Coronavirus

[ThistleWhistle]

8 minutes ago, aaid said:

Both Scotland and the UK - essentially England and Wales (but they also fold in Scotland and NI numbers to give an overall UK figure) - are providing two different sets of figures.

The first one is the daily figures which could be considered quick and dirty, those are deaths which of people who's death has been reported and who have been confirmed by a test as having COVID in the previous 24 hours.   They can get those number quickly because presumably they know who has tested positive and when that person sadly dies - or the death is reported - they can tie those up.  

The second set of numbers that are published are the weekly statistics and these provide two numbers, one is the number of deaths in total - all causes - in the previous seven days - and from which you can work out the excess number of deaths for that period based on a rolling 5 year average.    Secondly, they provide a total number of people who have died and where COVID is mentioned on the death certificate.    There will be a disparity between that number and summing up the daily numbers for a few reasons but primarily because not everyone who has had COVID recorded on their death certificate will have been tested.    

The problem with the weekly numbers is that they are by definition out of date.  The England and Wales numbers released by the ONS today are for the week ending 22nd May.   NRS is a bit more up-to-date, they tend to release numbers on a Thursday which relate to the previous week.  Therefore you can't reconcile the ONS numbers for Scotland with the NRS ones as it's different reporting periods.

Trying to reconcile these two sets of numbers is a fools errand but they both tell different but equally important things.   

If you want to look at a quicker moving trend then its the daily numbers, if you're interested in more detailed and more accurate but out of date numbers then its the weekly numbers.

The accusation - if you can call it that - is that the figures for deaths is care homes in England is lower than it should be considering all the other numbers and when comparing to comparable rates in other countries.   Whether or not that's true, there is enough of a dispute over its accuracy that it shouldn't really be relied upon.

Cheers for that.  

It wasn't until I read it in that link yesterday that England was sitting at 22% and it just doesn't seem right at all given everyone else sits between 37% Germany and 65% Spain.  

 

[aaid]

31 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

Cheers for that.  

It wasn't until I read it in that link yesterday that England was sitting at 22% and it just doesn't seem right at all given everyone else sits between 37% Germany and 65% Spain.  

 

Looking at the latest ONS Data for Care Homes for w/e 22 May

W/E 22 May

All deaths of Care Home residents in all locations (Hospital, Care Home, Elsewhere, Not Stated) - 3468
Deaths involving COVID-19 1253.   

That gives you a rate of 36%.   If you look only at those who died in a care home, the rate goes down slightly to 34%

For the comparable period in Scotland - w/e 20 May, 348 deaths in total were recorded in Care Homes of which 124 were COVID related, which gives you a rate of 36%

I've seen that 22% figure for England being mentioned before but I've no idea where that comes from.

Edit - I see the article you mean.  

That's talking about a different thing all together.  Not the percentage of people who die in Care Homes as a result of COVID compared to those who die of all reasons but the percentage of people who die in a Care Home of COVID as a percentage of all COVID deaths which is a completely different measure - one which I'm not sure is particularly useful - unless of course its Care Home Professional magazine trying to show that Care Homes aren't the problem.

Edited June 2, 2020 by aaid

[ThistleWhistle]

1 hour ago, aaid said:

Looking at the latest ONS Data for Care Homes for w/e 22 May

W/E 22 May

All deaths of Care Home residents in all locations (Hospital, Care Home, Elsewhere, Not Stated) - 3468
Deaths involving COVID-19 1253.   

That gives you a rate of 36%.   If you look only at those who died in a care home, the rate goes down slightly to 34%

For the comparable period in Scotland - w/e 20 May, 348 deaths in total were recorded in Care Homes of which 124 were COVID related, which gives you a rate of 36%

I've seen that 22% figure for England being mentioned before but I've no idea where that comes from.

Edit - I see the article you mean.  

That's talking about a different thing all together.  Not the percentage of people who die in Care Homes as a result of COVID compared to those who die of all reasons but the percentage of people who die in a Care Home of COVID as a percentage of all COVID deaths which is a completely different measure - one which I'm not sure is particularly useful - unless of course its Care Home Professional magazine trying to show that Care Homes aren't the problem.

I understand that because attacking Scotland on their ratio of care home covid-19 deaths vs total covid deaths in comparison to England is obviously nonsense as it would by default mean Scotland’s response to non-care home cases has been better as %.  The other obvious fault is it  doesn’t consider the size of the whole being divvied up. 

 

Thought it was quite interesting in that the ratio they were using to attack the SG with is actually fairly standard in comparison to peers with England being the outlier although they were figures back at 10^th May.

