Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

Yes that sounds right. I think the Washington State outbreak derived from China? But it seemed to have fizzled out locally rather like the UK cases from China.

 

Does anyone know why the ONS figures have not been added on to the “official” death toll? Didn’t the ONS release some figures recently? What about the fact we know they’re not adding community and care home deaths in, but care England said there could be as many as 7,500 cases.. will that ever be looked at and added? What’s the procedure for this?

I don’t understand why we are told the death toll is..
When the ONS has said it’s not accurate and I’m sure it’s given updated figures?

 

@Adrian yes I know, that’s what I mean. The UK figures are not the accurate figures, then. So why is it that number which is used by our politicians, on news channels and media, by scientists analysing different countries response and deaths? It’s not accurate and we know it’s not.

so what is the procedure to actually update these figures so they represent the true deaths? Because it doesn’t look like there is a procedure to do this, unless I’ve missed something.

Edit: just had a look and only some news articles say these are hospital deaths only. But many don’t.

 

Another factor may be that the UK has a population density about eight times that of USA. We are closer together. Probably a higher percentage of us has caught the virus but of course nobody knows.

 

many thanks that's very useful. For others... The telegraph has a tracker, but I don't know how good it is because you have to log in & I haven't the energy

 

the telegraph tracker is letting me see the page. It doesn’t have any extra information than the guardian one. They just say the number of cases in your area, like the guardian one does.

 

And if they'd been doing contact tracing they would have a lot of this information...

 

This site was useful and user friendly for me. It lets you play with data and charts and graphs.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

 

I've just finished watching a documentary about the 1918 Spanish Flu. A third wave followed in January 1919, ending in the spring.

 

The only R square values that look meaningful are these:

- there's a positive association between confirmed covid cases and population density in the region
- there's a positive association between confirmed covid cases and household overcrowding (% households in the region that are overcrowded).
- there's a positive association between confirmed covid cases and % of BAME people in the region
- there's a positive association between confirmed covid cases and % of people in the region who travel to work by train
- there's a positive association between confirmed covid cases and % of older people in the region who are "long-term social care clients".
- there's a positive association between confirmed covid cases and % of older people in the region with "income deprivation"

One of the more reliable associations goes in the opposite direction to that expected:
- there's a negative association between confirmed covid cases and % of people aged over 65 in the region

Also, you have to take them all with a pinch of salt, because for almost every measure that yielded a positive finding these is a very similar alternative measure that yielded null findings (so the ones I've listed above are cherry picked to a large extent).

Finally, bear in mind that these relations might be mediated by other, entirely different factors. So for example, % of people who travel to work by train is likely to be higher in cities, and they are also more densely populated.

 

NZ's daily new case totals include confirmed and probable* cases.
Today, for example, we had a total of 9 new cases, made up of 7 confirmed (by test) and 2 probable cases.

Do all countries do this, or do some only count confirmed cases - which would make comparisons (even more) misleading?

*Probable cases are people who have symptoms strongly suggestive of covid but whose test result hasn't come back yet, or whose test was negative but where the doctors suspect a problem with the test. Also people with a clinical picture of covid but who can't be tested because it would be distressing for them, e.g. dementia patients.

 

In the UK most of the time they don't even bother to confirm typical cases if mild as far as I can see. Outride numbers should probably be multiplied by ten. 9 new cases sounds good. Put on masks and it will be zero before you can say Jack Robinson.

 

I don’t think our lockdown is anywhere near good enough. People are actively encouraged to go outside once a day (some are allowed out more than once, if they have certain disabilities. If you have a dog - other members of household can walk dog more than once. Then what about food and medicines, that’s another trip presumably?) I think about the streets outside my flat and how narrow some of them are, and the fact people don’t wear masks, and also don’t seem to realise talking can spread the virus. Compare this to Wuhan where one person from each household was allowed out once every 3 days for food and essentials only.

A friend in North London who goes out to shops every 1-2 weeks, tells me only about 50% of people there have masks on, and even those that do, sometimes don’t seem to understand and pull the mask down under their nose. She says people working in her local supermarkets (she’s been to two) don’t wear masks and often don’t seem to care about social distancing.

Postmen and delivery drivers that come to my flat don’t have masks on, or anything.

Then there’s the matter of 15,000 people coming into the country each day. No tests no enforced quarantine, no tracing.

Schools, some still open. Construction sites & “essential” work open - if you can’t work from home, you can travel to work.

Then there’s the whole only stay at home 7 days after onset, which the govt have repeatedly been asked about but not given a proper answer as to why we diverge so much from other countries & the WHO. People will be going to the supermarket, to work, on public transport, 7 days after they first got symptoms, and if still infected - spreading it.

Because of no tracing - I have no idea if any people in my block of flats is infected. I’m sure some would be. Yet there’s no increased cleaning of communal areas in my flats at all since the start of this crisis, and we haven’t been told, so those in the flats don’t know to be more careful.

I don’t know how tubes & buses are at peak time, but in London quite a few bus drivers have died and so now, they’ve had to make it so people only board the bus at the middle doors and they’ve even made All bus travel free, so that people don’t go near the bus driver! So there must have been quite a big problem and it’s spreading through public transport somehow.

As Jonathan Edwards said earlier, we don’t even have data so we don’t know how it’s even spreading.

There’s so many issues like this. It worries me so much that even when we are in lockdown, it’s a half hearted one at best, and our case numbers aren’t dropping. It worries me that people aren’t being traced and they’re putting emphasis on an app in the future, there’s absolutely nothing being done at our borders. I don’t know when our leaders will recognise that it’s not enough.

 

There have been a number of Swedish news articles lately, commenting on the growing number of people out and about in Stockholm.

Based on data collected and analysed by the mobile network operator Telia, there are "tens of thousands more" people out and about now, compared to at the end of March. They expect the numbers to rise even more in the coming days/weeks, because of the warmer, lovelier weather.

So, it seems that loose advice/recommendations maybe aren't so sustainable after all? What are the trends in comparable countries/places that are using stricter laws etc, do you know?

I can't help thinking, maybe the loose advice/recommendations in combination with the overall reassuring tone of the public health authority's messages ("everything is under control", a considerable focus on reassurances and reducing people's worry etc), is giving lots of people a false impression of how serious the situation actually is?

 

jUst this morning I heard on our local Montreal news, that if we consider Quebec a country (and it does operate more or less like an independent state) then we rank 4th worst in the world: starting with Spain, Italy and the USA--Quebec is next in line. One of the lead doctors at the local Jewish General Hospital made this statement. He broke down the data by how many suffered per million. There are currently 8.5 million residents in Quebec. Not very cheerful. Whereas, there are many provinces in Canada where things are very quiet. One friend in Winnipeg Manitoba wrote to say that folks are walking about in large groups. Quebec and Ontario are hardest hit.

 

RE: Pollution.

Both Sweden and the UK havn´t implemented that strict measures, though it would be needed to compare them. Apart from that, pollution may be a factor:

daily deaths in Sweden:

in the UK

 

I think this is the crucial point. How the hell can you manage anything if you don't have the data? It's like trying to drive a car blindfolded.