Coronavirus

[Cockney Sparrow]

Very interesting interview with Prof Spiegelhalter on "Today" , Radio 4 this morning (at 2hrs 35mins on Sounds /iplayer).

He's published a document to help with appreciation of risk by age, also discusses testing at airports and very interestingly on the substantial disruption which might result from false positives should the (Cummings/Boris fantasy island) Moonshot testing ever come to pass before the Pandemic ends. He says there is no sign this effect has been considered.

(I've also posted this on the other Coronavirus thread).

[LHC]

I saw a suggestion on another forum that the pause is a result of transverse myelitis:

Transverse myelitis is a rare clinical syndrome in which an immune-mediated process causes neural injury to the spinal cord. The pathogenesis of transverse myelitis is mostly of an autoimmune nature, triggered by various environmental factors, including vaccination

I haven’t seen any other evidence to confirm this.

Some further information from the same source:

It appears that a woman in the UK phase II trial experienced symptoms consistent with transverse myelitis. She's recovering well and could be discharged inside the next day or so. It has been confirmed that she received the vaccine and not the placebo, and it's considered unlikely that the vaccine will have been the cause of this; it's been know for vaccines to cause this response (even vaccines that are live) but it's more typically caused by a viral infection, and it's therefore most likely a coincidence - the independent committee overseeing the clinical and safety aspects of the trial will make that judgement as soon as they can.

Unless something else is discovered, it looks very much like a case of nothing to see here, but it should give comfort to those worried about whether this approval is being rushed, or if safety is being short cut

[Bryn]

Thanks for the update, LHC.

[johnb]

Thanks for this. Is it possible to do similar maps for Scotland and Northern Ireland, or is the data required not easily obtainable?

I only did England because that is the only nation in the "legacy" download of case data by local authority. However, I should be able to access the information for the whole of the UK by using Python and the Covid-19 API.

Then in is just a matter of getting the population and latitude/longitude for each area. <Cough>

(Actually I have most of that already.)

[oddoneout]

I'm still trying to get my head round this. Positive test results are rising which suggests to me(but what do I know?) that infection rates might possibly be rising, so Halfcock is floating the idea of limiting access to tests...
It's one way to make the figures look better perhaps - but I can't see how it would control the case rate/limit spread of infection - or have I missed something?

[LMcD]

I'm still trying to get my head round this. Positive test results are rising which suggests to me(but what do I know?) that infection rates might possibly be rising, so Halfcock is floating the idea of limiting access to tests...
It's one way to make the figures look better perhaps - but I can't see how it would control the case rate/limit spread of infection - or have I missed something?

It's comforting, in a way, to know that others share my confusion.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm still trying to get my head round this. Positive test results are rising which suggests to me(but what do I know?) that infection rates might possibly be rising, so Halfcock is floating the idea of limiting access to tests...
It's one way to make the figures look better perhaps - but I can't see how it would control the case rate/limit spread of infection - or have I missed something?

One way to limit access is the wonderful booking system that conveniently arranges an appointment in your street.

Or not, which is more likely...

[johnb]

Thanks for this. Is it possible to do similar maps for Scotland and Northern Ireland, or is the data required not easily obtainable?

The case data for Scotland administrative areas appears not to be available via the UK gov website, even with the Covid-19 API, however the information for Wales and Northern Ireland is accessible using the API.

This is the result for the case rates/100k. w/e 07/09/2020, using today's data. (Interesting to compare with what I posted yesterday.)



(I'm not intending to flood the thread with maps and charts. Honest.)

[Simon B]

I'm still trying to get my head round this. Positive test results are rising which suggests to me(but what do I know?) that infection rates might possibly be rising, so Halfcock is floating the idea of limiting access to tests...
It's one way to make the figures look better perhaps - but I can't see how it would control the case rate/limit spread of infection - or have I missed something?

The ability to find positive cases via testing is central to limiting the spread via track and trace.

1) Testing capacity is finite.

2) The purpose of it is this context is not to make an accurate estimate of the % of the population infected, rather to find as many of them as possible so as to track/trace.

