COVID19

[canta_brian]

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... 3april2020

The headline figure for me is that total deaths for the week ending 3 April was 6082 higher than the 5 year average.

Highest weekly figure ever recorded. (Records started 2005).

[Which Tyler]

Total deaths is an important number, but can vary and be subject to lots of other causes. Nonetheless a friend who is a psychologist was telling me that they have closed their eating disorder clinic. There will undoubtedly be deaths as a result of that sort of action. These should not be forgotten in the tally of the dead and of the consequences of the government's choices.

Which is why you need an expected death rate as a comparator.
We know average figures per week, for each week of thenyear, with data going back 15 years.
We know how many deaths to expect in week 15, and we know the standard deviation (or at least, the ONS known this stuff).
Yes, of course there are fluctuations, and looking at the stats provided, those fluctuations are along the line of a few hundred. Not 6000.

What we don't know from any official stat.s is where corpse A was killed by COVID, or by something else; and even if we did know that, it wouldn't be as important as total deaths anyway, due to confounders such as "would corpse A, who tested negative for COVID, have died at this point if the NHS was running normally"

What we do expect for the "total deaths" figure, is for it to be lower than average for the last 4-6 weeks, as pretty much everyone has increased their personal hygiene, social distancing would make a difference for other viruses (and bacteria), and the number of road deaths (and work-related) would be massively down since lockdown.

I am getting a bit hacked off with the almost exclusively right wing government apologists who say some variety of "well person x was going to die anyway with their terminal cancer so it happening sooner because of Covid 19 shouldn't really be a Covid death". We're all going to die. It doesn't mean I get a pass if I shoot you in the face.

I believe I've been making this point since February

[Sandydragon]

I'm not asking them to guess. I want them to report the number of death attributed to Covid-19, regardless of the place of death. Even if it's a weekly update of non-hospital deaths, if the number is known, it should be reported by the government in their press conferences.

And as Ive pointed out, they won't release figures unless they are certain. Too many variables. You may think the government is trying to spin this positively, but no responsible government would release information that is potentially going to change later.

If the death certificate says cause of death Covid-19 what other kind of certainty are you waiting for?

Because there are question marks over how causes of death are being determined outside of hospitals.

[Sandydragon]

If data collection at this time were delayed for a space zombie festival, then I'd want someone's head on a fucking plate.

There's certainly something messing the numbers up. They were between 12 and 20 for 3 days and suddenly up to 114 today.

Looks like a 7-day average is needed. Or banning space zombie festivals.

It happens. Just like everywhere else, it's probably reported deaths. They just got around to it. That's why if you're looking for statistics and trends, it's best to take a larger sample size...

Don't get pissed off at reporting on this, they've got enough to deal with. Just keep calm, keep getting on, and stay safe.

And lynch any anti-vaxxers.

Amen to that. Giving the public 100% feedback isn't the highest priority tight now. Keeping people appropriately informed on the trend in their country (which hospital deaths can do) is more important whilst acknowledging that the final death rate will be higher. I think most people understand that. There are more important things to be doing right now than getting stats exactly perfect.

[Puja]

I made the horrendous mistake the other day of looking at something on twitter and a few hyperlinks took me to Bill Gates's page which was utter fucking pandemonium. Apparently the man who is currently spending the majority of his fortune on trying to make the world better is the new hate figure for the internet loons, even worse than Soros. Every tweet @BillGates was about how he wanted to kill all the Africans with vaccines because he wanted to reduce the population of the earth to save the planet from fake climate change. Not only is he probably responsible for Covid19 (due to being in control/under control of China who created it, despite the fact that it's actually just a hoax to keep us scared, stymie Trump's wonderful economy, and allow Gates to poison us all with his vaccines), he is also in league with Elon Musk (who incidentally is a liar keeping up the hoax of space travel being real) to kill us/brainwash all with 5G (because he did computers and 5G is technology and all technologies are the same), and was part of a conspiracy with Epstein and Clinton to prostitute children because there are photos of him with them (separately) which he CANNOT EXPLAIN!

