COVID-19

Discussions about serious topics, for serious people
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El Pollo Diablo
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Re: COVID-19

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:59 am

I may have missed the discussion here, but the DHSC have stated that the very low figure from two days ago was very low because it only covered 8 hours of the 24 March (from 9am to 5pm). Thrice 41 is 123, so that would've been roughly the daily total. The new figures - 115 new deaths from 5pm 24/3 to 5pm 25/3 - are in line with that.

https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/12 ... 9039396872
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Mar 27, 2020 9:56 am

PeteB wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:57 am
Noticed this this from James Annan who has been playing about with a SEIR model. It seems to indicate that the doubling time for the Imperial College model is extremely optimistic and the peak will be much more 'peaky' than predicted. It seemed pretty convincing to me but he is a climate modeller (although extremely bright)
That's (ETA: the doubling time in the IC model, not James's analysis) shocking. The doubling time is one of the easiest things to get out of the data (assuming that the registered number of infections is a constant proportion of the true number of infections). You don't even need a numerical model, since at the beginning when I << S the growth is exponential and you can just look at the slope of it, like in the FT's semi-log plot.

To get R0 from the exponential time constant you need to know or estimate the number of days a carrier is infectious for, but really, what matters is if you can get the curve to stop being an exponential increase.

It's happened to me more than once in my work that someone's ah-but-no-you-need-to-take-this-into-account model has fit the data much worse than a simpler model with more tractable assumptions. I tend to go by the principle that if you can't see it in the data then you shouldn't necessarily trust a complicated model which claims to be able to extract it.

But I thought the point about the Imperial College document was the graph in it which showed that the UK's critical care surge capacity would be overrun by orders of magnitude in just about any version of the model. This is obvious to anyone who tries to imagine 1% of the entire UK population needing to spend 2-4 weeks in the ICU within the next half a year. The real question I have is where the original idea of the UK being "four weeks behind Italy" came from.

Looking for how many ICU beds the UK has, this has just been published: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51714498 it says currently about 4000.

As of yesterday Italy has about 6% of its covid-19 cases in intensive care: 3612 patients.

You simply cannot imagine letting the whole population of a country get covid-19 in one season, unless you invent something about there being orders of magnitude more asymptomatic/mild/otherwise unnoticed cases as compared to the official numbers, so that the number of official active infections peaks at around 100,000 on its own, and not 10 million.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Mar 27, 2020 10:13 am

(Over the past few days the doubling time for the total number of cases in the UK looks like about 4 days, by the way. Weirdly, Italy's was about 4 days a couple of weeks ago too (then it went to 5.3 days for a week or so, and this week it's 9 days), as the second set of containment measures started having an effect. Either that or the two countries are changing their testing criteria in the same ways.)
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Re: COVID-19

Post by RandomElement » Fri Mar 27, 2020 10:49 am

I have just looked at this https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... rus-deaths from the Guardian. It does look like the UK is trying to massage the figure, but I don't know if this is the same for other countries too.
The Guardian wrote:An NHS England source said the likely cause of people missing from the statistics is that the daily figures only include those who tested positive in hospital.

The UK is only testing people for coronavirus in hospital, so people dying at home or in care homes with symptoms of the disease will be missing from the overall figures.
A Public Health England spokesman said the overall figures published daily represented all those who had tested positive for coronavirus, and there was no systemic testing of those who had died with symptoms but no confirmed diagnosis.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:16 am

Oh.

Will the govt decision-makers and supporting modellers have access to proper information? Or are we entirely reliant on models now - estimates of excess deaths? When someone dies at home or a care home, how quickly do death certificates wind their way through the processes to become statistics?

The original plan was to be highly tuned to the facts on the ground, tuning up or down isolation measures at the exact moment - keep the infections suppressed but enable the economy to tick over. A nice idea on paper, but would never have been possible in real life even with huge detail on cases.

Is hospital levels the only way the govt can track this now? Admissions per day, or % beds occupied, or % ICU beds occupied?
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Re: COVID-19

Post by RandomElement » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:28 am

According to the BBC Boris Johnson, has it, but only mild symptoms.

How does he know? How did he get the test if he's not in hospital?*

*Yes I know he PM and it probably a good idea to test hime, but the optics are really bad.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Hunting Dog » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:33 am

lpm wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:16 am
When someone dies at home or a care home, how quickly do death certificates wind their way through the processes to become statistics?
I have no idea on the length of time to reach statistics - but if the death is not 'expected' and therefore gets referred to the coroner that can add a couple of weeks before you even get a death certificate (and that's with 'normal' workload!) - I'm really hoping they've got some better system in place for figuring this out!

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Re: COVID-19

Post by EllyCat » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:41 am

RandomElement wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:28 am
According to the BBC Boris Johnson, has it, but only mild symptoms.

How does he know? How did he get the test if he's not in hospital?*

*Yes I know he PM and it probably a good idea to test hime, but the optics are really bad.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by tom p » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:42 am

EllyCat wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:41 am
RandomElement wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:28 am
According to the BBC Boris Johnson, has it, but only mild symptoms.

