COVID-19

[lpm]

UK is number one! Last 7 day deaths per capita. Well done everyone, we've overtaken Belgium. A nice try from Sweden, but they're still a way off.

We need to keep working to hold onto the top spot because the US is posing a serious threat.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/dail ... WE+GBR+USA

[MartinDurkin]

Just seen today's COVID-19 press conference from Downing St. They presented a new graph to show how we compare with other countries.

sshot-1.jpg (88.96 KiB) Viewed 7029 times

Is it just me or was it disingenuous of them not to explain that the y-axis has a log scale? It went by quickly and we had to rewind to check why Germany was catching us up.

[shpalman]

Well that's a neat way of hiding whether Italy or the UK have had more deaths. (Actually it's a way of pointing out that arguing about which large number is slightly higher than the other one is a bit futile.)

comparison-tweet.png (245.07 KiB) Viewed 7007 times

Today it seems some historical data from Lombardy only just got registered, so that adds about 6000 to the total number of patients in Italy who have now been "cured" of the covids. We now actually have more people cured of covid than currently have covid (both in Lombardy and in the whole of Italy).

Also, the UK and Italy are both registering about 64,000 swabs today and the UK had 6111 new positives and Italy had 1444. The UK needs to maintain this rhythm of testing for a week or two before we can tell what the numbers are really doing.

[bob sterman]

UK is number one! Last 7 day deaths per capita. Well done everyone, we've overtaken Belgium. A nice try from Sweden, but they're still a way off.

We need to keep working to hold onto the top spot because the US is posing a serious threat.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/dail ... WE+GBR+USA

Not saying the UK is doing well - but that is just a snapshot this week. Many countries have had worse rolling 7-day averages at some point.

Here are the 10 highest values for "daily confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million, rolling 7-day average"

Sorry about the terrible formatting!

Rank, Country, Max, Date
1,San Marino,63.14029,"Mar 22, 2020"
2,Belgium,28.76943,"Apr 17, 2020"
3,Montserrat,28.57714,"Apr 26, 2020"
4,Sint Maarten (Dutch part),26.65129,"Apr 8, 2020"
5,Andorra,25.88486,"Apr 2, 2020"
6,Isle of Man,23.52057,"Apr 25, 2020"
6,Spain,18.568,"Apr 4, 2020"
7,France,16.86757,"Apr 10, 2020"
8,Ireland,14.23414,"Apr 26, 2020"
9,United Kingdom,13.89314,"Apr 15, 2020"
10,Italy,13.59071,"Apr 3, 2020"

[lpm]

Rank, Country, Max, Date
1,San Marino,63.14029,"Mar 22, 2020"
2,Belgium,28.76943,"Apr 17, 2020"
3,Montserrat,28.57714,"Apr 26, 2020"
4,Sint Maarten (Dutch part),26.65129,"Apr 8, 2020"
5,Andorra,25.88486,"Apr 2, 2020"
6,Isle of Man,23.52057,"Apr 25, 2020"
6,Spain,18.568,"Apr 4, 2020"
7,France,16.86757,"Apr 10, 2020"
8,Ireland,14.23414,"Apr 26, 2020"
9,United Kingdom,13.89314,"Apr 15, 2020"
10,Italy,13.59071,"Apr 3, 2020"

Oh come on.

Belgium spent weeks at the top of the charts. Italy was the previous number one.

Everything else on your list is just a statistical artefact, e.g. Ireland registering a chunk of numbers to a single day, or silly little "countries", one of which is mostly under a volcano.

The UK is battling it out with Belgium at the moment, but they are beginning to fade. Only UK, USA and Sweden look like they're heading for a bad May.

[shpalman]

UK is number one! Last 7 day deaths per capita. Well done everyone, we've overtaken Belgium. A nice try from Sweden, but they're still a way off.

We need to keep working to hold onto the top spot because the US is posing a serious threat.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/dail ... WE+GBR+USA

Not saying the UK is doing well - but that is just a snapshot this week. Many countries have had worse rolling 7-day averages at some point.

That's the point. The other countries are coming down.

Actually if Lombardy were a country I think it would have been worse than Belgium.

