COVID-19

[El Pollo Diablo]

Yeah, exactly. And there will obviously be mismatches in how countries record and categorise things, but there wasn't any obvious way that Italy was as much as four weeks ahead of us, or that we'd do so much better. The blog linked somehow both clarifies things but leaves me absolutely baffled.

[jimbob]

https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d0 ... 39799fa6ab

Good find, thank you. Interesting (and sobering) to be able to see the stats from that perspective. I do hope someone asks the government about this in the next day or two. Do we have a functioning parliament yet, or are we still at the mercy of the journalists to scrutinise the government on our behalf?

Rosewind (from here) has a very clear tweet about it.

https://twitter.com/Rosewind2007/status ... 21824?s=20

[Bird on a Fire]

Yep, it seemed odd at the time, and tbh was the main reason I started collating the DHSC numbers together, even if those numbers turned out to be a huuuge underestimate.

You can really see how we're trying to reduce the cognitive dissonance between "well, those are actual scientists saying that" and "it looks like total nonsense from even the most cursory glance at the numbers".

It was nice to see that monkey video that secret squirrel posted again.

I love monkeys.

[JQH]

https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d0 ... 39799fa6ab

I'd just come here to post that. I commented earlier that we needed to see an analysis of excess death figures and they confirm my suspicions.

[Little waster]

Coronavirus death toll in UK twice as high as official figure


The coronavirus pandemic has already caused as many as 41,000 deaths in the UK, according to a Financial Times analysis of the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

The estimate is more than double the official figure of 17,337 released by ministers on Tuesday, which is updated daily and only counts those who have died in hospitals after testing positive for the virus.

The FT extrapolation, based on figures from the ONS that were also published on Tuesday, includes deaths that occurred outside hospitals updated to reflect recent mortality trends.

The analysis also supports emerging evidence that the peak of deaths in the UK occurred on April 8 with the mortality rate gradually trending lower since, despite the 823 hospital deaths announced on Tuesday, which were sharply up on the 449 in the previous 24 hours.

The ONS data showed that deaths registered in the week ending April 10 were 75 per cent above normal in England and Wales, the highest level for more than 20 years.

There were 18,516 deaths registered during that period compared with the most recent five year average of 10,520 for the same week of the year. There were similar patterns in Scotland and Northern Ireland 

Nick Stripe, head of life events at the Office for National Statistics, said the figure was “unprecedented”, especially as the weather had been sunny and warm in the run-up to the Easter weekend.

He added that because the week included Good Friday, when registrations were much lower than on a normal working day, the ONS numbers were also “conservatively” at least 2,000 too low.

The number of deaths in the UK has moved from running at below long term averages to well above them as a result of the pandemic. Excess deaths from all causes stand 16,952 above the seasonal average across the UK since fatalities from Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, began to mount in mid-March.

The “all cause excess mortality” figure is widely recognised as the best measure of the death toll linked to the pandemic.

David Spiegelhalter, the Winton professor of public understanding of risk at Cambridge university, said it was “the only unbiased comparison” given the problems measuring deaths and their causes.

[...]

The FT’s analysis has extrapolated these figures using the latest trends in the daily hospital deaths assuming the relationship between these and total excess deaths remained stable, as it has so far over the course of the pandemic.

Using this calculation, a conservative estimate of UK excess deaths by April 21 was 41,102.

[...]

The ONS data also showed that deaths at home and in care homes had also jumped sharply during the pandemic. In the week ending April 10, deaths in care homes reached 4,927, almost double the figure of 2,471 a month earlier.

https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d0 ... 39799fa6ab

Watching some of the BTL denialists try to find alternative interpretations of the numbers is like watching a chimp try to reprogram a VCR with a croquet mallet.

[badger]

Yeah, exactly. And there will obviously be mismatches in how countries record and categorise things, but there wasn't any obvious way that Italy was as much as four weeks ahead of us, or that we'd do so much better. The blog linked somehow both clarifies things but leaves me absolutely baffled.

Glad it's just not me.

[Woodchopper]

https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d0 ... 39799fa6ab

Good find, thank you. Interesting (and sobering) to be able to see the stats from that perspective. I do hope someone asks the government about this in the next day or two. Do we have a functioning parliament yet, or are we still at the mercy of the journalists to scrutinise the government on our behalf?

Cheers, the journalist behind the article has more info on here on methods etc: https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/ ... 6317315072

[Woodchopper]

Interesting paper on social networks and infection.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07052
And Twitter explanation: https://twitter.com/block_per/status/12 ... 6582814720

Suggests that some social contact is OK, so long as everyone sticks to the same small groups (so those groups remain isolated from each other).

[JQH]

Watching some of the BTL denialists try to find alternative interpretations of the numbers is like watching a chimp try to reprogram a VCR with a croquet mallet.

"What about fat people?"

"Old people would have died anyway!"

Jeez ...

[Gfamily]

Watching some of the BTL denialists try to find alternative interpretations of the numbers is like watching a chimp try to reprogram a VCR with a croquet mallet.

