Nassim Taleb is fond of one pagers these days, but he’s also into the precautionary principle, fat tails and “black swans”. Based on those principles he has argued for action on “climate change”:
We have only one planet. This fact radically constrains the kinds of risks that are appropriate to take at a large scale. Even a risk with a very low probability becomes unacceptable when it affects all of us – there is no reversing mistakes of that magnitude.
By way of a change, here’s an extract from a recent COVID-19 “note” of his:
The general (non-naive) precautionary principle delineates conditions where actions must be taken to reduce risk of ruin, and traditional cost-benefit analyses must not be used. These are ruin problems where, over time, exposure to tail events leads to a certain eventual extinction. While there is a very high probability for humanity surviving a single such event, over time, there is eventually zero probability of surviving repeated exposures to such events. While repeated risks can be taken by individuals with a limited life expectancy, ruin exposures must never be taken at the systemic and collective level. In technical terms, the precautionary principle applies when traditional statistical averages are invalid because risks are not ergodic.

I’m more used to posting the the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center’s modelled Arctic sea ice volume graphics, but here’s the UoW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation‘s UK COVID-19 death projections for a change:
Here in the once Great Britain we won’t have to wait a few decades to get a feel for how good Chris Murray’s coronavirus model is:
Here are the current official statistics from the United Kingdom’s Department of Health and Social Care:
As of 9am on 7 April, 266,694 tests have concluded across the UK, with 14,006 tests carried out on 6 April. Some individuals are tested more than once for clinical reasons.
213,181 people have been tested, of whom 55,242 tested positive. Today’s figure for people tested does not include Manchester and Leeds due to a data processing delay. The tests concluded figure excludes data from Northern Ireland.
As of 5pm on 6 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 6,159 have died.
and Office for National Statistics:
The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 27 March 2020 (Week 13) was 11,141; this represents an increase of 496 deaths registered compared with the previous week (Week 12) and 1,011 more than the five-year average.
A total of 150,047 deaths were registered in England and Wales between 28 December 2019 and 27 March 2020 (year to date), and of these, 647 involved the coronavirus (COVID-19) (0.4%); including deaths that occurred up to 27 March but were registered up to 1 April, the number involving COVID-19 was 1,639.
For deaths that occurred up to 27 March, there were 1,568 deaths in England registered by 1 April involving COVID-19 compared with 1,649 deaths reported by NHS England for the same period in a newly published dataset.
Of the deaths registered in Week 13, 539 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, which is 4.8% of all deaths; this compared with 103 (1.0% of all deaths) in Week 12.
This is slightly lower than the figures reported by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) for Week 13 (739) as it takes time for deaths to be reported and included in Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures.
Of deaths involving COVID-19 in Week 13, 92.9% (501 deaths) occurred in hospital with the remainder occurring in hospices, care homes and private homes.
Please note, where Easter falls in previous years will have an impact on the five-year average used for comparison.
Here’s the current Kings College COVID Symptom Tracker map for South West England, dated April 1st:
For some strange reason North Devon is even more of a hot spot than Cornwall. Second home owning surfers down from London for the weekend?
Here’s the symptom tracker explanatory webinar:
Meanwhile, and only marginally off topic, whilst Donald Trump berates the World Health Organization for being too China-centric:
President Trump said he was looking into putting a hold on the U.S. contribution to the @WHO, claiming ‘they’ve been wrong about a lot of things’ related to the coronavirus and accusing it of being too China-centric pic.twitter.com/whkUDJ743w
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 8, 2020
the IHME projects peak COVID daily deaths in the once United States will occur in a mere 4 days time:
P.S. James Annan, a “climate modeller though probably doing more epidemiology in the last couple of weeks”, has published a pertinent article on his blog entitled “Dumb and dumber“:
All these people exhorting amateurs to “stay in their lane” and not muddy the waters by providing analyses and articles about the COVID-19 pandemic would have an easier job of it if it wasn’t for the supposed experts churning out dross on an industrial scale.
The article describing [the IHME] method is here, it’s some sort of fancy curve fitting that doesn’t seem to make much use of what is known about disease dynamics. I may be misrepresenting them somewhat but we’ll see below what a simple disease model predicts.
James goes on to present the outputs of his “simple disease model” for the UK:
My model predicts a total of 8k deaths next week, with a 5-95% range of 4-19k. Yes it’s a wide uncertainty range, I think my prior on Rt is probably still too broad as I don’t really expect to see a value lower than 0.5 or higher than 1.5 (and these are just the 1sd spread limits in the above). But I am very optimistic that the median estimate generated by this method is better than the experts have provided, and they don’t seem to believe that anything in the lower half of my range is possible at all.
It will be exceedingly interesting to discover how all the numbers look on or about April 16th!