[Little waster]

Just seen today's COVID-19 press conference from Downing St. They presented a new graph to show how we compare with other countries.

sshot-1.jpg

Is it just me or was it disingenuous of them not to explain that the y-axis has a log scale? It went by quickly and we had to rewind to check why Germany was catching us up.

It’s f.cking depressing that even with our present shower’s proven track record of numerical jiggery-pokery the best they can now do to show how well we are doing is fudge a graph showing we only miss the Number 1 spot by a gnat’s dick and that’s with a two week head start for Spain.

Just watching Peston, a couple of government spokespeople pushing the same narrative that the UK’s sluggish start on testing was due to the government focussing all its efforts on ensuring the NHS had insufficient PPE, with great success you have to concede, still it’s good to know the Department For Dodging Bad Headlines by Fiddling the Figures hasn’t furloughed absolutely everyone.

[Woodchopper]

Thread suggests a vaccine may be difficult
https://twitter.com/ExcludedMuddle/stat ... 9479639042

[Woodchopper]

Covid vaccine tracker
https://biorender.com/covid-vaccine-tra ... ustomer.io

[Woodchopper]

One for BOAF, states that the UK government deliberately didn’t use the country’s private testing capacity as it wanted to maintain central control.
https://twitter.com/globalhlthtwit/stat ... 21953?s=21

[FlammableFlower]

David Spiegelhalter isn't happy that the government is using his piece in the Guardian about the complications of comparing countries as a shield.

[MartinDurkin]

This segment from Sky News tries to explain the COVID-19 death figures. A decent effort I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNiAUPR ... e=youtu.be

@shpalman are those Italy figures right?

[El Pollo Diablo]

The are several points related to comparisons which are probably all true:

Saying that the UK has the highest number of Covid deaths in Europe isn't known at this point. We know that we have the highest number counted so far, but there are important differences in how different deaths are registered and counted in each nation that mean we can't say that for certain yet.

But comparison at the fine level is mostly b.llsh.t anyway. It doesn't really matter whether we are #1 or #2 or #3. What matters is - do we have a big number? Could we have done better? Have other countries similar to us (eg Germany) done better? (Yes, yes and yes)

Also true is that our news media, (and I'm being generous about motivation) keen to avoid bringing everyone down at a time of national crisis, have in large part woefully dropped the ball on holding the government to account. Other countries are looking at what we've done and are aghast at the mistakes made, the lies said, the deaths we've had.

But, the "highest number of deaths in Europe" line, regardless of its technical accuracy, is sticking. The express and metro have both put the claim on their front pages, and it will soon become true to the general public. By the time any later analysis is done looking at properly comparable numbers, it will be too late. If a second wave hits, and there's no reason to think it won't, big questions will start to be asked.

[discovolante]

Thread suggests a vaccine may be difficult
https://twitter.com/ExcludedMuddle/stat ... 9479639042

Great.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Yeah we've definitely got some gowns coming stop criticising us over PPE look it's coming tomorrow.

OK well it's not coming tomorrow, we think it'll come Monday.

OK well maybe not Monday, we'll check and get back to you. It'll be soon, promise.

Pinky promise.

Look, it's those f.cking Turks innit, can't trust them, they said they'd send them. We definitely ordered them.

OK so it turns out we hadn't actually ordered them yet, we got stuck on the "confirm" screen when we thought the payment had gone through. What a mistake-a to make-a. Still, all done now, haha. Coming tomorrow, for deffers.

SEE, YOU c.nts, f.cking TOLD YOU. GOWNS. SHITLOADS OF THEM. c.nts.

Coronavirus PPE: Gowns ordered from Turkey fail to meet safety standards

[PeteB]

Oh come on.

Belgium spent weeks at the top of the charts. Italy was the previous number one.

Everything else on your list is just a statistical artefact, e.g. Ireland registering a chunk of numbers to a single day, or silly little "countries", one of which is mostly under a volcano.

The UK is battling it out with Belgium at the moment, but they are beginning to fade. Only UK, USA and Sweden look like they're heading for a bad May.

