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?

1. 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.

2. 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

3. 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.

4. Northern Ireland was at this figure on 26th May, almost 4 weeks ahead and are also exiting more slowly. Current figure is 2.7

5. 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

6. Spain on passed this figure 19th May. Stats are not now valid but they are probably in line with Italy.

7. 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.