Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[two sheds]

Hence his 600,000 (and 79 as Priti Patel would say)

600,079 thousand, surely

 

[planetgeli]

600,079 thousand, surely

You may speak better Patellian than me.

 

[Petcha]

Dishy Rishi is clearly about 1,000,000 times more competent than his boss. What fucking terrible timing having Boris 'in charge' of this fucking situation.

 

[2hats]

You've just proved my point.

The upper bound on the death count, like any aspect of it, depends on the effective reproduction number, which in turn, in the absence of pharmaceutical interventions, depends on societal behavioural modifications (or absence thereof) ie mitigations.

The effective reproduction number would currently appear to be around 0.7±0.1. This is down from ~3, pre-'lockdown', which would have led to hundred of thousands of deaths (in the event that everyone carried on 'as normal').

 

[Lurdan]

Yeah, wouldn't have made for much of an article.

'Some people have been saying that some ethnic minorities in the UK are more susceptible to covid 19. I've checked, and they're not.'

Bit short.

I was wondering what "Professor Richard Webber, perhaps Britain’s most distinguished geodemographer" might have brought to the table. An absolutely hilarious 2004 interview in the advertising and marketing industry journal Campaign gives us a clue.

Half the time I think of myself as a marketing person and the other half as a geographer.

Why is the "the originator of the UK-based geodemographic classifications, Acorn and Mosaic" not already leading a pandemic task force ? Perhaps they are saving him for the expert panel at the public inquiry.

 

[elbows]

Some timely clean air activism

London charities launch #BuildBackCleanerAir campaign

Campaigners are asking residents of Lambeth and Southwark to talk about their experiences during the coronavirus lockdown (positive or negative) as part of their #BuildBackCleanerAir campaign.

www.brixtonbuzz.com

On a related note:

Coronavirus: Banning cars made easier to aid social distancing

Councils in England can now ban cars from streets more easily to allow space for social distancing.

www.bbc.co.uk

Edmund King, president of the AA, said: “We remain generally supportive of measures to encourage more cycling and walking both during and after lockdown.

“It’s heartening to see more children taking to the roads on bikes.

“It’s too early to say exactly what will happen to transport post-pandemic but if trends of more people working from home and lower car use persist, then it might give us the opportunity to re-assess road use in targeted areas.”

It’s part of a broader debate on the future of transport in cities.

The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps recently said the overall use of vehicles would need to fall if UK targets for tackling climate change are to be met.

 

[Dogsauce]

I can see more people cycling post-lockdown as that’ll be less risky than the tube/bus, although I used to see pretty dense crowds of bikes at lights on my commute, dozens crammed in the advance box.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I used to see pretty dense crowds of bikes at lights on my commute, dozens crammed in the advance box.

All the more reason to get ride of the cars and let the bikes spread out a bit

 

[weltweit]

I have been surprised at the gov chart which seems to show vehicular traffic still often at 40% of normal levels, where I live traffic might be as little as 10% of normal levels.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I have been surprised at the gov chart which seems to show vehicular traffic still often at 40% of normal levels, where I live traffic might be as little as 10% of normal levels.

Just from my wanderings, London is busier today than it was last week (although still way quieter than normal) and it was busier last week than it was the week before. Lockdown is cracking somewhat - there are definitely more people back at work. Outside one construction site, they had marked out 2 metre distancing for workmen queuing to enter the site. Quite what difference that will make once they're inside, I'm not sure.

 

[planetgeli]

According to the Guardian

How the cabinet stands on easing restriction

Keep lockdown

Johnson
Hancock

In the middle

Raab
Williamson
Sharma

Ease lockdown

Sunak
Gove
Truss

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Just from my wanderings, London is busier today than it was last week (although still way quieter than normal) and it was busier last week than it was the week before. Lockdown is cracking somewhat - there are definitely more people back at work. Outside one construction site, they had marked out 2 metre distancing for workmen queuing to enter the site. Quite what difference that will make once they're inside, I'm not sure.

I'd agree with that. Loads more people out and about today. Loads more in the hospital foyer when I got to work and the busses were almost full - one person on every double seat on the way home.

That could be because the busses are now free as you have to get on via the middle doors and there is a big sign saying "no need to tap in".

It doesn't explain why there are generally more people around though.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Even by Grauniad standards, that's a terrible graphic.

 

[Wilf]

I've got in my notes that when Italy did a nationwide lockdown, Johnson said other countries were 'overreacting'. But I dont seem to have a source, if anyone finds reference to that please let me know, cheers. It would have been within a day or so of March 11th, possibly even on that day.