"What about fat people?"

"Old people would have died anyway!"

Jeez ...

You saw the "people age 50 should only count as 0.5" comment

[JQH]

Watching some of the BTL denialists try to find alternative interpretations of the numbers is like watching a chimp try to reprogram a VCR with a croquet mallet.

"What about fat people?"

"Old people would have died anyway!"

Jeez ...

You saw the "people age 50 should only count as 0.5" comment

I did indeed. I wonder what I would rate as a retiree in my 60s?

We know Cummings allegedly regarded pensioners as expendable so possibly the answer is 0.

[shpalman]

There's also
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... -countries
which looks at other countries.

[badger]

There's also
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... -countries
which looks at other countries.

A piece in the NYT too.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... aths.html

[Little waster]

Watching some of the BTL denialists try to find alternative interpretations of the numbers is like watching a chimp try to reprogram a VCR with a croquet mallet.

"What about fat people?"

"Old people would have died anyway!"

Jeez ...

You saw the "people age 50 should only count as 0.5" comment

That was one that stood out along with the "I don't understand the concept of error bars so therefore this must be just more Remoaner propaganda" one.

[badger]

There's also
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... -countries
which looks at other countries.

A piece in the NYT too.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... aths.html

Quick glance looks like they are using same date and model, but different (less pronounced?) to FT one upthread, I think?

[lpm]

But for our control metric, what matters is whether non-hospitalised diverges from hospitalised.

Our govt wanted us to land the plane precisely at the right moment of locking/unlocking, yet trashed most of the cockpit dashboard. They stopped testing, didn't count all deaths. The only working dial that gives real-time info is deaths in hospital (well, not real-time, but only a few days lag and some weekend effects), plus entrants into hospital.

If hospital deaths is a constant 71.95737% of all deaths, it remains a valid metric to control the plane, likewise if a constant 8.299485% of all infections lead to hospitalisation.

A bad news scenario would be: early weeks, whenever someone in a care home is struggling to breathe, they are hospitalised and if death then are in the stats. Peak weeks, care home ceases calling an ambulance and non-hospitalised death occurs - making us think the stable or declining hospital deaths figure shows we are past the worst.

Is it reasonable to think hospital deaths dipped sharply from, say, 72% to 52% of all deaths during the last couple of weeks?

[jimbob]

Coronavirus death toll in UK twice as high as official figure


The coronavirus pandemic has already caused as many as 41,000 deaths in the UK, according to a Financial Times analysis of the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

The estimate is more than double the official figure of 17,337 released by ministers on Tuesday, which is updated daily and only counts those who have died in hospitals after testing positive for the virus.

The FT extrapolation, based on figures from the ONS that were also published on Tuesday, includes deaths that occurred outside hospitals updated to reflect recent mortality trends.

The analysis also supports emerging evidence that the peak of deaths in the UK occurred on April 8 with the mortality rate gradually trending lower since, despite the 823 hospital deaths announced on Tuesday, which were sharply up on the 449 in the previous 24 hours.

The ONS data showed that deaths registered in the week ending April 10 were 75 per cent above normal in England and Wales, the highest level for more than 20 years.

There were 18,516 deaths registered during that period compared with the most recent five year average of 10,520 for the same week of the year. There were similar patterns in Scotland and Northern Ireland 

Nick Stripe, head of life events at the Office for National Statistics, said the figure was “unprecedented”, especially as the weather had been sunny and warm in the run-up to the Easter weekend.

He added that because the week included Good Friday, when registrations were much lower than on a normal working day, the ONS numbers were also “conservatively” at least 2,000 too low.

The number of deaths in the UK has moved from running at below long term averages to well above them as a result of the pandemic. Excess deaths from all causes stand 16,952 above the seasonal average across the UK since fatalities from Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, began to mount in mid-March.

The “all cause excess mortality” figure is widely recognised as the best measure of the death toll linked to the pandemic.

David Spiegelhalter, the Winton professor of public understanding of risk at Cambridge university, said it was “the only unbiased comparison” given the problems measuring deaths and their causes.

[...]

The FT’s analysis has extrapolated these figures using the latest trends in the daily hospital deaths assuming the relationship between these and total excess deaths remained stable, as it has so far over the course of the pandemic.

Using this calculation, a conservative estimate of UK excess deaths by April 21 was 41,102.

[...]

The ONS data also showed that deaths at home and in care homes had also jumped sharply during the pandemic. In the week ending April 10, deaths in care homes reached 4,927, almost double the figure of 2,471 a month earlier.

https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d0 ... 39799fa6ab

Watching some of the BTL denialists try to find alternative interpretations of the numbers is like watching a chimp try to reprogram a VCR with a croquet mallet.

"It's just an estimate" seems quite popular

[Brightonian]

SXSW cancelled. (edit: ninja'd by dyqik)

My housemate who assists with events (she moves bands in and out of venues) must be getting very nervous as she only scrapes by on the income from that. I've mentioned her before and someone suggested I ask her how she's going to manage if there's widescale cancellations of events, but she's pretty clued up, and happened to bring it up anyway. She's doing all sorts of events in the next few days (a 17-hour day included), and I reckon she's just taking on all possible work at the moment so she will have something to tide her over if it all goes to the wall.

