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David Paton Profile picture
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8 Oct, 6 tweets, 2 min read
The Scottish Chief Medical Officer’s Covid-19 Note giving the evidence base for the new restrictions makes for remarkable reading.

It indicates new infections in Scotland could reach over 35k per day “without further intervention”. That works out to 9,000 per 100k over 14 days.
The notorious Whitty-Vallance *not a prediction" UK number of 45k per day works out to about 1,000 per 100k over 14 days. The Scottish CMO is suggesting a rate 9 times that by mid-November without the new restrictions.
ECDC report the max 14-day infection rate / 100k for *any* country during the whole pandemic is just over 1,000.

Current rate in Spain (CMO says Scotland is 8 weeks behind) is 300.
ecdc.europa.eu/en/publication…
Note the 35k /day is not some kind of worst case scenario with no restrictions at all, but the mid-point of their modelling with current measures in place.

Have journalists quizzed the First Minister and Scottish CMO about this?
Here is the full paper: gov.scot/binaries/conte…
*49k* not 45.

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More from @cricketwyvern

David Paton Profile picture
22 Sep
Very glad that @hannahITV is holding Ministers to account on this.

For too long they have got away with introducing restrictions that are high cost but which have little or no effect.
There is a similar issue with social mixing restrictions imposed first in the NW and which seem to have had little or no impact in reducing positive tests.

So why on earth does @BorisJohnson et al expect measures like the law of 6 to work nationwide?
Same with compulsory masks. No evidence they have slowed positive tests when introduced for public transport, shops or other venues, and in different parts of the UK at different times.

Again, why do Ministers think extending compulsory masks to pubs/cafes will help?
Read 4 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
21 Sep
Here are the Covid-19 updates for today.

Cases going up again, but not at an especially fast rate & rising only in some regions. Zoe data up, but NHS triage down.

Deaths, hospitalisations, ICU continue up Image
Few points to note:

1. 4% rise in positive tests (from 15th to 16th Sept) would mean doubling in about 18 days, not even close to the 7 days used in the briefing earlier to arrive at 49k cases per day by 13 October.
2. These are recent daily admissions numbers. Not much change at all in past few days. We will have to see if that pattern continues.

11th 135
12th 143
13th 153
14th 172
15th 194
16th 183
17th 199
18th 205
19th 204
Read 5 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
21 Sep
The briefing showed recent trends in France & Spain & then showed that the UK would have 49k cases per day if they doubled every week.

49k per day is a rate of 73.5 / 100k, i.e. over 3 times current rate in Spain, nearly 6 times France.

Why did they present that scenario?
If you want to compare with France & Spain, why wouldn't you use their doubling time which is every 3 weeks, not every week?

That would indicate closer to 7-8k cases per day by mid-October.
Also, why didn't @CMO_England & @uksciencechief present the UK data using the rate per 100k like they did for France/Spain?

That would make it easier for politicians, journalists & the public to compare & then to judge whether the *what if* scenario passes the smell test.
Read 5 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
17 Sep
Are we in a similar situation to early March?

7-day average of PHE deaths was 6.9 on 6th Sept and has been trending up since (last few days likely to see more deaths reported). Image
7-day average was v. similar (6.7) on 13 March so let's compare the evolution of deaths so far from 13 March & 6 September: Image
Who knows what will happen to deaths over the next few weeks, but at the moment there is simply no comparison with what was happening in early March.
Read 4 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
17 Sep
Whether or not you think local lockdowns work (& the evidence so far is ... not great), given the huge costs they impose, they should only be considered when there is an actual or impending crisis in hospitalisations/ICUs/deaths.

Is this the case in the North East?
The argument for focusing on increases in new positive tests is that hospitalisations will only follow about 5-7 days later & deaths after perhaps another week. There may be a further lag if infections shift from younger to older age groups.
Positive tests in the NE started increasing from 21 Aug and had already doubled by the start of Sept. So in fact, there has already been time to observe at least some impact, even on deaths.
Read 8 tweets
David Paton Profile picture
4 Sep
Will a significant increase in seriously ill patients & deaths inevitably follow from increased positive tests?

Every country is different, but the German experience is worth looking at.
New cases in Germany increased about 300% from mid-July to a peak on 24 Aug. They have been decreasing since then.

Deaths did increase a little but never averaged more than 8 per day. Similarly with ICU patients – an increase from the low on 24 July but no big surge. Image
Note deaths & new cases are the 7-day averages. Also ICU measurement changed from 4 Aug so I have scaled down values up to 3rd Aug to make them more comparable.

Here are the ICUs on their own so you can see the ups and downs more clearly. Image
Read 5 tweets

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