It is terrifying how many credulous and stupid people there are out there and awful that they appear to have latched onto someone who, while not being a perfect human being, is currently using his position of wealth, power, and privilege to make a real difference to the world when he could just as easily be hoarding more money to live on a private Carribean island or screwing employees to make himself even more impossibly rich, like Branson and Bezos.

Puja

[Sandydragon]

1. I think this is the question that will cause a lot of disparity and confusion.
2. If someone is terminally ill from cancer, but catches covid, is their eventual death a result of the cancer or covid19? Or both?
3. If someone dies at home who is elderly and had cover symptoms but isn't tested, is it covid 19 on the death certificate or respiratory failure caused by unknown cause?
4. Then there will be deaths caused by an extremely busy NHS that might not otherwise have happened, plus other deaths caused by the lockdown and ensuring economic impact. There could be lots of figures suggested going forward.

1. That's why total deaths is the relevant figure. It's the only one that actually matters (it's also the only one that can be actually known)
2. Both will be on the death certificate (UK - different countries will use different systems)
3. "Pneumonia"
4. Yes, that's why total deaths is the important number.

Total deaths is an important number, but can vary and be subject to lots of other causes. Nonetheless a friend who is a psychologist was telling me that they have closed their eating disorder clinic. There will undoubtedly be deaths as a result of that sort of action. These should not be forgotten in the tally of the dead and of the consequences of the government's choices.

I am getting a bit hacked off with the almost exclusively right wing government apologists who say some variety of "well person x was going to die anyway with their terminal cancer so it happening sooner because of Covid 19 shouldn't really be a Covid death". We're all going to die. It doesn't mean I get a pass if I shoot you in the face.

And if the known death rate form cancer is down due to cover, will you be as happy when spending on cancer treatment is altered? Its not a question of hiding anything or being a government apologist (any more than some of you can't put politics aside at the moment and just want to bash the government) but recognising that getting the stats right is important but is less important than other priorities.

[Sandydragon]

Total deaths is an important number, but can vary and be subject to lots of other causes. Nonetheless a friend who is a psychologist was telling me that they have closed their eating disorder clinic. There will undoubtedly be deaths as a result of that sort of action. These should not be forgotten in the tally of the dead and of the consequences of the government's choices.

Which is why you need an expected death rate as a comparator.
We know average figures per week, for each week of thenyear, with data going back 15 years.
We know how many deaths to expect in week 15, and we know the standard deviation (or at least, the ONS known this stuff).
Yes, of course there are fluctuations, and looking at the stats provided, those fluctuations are along the line of a few hundred. Not 6000.

What we don't know from any official stat.s is where corpse A was killed by COVID, or by something else; and even if we did know that, it wouldn't be as important as total deaths anyway, due to confounders such as "would corpse A, who tested negative for COVID, have died at this point if the NHS was running normally"

What we do expect for the "total deaths" figure, is for it to be lower than average for the last 4-6 weeks, as pretty much everyone has increased their personal hygiene, social distancing would make a difference for other viruses (and bacteria), and the number of road deaths (and work-related) would be massively down since lockdown.

I am getting a bit hacked off with the almost exclusively right wing government apologists who say some variety of "well person x was going to die anyway with their terminal cancer so it happening sooner because of Covid 19 shouldn't really be a Covid death". We're all going to die. It doesn't mean I get a pass if I shoot you in the face.

I believe I've been making this point since February

Which basically means there are too many variables in there to work out an accurate figure for who has died from cover vs someone who has had a heart attack at home alone. You need accurate data to manage a situation and this is something for post event analysis, not day to day management. Bearing in mind that much of the government and civil service is currently working in crisis mode to keep essential functions going, how much time do you think they are spending on reviewing data that isn't from their own sources?

[Son of Mathonwy]

If data collection at this time were delayed for a space zombie festival, then I'd want someone's head on a fucking plate.

There's certainly something messing the numbers up. They were between 12 and 20 for 3 days and suddenly up to 114 today.

Looks like a 7-day average is needed. Or banning space zombie festivals.

It happens. Just like everywhere else, it's probably reported deaths. They just got around to it. That's why if you're looking for statistics and trends, it's best to take a larger sample size...

