Categories
Updates

Tuesday 19th May 2020

The UK has now confirmed over 250,000 positive tests for Covid-19.

Today’s update includes:

  • Requests & Offers from the Stroud Coronavirus Community Response team & beyond
  • Summary of key local, national and international statistics

Requests, Offers and Updates posted in the Stroud Coronavirus Community Response Facebook group

Summary of key local, national and international statistics

We are now providing our summary of local, national and international statistical data on a weekly basis rather than daily. You can read a summary of local, national and international news in tomorrow’s update.

  • One in three Gloucestershire care homes has had cases of COVID-19. There have been 72 confirmed or suspected cases.
  • “of the 48 care homes in Stroud, eight had reported a confirmed or suspected case of Covid-19 up to May 3… 17% of residential and nursing homes had been hit by the virus… PHE says the data contains no indication of whether the reported outbreaks are still active… [and] The rate in Stroud is lower than across the rest of the South West, where 24% of care homes have been affected so far. Across England, 33% reported cases.”
  • Gloucestershire Hospitals Trust have announced that as of this afternoon, they have safely discharged 441 patients home who are recovering from Coronavirus (COVID-19). “We wish them all the best as they continue their recovery. We also continue to get wonderful messages of appreciation sent to us every day and we’re very grateful for all the support we receive”.
  • The Office for National Statistics have not released any further data on “Death registrations and occurrences by local authority and health board”. We will include any local data as soon as we are able.
  • However, the latest Public Health England COVID-19 epidemiology surveillance summary was published on Thursday 14 May 2020. This showed 7,155 Covid-19 cases in the South West – an incidence rate of 128/100,000. It also shows 1,519 people have died (27/100,000 death rate). Each number – cases, deaths, and both rates are the lowest among regions in England. The chart also shows there have been a total of 29,673 deaths in England between 31st January and 13 May 2020, including 2,655 in the week 7th May – 13th May. As of the 13th May there were 139,086 confirmed Covid-19 cases, and that week 9,287 further cases were confirmed.

At the national level, the latest data from the Office for National Statistics

“Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region” shows:

  • “The number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 8 May 2020 (Week 19) was 12,657, a decrease for the third week running but 3,081 more than the five-year average for Week 19.“
  • “Of the deaths registered in Week 19, 3,930 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, which was 31.1% of all deaths; this is a decrease of 2,105 deaths compared with Week 18 (33.6% of all deaths).”
  • “The number of deaths in care homes (from all causes) for Week 19 decreased from 6,409 to 4,248; however, deaths involving COVID-19 as a percentage of all deaths in care homes continued to rise to 39.2% compared with 37.8% in Week 18.”
  • “In Week 19, the number of deaths in hospitals was 114 deaths lower than the five-year average for the same week, while the number of deaths above the five-year average in care homes decreased to 2,247 deaths from 4,331 in the previous week.”
  • “For the second week running, all regions showed a decrease in the percentage of deaths involving COVID-19; the North West had the highest number of COVID-19 deaths (597 deaths) for the first time.”
  • “Of deaths involving COVID-19 registered up to Week 19, 66.6% occurred in hospital with the remainder mainly occurring in care homes (26.7%), private homes (4.6%) and hospices (1.2%).”
  • “The highest proportion of coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths was in age group 80 to 84 years where 36.8% of deaths involved COVID-19 (772 deaths). The largest number of COVID-19 deaths was in those aged 90 years and over with 1,015 deaths.” Explore the full report and data via the ONS website.

