The 9am figures not disclosed yet?

Laughing said:
I know you are speaking relatively, but 2 k deaths a week doesn't seem that good to me.

I am not sure that the public would buy into those kind of numbers on a yearly basis.
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If there's 2.5k deaths saved by not having flu around then we're 0.5k better off, per week over a normal year, and I suppose that is the baseline to work to.

Obviously it's bad that people are dying but it's an unfortunate part of life, we've done a lot over the last two years to keep the numbers down (although nowhere near enough when it mattered most), but going OTT when it matters least would be a bit hypocritical when people were sat having crimbo dinner with 10 family in 2020 or 2021 etc.

I don't think there would be much valid public outcry if we're below yearly averages, but if there could be lives saved which won't impact on others elsewhere then great. It's all about a balance now though, and if we're not into excess or over it by ~5% then we have to look at that as a good result from a numbers point of view. Obviously I appreciate those numbers are people, but there's the other 99.9% of the people to think about too.

If I was at severe risk, I would still go out, but would use an FFP2/3 or a respirator and be careful at high incidence times, and wouldn't expect others who are far less risk to do the same, the risk v reward result is very different now from March 20, Dec 20 etc, when others who were not at risk should have been willing to do more. 10% more effort then was worth 200% more effort now.
 
parmoboy said:
This is probably a long shot but done anyone know if there's a way to fake a lateral flow test result?

I've been doing them for work but had misunderstood and hadn't realised we had to register the result, I'd thought it was only for PCR tests. Now my manager wants me to send him the notifications of my recent test results, which of course I haven't got.
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Just tell him you misunderstood, it seems totally reasonable. If you've been doing them and not been shouting your mouth off saying covid's fake etc, then he should trust you've been doing them?
 
Today's headline analysis:

• 304 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported in 24-hour period, down from 451 yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test decreases by 9.0% to 294.6 per day, following 1.3% decrease yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test is 53.9% higher than one week ago (from 52.8% higher yesterday) and 5.7% higher than two weeks ago (from 47.8% higher yesterday and 12.2% higher 7 days ago)
 
Andy_W said:
If there's 2.5k deaths saved by not having flu around then we're 0.5k better off, per week over a normal year, and I suppose that is the baseline to work to.

Obviously it's bad that people are dying but it's an unfortunate part of life, we've done a lot over the last two years to keep the numbers down (although nowhere near enough when it mattered most), but going OTT when it matters least would be a bit hypocritical when people were sat having crimbo dinner with 10 family in 2020 or 2021 etc.

I don't think there would be much valid public outcry if we're below yearly averages, but if there could be lives saved which won't impact on others elsewhere then great. It's all about a balance now though, and if we're not into excess or over it by ~5% then we have to look at that as a good result from a numbers point of view. Obviously I appreciate those numbers are people, but there's the other 99.9% of the people to think about too.

If I was at severe risk, I would still go out, but would use an FFP2/3 or a respirator and be careful at high incidence times, and wouldn't expect others who are far less risk to do the same, the risk v reward result is very different now from March 20, Dec 20 etc, when others who were not at risk should have been willing to do more. 10% more effort then was worth 200% more effort now.
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We don't get 2.5k flu deaths a week even in the worst of years though. I take your point about what can be done.

Masks should have remain mandated as should isolation and the required financial support. Simple things that would have got mortality down much quicker than it is currently. In fact it hasn't really come down for months.
 
Laughing said:
We don't get 2.5k flu deaths a week even in the worst of years though. I take your point about what can be done.

Masks should have remain mandated as should isolation and the required financial support. Simple things that would have got mortality down much quicker than it is currently. In fact it hasn't really come down for months.
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I don't look at Covid deaths in isolation, it's pointless when we're effectively no longer in excess, and saving a massive chunk of deaths to off set them. We're saving deaths from somewhere (maybe that we've already killed a lot of the vulnerable), but we get more overall more mortality in winter (Jan is 30% more than August for example (12k per week v 9k per week), EWM (excess winter mortality etc), a lot of that is Flu and other seasonal problems.

We're no 6% better off than the 5 year average, 10% of deaths involve C19, so we're saving ~16% of deaths from somewhere. As there's no Flu (outcompeted) then this will take a chunk of it.

If we're below excess, then I don't see how additional measures are needed (v the social and economic impact they cause), the risk rating is already better than it would normally be for a comparative week, over a typical 5 year period. The additional measures make even less sense, if you were not advocating being much, much stricter with the first lockdown, Christmas and other measures etc, and not many on here were asking for that (I was btw, as it mattered far, far, far more then).

