Another day, another thread

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The Tele has a story leading on from yesterday's admission that the death figures are being understated. In effect, it's adding more lag to the already lagged figures.

Coronavirus: Questions over true death toll after London hospital records almost three times more deaths than official figures show

King's College Hospital Trust has recorded 31 deaths from Covid-19 but due to time lag national figures show 11 deaths at its three hospital

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/29/coronavirus-questions-true-death-toll-london-hospital-records/

“Whether it is Covid or ebola there is always a time lag to check the data across the system is linked. We don’t want to be misreporting data and then having to correct that. The country would not have confidence if we were having to do that and as we have had sadly to register more deaths that time period takes longer."

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The Tele has a story leading on from yesterday's admission that the death figures are being understated. In effect, it's adding more lag to the already lagged figures.

Coronavirus: Questions over true death toll after London hospital records almost three times more deaths than official figures show

King's College Hospital Trust has recorded 31 deaths from Covid-19 but due to time lag national figures show 11 deaths at its three hospital

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/29/coronavirus-questions-true-death-toll-london-hospital-records/

“Whether it is Covid or ebola there is always a time lag to check the data across the system is linked. We don’t want to be misreporting data and then having to correct that. The country would not have confidence if we were having to do that and as we have had sadly to register more deaths that time period takes longer."

Yes, that was raised and explained on yesterday’s briefing. I can’t see all that article as it’s behind a paywall.  

They said the official death toll reported yesterday would have been for deaths the day before.  They have a lag of approx a day due to verification and family being informed.  I suppose it’s the same as confirmed cases having a lag of three days due to the time it takes for test results to come back.

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I see there are plans being talked about to run the remaining Premier League games at “isolation camps” in the summer. Give us something to watch with the other summer sport cancelled.

Some people fussing about potential injuries taking up valuable hospital space but realistically we would surely only likely be talking about a handful of cases requiring treatment.

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Had wondered about this before because Wolverhampton reported 18 deaths in one day late last week but has seen fewer before or since (40 in total now). While there will be day to day variation this looked a little extreme and did wonder if there had been some kind of clear-out of deaths over several days which were waiting to be officially cleared.

Wolverhampton Express and Star reports that some of yesterday's deaths actually happened 2 weeks ago (not sure if this info has already been reported). Not sure why some of these were so long, i have seen before a lag between death and reporting of several days due to test results coming back but 13 days seems a bit much. Maybe just getting some personal details, or notifying hard to find relatives etc.

 

'All of the latest coronavirus deaths in England were confirmed between 5pm on Friday and 5pm on Saturday, but some of the patients included in the figures died as long ago as March 16.'

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/health/coronavirus-covid19/2020/03/29/coronavirus-black-country-birmingham-and-staffordshire-death-toll-reaches-142/

All of which makes it very hard to know to what extent deaths are still going up.

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On the CFR (or death toll) - I can understand a delay whilst cause of death is confirmed, but I don't see why there is any requirement that relatives need to be notified first - all they state are the numbers, not the names of the victims.

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The Tele has a story leading on from yesterday's admission that the death figures are being understated. In effect, it's adding more lag to the already lagged figures.

Coronavirus: Questions over true death toll after London hospital records almost three times more deaths than official figures show

King's College Hospital Trust has recorded 31 deaths from Covid-19 but due to time lag national figures show 11 deaths at its three hospital

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/29/coronavirus-questions-true-death-toll-london-hospital-records/

“Whether it is Covid or ebola there is always a time lag to check the data across the system is linked. We don’t want to be misreporting data and then having to correct that. The country would not have confidence if we were having to do that and as we have had sadly to register more deaths that time period takes longer."

I think the Guardian reported inconsistencies between the national and regional totals. Not sure if they managed to resolve. 

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Chair of BMA confirms on Sky news that doctors on the front line still don't have the equipment that they need.

I assume the Government will confirm today that ts on its way. 

Also, lets see if we hit 10K tests today.

