Sunday 12th April

Quote of the day

“Very sadly, 19 members of the NHS family have died. My heart goes out to their families. These are people who have put themselves on the front line. Work is going on to establish whether they caught coronavirus in the line of duty while at work or whether, like so many other people, caught it [while going about] the rest of their lives. It is obviously quite difficult to work that out.”

Health Secretary Matt Hancock talking to BBC Saturday Breakfast 

Names of NHS Workers Who Have Died From Covid-19

Gareth Roberts, University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff
Alice Kit Tak Ong, the Royal Free Hospital
Jitendra Rathod, University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff
Rebecca Mack, Newcastle
Anton Sebastianpillai, Kingston Hospital
John Alagos, Watford
Glen Corbin, Brent, north west London
Liz Glanister, Royal Liverpool University Hospital
Areema Nasreen, Walsall Manor Hospital
Prof Mohamed Sami Shousha, London
Lynsay Coventry, Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust
Aimee O’Rourke, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital, Margate
Dr Alfa Sa'adu, Whittington Hospital
Thomas Harvey, Upper Clapton
Amged El-Hawrani, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester
Pooja Sharma, East SussexDr Habib Zaidi, Southend Hospital
Dr Adil El Tayar, West Middlesex University Hospital
Julie Omar, 52

Headlines

• There have been 108,907 deaths from Covid-19 worldwide.
• Each year it is estimated by the World Health Organisation that around 290,000-650,000 people die from flu. It is estimated that in the US alone 23,000 people have died from flu this year. 
• Currently 1,783,724 people Worldwide have tested positive for Covid-19
• UK deaths yesterday were 917, comparable to Italy's highest daily total which was 919 on March 27th, after which their daily death rate started to fall. 
• Yesterday Italy had 619 deaths a slight increase over previous days.
• There were only 3,993 people tested yesterday, the lowest total since testing began. 
• It took 30 days to reach 50% of the total deaths in the UK, it has taken a further 7 days to double that figure. 
• The percentage of positive tests is now 29.3% the highest since testing began. However, this may be because of who is being tested.
• The number of people infected with Covid-19 in the UK is not known. A reasonable, though possibly conservative, estimate is around 3 million.
• The death rate in the UK is likely to be in the region of 30,000-110,000 though the actual rate is not known yet.
• For the lockdown to be effective it will have to stay in place for a minimum of a further 13 days, and probably longer.
• Health workers are still complaining that they do not have PPE, despite Government assurances that they are doing all they can.
• The Government rather than putting their efforts into securing PPE seem to be putting their efforts into blaming health workers for not using the equipment properly.
• Both the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Express lead on Boris Johnson, whilst the other Sunday papers have other Covid-19 related stories.
• The Sunday Mirror leads on shortage of drugs, the Sunday Telegraph on shortage of PPE, the Sunday Times on a phone app which could be key to lifting the lockdown, The Observer on Labour's call to recall parliament, and the Sunday People on vulnerable people being asked to sign do not resuscitate orders.

UK Stats

Date	Days since first death		Weekly comparison figures
11/04/2020	37
Deaths	9,875		4,941	deaths in the past week
New deaths	917		50	% of deaths in the past week
Death Rate	12.50
Increase in deaths over previous day (%)	10.2
Total tests carried out (persons)	269,598		74,074	people tested in the past week
in last 24 hours	3,993
average per day since first death	7,286
Negative (n/%)	190,607	71%	-29	% negative tests
Positive (n/%)	78,991	29%	65	% more positive tests
Percent population UK tested	0.40%		0.11	of the population tested since last week

4 Nations

	Cases	Increase in cases over prevous day (%)	Deaths	New deaths	Percentage increase in deaths over previous day
England	62,658	7	8,937	823	10
Scotland	5,590	6	495	48	11
Wales	4,930	7	351	36	11
N. ireland	1,717	2	92	10	12

English Regions

	Total confirmed cases	Increase over previous day (%)
London	16,721	4.43
South East	7,872	7.78
South West	2,963	7.86
North West	8,604	7.27
East	5,302	8.83
Midlandss	10,368	6.84
North East/Yorkshire	8,181	6.21

Note: on previous versions of this table I had erroneously put the % of total cases in the column for daily increase.

Reproduction and likely number of infected persons

I have looked at this again and realised that yesterday's attempt was probably inaccurate.

Today I have assumed that the first person with the virus probably entered the UK 10 days prior to the first death. I have also assumed that each person with the virus infected 1 other person until measures were put in place. Each measure reduced RO, the rate of reproduction. However, these figures are speculative but it indicates that around 3 million people in the UK could currently have the virus. 

This figure is consistent with the figure calculated by Imperial College, London.

The World Health Organisation have calculated the real death rate for those with infections at 3.8%, a figure based on figures Worldwide.

The UK death rate in this scenario would be around 111,000.

However, if the death rate is much lower, let's say closer to 1% then the number of deaths would be around 30,000 (consistent with the upper figure from Imperial College's estimation)

The average daily death rate over the past 7 days has been 795 per day.

If this rate continues we would hit the peak around 13th June if the WHO death rate is correct and 23rd April if Imperial College are correct. Suffice to say that any lifting of the lockdown is unlikely for at least a fortnight.

Just to repeat most of these figures are highly speculative and at best offer a guide.