Coronavirus

[Globaltruth]

Looks like food is OK to have delivered - at the moment - if you can get any!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...od/ar-BB11jTdZ

Amazingly we've just had an order delivered from ICELAND. The chain of shops, not home of Ólafur Arnalds. Somewhere we have never used before, nor even been into.
As part of sign-in/sign-up you have to self-certify re self-isolation/being a state pensioner/vulnerable.
Between the 2 of us we tick 2 of these.
We placed the order yesterday and the order turned up on time today delivered in a smallish van with a friendly driver who managed to find us after 1 phonecall... Basic selection of fresh food, generally much smaller selection than the big supermarkets and low prices.
All veg is British, they sell some brands you may have heard of too...we are amazed and pleased. Worth a go.

[johnb]

Yes, but after so LITTLE testing, how useful are such ratios?

I'm not sure.

If it was consistently hospital patients being tested then the confirmed cases might well be meaningful. In recent days, however, hospital staff have begun to be tested and we only have the overall totals.

For what it's worth these are the figures for the past 21 days:
- No. of tests each day
- No. confirmed cases each day
- What that represents as a percentage increase on the cumulative total
(I've left out the cumulative totals)

	         Nos.	Confirmed Cases	
	        Tested	 	 
	        Daily	 Daily	% Incr
15/03/2020	 2,533	   232 	20.4%
16/03/2020	 3,826	   171 	12.5%
17/03/2020	 6,337	   407 	26.4%
18/03/2020	 5,779	   676 	34.7%
19/03/2020	 8,400	   643 	24.5%
20/03/2020	 2,355	   714 	21.8%
21/03/2020	 5,842	 1,035 	26.0%
22/03/2020	 5,522	   665 	13.3%
23/03/2020	 5,605	   967 	17.0%
24/03/2020	 6,491	 1,427 	21.5%
25/03/2020	 6,583	 1,452 	18.0%
26/03/2020	 7,847	 2,129 	22.3%
27/03/2020	 8,911	 2,885 	24.7%
28/03/2020	 6,999	 2,546 	17.5%
29/03/2020	 6,961	 2,433 	14.2%
30/03/2020	 7,209	 2,619 	13.4%
31/03/2020	 8,240	 3,009 	13.6%
01/04/2020	 9,793	 4,324 	17.2%
02/04/2020	10,215	 4,244 	14.4%
03/04/2020	10,590	 4,450 	13.2%
04/04/2020	 9,406	 3,735 	 9.8%

[Pianorak]

There is a highly critical appraisal of the UK government's approach to coronavirus when compared to how Germany has handled the situation. It is definitely worth a read: https://www.ft.com/content/c4155982-...d-169db6fe4244

They may have more of everything, except:

Coronavirus crisis: Underpaid, overstretched nursing staff demand more than applause

German nurses have been calling for better pay for years. During the coronavirus pandemic, suddenly they're getting recognition — even applause from people's balconies. But will the public remember when it's all over?

. . . Officially, the country was short 40,000 nurses according to the most recent numbers from the Labor Ministry for 2018, but the real tally is believed to be far higher. Many employers aren't even posting vacancies at job centers because they tend to receive so few applications. . .
Germans have become accustomed to nursing shortages. But the coronavirus pandemic has thrown the spotlight back on the issue. . . (Deutsche Welle)

[Old Grumpy]

They may have more of everything, except:

Coronavirus crisis: Underpaid, overstretched nursing staff demand more than applause

German nurses have been calling for better pay for years. During the coronavirus pandemic, suddenly they're getting recognition — even applause from people's balconies. But will the public remember when it's all over?

. . . Officially, the country was short 40,000 nurses according to the most recent numbers from the Labor Ministry for 2018, but the real tally is believed to be far higher. Many employers aren't even posting vacancies at job centers because they tend to receive so few applications. . .
Germans have become accustomed to nursing shortages. But the coronavirus pandemic has thrown the spotlight back on the issue. . . (Deutsche Welle)

Post-Brexit phenomenon or Google translate?