Today let’s take a look at the “official” UK novel coronavirus death forecasts from Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College, with the help of James Annan’s latest article. He covers a variety of countries, but sticking with the United Kingdom for the moment:
Here is the current UK forecast…before today’s figure comes out.
This is the IC forecast for the UK for this week again (pink plume again, below). The data were already outside their range by yesterday. What on earth were they thinking?
What indeed! The Imperial College model seems to habitually “over forecast” the number of deaths due to COVID-19 here in the UK. Of course time will tell how much “under reporting” there has been during the pandemic.
James Annan has produced an animation showing how his model evolves over time as more data becomes available:
I had some fun with a gif maker showing how the algorithm learns through time pic.twitter.com/goZdTKGvey
— Brexit: Still shit. Still not done 🇪🇺 (@jamesannan) April 12, 2020
His current forecast looks like this:
Saturday’s forecast. Assuming that 917 really is the right number, I’m saying this is the peak. If Whitty is right about hospital admissions rising (and it’s due to clinical need not expanded capacity) I may be proved wrong, but death data alone say a decline is likely imminent. pic.twitter.com/6cu2KOXJfW
— Brexit: Still shit. Still not done 🇪🇺 (@jamesannan) April 11, 2020
Another week’s worth of COVID-19 mortality data has been released by the ONS. Included in the news release is this graph:
As suspected:
Nick Stripe, head of health analysis and life events at the ONS said:
“The latest comparable data for deaths involving COVID-19 with a date of death up to 3 April, show there were 6,235 deaths in England and Wales. When looking at data for England, this is 15% higher than the NHS numbers as they include all mentions of COVID-19 on the death certificate, including suspected COVID-19, as well as deaths in the community.
“The 16,387 deaths that were registered in England and Wales during the week ending 3 April is the highest weekly total since we started compiling weekly deaths data in 2005.”
James Annan has submitted a paper about his Covid-19 epidemic model to medRxiv:
Model calibration, nowcasting, and operational prediction of the COVID-19 pandemic https://t.co/ezEMAA7I5O pic.twitter.com/HhQEuboCmO
— James Annan 🇪🇺 (@jamesannan) April 14, 2020
What’s more the R Markdown source code is available via GitHub!
https://github.com/jdannan/COVID-19-operational-forecast
I discovered something deeply disturbing today. Whilst I happily admit to being an old sceptic, I generally subscribe to the “cock up” theory of history.
However today I noticed that my surfing tweet in the comments below, and retweeted at the time by Andrew “Cotty” Cotton, looked rather strange. I clicked through the link to Twitter, only to discover this:
Now I didn’t delete that Tweet, and Cotty wouldn’t have been able to do that even if he wanted to. Which does rather beg a question or two:
Who did delete my (subversive?) surfing images? And what are they so concerned about?
The latest batch of weekly death certificate data has been released by the ONS. Would you like to play “spot the difference”?
- The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 10 April 2020 (Week 15) was 18,516; this represents an increase of 2,129 deaths registered compared with the previous week (Week 14), is 7,996 deaths more than the five-year average and is the highest weekly total since Week 1 in 2000.
- Of the deaths registered in Week 15, 6,213 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, which is 33.6% of all deaths; this compares with 3,475 (21.2% of all deaths) in Week 14.
- In London, over half (53.2%) of deaths registered in Week 15 involved COVID-19; the West Midlands also had a high proportion of COVID-19 deaths, accounting for 37.0% of deaths registered in this region.
- Total deaths registered by place of occurrence between Week 11 (when first COVID-19 deaths were registered) and Week 15, the number of deaths in care homes has doubled by 2,456 deaths (99.4% increase); whilst we have seen a 72.4% increase (3,603 deaths) in hospitals, and 51.1% increase in private homes (1,392 deaths).
- Of deaths involving COVID-19 registered up to Week 15, 83.9% (8,673 deaths) occurred in hospital with the remainder occurring in care homes, private homes and hospices.
- Week 15 included the Good Friday bank holiday; the five-year average does show a decrease in registrations over the Easter holiday; however, the Coronavirus Act 2020 allowed registry offices to remain open over Easter, which may have reduced any drop in registrations for Week 15 2020.
The ONS have released their latest weekly “death certificate” data:
- The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 17 April 2020 (Week 16) was 22,351; this represents an increase of 3,835 deaths registered compared with the previous week (Week 15) and 11,854 more than the five-year average; this is the highest weekly total recorded since comparable figures begin in 1993.
- Of the deaths registered in Week 16, 8,758 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, which is 39.2% of all deaths; this compares with 6,213 (33.6% of all deaths) in Week 15.
- In London, over half (55.5%) of deaths registered in Week 16 involved COVID-19; the North West and North East also had a high proportion of COVID-19 deaths, accounting for 42.3% and 41.1% respectively of deaths registered in these regions.