How does he know? How did he get the test if he's not in hospital?*

*Yes I know he PM and it probably a good idea to test hime, but the optics are really bad.
BoJo: “I’d rather be dead than extend Brexit negotiations”

COVID-19: “I can help with that...”
Let's hope the lying pig dies, choking on his own incompetence

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Little waster » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:45 am

tom p wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:42 am
EllyCat wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:41 am
RandomElement wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:28 am
According to the BBC Boris Johnson, has it, but only mild symptoms.

How does he know? How did he get the test if he's not in hospital?*

*Yes I know he PM and it probably a good idea to test hime, but the optics are really bad.
BoJo: “I’d rather be dead than extend Brexit negotiations”

COVID-19: “I can help with that...”
Let's hope the lying pig dies, choking on his own incompetence
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Re: COVID-19

Post by FlammableFlower » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:50 am

RandomElement wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:28 am
According to the BBC Boris Johnson, has it, but only mild symptoms.

How does he know? How did he get the test if he's not in hospital?*

*Yes I know he PM and it probably a good idea to test hime, but the optics are really bad.
I really, really can't stand him, but I don't think the optics look bad. I suppose he could have just self-isolated with suspected symptoms.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Little waster » Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:53 am

As an aside the Central Office of Information was the government department responsible for ensuring government policy in regards to say health policy or national emergencies was clearly communicated and consistent across departments.

It was scrapped by the Coalition in 2011 to save £2.37, on the basis it's role was un-necessary and if the national debt wasn't brought under control by, say, slashing numbers of ICU beds and scrimping on hospital PPE then the living would envy the dead.

Cue 330 billion hollow laughs from me.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by MartinDurkin » Fri Mar 27, 2020 12:31 pm

Someone passed this to me on Facebook. Slightly more optimistic than some of the stuff I have read. Before I pass it on can anyone here say whether this seems reasonable?
Cambridge virologist explains what we do and don’t know about Covid-19
https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/ ... 9-9104220/

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Mar 27, 2020 12:45 pm

MartinDurkin wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 12:31 pm
Someone passed this to me on Facebook. Slightly more optimistic than some of the stuff I have read. Before I pass it on can anyone here say whether this seems reasonable?
Cambridge virologist explains what we do and don’t know about Covid-19
https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/ ... 9-9104220/
Well I found it interesting and readable at least.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Mar 27, 2020 12:51 pm

Not sure if I would say it was "optimistic" though.

Anyway, it says
They mathematically modelled all the data post-swine flu and looked at all the mitigations you could put in place like closing schools and stopping sports events and making people work from home.

All of them had relatively small effects. The one thing that seemed to have a massive effect was stopping travel and saying to people you must stay home. But that is the hardest one to bring in and it has massive other consequences.
Interesting that the UK government's takeaway from that was "no need to shut down big events yet" (Cheltenham, for example) not "lock everyone down as soon as possible".
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Mar 27, 2020 12:54 pm

FlammableFlower wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:50 am
RandomElement wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:28 am
According to the BBC Boris Johnson, has it, but only mild symptoms.

How does he know? How did he get the test if he's not in hospital?*

*Yes I know he PM and it probably a good idea to test hime, but the optics are really bad.
I really, really can't stand him, but I don't think the optics look bad. I suppose he could have just self-isolated with suspected symptoms.
It shows that he either wasn't following official advice or that the advice doesn't actually work.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Stranger Mouse » Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:33 pm

shpalman wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 12:54 pm
FlammableFlower wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:50 am
RandomElement wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 11:28 am
According to the BBC Boris Johnson, has it, but only mild symptoms.

How does he know? How did he get the test if he's not in hospital?*

*Yes I know he PM and it probably a good idea to test hime, but the optics are really bad.
I really, really can't stand him, but I don't think the optics look bad. I suppose he could have just self-isolated with suspected symptoms.
It shows that he either wasn't following official advice or that the advice doesn't actually work.
Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when he said he would still shake hands?

In other news:

This New Yorker article on viral loads etc by the author of The Emperor Of All Maladies is really interesting https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020 ... -a-patient
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Re: COVID-19

Post by purplehaze » Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:59 pm

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?

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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:10 pm

The guy from The Lancet. Ranting very nicely.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:15 pm

purplehaze wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:59 pm
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.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:19 pm

New deaths in. Up by 181.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:21 pm

That puts us around 16.3 days behind Italy now.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by purplehaze » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:29 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:15 pm
purplehaze wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:59 pm
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.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Stephanie » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:31 pm

yeah, but it's probably worth just speaking straight to the employer then. It's unlikely the staff have any choice in the matter
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Re: COVID-19

Post by purplehaze » Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:39 pm

Stephanie wrote:
Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:31 pm
yeah, but it's probably worth just speaking straight to the employer then. It's unlikely the staff have any choice in the matter
I spoke to the nursery. They were apologetic and went to deal with it.

I would hope staff would have some choice in the matter.

But anyway I was only trying to help them as they were being filmed.

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