COVID-19

[tom p]

Saw four young people sitting together near a supermarket. People were filming them.

I went over and had a chat to say they were not social distancing and in a gathering of more than two and that they were being filmed.

They said they were on their break from the nursery opposite. And that being nursery workers they couldn't social distance from children - I replied I understand that I have three children of my own. Oh and they were on their last week.

Upped up my angry voice to say could they at least sit two metres apart. They were in a huddle at the most half a metre apart. I told them they were spoiling it for everyone and that this sort of behaviour leads to a lock down.

Anyway was told to back off and that I should leave. Which I did.

I went to the nursery to report this. Why are they letting out four people at a time for their break?

To be honest, while it looks bad, if they're working together in a nursery their infection statuses will be all-or-nothing anyway, as they'll constantly be in close proximity, sharing communal areas and sharing a huge reservoir of infectious agents (the kids). Sitting a bit further away from each other on their break isn't going to change that.

Sitting together in public on their break and being snotty about it isn't the right attitude, of course, but they're probably in a fairly unenviable position.

I didn't know this until I spoke to them though. By all accounts they were a group of four young people sitting together. And I still think that four should not be allowed to go out together on a break.

when my daughters were at nursery there were 2 shifts: 9-12 & 1-4 (or summat like that) with 12-1 lunch. Some kids would stay for lunch and some start early, but most would go home.
12-1 was the only time the nursery workers could have a break.

[greyspoke]

The BBC is not alone in having difficulty expressing daily figures, but they are quite consistent in it. Take yesterday (well that is the date on the report):

Numbers are now increasing rapidly and Sunday saw daily confirmed cases jump by more than 2,400, compared with the previous day.

OK we get the idea, but this is such clunky language. Something was 2400 greater on Sunday than it was on Saturday. It was (in fact) "total confirmed cases". The main culprit is the word "daily". Just leaving it out would pretty much cure the problem - it is not necessary to say there are daily reports because that is obvious from "compared with the previous day", and putting it in suggests cases confirmed on that day, rather than cases confirmed on all days up to and including that day. A further problem is that both "daily" and "compared to the previous day" are saying the same thing, but this redundancy confuses rather than reinforces the point. Is it the jump that is 2400 greater than the previous days jump? That interpretation would mean that "compared to the previous day" is not redundant, so would be tempting (but wrong). The comma actually strengthens this false interpretation by distancing the 2,400 from the "compared".

The graph just above those words talks of "new daily UK cases" in the main headline, although under that in slightly smaller type it says "daily confirmed cases". From that we can see that the figure didn't jump by 2,400, or even to it, in fact it fell to it from a slightly higher figure for Saturday. They appear to be confusing themselves as well as other people.

[shpalman]

Today's numbers have slightly increased my sense of optimism about Italy's situation.

The total number of positives only went up by 4050; the increase was 5217 yesterday and 5974 the day before.

Highest number so far of daily declared recoveries too (1590).

[Woodchopper]

Today's numbers have slightly increased my sense of optimism about Italy's situation.

The total number of positives only went up by 4050; the increase was 5217 yesterday and 5974 the day before.

Highest number so far of daily declared recoveries too (1590).

That’s starting to look like a trend. Good.

[El Pollo Diablo]

The rises here look to have slowed a bit, too. Both positives and deaths have curved down a little in the last couple of days. Could be a blip, could be a turning point. Probably the former.

[bjn]

It's getting into my circle of acquaintances now. Looks like my business partner's dad has come down with it, as have the couple 2 doors up from me. All are medics. My partner's dad has also just been taken into hospital.

[Gfamily]

Covid.png (9.03 KiB) Viewed 3705 times

[JellyandJackson]

It's getting into my circle of acquaintances now. Looks like my business partner's dad has come down with it, as have the couple 2 doors up from me. All are medics. My partner's dad has also just been taken into hospital.

Wishing your partner’s Dad, and all your neighbours and acquaintances, speedy recoveries.

[FlammableFlower]

All the best to those near to you bjn (physically and familialy).

[raven]

It's getting into my circle of acquaintances now. Looks like my business partner's dad has come down with it, as have the couple 2 doors up from me. All are medics. My partner's dad has also just been taken into hospital.

Hope they all recover, bjn. Hope your partner is holding up too, it must be hell not being able to visit him.

A friend of son#1 has probably had it and was just getting over it last week.(Is that two degrees or one degree away?) But of course won't know for sure and last I heard is planning on coming home to her parents to recuperate.

[headshot]

Immediate friends (2-3 of them) of mine have had it and are on the mend.

Friend’s FIL has had it too.

Wishing all your relatives the best BJN.

[Chris Preston]

On the question of how many undetected cases are there. Australia has one of the highest rates of testing at about 9000 tests per million people and is getting about 2% positives. The tests are being concentrated around cases, suspected cases and those who might have had contact. These numbers suggest that Australia is getting close to identifying all the cases present.