3) The greater the proportion of people tested are the ones actually infected, the more effectively the finite testing resources are being used.

You want to bias the sample tested towards the infected as heavily as possible. If you have finite testing capacity and find a method of selecting those tested which is the tiniest bit better than tossing a coin, your overall system improves. That the selection criteria will mistakenly exclude some positives is irrelevant.

Paradoxically, the higher the % of tests are +ve, the more effectively whatever capacity you have is being used. The perfect instance of this is the very high positivity rates (~40%?) observed in April. This underlines that whatever testing capacity there was was being applied much more efficiently than it is now.

Ironically, if what Hancock says is true and a way is found to focus the available, currently exceeded, testing capacity on those who have more chance of having the virus, this will likely cause both the absolute figures and %ages of +ve tests to go up...

[johnb]

Thanks for this. Is it possible to do similar maps for Scotland and Northern Ireland, or is the data required not easily obtainable?

The case data for Scotland administrative areas appears not to be available via the UK gov website, even with the Covid-19 API, however the information for Wales and Northern Ireland is accessible using the API.

The case figures for Scotland (as well as the rest of the UK) was available via the Covid-19 API today, so I have updated the map in post #3630 with today's data: http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...848#post807848

[Dave2002]

The case figures for Scotland (as well as the rest of the UK) was available via the Covid-19 API today, so I have updated the map in post #3630 with today's data: http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...848#post807848

Thanks, though I’m surprised that the map shows Edinburgh worse than Glasgow. We went to Edinburgh earlier this week - even braving the train.

[johnb]

Thanks, though I’m surprised that the map shows Edinburgh worse than Glasgow. We went to Edinburgh earlier this week - even braving the train.

Dave, you were right to be surprised. As it happens, Edinburgh has a pinky red dot in MapPoint because is it a capital city rather than due to a high CV19 case rate. (The cases per 100k for Edinburgh and Glasgow are 11 and 51 respectively).

Perhaps I could avoid using red to signify case rates >60, or use a triangle rather than a circle.

[Dave2002]

Possible symptoms which seem to have been identified from a number of sources.

[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/max/4802/1*pm-RbrpPL20_qYv0X_85Nw.png[/IMG]

https://miro.medium.com/max/4802/1*pm-RbrpPL20_qYv0X_85Nw.png

Click on link to see diagram. Later I’ll try to get this to show directly, but doesn’t work right now.

[Serial_Apologist]

Possible symptoms which seem to have been identified from a number of sources.

[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/max/4802/1*pm-RbrpPL20_qYv0X_85Nw.png[/IMG]

https://miro.medium.com/max/4802/1*pm-RbrpPL20_qYv0X_85Nw.png

Click on link to see diagram. Later I’ll try to get this to show directly, but doesn’t work right now.

Thaks for posting this chart. However, I thought we were told quite early on that Covid-19 symptoms did not include runny nose and sneezing? That if you had the latter it was easy to confuse with a common cold or flu? Also, where is any mention of the dry cough that we were told epitomised Covid-19?

Anyway, given all that, should I exhibit any of the other and suspect I have it, my next step is to book online for testing, which might mean me, sick with symptoms and a high temperature, and therefore possibly confused, presumably, being expected to travel, possibly hundreds of miles, to have said tests done - all the while spreading the infection to all and sundry around me.

That sounds like the solution we've all been banking on, I don't think!

[Dave2002]

Thaks for posting this chart. However, I thought we were told quite early on that Covid-19 symptoms did not include runny nose and sneezing? That if you had the latter it was easy to confuse with a common cold or flu? Also, where is any mention of the dry cough that we were told epitomised Covid-19?

I really don’t know if the chart showing possible symptoms has a “realistic” set of “verified’ symptoms or not. I’m only posting it as a chart of “possibles”.

There is now evidence that some effects of Covid 19 may be long lasting, and affect different parts of the body.

As I recall, a team at King’s College London have identified more possible symptoms, and they also claim to have identified/estimated a much larger number of possible cases in the UK.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newslondon/coronavirus-kings-college-london-researchers-identify-six-different-types-of-covid-19/ar-BB16RGZ4