The Office for National Statistics has also published “Provisional analysis of deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by different occupational groups, among males and females aged 20 to 64 [ie, of “working age”] years in England and Wales.” This shows:

  • “A total of 2,494 deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the working age population (those aged 20 to 64 years) of England and Wales were registered up to and including 20 April 2020.”
  • “Nearly two-thirds of these deaths were among men (1,612 deaths), with the rate of death involving COVID-19 being statistically higher in males, with 9.9 deaths per 100,000 compared with 5.2 deaths per 100,000 females (882 deaths).”
  • “Compared with the rate among people of the same sex and age in England and Wales, men working in the lowest skilled occupations had the highest rate of death involving COVID-19, with 21.4 deaths per 100,000 males (225 deaths); men working as security guards had one of the highest rates, with 45.7 deaths per 100,000 (63 deaths).”
  • “Men and women working in social care, a group including care workers and home carers, both had significantly raised rates of death involving COVID-19, with rates of 23.4 deaths per 100,000 males (45 deaths) and 9.6 deaths per 100,000 females (86 deaths).”
  • “Healthcare workers, including those with jobs such as doctors and nurses, were not found to have higher rates of death involving COVID-19 when compared with the rate among those whose death involved COVID-19 of the same age and sex in the general population.”
  • “Among men, a number of other specific occupations were found to have raised rates of death involving COVID-19, including: taxi drivers and chauffeurs (36.4 deaths per 100,000); bus and coach drivers (26.4 deaths per 100,000); chefs (35.9 deaths per 100,000); and sales and retail assistants (19.8 deaths per 100,000).”
  • “This analysis does not prove conclusively that the observed rates of death involving COVID-19 are necessarily caused by differences in occupational exposure; we adjusted for age, but not for other factors such as ethnic group and place of residence.”

At the global level, the Johns Hopkins University tracker shows:

  • 4,867,515 confirmed cases – an increase of 627,643 from 4,239,872 last Tuesday
  • 321,459 people have died – meaning 31,069 died in the past week (290,390 people had died by last Tuesday)
  • There are now 6 countries with over 200,000 confirmed cases:
    • The USA – 1,519,986 cases, a weekly increase of 160,667
    • Russia – 299,941 cases, a weekly increase of 67,698
    • Brazil – 262,545 cases, a weekly increase of 84,331
    • The UK – 250,121 cases, a weekly increase of 22,384
    • Spain – 227,436 cases, a weekly increase of 4,601, and 
    • Italy – 226,699 cases – a weekly increase of 5,483
  • There are a further 5 countries with between 100,000 and 200,000 confirmed cases (France, Germany, Turkey, Iran, India), and 19 with between 20,000 and 100,000 confirmed cases. 
  • There are six countries where over 10,000 people have died where Covid-19 was involved (we will add weekly numbers from next week):
    • The USA – 91,187 people have died
    • The UK – 35,422
    • Italy – 32,169
    • France – 28,025
    • Spain – 27,778
    • Brazil – 17,509

It is important to say that different countries are testing and collecting data on deaths in different ways, making fair comparisons difficult. However, a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) say “fair and accurate [international] comparisons can be made by looking at the total deaths each week since Covid-19 took off and comparing them with total deaths from the same week in the years before it existed.”

By this metric:

“Deaths in England were 109% higher in the week ending 10 April than the same week in previous years – a higher excess mortality than Italy experienced in the week ending 27 March”

The quotation above comea from an article in the Guardian, which also includes the following commentary:

“David Spiegelhalter, the Winton professor of the public understanding of risk at the University of Cambridge, told the independent organisation Full Fact that all-cause mortality was the best measure.

“I feel the only unbiased comparison you could make between different countries is by looking at all-cause mortality. There are so many questions about the rise we have seen in deaths that have not got Covid on the death certificate, yet we feel are inevitably linked in some way to this epidemic. Those are the figures that I would prefer to look at.”

“The deputy chief medical officer for England, Jenny Harries, has also suggested all-cause mortality would be “probably the most useful statistic” for comparisons between countries.”

Notes

Please remember we have a (growing) list of resources to support your emotional and mental health during this time on our website. The following numbers may be useful:

  • Samaritans: 116 123
  • Domestic Violence Hotline: 0808 2000 247
  • Mind: 0300 123 3393
  • Age UK: 0800 169 6565
  • Childline: 0800 1111.

Thanks to everyone who helped create this update through our Facebook group. If you submit posts, we will often decline posting them to the discussion directly and instead hold them till the single daily summary – to try to reduce the number of posts in the feed and make it easier for people to follow the information. Please continue to submit posts to admins for this purpose with a flag REQUEST / OFFER / UPDATE / QUESTION