[petejh]

Good article that. I sent it to a couple of 40 and 50-something mountaineer mates of mine who think they’re indestructible and the coronavirus is all a big flu scare. Maybe wake them up but I doubt it.

[petejh]

Thought was an interesting snippet from Germany. Festival event thought to have been source of spread - similar stories all over Europe (Atletico Madrid v Liverpool..?).

Estimated that only 14%in that province infected so far. Also estimated 0.4% fatality rate.

Edit forgot to add link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/09/999015/blood-tests-show-15-of-people-are-now-immune-to-covid-19-in-one-town-in-germany/

[TobyD]

For those who pay to read the Sunday Times, there's a really good article by Matthew Syed today, my app wont bring the link up I'm afraid but it's in the main comment section. 

[Offwidth]

Hi Toby.  As others have pointed out copy the article title into google news and copy their link.

On a different topic, on the other channel Toerag posted the following

"All our deaths here in Guernsey (9 in 3 weeks since the first death) have been pensioners. Not one person has been in ICU, and out of our 200 detected cases only 3-5 are in hospital at any one time so far. Small numbers I know, but it demonstrates how people are dying without going into hospital."

[tomtom]

Every country is doing their numbers in a slightly different way (eg ours our mainly / only hospital deaths  - so far) and some nations have been suggested they may be under (Germany) and over (Italy) reported.

It’s going to be a mess until long after and the numbers have all been corrected / normalised...

I’d suspect it’s different across the different states in the US too..

[Offwidth]

On a different subject the likely impact on Universities is beginning to surface.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/11/universities-brace-for-huge-losses-as-foreign-students-drop-out

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/04/12/another-perfect-storm-the-likely-financial-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-higher-education-sector-by-andrew-connors-the-head-of-higher-education-at-lloyds-bank/

https://wonkhe.com/blogs/how-can-universities-climb-out-of-the-coming-financial-abyss/


Overall UK/EU teaching makes a loss (despite current fees), and the vast majority of research is run at a loss. The system only works because of the profit on overseas student fees and other income. Add on to that the growing numbers of institutions refunding term 3 student accommodation charges.

With brexit influences on EU students, staff and research funding, the huge increase in pension deficit (that is likely following this crash), this really is a perfect storm.

As ever when Universities run into trouble, the impact is felt the hardest by the armies of casualised staff involved in teaching and on short term research contracts.

[andy popp]

It’s going to be a mess until long after and the numbers have all been corrected / normalised...

Yes, I suspect rough orders of magnitude is all we have at the moment.

Whilst Offwidth is right that this is going to land a heavy blow on UK higher education, there's going to be a lot of very interesting research for some people to do.

[Offwidth]

We have fabulous research in UK bioscience but by far the majority of the PhDs, and most post docs and new staff are not from the UK. Like all STEM, a good deal of the funding is EU based and I was unconvinced of a smooth transition onto UK replacement funding for that, even before this pandemic. Like most of the unanswered questions on brexit, given this pandemic isn't likely 'going away' for the rest of 2020, the most I can hope for is that brexit is formally delayed in June, but I think that is unlikely, given our idiot government attitude on the subject.

[BenF]

Whilst Offwidth is right that this is going to land a heavy blow on UK higher education, there's going to be a lot of very interesting research for some people to do.

My partner works for PHE and is currently pulling together a review of recent research, with very tight parameters. I was stunned by the sheer numbers of papers already out there. Just looking at the meta analyses of research papers about covid19 symptoms gave her masses to work through.

[chris j]

For those who pay to read the Sunday Times, there's a really good article by Matthew Syed today, my app wont bring the link up I'm afraid but it's in the main comment section.

Yes it was a good read. I don't know if access through a link generated from the app will be number limited but the link is below:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/this-is-the-age-of-me-me-me-until-we-need-a-scapegoat-and-its-them-them-them-x3gls8gwp?shareToken=7811a806c04c2c33993ff9a07a6013fe

[Offwidth]

Reuters report on a growing number of positive tests after recovery in Korea

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-korea-reports-recovered-coronavirus-patients-testing-positive-again-idUSKCN21S15X

[abarro81]

This shows the data I think is most interesting/useful in looking at the impact as it removes some questions around background data... Only goes to 10 days back I think, not to date

https://t.co/j71W00tCVy

[tomtom]

On a different subject the likely impact on Universities is beginning to surface.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/11/universities-brace-for-huge-losses-as-foreign-students-drop-out

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/04/12/another-perfect-storm-the-likely-financial-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-higher-education-sector-by-andrew-connors-the-head-of-higher-education-at-lloyds-bank/

https://wonkhe.com/blogs/how-can-universities-climb-out-of-the-coming-financial-abyss/


Overall UK/EU teaching makes a loss (despite current fees), and the vast majority of research is run at a loss. The system only works because of the profit on overseas student fees and other income. Add on to that the growing numbers of institutions refunding term 3 student accommodation charges.

With brexit influences on EU students, staff and research funding, the huge increase in pension deficit (that is likely following this crash), this really is a perfect storm.

