COVID-19 11th May 2020

Summary

Global Figures

	No	%
Cases:	4,194,047
Deaths:	283,992	6.77%
Recovered:	1,499,405	35.75%
Active:	2,410,650	57.48%

Russia cases has already overtaken UK & IT with 221,344

UK now has more cases than Italy.

The 5 countries with most infections are now:

Country	Total Cases	% of Global
US	1,367,963	32.58%
ES	264,663	6.30%
Russia	221,344	5.27%
UK	219,183	5.22%
IT	219,070	5.22%

	New Cases	Change	Deaths	Change	Rec'ry Rate	Death Rate
IT	802	74.05%	165	85.1%	77.49%	22.51%	Inc.
ES	1,880	70.52%	143	57.4%	86.89%	13.11%	Inc.
DE	555	75.41%	20	51.3%	95.02%	4.98%	Inc.
FR	312	53.89%	70	87.5%	68.06%	31.94%	Inc.
UK	3,923	100.69%	268	77.5%	1.07%	98.93%	Red.
US	20,329	80.50%	750	52.7%	76.04%	23.96%	Inc.

Commentary

IT - new cases -281 (74.04%), deaths -29 (85.05%), active cases -1,518 (76.97% of peak)

ES - new cases -786 (70.52%), deaths -106 (57.43%), active cases -1,545 (61.91% of peak)

FR - new cases -267 (53.89%), deaths -10 (87.5%), active cases +63 (98.96 of peak)

DE - new cases -181 (75.41%), deaths -19 (51.28%), active cases -565 (27.32% of peak)

US - new cases -4,925 (80.5%), deaths -672 (52.74%), active cases +1,491 (100% of peak)

Lowest no of new cases since 29 Mar

UK - new cases +27 (100.69%), deaths -78 (77.46%), active cases +3,655 (100% of peak)

Well what can we say today? Boris Johnson relaxes lockdown measures and UK media in a storm about it this morning.  Johnson announces 5 tests that must be met before lockdown can be removed:

1/ Sufficient critical care capacity across UK

2/ Sustained and consistent fall in daily deaths

3/ Rate of infection decreasing (i.e. the R number)

4/ Testing & PPE able to meet demand

5/ Adjustment to measures will not risk a second peak that overwhelms the NHS

So what does this actually mean?

1/ enough beds / ventilators in intensive care

2/ reduction in no of people dying each day

3/ this is the controversial one as it does not necessarily mean the no of new cases it means the r factor below 1 - but how do they calculate this without rigorous contact tracing?

4/ Why is this bundled together?  Surely these should be separate i.e. Testing capacity sufficient and PPE capacity sufficient.

5/ This is just stating the obvious

I find it quite revealing that top of the list is NHS resources! Personally I would rearrange in order of priority as surely the priority should be reducing the no. of new cases and the rest will follow.  Fewer cases, fewer hospital admissions, less need for ITU and less deaths and all this underpinned by more tests and contact tracing and isolation when required.

If sufficient tests were carried out we would a/ know who had the virus, b/ be able to contact trace and test and isolate, c/ know if r is reducing.  This in turn 'should' reduce the no of new cases and deaths and reduce the no. of people requiring hospitalisation and ITU.  In all cases sufficient PPE should reduce the risk of infection of health workers.

1/ Sufficient testing capacity AND tests being conducted

2/ Rate of infection decreasing i.e. new cases reducing AND r reducing

3/ No of daily deaths reducing

4/ Sufficient PPE

5/ Sufficient capacity in ITU

Now let's test the measures:

New cases: 10 May 3,923, weekly average 4,655 monthly average 4,847.

New cases are currently 85% of weekly average and 80% of the monthly average.  Is this sufficient?  Spain has half this no of new cases (1,880) and the rest of EU (IT, FR & DE) all had less than 1,000 new cases. The latest weekly average for EU countries is ES 2,356, IT 1,676, FR 1,485, DE 888, all at least half, or well below half, the UK average cases.  