Plus, measures V BA2 on even a semi open society will have next to nil effect, it's just too transmissible (BA1 and Delta the same to a lesser degree). Big, big difference to the wild type which could have been stopped, or massively reduced quickly and easily if we acted early and never let it get out of hand.

Cloth and surgical masks will help probably less than 2% with BA2, and 1% of a low number below excess is a bit pointless, and also just delaying the inevitable, nobody active is avoiding being exposed, it's just not possible. Paying people to be at home if they're low risk, seems counter productive at a time with a struggling economy, but I do agree we should support those who really need it most. They also should be protecting themselves with FFP3/ respirators when out in public. I don't think the public should be paying to support people who won't take reasonable measures to protect themselves better. Ie expecting the public to pay for a guy to have time off, is asking a lot, if he's going down the pub three days a week.

We should have supported more people, and better prior to vaccines and with the more damaging waves though, which I've said all along.

Mortality doesn't need to come down, we're 6% lower than the bar already (comparing to non-covid years). Also test positivity rates have been dropping for a month, it's already being controlled enough, we're at pre omicron levels and it's still going down. Test positivity is probably the best measure to use now that testing numbers and cases are all over the place.

I think people should still isolate if showing symptoms, in most circumstances, and I think a lot would anyway (which will be factored in to policy hopefully). But don't see much point in isolating if you're meeting people who have already had covid, been vaccinated and if you inform people who you're meeting that you've had it (and they're ok with it).

Covid deaths are dropping quickly, as are admissions, we're doing enough (as a whole).

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Andy_W said:
I don't look at Covid deaths in isolation, it's pointless when we're effectively no longer in excess, and saving a massive chunk of deaths to off set them. We're saving deaths from somewhere (maybe that we've already killed a lot of the vulnerable), but we get more overall more mortality in winter (Jan is 30% more than August for example (12k per week v 9k per week), EWM (excess winter mortality etc), a lot of that is Flu and other seasonal problems.

We're no 6% better off than the 5 year average, 10% of deaths involve C19, so we're saving ~16% of deaths from somewhere. As there's no Flu (outcompeted) then this will take a chunk of it.

If we're below excess, then I don't see how additional measures are needed (v the social and economic impact they cause), the risk rating is already better than it would normally be for a comparative week, over a typical 5 year period. The additional measures make even less sense, if you were not advocating being much, much stricter with the first lockdown, Christmas and other measures etc, and not many on here were asking for that (I was btw, as it mattered far, far, far more then).

Plus, measures V BA2 on even a semi open society will have next to nil effect, it's just too transmissible (BA1 and Delta the same to a lesser degree). Big, big difference to the wild type which could have been stopped, or massively reduced quickly and easily if we acted early and never let it get out of hand.

Cloth and surgical masks will help probably less than 2% with BA2, and 1% of a low number below excess is a bit pointless, and also just delaying the inevitable, nobody active is avoiding being exposed, it's just not possible. Paying people to be at home if they're low risk, seems counter productive at a time with a struggling economy, but I do agree we should support those who really need it most. They also should be protecting themselves with FFP3/ respirators when out in public. I don't think the public should be paying to support people who won't take reasonable measures to protect themselves better. Ie expecting the public to pay for a guy to have time off, is asking a lot, if he's going down the pub three days a week.

We should have supported more people, and better prior to vaccines and with the more damaging waves though, which I've said all along.

Mortality doesn't need to come down, we're 6% lower than the bar already (comparing to non-covid years). Also test positivity rates have been dropping for a month, it's already being controlled enough, we're at pre omicron levels and it's still going down. Test positivity is probably the best measure to use now that testing numbers and cases are all over the place.

I think people should still isolate if showing symptoms, in most circumstances, and I think a lot would anyway (which will be factored in to policy hopefully). But don't see much point in isolating if you're meeting people who have already had covid, been vaccinated and if you inform people who you're meeting that you've had it (and they're ok with it).

Covid deaths are dropping quickly, as are admissions, we're doing enough (as a whole).

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The savings are almost certainly that a huge chunk of those that would have died this year, died a year or two early. This happens frequently when you get a bad flu/pneumonia year.

The problem is, that will correct itself. Perhaps not next year, but the year after. If we are still seeing deaths at this high rate over winter next year then the excess won't look nearly as rosy.

What we do have, I guess is a little time to further improve treatments.

I get your argument Andy, I am just not entirely convinced by it.
 