I know really quite a lot of people in the events industry who are pretty damn worried about the situation. Much of their income is from Jun/Jul/Aug and is lucrative enough to get by the rest of the year. HARD work, mind. Most of us couldn't cope with the demands.
So, Coronavirus and visa issues for EU bands has put a lot of people in a very insecure position. Not that the UK entertainment industry contributes much to the UK GDP. Just about 30 times the fishing industry.

Yes, it is hard. My housemate (in the UK, am not there now) sometimes says things like "bashed my hand again, can't get to the doctor cause I'm working later", and then not getting back in till 3am because of a delay moving a band out. She can't plan anything as she has to always be ready to pick up work when it's there. Asked her yesterday how she's getting on and she said:

Things are sh.t. My career that I've spent years building is in the toilet. It's never been easy to make a living in music. The film industry as well. Also my jobs were my lifestyle and my social life. All gone. For at least the year is what industry heads are saying. They're only still advertising summer festivals to wait for government orders to pull them, so the insurance can be collected on. I've taken up running, and killing flies that get into the house.

Am a little shocked that festivals are still being advertised, so presumably taking bookings, just to claim on the insurance.

@Opti, any light at the end of the tunnel? And (if I' not being cheeky), any suggestions what she could do (though I suspect there's nothing out there)? She gets most of her income from the music industry, but does bits of acting on the side, and is also part-time artist during low months but she now has to give up her studio (can't keep it on).

[Opti]

No, none at all. Many of my friends have very little, to no, prospect of earning a penny this year. I wish I could be more positive, my friends range from production managers, site managers (at the biggest festivals) to riggers and stage managers. Every one of them, f.cked.
They're all the most flexible skilled problem and logistic-solving people it has ever been my pleasure to know. Yet there's no work for them.
It's f.cking tragic. The ents industry could be killed off by this clusterfucastrophe. See also, restaurants, hospitality and on and on and on ...

[discovolante]

Presumably an insurance payout would include refunds to an extent, if people are still buying tickets?

I'd only got round to buying one festival ticket so far this year but I won't be claiming it back, at least not unless the sh.t really hits the fan with us financially and we have no choice, and I still can. It will be really sad to see festival season go under

[Gfamily]

Bluedot have postponed to July 2021.

The other festival we have tickets for (Solarsphere in August), is going to make the call at the end of May.
We'll decline a refund if they cancel, as we know the guy that runs it, and a lot of his income has been lost because of uni classes closing.

[murmur]

"What about fat people?"

"Old people would have died anyway!"

Jeez ...

You saw the "people age 50 should only count as 0.5" comment

I did indeed. I wonder what I would rate as a retiree in my 60s?

We know Cummings allegedly regarded pensioners as expendable so possibly the answer is 0.

C'mon, we both know that as ex-public sector parasites doing jobs he can't understand, both with chronic and incurable health conditions, Cummings would have us at around -10.

[Martin Y]

Senior colleague who's across major sporting events was today talking about how big events postponed from this year are starting to form an impending train wreck next year, clashing with each other and squeezing less prestigious events and already shunting 2021 events into 2022. I assume entertainment events will be similar. It's so many people's livelihoods, but audiences cant be expected to go to twice as many events next year, especially if they're skint themselves.

[headshot]

Senior colleague who's across major sporting events was today talking about how big events postponed from this year are starting to form an impending train wreck next year, clashing with each other and squeezing less prestigious events and already shunting 2021 events into 2022. I assume entertainment events will be similar. It's so many people's livelihoods, but audiences cant be expected to go to twice as many events next year, especially if they're skint themselves.

It's something we're really concerned about for our theatre business.

In fact, our main concern is that 2021 won't be able to go ahead either. We have to start all of the main planning for our May-Sept season in January (earlier than that for general planning, but not actually spending any money other than paying for my time) and it's looking highly unlikely we'll be able to mount the tours in any 'normal' way with social distancing still in place.

The only saving grace is that we're an outdoor theatre company, so it might be easier to make the event work than a normal theatre...but the idea of having to space our audiences out enough to comply would make it impossible in most of our venues - not to mention that spacing out the audiences makes the job much, much harder for the actors' vocal talents.

And we still haven't worked out what we would do if the cast got ill - they work, travel and live in such close proximity that they'll all have to isolate if one of them gets sick. With six shows a week at the peak, that's a lot of missed performances. There's no viable understudy model for our business.

The theatre industry in general is very worried about what will happen if the Panto season can't go ahead. Many venues use Panto as a cash-cow to cover their costs for the whole year. If that doesn't go ahead, many of them will be f.cked.

[shpalman]

Interesting insight here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opin ... monia.html

tl;dr the covids mess up your lungs' ability to absorb oxygen, but since they still work fine for getting rid of carbon dioxide you don't consciously feel the need to breathe harder.