UK Covid analysis

Not the lack of PPE which is not secret but we are woefully underestimating cases and probably deaths.

It hides in plain sight in the graphs.

There is a nice correlation in the shape of the graph for deaths in the past few days and the new cases about 14 days ago. This is “about right” based on the Chinese data (18 days symptom onset to death) but the apparent mortality is huge - 50% or more. That fits with the local hospital which has had about 50:50 discharges:deaths.

That is way more than the case fatality seen in China which implies we are doing much less testing given that we’re only doing it on people ill enough to be admitted to hospital, we’re not testing mild cases, we’re not even testing more severe cases if they are at home - sadly this means some are going to die at home and never get tested, so never show up in the figures.

If we assume the same symptomatic case fatality rate that China reported (about 3%) we’re only picking up about 6% of cases so the true number might be 16x higher - 676 cases March 18 was probably at least 10k, new cases double every 3-5 days depending on where you calculate it on the graph - 4 doublings since then = 160k cases per day now and about 750k total cases in reality.

29k cases and 2.3k deaths does not look so frightening, but the ratio only looks good because the exponential growth means that 26 of the 29k cases have been in the last 14 days - and they are not going to be showing up in the death figures yet.

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You’re supposed to read nice bedtimes stories to people, not horror stories…

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Can’t help what’s in the data.

More night-time horrors

I would like to see these graphs without a log scale on the y axis to give another view of the data.

Log scale makes it much easier to follow the data in this case.

The Worldometer site allows toggling some of the graphs between log and linear scales.

My concern with the log scale is that it serves to flatten the lines which in turn gives people the impression that the rate is slowing and is better than it was 2 weeks ago - which it is not.

The trouble is that, on a lin scale an exponential curve just becomes a vertical line and it would be difficult to see the differences between the countries.

By why not stick the raw data in Excel and plot it yourself - not sure if there is anywhere you can download it as a CSV but you can get the raw daily numbers manually off Worldometer.

Seems fairly clear to me. Without a hard lockdown, UK and US deaths will continue to increase until they begin to run out of people who are at the highest risk. It will be a race between running out of patients and running out of medical staff.
We may never know the true number of infections because of lack of testing. The Chinese numbers are likely to be underexaggerated.

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I know it’s a bit morbid but I would like to find out the COVID-19 death rate in my area. Has anyone come across a map of France which gives such departmental information? Thank you.

There’s this…

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Or this…

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Fleur and Mark - Exactly what I was looking for, thank you both.

The Creuse looks nice and safe :raised_hands: :raised_hands:

There are more cases in the Saone et Loire where I am although not nearly as bad as some other areas. Someone I know was taken into hospital and put on oxygen but tested negative. She is back home now although still feels breathless. Her doctor told her 40% of tests come out as false negatives. That is quite an eye opener I think. But fortunately those false negatives are hopefully not in danger themselves although they are then in danger of spreading the virus? However my friend has been strictly told not to go out even with a mask.

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Is that in your village Marijke?
The Retirement Home in Mazille has had twenty, to date, of its residents die.

So far, not too bad and no cases locally AFAIK, 3rd or 4th lowest department at the moment. 40% false negatives is much too high, almost no point testing with that level of (un)reliability. Keep safe…

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It’s no good being an ostrich at a time like this. People need and deserve the truth.

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That is awful. Those poor people. So vulnerable.

The re-education home in Hurigny just outside Macon was also struck.
stay safe.

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I hope they all see the sense in this,

As France’s staggered Easter school holidays begin, interior minister Christophe Castaner warned the country to forget the usual “grand départ” - the great departure, writes Kim Willsher in Paris.

He said roadblocks would be set up on major highways and axes and extra police, gendarmes or soldiers dispatched to train stations and airports to verify the documents of anyone stopped out and about.

Local officials in areas where city-dwellers have second homes or popular tourist spots have also been told to check those travelling.

The two-week Easter holidays begin on Friday evening and are staggered over four weeks and three different zones.

During the lockdown, the French are required to carry a signed, dated and timed, attestation “on oath” giving the reason for leaving home. The document has a legal status.

Castaner told those thinking of ignoring the confinement rules: “Absolutely do not go on holiday during the lockdown period…people must rest confined.

“Any abuse will be punished. I know the lockdown is a constraint for families, but we must hold out,” the minister told LCI radio.

Trains are still running across the country, but fewer than 1 in 10 services have been maintained.

“When people are stopped and checked it’s not to fine them, it’s to guarantee and protect the French from the coronavirus and stop its spread. The objective is that people stay home,” Castaner added.

“During the confinement, we do not go on holiday.”

Since the lockdown began at noon on Tuesday 17 March, police and security forces have carried out 5.8 m checks on people’s papers, Castaner said. They have issued 359,000 fines, now ranging from €135 for a first offence up to €1,500 for a repeat. Those found to have ignored the regulations four times can be fined up to €3,750 and sent to jail for up to six months.

“I know how difficult it is to be confined for all French but Covid-19 doesn’t choose its targets depending on their revenue, their job, the holidays…it hits everyone,” Castaner said.

“If people start leaving for the weekend or the holidays, the whole strategy of the lockdown fails.”

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