Don't get pissed off at reporting on this, they've got enough to deal with. Just keep calm, keep getting on, and stay safe.

Absolutely, no big deal. MP was less than impressed with their data collection, so I thought I'd follow it up.

[Son of Mathonwy]

And as Ive pointed out, they won't release figures unless they are certain. Too many variables. You may think the government is trying to spin this positively, but no responsible government would release information that is potentially going to change later.

If the death certificate says cause of death Covid-19 what other kind of certainty are you waiting for?

Because there are question marks over how causes of death are being determined outside of hospitals.

Ok, I guess we'll have to disagree on this one. If the death certificate says Covid-19, I don't think we're likely to get any more certainty in that particular case. So leaving it out of the official figures seems (to me) to be self-serving.

Deaths above the norm for this time of year are a different matter and will require a lot more analysis. Ultimately they are the more important number (since the government has a duty to keep its citizens safe, no matter the cause), but they can't be said to be "Covid-19 deaths" without evidence linking them to the virus.

[Banquo]

worth a read
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... vid-19.pdf

[Mellsblue]

worth a read
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... vid-19.pdf

Ha! Was literally just about to post that.

[Puja]

FB_IMG_1586953711038.jpg

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Long term trend looks good/less s**t

[Son of Mathonwy]

This sums up a lot of my thinking on the UK's response to the virus:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... who-advice

An additional comparative:
On 23 Jan, the day the Wuhan lockdown began, there were a total 25 deaths and 830 cases in China.
On 23 Mar, when the UK lockdown began, there were 335 deaths and 6650 cases in the UK.

So Covid-19 was around 10x better established in the UK when we started our lockdown, compared with China. This was a head start we didn't need to give to the virus, having seen the same thing play out in Italy, having been warned by the WHO, having seen how the Far East was dealing with things. But the virus got that head start, and a delay of 11 days is something you don't recover from - it just puts you in a much deeper hole. That's exponential growth for you.

[Mellsblue]

So, per capita the U.K. locked down earlier than China. That’s measuring exponential growth per capita for you.

[Digby]

How in the name of anything is anyone getting reliable figures out of China? This is a country that forced a doctor trying to even report they had a new disease to apologise for his lies against the state shortly before he died from the disease, they're being more truthful now perhaps than they were, but you might as well listen to Trump for the truth

[morepork]

Fuck man. It's here. Try and ride it out. Too many fuck ups around the world to be able to get a comprehensive handle on things until the end. What we do know is that countries that dithered around with distancing measures got hit hardest in the shortest time. Which should be a surprise to absolutely no one as it is a virus with no treatment. All it does is infect and make more virus until it runs out of hosts or something is available to stop it. It's that simple.

[Sandydragon]

This sums up a lot of my thinking on the UK's response to the virus:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... who-advice

An additional comparative:
On 23 Jan, the day the Wuhan lockdown began, there were a total 25 deaths and 830 cases in China.
On 23 Mar, when the UK lockdown began, there were 335 deaths and 6650 cases in the UK.

So Covid-19 was around 10x better established in the UK when we started our lockdown, compared with China. This was a head start we didn't need to give to the virus, having seen the same thing play out in Italy, having been warned by the WHO, having seen how the Far East was dealing with things. But the virus got that head start, and a delay of 11 days is something you don't recover from - it just puts you in a much deeper hole. That's exponential growth for you.

Put another way, the first cases in Wuhan were reported at the end of November 2019. Yet the lockdown in China occurred almost two months later, with some well documented attempts to cover it up along the way.

[Sandydragon]

Fuck man. It's here. Try and ride it out. Too many fuck ups around the world to be able to get a comprehensive handle on things until the end. What we do know is that countries that dithered around with distancing measures got hit hardest in the shortest time. Which should be a surprise to absolutely no one as it is a virus with no treatment. All it does is infect and make more virus until it runs out of hosts or something is available to stop it. It's that simple.

It’s clear the the UK governments initial approach was flawed. That needs looking at in detail, but that can wait until the aftermath.

