The tail after the peak

Thanks Gaz. I've read the PHE report, but they don't publish the underlying data for some reason, so it's impossible to analyse.

It does seem to fly in the face of other data available. The total number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has continued to fall in all regions (including London), and although there were a couple of days in the past week where there were small rises in London, these were vastly outnumbered by the falls on the other days.

According to the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre, the number of people in ICU has fallen every day (with one minor blip) since 16th April. However, that data only runs until 22nd May and covers the whole of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so it would be impossible to pick out a recent uptick in the London region alone.

I think we'll just have to wait until PHE publish next week's report to see if this was a blip or the beginning of a new trend. Bit frustrating though.
That number for London would be two thirds of the admissions to all England hospitals yesterday. It doesn't look right.
 
Actually, thinking about it, we should probably exclude positive Pillar 2 tests from the figures, as they've only been conducted for a relatively short period of time. If we look at the death rate as a proportion of just the positive Pillar 1 tests, this increases it to 20%.

Apply that proportion to the 900 per day average and you would expect approx. 180 deaths per day in a fortnight. That would be approx. 30% lower than the current average, so still lower than today but perhaps a slight slowing in the decline.

After today's figures, the 7-day average for new deaths is currently 196, so about 10% higher than predicted two weeks ago. This is 23.4% lower than a fortnight ago and represents a significant slowing in the fortnightly rate of decline from one month ago (40%).

That said, based on current levels of positive Pillar 1 tests (just under 400 per day) and total deaths as a proportion of total positive Pillar 1 tests (22%), you might expect the 7-day average for new deaths to be around 86 in 14 days' time. That would represent a 57% decline from today's average.

In summary, I guess I'm saying it's definitely still coming down and should continue to do so, it's just unclear at what rate.
 
After today's figures, the 7-day average for new deaths is currently 196, so about 10% higher than predicted two weeks ago. This is 23.4% lower than a fortnight ago and represents a significant slowing in the fortnightly rate of decline from one month ago (40%).

That said, based on current levels of positive Pillar 1 tests (just under 400 per day) and total deaths as a proportion of total positive Pillar 1 tests (22%), you might expect the 7-day average for new deaths to be around 86 in 14 days' time. That would represent a 57% decline from today's average.

In summary, I guess I'm saying it's definitely still coming down and should continue to do so, it's just unclear at what rate.
The euromomo excess death charts show a longer tail for England. Also Spain is showing a slight rebound higher. Both for z-scores. Rather than actual numbers. Published today.
 
The euromomo excess death charts show a longer tail for England. Also Spain is showing a slight rebound higher. Both for z-scores. Rather than actual numbers. Published today.

Yes. It definitely seems to be a longer tail in the UK than even some of the other worst affected countries, such as Italy and Spain.
 
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