Australia is in a bit of a unique position in this, given it is an island a long way from most other places and the cities, while large, are very dispersed. In addition, almost all the state borders are closed to travelers, greatly reducing the movement of people. It might be possible to use the data from Australia to estimate the number of unconfirmed cases in other comparable countries. It is going to be difficult, because if other countries have not been testing as much, they will have identified a much lower proportion of individuals. One way would be to compare the deaths cases as a proxy for the total number of cases. It seems that confirmed cases and numbers of deaths are the only numbers that are being reported with anything like a level of consistency. Of course this is only possible where health systems are comparable.

The UK has very similar demographics to Australia (both have 16.4% of the population >65) and a comparable hospital system. The number of deaths per 1000 reported cases in Australia is currently at 4.13. For the UK it is currently at 63.6. The UK, as of writing, has 22,141 cases. Assuming the same death rate per 1000 infections, this would suggest that the real number of infections in the UK should be about 341,000.

Now there are a lot of assumptions here, not least of which is that the source of cases and the socio-economic groups with cases are likely very different. About 65% of cases in Australia have been directly imported with another 18% of cases directly linked to those. Many of the cases in Australia are among wealthier people (those who can afford to travel, particularly on cruises). These people are likely to have better health outcomes. The distribution of infections by age might also be different, but the highest frequency of infections in Australia is among 60-69 year olds, followed by 70-79 year olds and then 20-29 year olds. These are the main groups that travel internationally in Australia. If anything, this distribution should increase deaths, rather than reduce them. Australia recorded its first case a week before the UK did, so time is not playing a role.

Doing the same calculation for the US (and here the assumptions are going to be even less robust), suggest the real number of cases might be over 700,000.

Other than being an island a long way from anywhere, Australia was not particularly quick to put in place actions to limit the spread. They did stop travel from China and then South Korea, Iran and Italy, but got blindsided by the number of cases arriving from the US. They make up about a quarter of all imported cases, but are also responsible for at least 3 clusters of community transmission, two of which were related to Australians returning from ski holidays in Aspen. Cruise ship passengers make up a third of all imported cases, and one ship, The Ruby Princess (by my count – the numbers are a bit hard to come by, but with 68 cases in SA from this ship and 189 from NSW, there has to be more in other states) is responsible for roughly 10% of all cases in Australia. It is only in the last couple of weeks have more draconian social isolation measures been enacted.

[Squeak]

According to the federal health minister, Australia has managed to drop the daily increase in case numbers from 30% a week ago to 9% for the last few days. And that's at a time when the cruise ship cases are popping up all over the place. Just maybe we're managing to flatten the curve. Then again, we're getting a few cases in each state without an obvious transmission pathway now, so perhaps this is the in-breath before things go bad again.

The only good thing about the cruise ship cases is that they're a fairly easy group to identify and trace. If it had been some less memorable source of contamination, they'd be very hard to quarantine.

[Squeak]

ChrisP,

The Guardian have done the maths for us on this one. 440 cases so far from that single ship, 10% of all Australian cases. All The other cruise ships are adding even more.

[shpalman]

A preprint from Imperial College is Estimating the number of infections and the impact of nonpharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries.

It estimates that about 10% of the Italian population is infected, for example, or about 3% of the UK.

[bagpuss]

It's getting into my circle of acquaintances now. Looks like my business partner's dad has come down with it, as have the couple 2 doors up from me. All are medics. My partner's dad has also just been taken into hospital.

Sorry to hear that. Hope they all recover well.

[bagpuss]

Oof. I'm now wondering whether I've actually had it. A colleague had a nasty illness back in February - in hindsight all the symptoms - and she's just found out that someone she spent time with shortly before, has had it confirmed that *they* had it. I'm a bit sceptical because I'm not sure why she's only found out now - when they're not doing any post-illness testing - but maybe it's been a delay in communication rather than a delay in the other person finding out.

And I had a slight cough shortly afterwards, just before we were supposed to self-isolate. That said, she wasn't in the office much as she was too ill, and I wasn't either as I only work 2 days a week. But I did see her at least once. I think the fact that no-one else I know has had it means that my first assumption - that I had just a cold - is still by far the most likely.

[bjn]

It's getting into my circle of acquaintances now. Looks like my business partner's dad has come down with it, as have the couple 2 doors up from me. All are medics. My partner's dad has also just been taken into hospital.

Sorry to hear that. Hope they all recover well.

Neighbours are OK apparently. Self isolating and doing skype sessions on how to do ICU and A&E, which are their specialties. Hopefully back on their feet soon.

Not sure about my partner's dad though.

[Woodchopper]

Covid-19 on 210 death certificates in England and Wales by 20 March
The ONS has published the first of its new weekly bulletin which will include all instances where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate and will include non-hospital deaths.

A total of 210 deaths in England and Wales that occurred up to and including 20 March (and which were registered up to 25 March) had Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics.

This compares with 170 coronavirus-related deaths reported by NHS England and Public Health Wales up to and including March 20.