 

The bit I don’t get is there are c.60,000 excess deaths and c.45,000 of these have been attributed to Covid-19 if appears on the certificate.  As at 15^th July the study found care home deaths were actually at least double down south at 22,000 and would take England’s % in line with everyone else.  Is there therefore a large proportion of the ‘other’ 15,000 excess deaths down to indirect care home deaths particularly down south?  If it is there is ,massive questions for them to answer.      

 

Add to that Sir David Norgrove, head honcho  of Statistics, going in pretty hard here:

https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/02.06.2020_SDN_Matt_Hancock_MP.pdf

 

Part of the above is due to the 8-9k new case a day figure being reported.  It is correct but that only includes figures outside of care homes and hospitals.  With hospitals and care homes we’re still well in 5 figure territory but on the Brightside Ikea is open. 

[Ally Bongo]

England on it's own has the highest Covid-19 death rate in Europe and possibly the World

And at the same time has the lowest care home death rate

Something about that smells of fish ..and it's not Alan Partridge

[aaid]

18 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

I understand that because attacking Scotland on their ratio of care home covid-19 deaths vs total covid deaths in comparison to England is obviously nonsense as it would by default mean Scotland’s response to non-care home cases has been better as %.  The other obvious fault is it  doesn’t consider the size of the whole being divvied up. 

 

 

 

Thought it was quite interesting in that the ratio they were using to attack the SG with is actually fairly standard in comparison to peers with England being the outlier although they were figures back at 10^th May.

 

 

 

The bit I don’t get is there are c.60,000 excess deaths and c.45,000 of these have been attributed to Covid-19 if appears on the certificate.  As at 15^th July the study found care home deaths were actually at least double down south at 22,000 and would take England’s % in line with everyone else.  Is there therefore a large proportion of the ‘other’ 15,000 excess deaths down to indirect care home deaths particularly down south?  If it is there is ,massive questions for them to answer.      

 

 

 

Add to that Sir David Norgrove, head honcho  of Statistics, going in pretty hard here:

 

https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/02.06.2020_SDN_Matt_Hancock_MP.pdf

 

 

 

Part of the above is due to the 8-9k new case a day figure being reported.  It is correct but that only includes figures outside of care homes and hospitals.  With hospitals and care homes we’re still well in 5 figure territory but on the Brightside Ikea is open. 

 

When you drill into it, you can see where the problem lies - at least with the numbers, not necessarily what's at the root of it.   

What is definitely happening is that in Scotland, a much higher percentage of people who are dying from COVID are in Care Homes than in England.    For Scotland that currently sits about 46% of all COVID deaths.    The numbers quoted in that Care Home article are out of date but on the same measure is about 28% now.   However - for England, that is only those care home residents who died in a care home, i.e. it doesn't include Care Home residents who died in Hospital or where the place of death wasn't recorded, if you look at all Care Home residents then that goes up to 40%.  

The figures for Scotland don't break down the same way so for example, you can't see how many care home residents are admitted to hospital in Scotland and whether or not that's recorded as a Care Home death or a Hospital Death.  However, anecdotal evidence and the comparatively low number of hospital deaths - compared to Care Homes suggests that there doesn't appear to be widespread admittance from Care Home to hospital.   In England however 20% of Care Home residents with COVID died in hospital and 10% in Elsewhere/Not Stated.

In summary, if you are a Care Home resident in Scotland, it doesn't seem that you have a greater chance of dying from COVID, mortality rate from COVID in the care home population is around 4% in both Scotland and England, also if you are going to die, you have a similar chance of it being from COVID.   What is much more likely though, is that if you are going to die from COVID, its likely to be in the Care Home and not anywhere else - and actually that might well be the correct place for that to happen, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions either way about that.

England seems to have a higher level of "unexplained" deaths than Scotland, ie. excess deaths not confirmed as COVID.   That's around 10% higher for England a good chunk of those must be COVID related which is what suggests the "under-reporting" in general of COVID cases.  

 

[phart]

First net rise in active cases in a wee while reported today. Been kepping an eye on it and has been going down but raided up today.

[min]

5 minutes ago, phart said:

First net rise in active cases in a wee while reported today. Been kepping an eye on it and has been going down but raided up today.

There was a wee anomaly in the reporting today and Sturgeon explained it that of the 53 new positive cases, 40 were older test results only received today. That may skew the active cases.

[Orraloon]

7 minutes ago, phart said:

First net rise in active cases in a wee while reported today. Been kepping an eye on it and has been going down but raided up today.

