would be that absent the more contagious strain(s), the propagation would have been slower and/or flatter. However, I'm not convinced it would have fallen to a lower level in the time implied - easing of lockdown, schools in, Christmas* dissemination etc would likely have seen to that IMO. I judge it would have been and would still be rising.

One question, (for you and anyone-else),

Why do you think that the infections other than the S- gene variant are going down?

What do you think is limiting them now which would not be limiting them without the new variant?

Infections from the new variant will increase the amount of herd immunity but that does not explain why "other" variant positives were falling while positives from the new variant were still low. The dips in overall positives and admissions seem too late to have been caused by the lockdown.

Julian F. G. W.

A possible reason (just a hunch) is that if you're doing risky interactions, the more infectious variant is most likely to get you first (because it's more infectious), and you're then immune from catching the "old" less infectious variant.

This would only happen if we were getting close to, or had exceeded, the HIT for the less infectious variants. The dip suggests the latter.


Julian F. G. W.