Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Yeah that being today's numbers would make sense. Definitely a marked increase compared to all previous numbers, but not exactly unexpected, unfortunately.

You're totally right about it being a product of the system but I thought I'd share this anyway.

When I worked in NHS commissioning data it was a thing that fewer people would go to hospital at the weekends. Lots of theories were put forward and there were multiple drivers behind it but in normal times people did tend to have a higher threshold for attending hospital at weekends as opposed to going to hospital when they could have paid leave from work. Obviously only applies to things that you probably shouldn't bother a hospital with rather than taking to your GP though.

Might have changed since but I remember being fascinated by variations like this.

re. delays in mass testing there is a global shortage of the reagents neded for testing which is probabaly understandable. The Times had a story labs are trying to homebrew their own.

Also some parts for test kits were found to be contaminated from the manufacturer with coronavirus.

Unfortunately this doesn't include the weekend deaths.

Also huge spikes in discharges from hospital on a Friday and the huge drop in OP attendances on a Friday afternoon as consultanats slide into the weekend.

As of 5pm yesterday. 381 is the UK figure.

I was just a bit confused because most news sources seem to be running with this just-under-400 figure being the deaths for today, such as here. Or all of these numbers actually for the day before anyway?

Was the basis of many false claims back in the Jeremy Chunt "7-day NHS" era as well

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/03/26/abraar-karan-covid-19-trust-experts-brilliance-everyday-people/

This has become quite challenging. One wrong idea that gains traction because it is touted as truth by a celebrity or public figure can set back days of public health gains. The recent trial using azithromycin/hydroxychloroquine to treat covid-19 is a prime example of this. While the results deserve further investigation, the study itself is small and not designed in a way that should be changing clinical practice unless a doctor is completely out of safely tested options.

Just for clarity:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public#number-of-cases

Number of cases As of 9am on 31 March 2020, a total of 143,186 people
have been tested, of which 25,150 were confirmed positive.

As of 5pm on 30 March 2020, of those hospitalised in the UK, 1,789
have died.

The figures for test results and for deaths are compiled from
different sources. This is why the figures for deaths are reported
from an earlier point in time than the figures for test results.

It would be really helpful if you wanted to know the daily UK results to look
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public#number-of-cases

If you want an idea of what's going on in the UK (this is out of sync with the figures, but quite clearly states that and therefore isn't hiding anything)
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/f94c3c90da5b4e9f9a0b19484dd4bb14

if you want an idea internationally
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Yesterday's DoH '5pm figure' was 1,408:
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1244651132879806471

Today's is 1,789:
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1244998310735331330

1,789-1,408 = 381

I'm not sure where Sky are getting that 1,808 figure from but they'll be getting the same press releases I do.

I'd suggest just following the DoH direct on Twitter to get it straight from the horse's mouth:
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk

Also:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/latest

So there will be a difference in the numbers because of the time taken to register a death. They should all marry up eventually.

Also: there is now snomed/icd 10 coding to use, which should make it easier for coding (though that's been around for a bit hasn't it? )

The BBC are quoting 393 deaths in the last 24 hours too: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52101615

Ah I see, I never really clocked that the death number timestamps are out of step with the case numbers, I've just been following worldometer really - I think they're not taking that into account either and are just taking the numbers released today (which are really 'as of yesterday 5pm') as the numbers for today, full stop.

That makes sense, thanks! Not that it matters that much really whether everything is shifted by one day or not, but I was very confused for a bit.

The missus has a stash of hydroxychloroquine (don't rob us, pls) for lupus. It's pretty rough with side effects and also pretty dangerous (possibly specifically to her because of her immune system). Not sure it's the type of thing you'd want people to self administer.

Do you have any idea why on the GIS one the UK dead vs recovered is so out of sync as a proportion compared to some of the other countries?
Is it just testing related?

The dashboard reports cases at the province level in China, city level in the US, Australia and Canada, and at the country level otherwise. From January 22-31 the entire data collection and processing was managed manually. During this period the number of updates were typically conducted twice a day, both morning and night (Eastern Time). As the outbreak evolved, the manual reporting process became unsustainable, and on February 1, we adopted a semi-automated living data stream strategy. Our primary data source is DXY, an online platform run by members of the Chinese medical community, which aggregates local media and government reports to provide COVID-19 cumulative case totals in near real-time at the province level in China and country level otherwise. Every 15 minutes, the cumulative case counts are updated from DXY for all provinces in China and affected countries and regions. For countries and regions outside mainland China (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), we found DXY cumulative case counts to frequently lag other sources; we therefore manually update these case numbers throughout the day when new cases are identified. To identify new cases, we monitor various twitter feeds, online news services, and direct communication sent through the dashboard. Before manually updating the dashboard, we confirm the case numbers using regional and local health departments, namely the China CDC (CCDC), Hong Kong Department of Health, Macau Government, Taiwan CDC, European CDC (ECDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as city and state level health authorities. For city level case reports in the U.S., Australia, and Canada, which we began reporting on February 1, we rely on the US CDC, Government of Canada, Australia Government Department of Health and various state or territory health authorities. All manual updates (outside mainland China) are coordinated by a team at JHU.

https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/

Or have I missed your point?
the JohnsHopkins data
shows
UK 25k cases with 135 recovered
Ireland 2,910 5 recovered

And something on the BBC about the discrepancies in figures: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52103808

It was looking at the big European countries the recoveries just stood as being very different:
Cases/deaths/recovered
Spain - 94k /8k/19k
Italy - 102k/12k/15k
France - 45k/3k/8k
UK - 25k/ 2k/ 0.2k

I understand the cases being different as at different testing and points in the outbreak but UK just seemed to have a very low recovered figure but might just be as we are two weeks behind the others

It's because we're only testing people in hospital.

^
There's that.

South Korea and Singapore testing revealed a very similar case mortality rate.

How does that affect the recovery figure?

People who are hospitalised are less likely to recover but IANAE.

Emerging story re. PPE nationally is that no-one has a clue if there’s enough or not. Cabinet Office and the army are taking over procurement and distribution as NHS Supply Chain are buckling under trying to do business as usual and move PPE.

And there are no gowns in the national pandemic stockpile we have been using the Brexit gowns stockpile and they are nearly gone.

All this is in Health Service Journal but doesn’t seem to have percolated to Beeb or the papers which is umm interesting.