[Son of Mathonwy]

So, per capita the U.K. locked down earlier than China. That’s measuring exponential growth per capita for you.

No. Per capita we were even worse.

On absolute numbers our deaths at lockdown were 13x China's.

On per capita numbers they were 284x China's.

[Son of Mathonwy]

This sums up a lot of my thinking on the UK's response to the virus:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... who-advice

An additional comparative:
On 23 Jan, the day the Wuhan lockdown began, there were a total 25 deaths and 830 cases in China.
On 23 Mar, when the UK lockdown began, there were 335 deaths and 6650 cases in the UK.

So Covid-19 was around 10x better established in the UK when we started our lockdown, compared with China. This was a head start we didn't need to give to the virus, having seen the same thing play out in Italy, having been warned by the WHO, having seen how the Far East was dealing with things. But the virus got that head start, and a delay of 11 days is something you don't recover from - it just puts you in a much deeper hole. That's exponential growth for you.

Put another way, the first cases in Wuhan were reported at the end of November 2019. Yet the lockdown in China occurred almost two months later, with some well documented attempts to cover it up along the way.

I don't understand your point here.

[Mellsblue]

So, per capita the U.K. locked down earlier than China. That’s measuring exponential growth per capita for you.

No. Per capita we were even worse.

On absolute numbers our deaths at lockdown were 13x China's.

On per capita numbers they were 284x China's.

Fair enough. Mea culpa. I was writing that whilst trying to deal with two increasingly restless children and from a position that you are still believing China’s numbers and equating two countries that are completely different in pretty much every sense.
It’s like me looking at Sweden’s raw data and deciding we shouldn’t lockdown at all. It’s a ridiculous position to take and at least we can believe Sweden’s data.

[Sandydragon]

This sums up a lot of my thinking on the UK's response to the virus:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... who-advice

An additional comparative:
On 23 Jan, the day the Wuhan lockdown began, there were a total 25 deaths and 830 cases in China.
On 23 Mar, when the UK lockdown began, there were 335 deaths and 6650 cases in the UK.

So Covid-19 was around 10x better established in the UK when we started our lockdown, compared with China. This was a head start we didn't need to give to the virus, having seen the same thing play out in Italy, having been warned by the WHO, having seen how the Far East was dealing with things. But the virus got that head start, and a delay of 11 days is something you don't recover from - it just puts you in a much deeper hole. That's exponential growth for you.

Put another way, the first cases in Wuhan were reported at the end of November 2019. Yet the lockdown in China occurred almost two months later, with some well documented attempts to cover it up along the way.

I don't understand your point here.

China could have acted with greater rapidity if it had not attempted to silence the messenger. Their lockdown did prove to be effective (and no I don’t trust their numbers) but could they have acted sooner if they had investigated the reports coming out of Wuhan? Probably.

[Sandydragon]

So, per capita the U.K. locked down earlier than China. That’s measuring exponential growth per capita for you.

No. Per capita we were even worse.

On absolute numbers our deaths at lockdown were 13x China's.

On per capita numbers they were 284x China's.

Fair enough. Mea culpa. I was writing that whilst trying to deal with two increasingly restless children and from a position that you are still believing China’s numbers and equating two countries that are completely different in pretty much every sense.
It’s like me looking at Sweden’s raw data and deciding we shouldn’t lockdown at all. It’s a ridiculous position to take and at least we can believe Sweden’s data.

That’s the position taken by many a Times reader judging by the comments section in that paper.

[Mellsblue]

No. Per capita we were even worse.

On absolute numbers our deaths at lockdown were 13x China's.

On per capita numbers they were 284x China's.

Fair enough. Mea culpa. I was writing that whilst trying to deal with two increasingly restless children and from a position that you are still believing China’s numbers and equating two countries that are completely different in pretty much every sense.
It’s like me looking at Sweden’s raw data and deciding we shouldn’t lockdown at all. It’s a ridiculous position to take and at least we can believe Sweden’s data.

That’s the position taken by many a Times reader judging by the comments section in that paper.

Not sure which shows less judgement, arguing that we should follow the Swedish model or reading the comments section on a newspaper’s website.