Onwards......

Ferguson all over the media this morning for all the wrong reasons. However, sadly one can't help suspecting that he's enjoying the limelight. Doubtlessly a very clever man but one who even before this debacle had been constantly on the airwaves. Once corona is over (if we get to that stage) a new career in reality TV is certainly available to him.

In spite of the fact that the number of infections continue to rise in the States, Trump is looking to disband the virus task force. The timing seems inappropriate ?

"US President Donald Trump has confirmed the White House coronavirus task force will be winding down, with Vice-President Mike Pence suggesting it could be disbanded within weeks.

"We are bringing our country back," Mr Trump said during a visit to a mask-manufacturing factory in Arizona. 

New confirmed infections per day in the US currently top 20,000, and daily deaths exceed 1,000."...........

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52553829

Inappropriate thy name is Trump. News footage of his at a factory with signs saying everyone to wear a mask - and he was the only one not doing so. Perhaps he was afraid of not being recognised?

EDIT - maybe I should have put this in the Trump thread. But he does have this habit of pushing in where he's not wanted

Someone sent me the following graph. It's interesting but and I'd appreciate a statistician's take on it. Thanks. Roger

COVID-19 Cases per Million Inhabitants: A Comparison

https://www.statista.com/chart/21176/covid-19-infection-density-in-countries-most-total-cases/

Roger

An excellent graphic. As the site itself points out, the situation will change as the outbreak started on different dates in different countries and will likewise die down on different dates. But, perhaps beyond their expertise, the methods of obtaining the number of cases varies between countries, too. But it makes a change from the media fascination with raw totals.

(and yesterday while helping a great-nephew with his maths homework over the phone, it struck me that GCSE syllabuses could do with a lot more on statistics and rather less on quadratic equations which were his problem)

I put the same countries on my favourite graph of population adjusted deaths.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=BEL+FRA+ESP+GBR+USA+IRL+PRT+CHE+SGP+ITA

We're top of the shop on deaths but supposedly doing OK on cases?

Some terrific (not) journalism in The Times this morning. They have an article title "Fat could be helping coronavirus to infiltrate cells" (see https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fat-could-be-helping-coronavirus-to-infiltrate-cells-q2t02cd7c). It then goes on to use a diagram which show the lowest risk of dying in ICU is if you have a BMI of 30 to 40. Those with a BMI under 25% have a 47.1% chance of croaking compared to 46.9% for those in the 30 to 40 range.  

As I read them, Roger's graph is a cumulative total whereas yours is the current daily total. This would fit with the outbreak in the UK starting later than, say, Italy or Belgium. 

if you compare that with the number carried out per million you’ll see why Spain and Ireland are top

If you look at deaths per million we are 4th,  behind Belgium, Spain and Italy

Yes. What's important is the slope of the line post-peak. Our figures aren't reducing as fast as the others.

Also a "fabulous" piece in the Times about the NHS app-ocalypse ttiled "Coronavirus tracing can stop second peak, insists Patrick Vallance" (see https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-tracing-can-stop-second-peak-insists-patrick-vallance-2s2jkhpcf).

It illustrates a decentralised app (Google / Apple) style uploading ids to a centralised database. Firstly, the Google / Apple api uplaods encryption keys (souceL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_/_Apple_contact_tracing_project) for the last 14 days, not ids.

The article goes on to say: The app can be “woken up” from tens of metres away by Bluetooth from Google-made Android phones and by iPhones that are using the tracing app in the foreground. The Bluetooth used in most devices is class 2 and has a range of about 10m. In addition Android phones will only be able to operate in this way if the app is running and in the foreground (same true for iPhones) or the app is running a foreground service.

It also says, "The government could resort to asking iPhone users to actively turn the app on before leaving the house." That won't get round the problems because the app will be pushed quickly into the background as the user almost certainly does other things. It also stops working if the iPhone is locked.

So it's a poor article which shows a lack of understanding. However, it does manage to describe some of the pitfalls of the UK's approach to the contact tracing app. Some of the problems are intrinsic to the chosen architecture and are not bugs which can be fixed. There will of course be some of them too.

Some are finally starting to ask the correct questions:

https://www.1828.org.uk/2020/05/05/the-uks-catalogue-of-catastrophes-and-what-to-do-next/

That's what happens when you let script kiddies loose on taxpayers money.

It is quite obvious, even from skimming the subject, that the app is nonsense and won't work.

I know that farcebook has some technology which detects when two users are connected to the same wi-fi hotspot - presumably using Google's wi-fi mapping data. You can see that it works because if you stand in a pub and look at facebook's "suggested friends", you can often identify some of the people seated in the bar from the suggested FB profiles.

Wouldn't that have been better?

It is affected by the testing regime in each country as well though

Countries that have obtained positive tests from asymptomatic victims will show up as a higher (and more accurate) incidence of cases per million population

The UK is doing a "MORI" type testing survey to get a better handle on this number but the results are not yet out

So, government boot-lickers say the government's not to blame? All down to communists and foreigners.

Predictable stuff.

That's the point. The figures aren't comparable.

The obvious question re all this is what about all those who do not have an iPhone or android??

We will just have to accept that mortality correlates with social deprivation.

It wouldn't be such a big issue if the vast majority of people who have an iPhone / Android phone installed the app and it worked at all times. You would then get a situation where those who don't have a phone would potentially benefit from something similar to "herd immunity". 

Predictable response from you - the article states nothing of the sort, it makes a critique of the structures we have created in this country.

Some good points made. However, many people won't be able to read past two words, one begins with E and the other with B. 

....or die