Laughing said:
The savings are almost certainly that a huge chunk of those that would have died this year, died a year or two early. This happens frequently when you get a bad flu/pneumonia year.

The problem is, that will correct itself. Perhaps not next year, but the year after. If we are still seeing deaths at this high rate over winter next year then the excess won't look nearly as rosy.

What we do have, I guess is a little time to further improve treatments.

I get your argument Andy, I am just not entirely convinced by it.
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Yup, they totally are, excess is 11% since Covid started (108k excess now), and Covid has been about 15% of all deaths, so some would probably have died anyway (which I imagine is where we're at now, just about).

I think average time lost per life was 2-8 years (not looked at it in a while), but the average age was around 81, when typical life expectancy was 82, it's back to 81 now though I think.

If we can maintain 5% below expected deaths (say 500 per week), then we should claw that 108k excess back in 4 years, it won't work like that though, as we've killed some, far, far too early, and there's no way to get that back. In real life I expect us to flutter around "normal" deaths over the calendar year now.

Obviously the numbers are not bang on either, and subject to a lot of interference.
 
Today's headline analysis:

• 248 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported in 24-hour period, down from 304 yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test decreases by 21.0% to 232.6 per day, following 9.0% decrease yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test is 2.6% lower than one week ago (from 53.9% higher yesterday) and 17.9% lower than two weeks ago (from 5.7% higher yesterday and 26.8% higher 7 days ago)
 
Laughing said:
The savings are almost certainly that a huge chunk of those that would have died this year, died a year or two early. This happens frequently when you get a bad flu/pneumonia year.

The problem is, that will correct itself. Perhaps not next year, but the year after. If we are still seeing deaths at this high rate over winter next year then the excess won't look nearly as rosy.

What we do have, I guess is a little time to further improve treatments.

I get your argument Andy, I am just not entirely convinced by it.
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Andy_W said:
Yup, they totally are, excess is 11% since Covid started (108k excess now), and Covid has been about 15% of all deaths, so some would probably have died anyway (which I imagine is where we're at now, just about).

I think average time lost per life was 2-8 years (not looked at it in a while), but the average age was around 81, when typical life expectancy was 82, it's back to 81 now though I think.

If we can maintain 5% below expected deaths (say 500 per week), then we should claw that 108k excess back in 4 years, it won't work like that though, as we've killed some, far, far too early, and there's no way to get that back. In real life I expect us to flutter around "normal" deaths over the calendar year now.

Obviously the numbers are not bang on either, and subject to a lot of interference.
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My only comment on this would be that we have to be a bit careful in terms of what are now classed as 'excess deaths'. Generally, the ONS uses the last five years to provide an up-to-date average for expected deaths.

Obviously, if they used 2020 in particular within that 5-year average, it would be incredibly high. Last year, the ONS simply used the average from 2015-19 again. This year. however, they've taken the decision that to keep using a full 5-year pre-pandemic period would render the average outdated, so they've decided to use the average from 2016-21 (excluding 2020).

Including 2021 (which still saw a significant number of Covid deaths) creates a significantly higher 'expected deaths' figure than the pre-pandemic 2015-19 calculation. ONS calculates this as being around additional 200 deaths per week (c. 2%).

So, even a relatively normal year (using the pre-pandemic measure) would now be reported as having around 2% fewer deaths than would be expected. The inevitable statistical outcome of a significant outlier event.

Some interesting commentary in this ONS blog:

Understanding excess deaths during a pandemic | National Statistical

blog.ons.gov.uk blog.ons.gov.uk
 
Billy Horner said:
My only comment on this would be that we have to be a bit careful in terms of what are now classed as 'excess deaths'. Generally, the ONS uses the last five years to provide an up-to-date average for expected deaths.

Obviously, if they used 2020 in particular within that 5-year average, it would be incredibly high. Last year, the ONS simply used the average from 2015-19 again. This year. however, they've taken the decision that to keep using a full 5-year pre-pandemic period would render the average outdated, so they've decided to use the average from 2016-21 (excluding 2020).

Including 2021 (which still saw a significant number of Covid deaths) creates a significantly higher 'expected deaths' figure than the pre-pandemic 2015-19 calculation. ONS calculates this as being around additional 200 deaths per week (c. 2%).

So, even a relatively normal year (using the pre-pandemic measure) would now be reported as having around 2% fewer deaths than would be expected. The inevitable statistical outcome of a significant outlier event.

Some interesting commentary in this ONS blog:

Understanding excess deaths during a pandemic | National Statistical

blog.ons.gov.uk blog.ons.gov.uk
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Thanks Billy, I certainly wasn't aware of that.
 