Deaths: 10 May 268, weekly average 485, monthly average 704

Deaths are 55% of weekly average and 38% monthly average

EU weekly averages ES 337, IT 239, FR212, DE 100

The figures are distorted as I pointed out yesterday from the UK death chart, deaths have been under reported each week at weekends and then increase. I strongly suspect that the no of deaths reported today may be twice the number reported for 10 May e.g. 600+ as this has been the consistent pattern for the last 6 weeks i.e. 2 low days for weekend then a doubling the next day which is probably due to a delay in reporting over the weekend.

I hardly think that govt. can claim that we have this under control (compared to the other major EU countries) and I fear that the latest 'ambiguous' message from PM will mean that people may assume that lockdown is over and cases will increase.  I certainly do not see figures now reducing with more people 'out and about' that's for sure.

What is r?

R is the reproduction factor.  It is termed R Zero or R nought.  At the beginning of the pandemic it was estimated that r was around 2.4 meaning that each infected person may transmit the infection to between 2 or 3 people.  It is now estimated that the figure is 5.7 for COVID-19.  This was alarming as it meant that if no measures were taken the virus would very quickly infect a very large proportion of the population, hence lockdown measures.  The government is reporting that r is between 0.5 and 0.9.  I have no idea how they have calculated this figure?  Perhaps it's calculated on no. of know infections as a percentage of total population? Even a rate of 1 is concerning as that means that every person infected spreads it to one other i.e. doubling.  The aim is to get r under 1 so that the virus spreads to less than 1 person per infected person and eventually dies out.

Latest stats from Worldometers

Latest v previous day - Recovery rate v Death Rate

	Total	Active	Conc.	Recvd.	Deaths	Recvd%	Death%
IT	219,070	83,324	135,746	105,186	30,560	77.49%	22.51%
ES	264,663	61,603	203,060	176,439	26,621	86.89%	13.11%
DE	171,879	19,910	151,969	144,400	7,569	95.02%	4.98%
FR	176,970	94,373	82,597	56,217	26,380	68.06%	31.94%
UK	219,183	186,984	32,199	344	31,855	1.07%	98.93%
US	1,367,638	1,030,515	337,123	256,336	80,787	76.04%	23.96%

Latest v previous day - increase / decrease

Country	New Cases 10 May	New Cases 9 May	New Case Increase	Deaths 10 May	Deaths 9 May	Death Increase
IT	802	1,083	-281	165	194	-29
ES	1,880	2,666	-786	143	249	-106
DE	555	736	-181	20	39	-19
FR	312	579	-267	70	80	-10
UK	3,923	3,896	27	268	346	-78
US	20,329	25,254	-4,925	750	1,422	-672

Latest v previous day - actuals

Day	10-May				09-May
Ctry	New Cases	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%
IT	802	219,070	30,560	13.9%	218,268	30,395	13.9%
ES	1,880	264,663	26,621	10.1%	262,783	26,478	10.1%
DE	555	171,879	7,569	4.4%	171,324	7,549	4.4%
FR	312	176,970	26,380	14.9%	176,658	26,310	14.9%
UK	3,923	219,183	31,855	14.5%	215,260	31,587	14.7%
US	20,329	1,367,638	80,787	5.9%	1,347,309	80,037	5.9%

Latest v one week ago - actuals

Week	10-May				03-May
Ctry	New Cases	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%	Total Cases	No. Deaths	Death Rate%
IT	802	219,070	30,560	13.9%	210,717	28,884	13.7%
ES	1,880	264,663	26,621	10.1%	247,122	24,264	9.8%
DE	555	171,879	7,569	4.4%	165,664	6,866	4.1%
FR	312	176,970	26,380	14.9%	168,693	24,895	14.8%
UK	3,923	219,183	31,855	14.5%	186,599	28,466	15.3%
US	20,329	1,367,638	80,787	5.9%	1,188,122	68,597	5.8%

Latest v one week ago - percentage rate increase

	Daily		Weekly
Country	Total Cases Increase Factor	Death Rate  Increase Factor	Total Cases Increase Factor	Death Rate  Increase Factor
IT	100.4%	100.2%	104.0%	101.8%
ES	100.7%	99.8%	107.1%	102.4%
DE	100.3%	99.9%	103.8%	106.3%
FR	100.2%	100.1%	104.9%	101.0%
UK	101.8%	99.0%	117.5%	95.3%
US	101.5%	99.4%	115.1%	102.3%