Scotland or UK?

I think she said todays number included 40 older positive cases only reported today. I think the numbers in Scotland tend to go up on Tuesday/Wednesday due to catching up on reporting from the weekend. Hopefully it's just a reporting blip. Might not be though.

 

[phart]

6 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Scotland or UK?

I think she said todays number included 40 older positive cases only reported today. I think the numbers in Scotland tend to go up on Tuesday/Wednesday due to catching up on reporting from the weekend. Hopefully it's just a reporting blip. Might not be though.

 

Scotland

[biffer]

19 minutes ago, min said:

There was a wee anomaly in the reporting today and Sturgeon explained it that of the 53 new positive cases, 40 were older test results only received today. That may skew the active cases.

If you look at the breakdown, it's 35 cases in Fife. Not sure what's happened - some miscounting or misreporting that meant they got left off? 

 

[Ally Bongo]

12 minutes ago, biffer said:

If you look at the breakdown, it's 35 cases in Fife. Not sure what's happened - some miscounting or misreporting that meant they got left off? 

 

No idea

Maybe they died in the community and this caused the reporting delay

[Orraloon]

31 minutes ago, biffer said:

If you look at the breakdown, it's 35 cases in Fife. Not sure what's happened - some miscounting or misreporting that meant they got left off? 

 

It might be just a couple of test runs failed for some reason and had to be redone the next day or something? These things happen all the time. A dodgy test kit or an MLSO had a bad day?

[ThistleWhistle]

2 hours ago, aaid said:

When you drill into it, you can see where the problem lies - at least with the numbers, not necessarily what's at the root of it.   

What is definitely happening is that in Scotland, a much higher percentage of people who are dying from COVID are in Care Homes than in England.    For Scotland that currently sits about 46% of all COVID deaths.    The numbers quoted in that Care Home article are out of date but on the same measure is about 28% now.   However - for England, that is only those care home residents who died in a care home, i.e. it doesn't include Care Home residents who died in Hospital or where the place of death wasn't recorded, if you look at all Care Home residents then that goes up to 40%.  

The figures for Scotland don't break down the same way so for example, you can't see how many care home residents are admitted to hospital in Scotland and whether or not that's recorded as a Care Home death or a Hospital Death.  However, anecdotal evidence and the comparatively low number of hospital deaths - compared to Care Homes suggests that there doesn't appear to be widespread admittance from Care Home to hospital.   In England however 20% of Care Home residents with COVID died in hospital and 10% in Elsewhere/Not Stated.

In summary, if you are a Care Home resident in Scotland, it doesn't seem that you have a greater chance of dying from COVID, mortality rate from COVID in the care home population is around 4% in both Scotland and England, also if you are going to die, you have a similar chance of it being from COVID.   What is much more likely though, is that if you are going to die from COVID, its likely to be in the Care Home and not anywhere else - and actually that might well be the correct place for that to happen, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions either way about that.

England seems to have a higher level of "unexplained" deaths than Scotland, ie. excess deaths not confirmed as COVID.   That's around 10% higher for England a good chunk of those must be COVID related which is what suggests the "under-reporting" in general of COVID cases.  

 

It's a shit sandwich no doubt for the SG on the care homes - if it turns out the vast majority didn't get access to hospitals they're rightly in for a an absolute kicking.  Although the mortality rate is roughly similar and potentially only 20% of care home residents down south dying in hospital that's not going save them.  

Looks like ONS have found that 10,000 though:

 

[Orraloon]

42 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

It's a shit sandwich no doubt for the SG on the care homes - if it turns out the vast majority didn't get access to hospitals they're rightly in for a an absolute kicking.  Although the mortality rate is roughly similar and potentially only 20% of care home residents down south dying in hospital that's not going save them.  

Looks like ONS have found that 10,000 though:

 

Just to add another wee complication, the ONS figures are for England and Wales. Something else to consider for anybody who wants to make comparisons.

 

[Orraloon]

One other thing that I haven't seen mentioned, and it might turn out to be totally irrelevant. The body Public Health Scotland didn't exist until April this year. It was set up to replace Health Protection Scotland amongst other things. The plans for the switchover have been underway for about 5 years and a lot of the employees will just move over to the new body. But, it's still quite a change and just happened to be in the final stages of preparation at exactly the same time as the COVID shit hit the fan. I would be interested to know if any of that had anything to do with our lack of preparedness. 