A quick note on the difference between the figures published by the ONS and those that have been published thus far by NHS England and Public Health Wales:

The ONS death figures are based on the number of deaths registered in England and Wales where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate as “deaths involving Covid-19”. The number includes all deaths, not just those in hospitals, although there is usually a delay of at least five days between a death occurring and registration.

The figures published by NHS England and Public Health Wales are for deaths only among hospital patients who have tested positive for Covid-19, but include deaths that have not yet been registered.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... 297e9f413c

[bagpuss]

Oof. I'm now wondering whether I've actually had it. A colleague had a nasty illness back in February - in hindsight all the symptoms - and she's just found out that someone she spent time with shortly before, has had it confirmed that *they* had it. I'm a bit sceptical because I'm not sure why she's only found out now - when they're not doing any post-illness testing - but maybe it's been a delay in communication rather than a delay in the other person finding out.

And I had a slight cough shortly afterwards, just before we were supposed to self-isolate. That said, she wasn't in the office much as she was too ill, and I wasn't either as I only work [ETA: in the office] 2 days a week. But I did see her at least once. I think the fact that no-one else I know has had it means that my first assumption - that I had just a cold - is still by far the most likely.

Wanted to edit but for some weird reason, I'm not getting the option.

[FlammableFlower]

Would be very interested in getting tested (once an accurate antibody test is sufficiently widespread enough for me to warrant being tested):

I know it doesn't fit the timeline in the UK... but on Christmas Eve I came down with what I initially thought was a bad cold, struggled on until the 27th and then ended up in bed with terrible aches and pains (felt like I'd been violently pummelled), headache and a persistent and very painful dry cough - I also felt breathless/asthmatic having never had asthma. The aching etc went after I got a very high fever after 3 days in bed (so I upped my self-diagnosis to 'flu), but the cough and breathlessness persisted for nearly another 6 weeks, gradually subsiding - when I was back teaching in early-Feb I found that I'd have random short bouts of breathlessness and coughing (just a few seconds but a couple of times a day). It's now all gone and I'm pretty sure it was 'flu, but I'm also fairly sure that if I presented with those symptoms now I'd be down as a COVID case. So it'd be interesting to see if I have had it.

On one hand we do have a quite large Chinese student population and I teach on the MSc where 50% of the students are from China, on the other both the general reported UK timeline doesn't fit with that story and everyone who did come symptoms at uni in Feb and were tested came back with negative results. So overall, it's probably just 'flu - so I guess in future I should join MrsFF and the kids in getting annual 'flu vaccinations.

[headshot]

so I guess in future I should join MrsFF and the kids in getting annual 'flu vaccinations.

Frau HS has asthma and I got my 'flu jab for the first time in October. This year is the first in many where I haven't had anything other than the slight feeling that I'm coming down with something, but it's never turned into anything.

Not sure whether that's correlation/causation, but I guess my message is "why wouldn't you?".

[Woodchopper]

A preprint from Imperial College is Estimating the number of infections and the impact of nonpharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries.

It estimates that about 10% of the Italian population is infected, for example, or about 3% of the UK.

It looks to me that they are now assuming that R0 is higher than assumed. The European lockdown measures have reduced R0 but it’s likely that it’s still above 1 in Italy etc. So relaxation of the social controls will result in a rapid spread of the disease. That and the small proportion of people infected so far means that the shutdowns are likely to continue until there is a vaccine or a clear majority have been infected and are immune.

[discovolante]

Oof. I'm now wondering whether I've actually had it. A colleague had a nasty illness back in February - in hindsight all the symptoms - and she's just found out that someone she spent time with shortly before, has had it confirmed that *they* had it. I'm a bit sceptical because I'm not sure why she's only found out now - when they're not doing any post-illness testing - but maybe it's been a delay in communication rather than a delay in the other person finding out.

And I had a slight cough shortly afterwards, just before we were supposed to self-isolate. That said, she wasn't in the office much as she was too ill, and I wasn't either as I only work [ETA: in the office] 2 days a week. But I did see her at least once. I think the fact that no-one else I know has had it means that my first assumption - that I had just a cold - is still by far the most likely.

Wanted to edit but for some weird reason, I'm not getting the option.

There's a time limit to edit, can't remember exactly how long it is but about 10 minutes, give or take.

[shpalman]

A preprint from Imperial College is Estimating the number of infections and the impact of nonpharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries.

It estimates that about 10% of the Italian population is infected, for example, or about 3% of the UK.

It looks to me that they are now assuming that R0 is higher than assumed. The European lockdown measures have reduced R0 but it’s likely that it’s still above 1 in Italy etc. So relaxation of the social controls will result in a rapid spread of the disease. That and the small proportion of people infected so far means that the shutdowns are likely to continue until there is a vaccine or a clear majority have been infected and are immune.

Last week the numbers were still going up; maybe the past few days are indicating that R0 is now just below 1 (whereas before it was only slightly above 1).

Even if the current measures end just after Easter, social distancing and face-masks at work will still be necessary for a while after that.