I note the above extract has American, rather than English spellings

OG

[Jazzrook]

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/02/24/coronavirus-climate-induced-pandemics/

JR

[Pianorak]

Post-Brexit phenomenon or Google translate?

I note the above extract has American, rather than English spellings

OG

Neither - It's a copy/paste from Deutche Welle's English service.

[richardfinegold]

Yes, but after so LITTLE testing, how useful are such ratios?

Not to mention we don’t know how sensitive the test is; I’ve had two patients that tested negative at the beginning of their hospitalization and were positive when retested at discharge

[johnb]

Not to mention we don’t know how sensitive the test is; I’ve had two patients that tested negative at the beginning of their hospitalization and were positive when retested at discharge

Professor Ashley Woodcock of Manchester University has written that there may be ~30% false negatives with the Covid-19 PCR tests and the reasons for that include testing in the early stages of the disease and, especially, poor technique in taking the swab samples. Worrying.

The following has a number of interesting and very informative points made by a variety of experts.Very much worth a read:

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-comments-on-different-types-of-test-for-covid-19/

[johnb]

Also from https://www.sciencemediacentre.org it turns out that the daily increase in the number of deaths that is reported by the government each day is very misleading. They are the deaths reported up to 5pm the previous day, but the inclusion of deaths in those figures can be anything up to 14 days in arrears due to delays in the system. So the additional daily deaths can have occurred at any time over the previous two weeks.

It appears that the only reliable source, as far as the number of deaths by date is concerned, is data published separately, and updated each day, by NHS England where the deaths are recorded against the actual date of death:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/

However those are figures for England only.

If you compare the two sets of figures by date there are extremely significant differences, even allowing for the fact that one set is for the UK and the other for England only.

[DracoM]

BUT which figures are regularly being used by the media to reach / influence all of us?

[Bryn]

https://elemental.medium.com/hold-the-line-17231c48ff17

[cloughie]

The Queen due to address the nation this evening - most of us will have a fair idea of what she will say so do the BBC really need to read it out on the news this morning?

[johnb]

BUT which figures are regularly being used by the media to reach / influence all of us?

As far as deaths are concerned the figures released, and used by the media, are the cumulative reported deaths up to 5pm the previous day.

So what everyone does is to take the previous day's figure away from the current day's cumulative total to get the number of deaths for the day.

BUT while that daily figure represents the increase in reported deaths, those reported deaths may have occurred on dates spread over the previous two weeks, though mostly over the previous 5 days.

As an example: yesterday the daily increase in reported deaths for the UK was 708.

The numbers within that figure which relate to England is 637.

When you drill down into that 637 you find that it is made up of the following:

Date
Death       No
Occured

03/04/20    99
02/04/20   199
01/04/20   134
31/03/20    26
30/03/20    46
29/03/20    57
28/03/20    17
27/03/20    17
etc

[johnb]

BUT which figures are regularly being used by the media to reach / influence all of us?

As far as deaths are concerned the figures released, and used by the media, are the cumulative reported deaths up to 5pm the previous day.

So what everyone does is to take the previous day's figure away from the current day's cumulative total to get the number of deaths for the day.

BUT while that daily figure represents the increase in reported deaths, those reported deaths occurred up to two weeks previously.

As an example: yesterday the daily increase in reported deaths for the UK was 708.

The numbers within that figure which related to England was 637.

When you drill down into that 637 you fine that it is made up of the following:

Date
Death       No
Occured

03/04/20    99
02/04/20   199
01/04/20   134
31/03/20    26
30/03/20    46
29/03/20    57
28/03/20    17
27/03/20    17
etc

Comparing (retrospectively) deaths by date of death for England with the daily reported deaths that are released by the government can reveal very significant differences.

The upshot is that not much weight should be given to the daily reported figures for deaths. It is best to look at the trend.

[DracoM]

Thx.
Which on the figures you include seem pretty variable and thus is it not tricky to work out a trend at the mo?
Or is that just my stupidity?