There was this, posted by brogdale . Doesn't use the word overreacting and was well before the date you mention, so probably not what you are after. However it very much expresses the same sentiment:

Apols if posted elsewhere...but this clip of Johnson speaking just 73 days ago is quite instructive when attempting to understand the early, recent history of the government's response to Covid-19:

 

[David Clapson]

The upper bound on the death count, like any aspect of it, depends on the effective reproduction number, which in turn, in the absence of pharmaceutical interventions, depends on societal behavioural modifications (or absence thereof) ie mitigations.

The effective reproduction number would currently appear to be around 0.7±0.1. This is down from ~3, pre-'lockdown', which would have led to hundred of thousands of deaths (in the event that everyone carried on 'as normal').

So what? The whole population eventually gets exposed. A lower R number means it takes longer, but it still happens.

 

[Sue]

The NHS thread didn't seem the right place to put this.

On the frontline: meet the NHS workers tackling coronavirus

From emergency arrivals to critical care, photojournalist Jonny Weeks was given extraordinary access to University hospital in Coventry to document the Covid-19 pandemic. This photo essay captures the contributions of those who save our lives

www.theguardian.com

 

[David Clapson]

The uk has a population of 67.9 million currently.

I know. But there is always at least a small amount of immunity, with any virus.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'd agree with that. Loads more people out and about today. Loads more in the hospital foyer when I got to work and the busses were almost full - one person on every double seat on the way home.

That could be because the busses are now free as you have to get on via the middle doors and there is a big sign saying "no need to tap in".

It doesn't explain why there are generally more people around though.

On the scientific measure of 'how long I'm waiting to cross main roads', there is far more traffic on the roads now. Two weeks ago I was crossing Euston Road (to non-Londoners, that's a very busy road) whenever I liked. Now, it's recognisably a busy road again, and you have to wait for the green man as normal.

 

[planetgeli]

Even by Grauniad standards, that's a terrible graphic.

Shut up.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

On the scientific measure of 'how long I'm waiting to cross main roads', there is far more traffic on the roads now. Two weeks ago I was crossing Euston Road (to non-Londoners, that's a very busy road) whenever I liked. Now, it's recognisably a busy road again, and you have to wait for the green man as normal.

Yes. 2 weeks ago* I could cross Brixton Hill without waiting for a pedestrian crossing. Not today.

(*I was WFH last week - I didn't go out so I don't know what the traffic was like)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Shut up.

I see they didn't bother asking Patel. 'What's lockdown?'

 

[Cribynkle]

Last week when that weeks provisional ONS numbers came out, one of the stories they told about the data was:



Which was reported on by the press eg Coronavirus pushes England and Wales death rate to record high

At the time I thought 'your weekly deaths data only goes back to 2005?' and I decided to try to get a broader sense of the historical context. I've ended up with yearly figures going back to 1838, quarterly going back to 1966. And I filled in some weekly gaps for a couple of earlier periods, although with variable quality. Some of it is derived from graphs of some key flu epidemic years so it isnt precise but it at least shows me the shape and I can do some estimates.

Anyway, when I was looking at various datasources it turned out that the ONS themselves had weekly data going back to week 31 of 1999 in one of their spreadsheets. And since the winter of 98/99 and 99/00 had bad flu seasons with a high toll on the elderly, I found the 'since records began' thing to be rather odd. Well it turns out they corrected theit original narrative, it doesnt go on about 2005 any more:



(from updated Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics )

As far as I can tell, the England and Wales registered weekly deaths in that millenium period were 18,581 in week 52 of 1999 and 17,970 in week 1 of 2000.

I dont have good ONS data for the flu a year earlier, but there were old press articles that gave a provisional weekly figure of 20,508 for week 1 1999. I found an old paper of influenza epidemics that gave a weekly figure of all deaths of 19,553 for the peak week of a 1997/98 epidemic and 19,180 for the peak week of 1989/90.

I dont have a number for the epidemic of early 1976, the pandemics of 1968 (1969 in the UK I think) or 1957/58, or the epidemic of 1950/51, or other notable epidemic years. I do have ONS estimated winter excess mortality figures for winter 1950/51 (terribly high numbers!) through to 2018. In terms of total yearly deaths for England/Wales, as far as I can tell, no matter the change in population size over time, the number only went above 600,000 in 1918, although there were some years in the 1970's which got quite close to breaching 600,000. It fell a little below 500,000, for the first time since the early 1950's, from 2009-2012 after several decades of decline, but has been heading back towards 550,000's since.

