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We've had 3,871,825 Covid-19 cases recorded in the UK. Of which 112,660 died. Crudely thats a mortality rate of 2.91%. World beating, we're converting more infections into deaths than any comparable nation. Its terrifying (1)
Is it real? No. Because Britain quite uniquely gave up on testing in wave 1. Compare waves 1 and 2 here - incredibly back then we had an official policy of abandoning testing, largely I think to mask our total lack of investment in modern diagnostics over a decade (2)
The two peaks in fatalities have been brought under control using testing. The second peak there, you can see the impact of lockdown on infections too. Not in the first peak, because we weren't testing. But if we look for a ratio between the two, there's no straight line ever (3)
At some delay there should be a correlation between infections and deaths. Whether its 10 days, 15 days, or whatever. There isn't one, they all look like this - largely because infection hits different parts of the population differently and because testing policy is variable (4)
That might not look big, but it meanders (after the nonsense of no testing in the first wave) between about 0.5% to almost 3.5% - that means at the worst point Covid-19 looks 7x more fatal in the UK. Thats massive (5)
But I think looking at the two, peak efficacy of testing happened in August, if we just look at numbers from August onwards we've got an idea what kind of mortality rate we see in the UK. (6)
Remarkably of the 3,871,825 infections recorded almost all (3,556,772) have been since the start of August. Thats how awfully we handled testing early on. And 68,055 deaths. Thats 1.91% mortality. Closer to international comparisons (7)
So our testing procedures failed us horribly, and with that level of mortality we started increasing infections exponentially early in July. That red straight line from a few days after the pubs opened on the 4th of July in this log plot? That. (8)
In August when Eat Out Help Out got going we went into a far faster exponential rate. And then schools opened. (9)
Deaths caught up a while after, of course, lagging behind infections. And tiering slowed things down but didn't reduce the rate of infection or resultant death toll measurably. Deaths lag precisely behind recorded infections in this period (10)
The shape of that messy graph plots to when we had partial lockdowns, the tiering system, intermittently shut pubs, etc. But we came into Winter, terrifyingly, opening shops, pubs and restaurants like nothing had happened (11)
That peak in infections at the start of January and the peak in deaths in the middle of the months? Thats Christmas shopping, crowded stations with people rushing home to beat lockdowns, its pubs and restaurants opened, etc. (12)
An integration of the areas under those curves represents not just a mathematical exercise, its lives lost and families devastated. Whats the point of this analysis? Well, it tells us what we need to do going forward (13)
We need to continue suppressing infections and deaths. Ideally that would be through a robust test, track and trace that constantly suppresses infection rate below 1, helped with clear guidance and enforcement of social distancing. We've failed on that at every point (14)
But this also means we know how many people would die, and what the curve of deaths and infections would look like, if we just open up. But thats another thread. With this analysis we can model whats happening and project forward (15)
And with such analysis our opinions on government policy can be informed and intelligent. Without such numerical analysis, if you're putting forward ideas about easing lockdown you're just jerking off. (16)
You have the right to an informed opinion. You don't have the right for others to respect your views if they're uninformed. So, be informed. Be better. From that position, an outright condemnation of Johnsons governments murderous mishandling of Covid is -unavoidable- (fin)
Errata - idiot moment on tweet 3. The two peaks were not brought down with testing, they were brought down with lockdowns.
