Corona Virus
A series of write ups on the virus
Coronavirus: Lockdown exit and Testing
21/06/2020
Exiting lockdown
The UK is now going to a lower alert level. Deaths
per million of population in England ar around
16 per week. How do we compare
with other countries?

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The USA was at this figure around 14th June.
It is now at 14.
New York is at about 11 now and is coming out of lockdown.
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Wales was at this figure on 9th June, but
since then the figures are not reducing as fast as they
were. It is now at 12.7
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Scotland was at this figure on 3rd June,
over 2 weeks ahead of England and is easing lockdown more
slowly It is now at 5.
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Northern Ireland was at this figure on 26th
May, almost 4 weeks ahead and are also exiting more slowly. Current
figure is 2.7
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Italy as at this figure on 24th May, and
began exiting lockdown on 6th May when deaths were around 33
per week per million. They are easing restrictions futher
now, to be similar to the UK, but their current death rate
is 5.7
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Spain on passed this figure 19th May. Stats
are not now valid but they are probably in line with Italy.
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Germany passed this figureon 26th April, and began
lifting lockdown on 26th May when the death rate was 4 per
million per week. Their current figure is 1.2
So England seems to be leading the world (or at least the
very small part of it that I'm monitoring) in coming the
earliest out of lockdown. England is also leading in the
total number of deaths so far, and the current number of deaths
per day taking the differences in population into account
for both figures.
Testing
Outbreaks are still happening in
carehomes. Staff can go in and out freely but do not get
tested unless they request it after they have symptoms.
In accordance with public health guidelines, we
test residents and staff when anyone in the home displays
symptoms, but we are currently unable to access repeated
proactive testing. Hopefully this will become available to all
care homes soon.
Carehome chief Executive
Current deaths in the UK are averaging 163 per day.
As the mortallity rate is about 1.4% and the time from infection
to death is about 14 days, this tells us that around 14 days ago
new infection must have been around 14,300.
Recorded new cases 14 days ago were about 1,823. So our
test and track system is managing to catch only
around 13% of the cases.
A month ago in Mid May were were averaging 394 deaths per day.
Therefore infections at the beginning of May maust have been
around 34,500. per day We were recording around 4,840 So
testing at the time caught about 14%.
This is not to say that the situation is any worse as there is a
big margin of error, it does tell us though that it is not much
better, and does not seem to be improving.
The tests are not a random sample of the population. A
random sample would enable us to track the spread. But as the
deaths in the UK are currently about 20 per week per million of
population, infections are about 1400 per million so we'd only
record 1 or two cases per thousand tests. The UK's tests
get about 11 cases per thousand tests.
But the tests are not intended to track the spread of the virus
but to curtail it by finding those people who are most likely to
have it using a track and trace solution and get them to self
isolate or get treatment. It has only been operational
since June 1st.
The data shows a 2% per day decrease
in cases since 1st June. If the death rate goes down by
more than 2% per day over the next few weeks this means that the
test and trace is doing some good. Ideally, we should see the
number of detected cases increase as
the number of hitherto undetected cases decrease.
In the USA new cases have fallen on
10% in the past month while deaths have halved.
Current deaths are around 660, per day. This would indicate at
1.4% mortality that new infections 14 days ago would be around
47.000. Actual cases recorded were 23,000. So tests in the
USA are catching around 50% and this is improving steadily.
This is far better than th UK. (But the moronic US media treat this increase in positive tests
as a rise in the infection rate, as oppossed to a rise in the
testing rate.)
To track the progress of the virus in the UK we can only use the deaths.
Even the hospital admissions are not ideal as the criteria for
admission into hospitals changes constantly. Although it is a
better measure than recorded cases.
Unfortunately the deaths are around two weeks behind infections.
It's not ideal, but still the best we have.
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