Anyway this is just some general context because I am preparing myself for tomorrows ONS release, as I expect some of the numbers in it to be quite horrible. I dont know if ONS have weekly data available to them for earlier record weeks, so I dont know what they will compare the numbers in the next report to. But I will want to put it in context myself, as best I can.

What was the population in 1918?

U.K. Death Rate 1950-2023

Chart and table of the U.K. death rate from 1950 to 2023. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.

www.macrotrends.net

This website shows UK annual mortality rate since 1950.
1978 was the worst year in the range with a death rate of 11.92 per thousand, last year was 9.398.

 

[Mation]

Race and pandemic you say ? Why it must be time for an article by Trevor Phillips. Today's Times.

We need to solve ethnic puzzle of Covid-19
Could religion explain why some ethnic minorities seem to be more susceptible than others?

Spoiler: Text of the fucking article

Trevor Phillips
Monday April 20 2020, 12.01am, The Times

You do not need to hail from the Indian subcontinent to feel pride and sorrow at the selflessness shown by Asian heritage doctors and nurses who have died from Covid-19. Nor do you need to be a product of plantation slavery for the report that black Americans are dying in huge numbers to send a shiver down your spine. But both pieces of news have prompted an urgent question, now being raised every day at Downing Street briefings: are people of colour more at risk than others? And if so, why?

Research linking race with disease is explosive. Many believe it should be off limits as a matter of principle. I don’t agree. The families of minority health workers are daily watching the mounting toll of dark faces in horror. Try persuading them that race is merely “a social construct” And knowledge about our differences can be revelatory. In the late 1990s a Pakistani-heritage medical researcher, Sadaf Farooqi, pointed out that Asian families, despite suffering higher infant mortality than average, were significantly less prone to sudden infant death syndrome, a fatal respiratory condition. Her brilliant insight into the way that Asian infants were positioned in their cots contributed to research that reduced the annual death of some 1,500 babies by more than half. In the case of coronavirus, we need to know everything we can. Unwarranted sensitivities could mean some other family grieving for a loved one; political squeamishness could block the path to a treatment.

So far our experts have had little to say about whether the virus has been doling out its grisly rations evenly. Their reluctance to guess is understandable. The combination of medicine, race and politics does not have a happy history. In 1932, American researchers, some of them black, concerned about the effects of syphilis on minorities, undertook a publicly funded programme of research in which they deliberately withheld treatment from 399 African-American men. The ghastly experiment was only terminated after 40 years, by which time 28 of the men had died of the disease, a further 100 perished from related causes, 40 wives had been infected and 19 children born with syphilis. More recently, the suave, British-educated president of South Africa Thabo Mbeki, citing his country’s history of blaming black people for previous epidemics, scoffed at evidence that Aids was a viral infection. His health minister prescribed quack remedies — garlic, beetroot, lemon juice. It is estimated that as a result, over 350,000 people died unnecessarily.

A month ago, rumours began to circulate on social media that black people were unusually resistant to Covid-19. Asked about this, I joked that history suggests we wouldn’t be that lucky. But the grim consequence of this misinformation may have been that African-Americans were slower than others to respond to the threat. In Chicago, a city one-third black, over two thirds of virus deaths have occurred in the black community. Non-urban areas have shown a similar pattern.

Concern about this known unknown was etched on the face of the chief medical officer as he addressed the issue at the weekend; factors like genetics, culture, language and religion could be quietly undermining scientists’ attempt to predict the spread of infection. Public Health England has rightly begun an inquiry. But however hard they try, scientists can’t keep pace with the rumour mill and must ensure the emerging conspiracy theories and knee-jerk victimhood do not go unchallenged.

I have worked with my friend and colleague, Professor Richard Webber, perhaps Britain’s most distinguished geodemographer, to see what public sources can tell us. You can see the detail in our preliminary paper at webberphillips.com. But our headline finding is that, on a per capita basis, coronavirus has struck London boroughs such as Brent, Southwark, Lambeth and Harrow far harder than it should have done; broadly speaking, the higher the proportion of non-whites in an area, the higher the rate of infection.

