Post-Christmas update to English hospital deaths. Headline reported total 365.
5-day reporting total is down from 293 to 235 (for 24 Dec) but Christmas reporting means it may not give a like-for-like comparison as there is probably more backdating to come than usual.
And here is the trend in the 5-day reporting total for the past month. 7-day average is down a bit up to 24 Dec but likely due to slower reporting than normal over Christmas.
And here are the regional trends for English hospital deaths for the last month using the 5-day reporting totals (up to 24 Dec). Again, falls in most recent days may be probably explained by Christmas reporting ...
... that said, note deaths started increasing again around 7-11th Dec, i.e. relating to infections *during lockdown*. Any lockdown-lifting effect should have started to appear in the data by now. No indication of any surge yet, though it may be masked by Christmas reporting.
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Given much of the country has been under drastic restrictions continuously since 5 Nov (in some cases earlier) @BorisJohnson will have imposed an effective lockdown of 5+ months ...
5+ months during which it will have been a criminal offence for you to invite your elderly neighbour into your house (or even garden) for a drink or just a chat
and when tens of thousands of pubs, cafes, restaurants & others are being banned from operating their businesses.
5+ months of it being a criminal offence for someone to sit in a cafe having a cup of tea
and for parents to hold a birthday party for their 6-year old with kids who mix together every day at school
and for millions of young people to meet anywhere indoors with even 1 friend.
53k is high but does not indicate a surge in itself. Rather the big number seems largely due to Christmas reporting, both delays & Christmas effect (people getting tested in days after Christmas rather than on the 25th).
If you look by specimen date, 7-day ave of positive tests went down on 24 & 25 Dec & then up in days after. Data still incomplete for more recent days, so we don't know yet what is the net effect.
Zoe App data suggests infections still going up until 25th Dec but the rate of increase slowing. It may turn out that cases started to go up faster again from 26th Dec, but we don't know that from the data yet.
Update to various Covid-19 indicators for England.
Deaths up a bit but fairly stable in week up to 22 Dec.
Zoe App up (though rate of increase declining), positive tests down (at 23 Dec).
Obvious caveat is that reporting affected by Christmas so interpret cautiously.
Christmas effects may include more people getting tested in run-up whilst delayed reporting may mean more backdating than usual to come. Also (not relevant for today's table), many who might have got tested on the 25th, delayed until after Christmas day.
That said, from reports so far, positive tests done on 23 Dec (so relating to infections from well before Tier 4) look to be down in quite a few of the hard-hit areas such as Havering, Medway, Barking, Southend, Kent, Redbridge.
It is useful to debate effectiveness of lockdown restrictions but we sometimes need to step back & remember these are unprecedented & draconian restrictions on basic rights & freedoms:
to education, worship, socialise, play games, & to provide for yourself & your family.
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However effective they may be, such restrictions should only be considered as a last resort in an emergency & should be strictly time limited. They are not an appropriate as a medium to long term approach to managing an ongoing public health problem.
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Even as short-term emergency measures, there should be a very high bar of evidence that any particular restriction is both necessary and likely to be effective.
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It's hard to exaggerate the stupidity of calls to shut pubs (& restaurants & leisure) in London & Essex because of the rise in infections: the recent increase relates to infections when pubs were actually closed during lockdown.
The only argument for shutting pubs might be if you could be certain that, otherwise, cases would rise even faster. This could be a plausible theory with packed pubs but hard to see how that works with table service & other precautions in place.
Indeed, it is just as plausible that shutting restaurants & pubs increases infections if it drives people to meet up in homes where Covid precautions may be more variable. The Dutch study supports this theory.
After their disastrous forecast for 26 Oct, MRC doubled down. On 3 Nov (just before lockdown), their mid-point prediction was for 545 deaths on 14 Nov, with a range of 380 to 710.
Deaths for the 14th should be fairly complete now and the total for the 14th is 336. The 7-day average is a bit higher (346), but still well short even of the MRC's lower bound estimate.
As I said last time, forecasting is difficult. But this was made just 11 days out so based largely on infections already occurred & tests already completed. Further, forecast range was very wide whilst MRC use the broadest "within 60 days of a positive test" deaths definition.