As ever when Universities run into trouble, the impact is felt the hardest by the armies of casualised staff involved in teaching and on short term research contracts.

Missed this...

Yes - lots of talk about redundancies and job losses from people I know in other institutuions. We were mid way through a compulsory reduncancy round (that has now stopped) so not sure if that is a good or bad thing!

Where I am we have quite low exposure (low overseas student numbers, relatively low EU grant income) but some places will be fucked by the drop in overseas (especially chinese) student numbers. Theres a fair few master courses I know that bring in 100+ overseas students each year - thats £1m plus a course gone.. 4-5 staff..

One of my friends at a HE institute in Wales was sharing with me the news they were to prepare for virtual semster 1 in September - in the anticipation that there will be a second wave and associated lockdown.

The one glimmer of hope for HE from all this is that institutional number caps will come back in - a step back from the open market free for all...

[Duma]

Looks pretty in line to me Alex?
Graph shows ~ 6000 excess deaths in weeks 12+13, which I guess takes us to the 5th or 7th
Here (hospital deaths I think) shows between 5000 & 6000 deaths for that date range. I guess it's to the 5th and the difference is outside hospital?

[Offwidth]

The Independent commenting on the ONS data.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-deaths-care-homes-cases-uk-eu-italy-spain-ireland-a9463846.html

The ONS guy on the BBC 13.00 news was reporting 60% extra total deaths compared to what they would regard as average in the week. There is a big obvious gap in explaining the 60% despite the large extra numbers he reported who have died with covid 19 as a factor in care homes, especially so as road accident deaths are massively down.

[abarro81]

Looks pretty in line to me Alex?
Graph shows ~ 6000 excess deaths in weeks 12+13, which I guess takes us to the 5th or 7th
Here (hospital deaths I think) shows between 5000 & 6000 deaths for that date range. I guess it's to the 5th and the difference is outside hospital?

Looking at another figure in guardian love updates I think it's to the 3rd, and the uptick for total looks bigger than covid. I wasn't really making a point though, just liked the graph - it's what I've been wanting someone to post for a while

[Stu Littlefair]

https://twitter.com/d_spiegel/status/1249986522692096003?s=21

This is what it looks like when you don’t just eyeball the numbers. Large amounts of excess deaths. Either lots of unreported COVID-19 deaths or a LOT of excess mortality arising from the lockdown. I think it’s too large to be entirely the latter, but obviously important to try and work this out.

[Muenchener]

I've seen very similar charts for New York and places in Italy - two to four times the normal seasonally adjusted death rate, with half or less of the excess deaths officially attributed to covid-19

I assume (as a total layperson with no actual knowledge) it's a combination of under-reporting of covid-19, and an increase in deaths from other causes due to overloaded medical facilities. I also wonder how much of it is deaths "only" happening a few months earlier than they otherwise would have - in other words, will it all be followed by a period of lower than average mortality?

[Duma]

It's not the eyeballing stu, it's the dates. Sorry for assuming a week might end on a Sunday (5th), or even that week 1 might last for the first 7 days of the year (7th).

Anyway, from the worldometer site, there was 2846 uk hospital deaths in that week (28th - 3rd)
The ons site has 3475 deaths registered where covid was a factor, and and excess over the 5 year average of 6082.
So somewhere between ~ 20% and ~ 100% above the hospital numbers. Not really sure what this tells us tbh, apart from it being sad. we don't have equivalent data for other countries further down the line to compare.
Traffic deaths in UK are Av 33 a week, so won't impact headline figures much

[tomtom]

These type of forecast are really tricky - there is the "they might have died anyway this year" argument (15% of over 80's die each year normally!!) which is probably impossible to do until its all over etc..

EDIT: Surely a large part of the rise is from Care homes (the story just surfacing)...

[Duma]

I've seen very similar charts for New York and places in Italy - two to four times the normal seasonally adjusted death rate, with half or less of the excess deaths officially attributed to covid-19

The UK isn't 2-4 times over, its 60%. Sorry, I don't mean to nitpick but that's a huge difference.

[HaeMeS]

Here's the data per municipality in the Netherlands. Hardest hit area's had up to 7 times the normal weekly deaths in the week from April 3-10.

[/img]https://i.postimg.cc/7Z12K5yW/Knipsel.jpg[/img]

Don't get to exited. Since most who die are over 70/80, after Covid-19 is over weekly death rates will show a reduced number for a longer period.

More intersting data/graphs: https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2020/15/sterfte-neemt-verder-toe

[Oldmanmatt]

Not read beyond abstract yet, just been given the link.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/14/science.abb5793

[SamT]

Some might find this interesting  , its much more biology based rather than stats about the spread.  I found it fascinating.  Especially the stuff about how it jumps species, and why SARS/MERS where not as bad as Covid19.
Hazel puts across some quite techy microbiology in way that's really easy to grasp.

[mrjonathanr]

Now this is curious: a science grad who wants to test, but whose team don’t receive enough swabs to stay busy.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/swab-tester-uk-germany-south-korea

Is that because HM gov can’t organise enough tests despite having spare testing capacity? Or is it that making use of that capacity is not a priority?