The pattern isn’t easy to explain. Assumptions about racial biology are unlikely to hold good across a range of non-white groups who are in most ways more unlike each other than they are different from whites. As for poverty, the list of the seventeen most afflicted local authorities includes low-income Brent, but also features multi-ethnic Wandsworth, where median weekly earnings, at £720, are 50 per cent above the national average. And of the virus hotspots, only two appear in the list of England’s ten most overcrowded boroughs. The most significant hotspots outside the capital, Liverpool and Sheffield, are 35th and 107th respectively out of 126 boroughs in order of population density.

So what might explain these data? First, age. Britain’s non-whites are, in general, younger than average. In the multigenerational households common in some minority communities young people, more likely to have had the virus without symptoms, might unknowingly have infected older relatives. Second, many minorities work in high exposure occupations — retail, public transport and the health service. And most intriguingly, might some minority communities have complied more readily with government guidance than others?

One puzzling finding in our report concerns not who is being infected, but is who is not. Were poverty the key determinant, we would expect the virus to be running rampant among Britain’s Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim communities. Yet they are conspicuous by their absence in the list of hotspots — no Blackburn or Bradford, no Rotherham, Rochdale or Luton. The London borough of Tower Hamlets is more than a third Muslim — the highest density of any in England — and is sandwiched between two Covid-19 hotspots, Newham and Southwark, both home to substantial non-Muslim minority communities. Yet Tower Hamlets lies in the bottom third of the capital’s infection list: 22nd out of the 32 boroughs.

Maybe there is a revelation to be had here; if one key to stopping transmission of the virus is hand washing, might a faith community many of whose members ritually wash before five-times-a-day prayers have something to teach the rest of us? And does an ethnic group where almost 40 per cent are economically inactive — and therefore not regularly using public transport, for example — merely underline the protective value of social isolation? Many believe that only faith will deliver us from this particular evil but even they must know that only science will tell us how.

If I make an effort to mentally subtract out the way he says things, what's wrong with the content of what he said? (Christ, these are weird times!)

Isn't he saying that supposed racial biology can't be the answer, but that some cultural practices might account for some communities being less hit than others? And therefore that social distancing/isolation/hygiene is effective where it's possible for people to do that (i.e. those not on the front line)?

 

[Orang Utan]

I'd agree with that. Loads more people out and about today. Loads more in the hospital foyer when I got to work and the busses were almost full - one person on every double seat on the way home.

That could be because the busses are now free as you have to get on via the middle doors and there is a big sign saying "no need to tap in".

It doesn't explain why there are generally more people around though.

fucking hell, people are still getting buses?

 

[planetgeli]

I see they didn't bother asking Patel. 'What's lockdown?'

They told her it involved a Pie Chart.

You won't believe what happened next...

 

[Orang Utan]

think it's just London that is busy. Still dead up here

 

[Mrs Miggins]

fucking hell, people are still getting buses?

Loads today.

When the lockdown started, there was hardly anyone on the bus. One morning it was just me and 1 other person. Today - really full.

I have no other way of getting to work but I think I will walk home tomorrow and probably for the rest of the week. It takes an hour or an hour and a half depending on which hospital I am at that day.

 

[elbows]

I know. But there is always at least a small amount of immunity, with any virus.

Immunity might not be the best word for that. Its one of the subjects I need to look into more. I expect 'proportion of population that is susceptible' is sort of unknown and a bit of a guess up till now. If entirely the wrong presumptions have been made about this, then the picture will change when/if we learn something closer to the truth. Or maybe the presumptions borrowed from flu will turn out to be close to reality. Its not clear to me whether we will ever actually find out, since the most obvious way of doing so involves letting epidemics carry on. But other ways to estimate at some point may exist.

Some of the people that were originally hoping to discover much higher percentages of people already infected, have moved on to these 'unknown ceilings of maximum susceptibility'. Because so far the levels of prior infection that have been demonstrated in several small studies arent very impressive, are not what those people wanted to hear. But maybe there is another aspect to the story that is poorly understood. I have no way to judge, beyond say the clues and limits of accidental experiments like the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

 

[Orang Utan]

Loads today.

When the lockdown started, there was hardly anyone on the bus. One morning it was just me and 1 other person. Today - really full.

I have no other way of getting to work but I think I will walk home tomorrow and probably for the rest of the week. It takes an hour or an hour and a half depending on which hospital I am at that day.

Are you allowed to refuse? I doubt I’d be able to get on a bus. I’d probably pass out

 

[emanymton]

fucking hell, people are still getting buses?

For many people (Like me) bus or train is the only way to get to work. What would you suggest they do?