Yeah, but you need to halve Belgium figures to get a true Coronavirus comparison with the UK (Belgium excees deaths = Coronavirus Death Toll). They are counting based on symptons rather than what is says on the death certificate - I think this gives a clue that the excess deaths can nearly all be accounted for by Coronavirus rather than "the Lockdown". I saw one right wing commentator saying that non-Covid19 "Lockdown Deaths" are appoaching Covid deaths so we need to get rid of the Lockdown, which is an interesting viewpoint

[shpalman]

This segment from Sky News tries to explain the COVID-19 death figures. A decent effort I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNiAUPR ... e=youtu.be

@shpalman are those Italy figures right?

@everyone else are those UK figures right?

29,315 was Italy's official number as of the evening of the 5th of May.

Ok, at about 5 minutes in: 11,591 was Italy's official number as of the evening of the 30th of March. The 13,700 uncounted excess deaths at that point is reasonable, see the graph for Lombardy I posted above. However, as that graph also shows, that was a big peak near the beginning of the outbreak here and it's reasonable that deaths are now being counted properly.

Sky News also say that England is among the European countries with the highest number of "excess deaths" during the COVID-19 pandemic having looked at the EuroMOMO data.

I'd be happier with their graphs if their explanation of what a z score wasn't written for someone who probably already knows what it is. Is there a way to see the actual number of deaths for each country on that site or have the f.cked about with the data before showing it to us? (They basically say, yes we take all the data from all the countries, but no, we're not going to let you see it, go ask the countries for it.) So I've no idea how anyone can really look at the pictures on their website and get quantitative information.

But UK (England) is just about the only z-score trace which shows a peak which doesn't then go down.

There's this pdf in Italian which is a report from ISTAT comparing all-cause mortality and official deaths from the covids (it's based on statistically surveying a large number of council wards, I think, rather than literally counting every death in the country). Table 1, for example, shows that there were 90946 deaths between the 20th of February and the 31st of March, compared to an average of 65592 in the same period between 2015 and 2019, while 13,710 were attributed to the covids by the health service (the number I actually have in my spreadsheet is 13,155 for the 1st of April), so that's an extra 11,662 deaths not officially attributed to the covids. Almost all of them were in the north.

So I suppose Sky News's numbers are reasonable, for Italy, even if they don't cite a source, and seem to have contradicted themselves already regarding the UK's numbers.

Table 2 gives the figure of 568% for the variation in deaths in Bergamo in 2020 compared to previous years, which I may have mentioned here:

This article in Italian uses ISTAT data to estimate a 64% increase in the death rate in the first three months of the year in the Como area.

Nationwide the number of official covid-19 deaths accounts for just over half of the estimated excess deaths.

It also reports the percentage increase for other areas: Bergamo (568%), Cremona (391%), Lodi (371%), Brescia (291%), Piacenza (264%), Parma (208%), Lecco (174%), Pavia (133%), Mantova (122%), Pesaro e Urbino (120%).

[shpalman]

The are several points related to comparisons which are probably all true:

Saying that the UK has the highest number of Covid deaths in Europe isn't known at this point. We know that we have the highest number counted so far, but there are important differences in how different deaths are registered and counted in each nation that mean we can't say that for certain yet.

But comparison at the fine level is mostly b.llsh.t anyway. It doesn't really matter whether we are #1 or #2 or #3. What matters is - do we have a big number? Could we have done better? Have other countries similar to us (eg Germany) done better? (Yes, yes and yes)

Also true is that our news media, (and I'm being generous about motivation) keen to avoid bringing everyone down at a time of national crisis, have in large part woefully dropped the ball on holding the government to account. Other countries are looking at what we've done and are aghast at the mistakes made, the lies said, the deaths we've had.

But, the "highest number of deaths in Europe" line, regardless of its technical accuracy, is sticking. The express and metro have both put the claim on their front pages, and it will soon become true to the general public. By the time any later analysis is done looking at properly comparable numbers, it will be too late. If a second wave hits, and there's no reason to think it won't, big questions will start to be asked.

Thanks for this.