Billy Horner said:
My only comment on this would be that we have to be a bit careful in terms of what are now classed as 'excess deaths'. Generally, the ONS uses the last five years to provide an up-to-date average for expected deaths.

Obviously, if they used 2020 in particular within that 5-year average, it would be incredibly high. Last year, the ONS simply used the average from 2015-19 again. This year. however, they've taken the decision that to keep using a full 5-year pre-pandemic period would render the average outdated, so they've decided to use the average from 2016-21 (excluding 2020).

Including 2021 (which still saw a significant number of Covid deaths) creates a significantly higher 'expected deaths' figure than the pre-pandemic 2015-19 calculation. ONS calculates this as being around additional 200 deaths per week (c. 2%).

So, even a relatively normal year (using the pre-pandemic measure) would now be reported as having around 2% fewer deaths than would be expected. The inevitable statistical outcome of a significant outlier event.

Some interesting commentary in this ONS blog:

Understanding excess deaths during a pandemic | National Statistical

blog.ons.gov.uk blog.ons.gov.uk
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The dashboard thing compares to the last 5 "non covid" years I think, or at least the screenshot I did had done, it was listed on there somewhere, and I was surprised they had done that, as they never used to. Obviously when this started there were no "covid years" to mess up the stats, but did include 2018 which was a bad flu year I think.
 
Andy_W said:
The dashboard thing compares to the last 5 "non covid" years I think, or at least the screenshot I did had done, it was listed on there somewhere, and I was surprised they had done that, as they never used to. Obviously when this started there were no "covid years" to mess up the stats, but did include 2018 which was a bad flu year I think.
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Yes, it’s a bit confusing I think.

It looks like Table 1, which shows excess mortality during 2022, is using the ONS average of 2016-21 (exc. 2020). The chart below it though, showing excess mortality from 2020 to date, appears to use the 2015-19 average as its basis for expected deaths.

So the two pieces of analysis, both produced by the government for the same purpose, aren’t directly comparable.
 
Billy Horner said:
Yes, it’s a bit confusing I think.

It looks like Table 1, which shows excess mortality during 2022, is using the ONS average of 2016-21 (exc. 2020). The chart below it though, showing excess mortality from 2020 to date, appears to use the 2015-19 average as its basis for expected deaths.

So the two pieces of analysis, both produced by the government for the same purpose, aren’t directly comparable.
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Doesn't surprise me.

The dashboard team are good though, I've spoke to a few of them quite a bit on Twitter. The ONS data is very in depth too. We've got it very, very good (with regards to clear, accurate and real numbers) compared to most countries, so can't complain too much.

They're usually good at listing what they are and are not including, which makes it good when you're reading it, albeit hard to see what it is exactly when reading screenshots as they miss this out of the screenshot (like I always do :LOL:)
 
Today's headline analysis:

• 216 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported in 24-hour period, down from 248 yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test decreases by 4.2% to 222.9 per day, following 21.0% decrease yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test is 20.2% lower than one week ago (from 2.6% lower yesterday) and 4.7% lower than two weeks ago (from 17.9% lower yesterday and 32.6% higher 7 days ago)
 
For England, test positivity is now down to Jun 21 levels.

Only doing 200k tests now mind, and we were doing 2m at the peak, and have averaged around 1m, from March 21 to Feb 22.

With the free tests gone, for most of the public who are not largely at risk, not facing the most exposure and not working in healthcare I think it's now quite unreliable using this metric to see the current situation. The good thing is though, that people who are still getting these tests are showing low levels of positivity.

Hard to tell where this is trending now, with any certainty, but ONS (lagging indicator) has us on the right track, as was to be expected.

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I mentioned a month or so back that world cases and deaths were heading to the floor, and we're now at the same level of deaths as 20 March 2020, and daily cases are nearly as low as the low points of the whole of 2021, which is not bad going considering how much more transmissible this variant is. Hard to compare with 2020 case figures due to the lack of testing in a lot of places.

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Today's headline analysis:

• 227 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test reported in 24-hour period, down from 407 yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test decreases by 6.6% to 156.9 per day, following 3.6% decrease yesterday
• 7-day average for new deaths within 28 days of a positive test is 46.8% lower than one week ago (from 48.1% lower yesterday) and 18.1% lower than two weeks ago (from 20.8% lower yesterday and 5.7% higher 7 days ago)

Reporting issue with deaths in England, which means that today's reported deaths figure is lower than expected. The delayed figures should be reported over the next couple of days.
 
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