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On the CFR (or death toll) - I can understand a delay whilst cause of death is confirmed, but I don't see why there is any requirement that relatives need to be notified first - all they state are the numbers, not the names of the victims.

Yeah, i agree! i think that excuse has been used before though and at the time was queried for the reasons you state.

Chair of BMA confirms on Sky news that doctors on the front line still don't have the equipment that they need.

I assume the Government will confirm today that ts on its way. 

Also, lets see if we hit 10K tests today.

We need to be hitting 10,000 daily therefore 70,000 minimum this week. If the target is reached only on one day it will lead to suspicions the data was massaged.  

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Out of the 190 new deaths announced in England yesterday 70 were in London.

Regional breakdowns below

1. London - 70


2. West Midlands - 33


3. South East 31


4. Yorkshire and The Humber - 16


5. North West - 12 


6. East of England - 11


7. South West - 9


8. North East - 7


9. East Midlands - 1
   
   

NHS being slammed on LBC this morning. There are still huge problems with staff not having PPE. We are told a big benefit of a centralised system like the NHS is buying power. Ummmm.

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We need to be hitting 10,000 daily therefore 70,000 minimum this week. If the target is reached only on one day it will lead to suspicions the data was massaged.  

I am not sure how widespread testing would be of any benefit at this stage, especially with everyone locked down. You test every suspect case when you are trying to contain the epidemic, as South Korea did - when you have mass community spread because you failed to control your borders in the first place, what is the benefit of mass testing? In that case, testing should be concentrated on those hospitalised and essential workers - the real scandal in the UK has been the slow start to routine testing of NHS staff.

The test which needs to be conducted on a mass scale, is the antibody test to see who has had the virus.

Just talking to my Danish colleagues this morning - the Danish Government is going for containment and keeping borders closed - if you don't go for herd immunity, the only other solution is to track, contain, quarantine and closed borders to keep it out. Every country which has successfully contained the virus, is going for border lockdown. Just why our authorities cannot see the logic of that, I don't know.

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Are Care home deaths being recorded? We have several round here and there always seems to be an Ambulance parked outside

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Lots of the media reporting this morning that Jack Grealish crashed his car drunk at 08:00 yesterday morning and then left the scene. He had apparently been at a party. The pictures show him looking a complete state and wearing 1 slipper.

My view:

During a time of national crisis, I really hope they throw the book at him. I am sick to death of this premier league players thinking the rules don't apply to them. You even hear people defending him saying he is young. He isn't that young.

The irony is only the day he was telling everyone to stay at home, save the NHS and Save Lives

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/03/30/jack-grealish-police-investigation-launched-aston-villa-captain/

 

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We need to be hitting 10,000 daily therefore 70,000 minimum this week. If the target is reached only on one day it will lead to suspicions the data was massaged.  

Knowing the local situation here I would really struggle to find people to test to boost the figures! 

Not worth testing those at home with mild symptoms and not enough people in the hospitals with symptoms to hit the targets . Local councils have small infection control teams are doing some testing in care and nursing homes but the numbers are low again there are not enough people to test to hit those targets .

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Are Care home deaths being recorded? We have several round here and there always seems to be an Ambulance parked outside

The French have openly stated that they are not testing and including care home deaths in their corona virus statistics, so the same could apply here.

 

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On the CFR (or death toll) - I can understand a delay whilst cause of death is confirmed, but I don't see why there is any requirement that relatives need to be notified first - all they state are the numbers, not the names of the victims.

I know we’ve previously questioned why numbers can’t be released before relatives are notified and I don’t know why that’s so!   Although they do publish other data with mortality figures, such as age and underlying conditions.  

I wonder who actually reports the figures.  I would think possibly the coroners office, rather than the hospitals and are they perhaps only reported when the death is registered?  That would explain why hospital figures don’t tally with those published daily.  This isn’t something they’ve said.  Just my thoughts!

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The French have openly stated that they are not testing and including care home deaths in their corona virus statistics, so the same could apply here.

 

Explains why the French numbers are so low 

But as someone who wants the lockdown to end ASAP, I don't mind if HMG is doing its best to suppress 

 

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