I would also add that these excuses for whether the UK or Italy is worse is ignoring that Italy basically gave the UK two weeks' warning about what was about to happen and that the UK ignored it.

It.

Did.

Not.

Have.

To.

Be.

This.

Way.

[MartinDurkin]

This segment from Sky News tries to explain the COVID-19 death figures. A decent effort I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNiAUPR ... e=youtu.be

@shpalman are those Italy figures right?

...

Good stuff, thanks for that.

[Woodchopper]

I'd be happier with their graphs if their explanation of what a z score wasn't written for someone who probably already knows what it is. Is there a way to see the actual number of deaths for each country on that site or have the f.cked about with the data before showing it to us? (They basically say, yes we take all the data from all the countries, but no, we're not going to let you see it, go ask the countries for it.) So I've no idea how anyone can really look at the pictures on their website and get quantitative information.

The FT has a summary of the excess deaths, and the UK is way ahead on absolute numbers compared to the rest of Europe: https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f ... 5839e06441

Unfortunately the Italy data partial.

It might be fairer to do a per capita comparison.

[shpalman]

An estimate of R(t) in each of Italy's regions.

With error bars and everything.

FB_IMG_1588848052032.jpg (169.88 KiB) Viewed 6705 times

[Little waster]

I saw one right wing commentator saying that non-Covid19 "Lockdown Deaths" are appoaching Covid deaths so we need to get rid of the Lockdown, which is an interesting viewpoint

I for one am certain that the recent finding that ethnic minorities appear more susceptible to COVID-19 than whites will not further intensify the calls from the rightwing death cult to lift the lockdown prematurely.

I'm sure they'll even come up with a catchy hashtag referencing the importance of the lives of non-caucasian people.

[Bird on a Fire]

One for BOAF, states that the UK government deliberately didn’t use the country’s private testing capacity as it wanted to maintain central control.
https://twitter.com/globalhlthtwit/stat ... 21953?s=21

Thanks.

I can certainly see the value in the Gov having access to all the results. But why not just demand timely reporting from private/uni labs? It's absolutely the wrong time to start trying to build new labs from scratch - especially while simultaneously sending practically everyone who works in an appropriate lab to sit around at home.

I thought the Conservatives were all about contracting the private sector and reducing government control?

It's like they've tried to find as many ways as possible to f.ck this up, even when following their ideology would have stopped-clockly resulted in better outcomes.

[El Pollo Diablo]

The are several points related to comparisons which are probably all true:

Saying that the UK has the highest number of Covid deaths in Europe isn't known at this point. We know that we have the highest number counted so far, but there are important differences in how different deaths are registered and counted in each nation that mean we can't say that for certain yet.

But comparison at the fine level is mostly b.llsh.t anyway. It doesn't really matter whether we are #1 or #2 or #3. What matters is - do we have a big number? Could we have done better? Have other countries similar to us (eg Germany) done better? (Yes, yes and yes)

Also true is that our news media, (and I'm being generous about motivation) keen to avoid bringing everyone down at a time of national crisis, have in large part woefully dropped the ball on holding the government to account. Other countries are looking at what we've done and are aghast at the mistakes made, the lies said, the deaths we've had.

But, the "highest number of deaths in Europe" line, regardless of its technical accuracy, is sticking. The express and metro have both put the claim on their front pages, and it will soon become true to the general public. By the time any later analysis is done looking at properly comparable numbers, it will be too late. If a second wave hits, and there's no reason to think it won't, big questions will start to be asked.

Thanks for this.

I would also add that these excuses for whether the UK or Italy is worse is ignoring that Italy basically gave the UK two weeks' warning about what was about to happen and that the UK ignored it.

It.

Did.

Not.

Have.

To.

Be.

This.

Way.

Indeed. And the irony is, the "four weeks" that was erroneously invoked nearly two months ago if anything gives them even less excuse - it was always bollocks, but were there any truth to it they had even more time to sort things out than they actually did. And yet.

[shpalman]

It looked more like two weeks, as absolutely everyone immediately noticed, but it was absolutely not a reason to say "ok we can wait two weeks to do anything, can't have a lockdown going on too long because people, we'll calmly flatten the peak in July"