If you're British and you know it wash your hands... and why the mortality rate may be lower than we think. may be a lot lower than reported
And why this data may be meaningless.....
Despite continuing pressure from the public and press, the UK government say they are following science - whilst other countries are closing their borders and schools.
The latest figures suggest that the UK is still doing better in preventing a wider spread of the virus so perhaps the government is doing something right?
Let's have a look at the daily cumulative cases across the UK, Italy, Spain and France:
We can see that whilst France and Spain are following a similar trajectory to Italy, albeit on a delay, the UK's curve is not as steep - despite the virus hitting the 3 countries at roughly the same time.
So tell me again why this is the wrong action? The rise in cases is inevitable but currently it looks like we are holding off a sharp increase and that can't be a bad thing.
The daily UK increase is also a lot less erratic than other countries, with the UK benefiting from a lack of big spikes which has clearly led to a steeper curve in other countries - who knew that washing our hands would be so effective!
But can we trust the data?
This data comes from the World Health Organisation, the first thing to note is that the figures for the UK always look a little different to those reported daily on the BBC. Small differences but different all the same.
The second thing to consider is that the numbers tracked only include confirmed cases and deaths. So there may be many more people that have the virus but are managing at home in isolation without being tested and included in these numbers. Experts are suggesting that the real number of infected in the UK is actually closer to 10,000.
Now if we calculate the UK mortality rate at the time that this was suggested, that would mean the real mortality is 0.1%. And hey guess what - that is the same as seasonal flu.
Don't get me wrong, these are all additional people getting ill and some requiring urgent medical attention - something our health service is not resourced for. So this is still serious and still needs action but I'm not convinced we can rely on the data to tell us the true story, the longer it goes on the less reliable the data will become - as testing and confirming cases wil become impossible. Sadly the only data that can be relied on is the number of people that die daily - that's not the sort of data that anyone wants to crunch.
So the message for now - Keep calm and wash your hands.
Despite continuing pressure from the public and press, the UK government say they are following science - whilst other countries are closing their borders and schools.
The latest figures suggest that the UK is still doing better in preventing a wider spread of the virus so perhaps the government is doing something right?
Let's have a look at the daily cumulative cases across the UK, Italy, Spain and France:
So tell me again why this is the wrong action? The rise in cases is inevitable but currently it looks like we are holding off a sharp increase and that can't be a bad thing.
The daily UK increase is also a lot less erratic than other countries, with the UK benefiting from a lack of big spikes which has clearly led to a steeper curve in other countries - who knew that washing our hands would be so effective!
But can we trust the data?
This data comes from the World Health Organisation, the first thing to note is that the figures for the UK always look a little different to those reported daily on the BBC. Small differences but different all the same.
The second thing to consider is that the numbers tracked only include confirmed cases and deaths. So there may be many more people that have the virus but are managing at home in isolation without being tested and included in these numbers. Experts are suggesting that the real number of infected in the UK is actually closer to 10,000.
Now if we calculate the UK mortality rate at the time that this was suggested, that would mean the real mortality is 0.1%. And hey guess what - that is the same as seasonal flu.
Don't get me wrong, these are all additional people getting ill and some requiring urgent medical attention - something our health service is not resourced for. So this is still serious and still needs action but I'm not convinced we can rely on the data to tell us the true story, the longer it goes on the less reliable the data will become - as testing and confirming cases wil become impossible. Sadly the only data that can be relied on is the number of people that die daily - that's not the sort of data that anyone wants to crunch.
So the message for now - Keep calm and wash your hands.
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