[aaid]

52 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

It's a shit sandwich no doubt for the SG on the care homes - if it turns out the vast majority didn't get access to hospitals they're rightly in for a an absolute kicking.  Although the mortality rate is roughly similar and potentially only 20% of care home residents down south dying in hospital that's not going save them.  

 

Only if it transpires that admitting someone to hospital from a care home was the right thing to do and that they were stopped from doing that for some reason.   I don't think it's a case of "get someone into hospital and try and save them" when the treatment they'd receive might not make any difference or in the worst cases hasten or result in a more unpleasant death than would've been the case.

We're told that every case is treated on its own merits and is a decision made by a clinician.  In the absence of any evidence to the contrary you have to take that at face value.  

A lot of people impacted will sadly be at the end of the lives due to other co-mordbidities, COVID may be a factor that hastens that, but in those cases palliative care in the environment they are most familiar and comfortable with may well be the best course of action.   That's of course not the same as leaving someone to die but is managing that inevitable death in the most dignified and least painless manner  

The other side to this is - and I'm not saying this is the case, at least not widespread - is that you have care homes in England sending terminal cases to hospital to get them off the books so to speak.

i think the danger here is taking some statistics that show a particular trend and then use that to claim or imply there's some overarching policies driving that when the reality might well be that the stats are the results of a couple of thousand individual cases combined, ie, it's a bottom up rather than top down impact.   Without knowing the details it's impossible to really state one way or another what is going on.

[aaid]

16 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

One other thing that I haven't seen mentioned, and it might turn out to be totally irrelevant. The body Public Health Scotland didn't exist until April this year. It was set up to replace Health Protection Scotland amongst other things. The plans for the switchover have been underway for about 5 years and a lot of the employees will just move over to the new body. But, it's still quite a change and just happened to be in the final stages of preparation at exactly the same time as the COVID shit hit the fan. I would be interested to know if any of that had anything to do with our lack of preparedness. 

What's the difference between the two bodies, is it a change of name or are they fundamentally doing different things?  If it's largely the same staff then it's probably closer to the former.

Presumably there were some activities related to the change in advance of that happening, say in the six months previously, did any of this work mean that people were diverted from preparations for a pandemic which at gag stage would've been hypothetical?

[Ally Bongo]

Another concocted SNP Bad No Story from the media today regarding a FOI requesting what advice the Scottish Government advisors have given the Scottish Government

 

[aaid]

29 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Another concocted SNP Bad No Story from the media today regarding a FOI requesting what advice the Scottish Government advisors have given the Scottish Government

 

Let me guess - The Herald?

[Ally Bongo]

2 hours ago, aaid said:

Let me guess - The Herald?

James Matthews from SKY - and then followed up by a couple of others

[Ally Bongo]

James Matthews

 

@jamesmatthewsky

 

NEW: Scot Govt was asked in FOI for a “copy of any briefing, written advice, report written by the Nat Clinical Director and/or CMO and/or anyone in their teams re Scottish preparations & planning for COVID-19, produced between 24 Jan & 9 March”.

 

FOI Response: “No reports/briefings were shared by the CMO or the NCD to either the Cab Sec for Health and/or the First Minister on the subject you requested during the time period identified.

 

 

[aaid]

8 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

James Matthews

 

@jamesmatthewsky

 

NEW: Scot Govt was asked in FOI for a “copy of any briefing, written advice, report written by the Nat Clinical Director and/or CMO and/or anyone in their teams re Scottish preparations & planning for COVID-19, produced between 24 Jan & 9 March”.

 

FOI Response: “No reports/briefings were shared by the CMO or the NCD to either the Cab Sec for Health and/or the First Minister on the subject you requested during the time period identified.

 

 

Neil Findlay behind it.  Another FOI fishing trip from him fails to land anything.

[Rolling hIlls]

36 minutes ago, aaid said:

Neil Findlay behind it.  Another FOI fishing trip from him fails to land anything.

That is their job I suppose.

[aaid]

9 minutes ago, Rolling hIlls said:

That is their job I suppose.

Going fishing, not catching anything then claiming that - look it's water, there must be fish in there - when in fact you were either fishing in a swimming pool or you were trying to catch cod using a salmon fly.  

If it is his job then he's not doing it very effectively but then he's not an effective politician, high on angry rhetoric and acting like a prick, low on actually holding the government to account.  Won't be missed at Holyrood.

[thplinth]

Well that is the UK now tied with Spain at 580 deaths per million. We passed Italy a while ago now. We will surpass Spain in a day or two. After there is only Andorra (which I exclude as it is just a statelet) and Belgium at 820. Belgium will take some catching but if any country is capable of it, it is Great Britain.