- Of deaths involving COVID-19 registered up to Week 16, 77.4% (14,796 deaths) occurred in hospital with the remainder occurring in care homes, private homes and hospices.
- The number of overall deaths in care homes for Week 16 was 7,316; this is 2,389 higher than Week 15, almost double the number in Week 14 and almost triple the number in Week 13.
- Week 16 included the Easter Monday bank holiday, and the five-year average shows a decrease in registrations over the Easter holiday; however, the Coronavirus Act 2020 allowed registry offices to remain open over Easter, which may have reduced any drop in registrations for Week 16 2020.
Here’s the cumulative totals graph
Continued over here:
38 replies on “Covid-19 in the United Kingdom”
Please note that according to The Guardian:
According to my hasty calculations that makes >12k Intensive Care Unit beds needed, with <1k available, on the peak date. Hopefully Boris Johnson will have vacated his long before then.
According to The Daily Telegraph:
Here’s today’s forecast from James Annan:
Today’s update from the UK Department of Health and Social Care reads as follows:
That works out to 938 daily deaths “of those hospitalised”. We’ll have to wait quite a while for the equivalent ONS count of weekly death certificates that mention COVID-19.
I’ve discovered that my letter from Boris Johnson and the accompanying leaflet finally arrived in my post box today, at no little expense to the Great British taxpayer no doubt! It tells me:
Absolutely nuts isn’t it! Here in Nova Scotia with a population of approx. one million we have the following from the government site:
As of today, April 8, Nova Scotia has 342 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Thirty-two new cases were identified Tuesday, April 7. https://novascotia.ca/coronavirus/
Have you noticed the CO2 numbers lately? With the industrial slow down globally I would have thought a slight levelling of the ppm’s year over year. Doesn’t seem to be however. I know the daily numbers are no trend, just the same if the increases were mainly human influenced you’d think the rise would be a lot less. 1 Year Change 3.46 ppm (0.84%) April 7th. Me thinks something wicked this way comes! Interesting times for sure! Stay safe Jim and all. Now back to my greenhouse for some self isolation.
Some not very surprising news from Ofcom, in the age of “truth decay”:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2020/half-of-uk-adults-exposed-to-false-claims-about-coronavirus
However Ofcom also assert that:
That being the case, where do you suppose all those “false claims” are emanating from?
I live in “the middle of nowhere” on the edge of Bodmin Moor in North Cornwall. Here’s what my bike ride yesterday evening looked like:
However what about the majority of people who need to take their permitted daily exercise in a locked down urban environment? Here’s a new “white paper” that addresses that question:
http://www.urbanphysics.net/Social%20Distancing%20v20_White_Paper.pdf
Here’s an associated video:
The latest official UK COVID-19 daily statistics have been published at long last:
That works out at 881 deaths in the last 24 hours, a modest reduction from yesterday. James Annan’s forecast for tomorrow is 910:
According to the BBC on Twitter:
Here’s what my most recent permitted coronavirus lockdown exercise looked like:
Perhaps the next such update will come from the North Coast instead of inland?
The “official” UK coronavirus daily death numbers have been updated:
According to the Guardian:
I have certainly been keeping up the physical distancing, except when it comes to the other member of my household. However I have to admit that we haven’t exactly “stayed at home” all day:
The University of Washington’s IHME has released a new version of their UK daily deaths projection:
3 days ago their best estimate for the peak was 2,932 per day on April 17th.
Today their best estimate is 1,674 per day on the same date. What do you suppose is the reason for that significant reduction?
Meanwhile James Annan managed to slightly “under forecast” today’s 980 number yesterday:
Here’s his forecast for tomorrow too:
The “official” UK coronavirus daily death numbers have been updated once again:
The #FailOnSunday is back on top form this Easter Sunday. Apart from the batty bunkum I mentioned last night the online version of today’s front page bears the byline of one Harry Cole. Allegedly:
You may well not be a regular reader of BoJo’s Twitter feed, but here’s how it looks this fine Easter morning:
Hence this uncharacteristic outburst on my part:
Who can say how many of what type of almost life forms Boris might currently be conveying from the Covid-19 Westminster hot spot out into the Great British countryside?
Mathematician John Horton Conway “has sadly left” us:
Has James Annan’s model’s “prediction” of the peak UK daily death come true? Here are the latest editions of both “fact” and “theory”:
As of 9am on 12 April, 350,575 tests have concluded, with 18,000 tests carried out on 11 April.
282,374 people have been tested, of whom 84,279 tested positive.
As of 5pm on 11 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 10,621 have died.
Tests People tested Positive Deaths
Daily 18,000 12,776 5,288 737
Total 350,575 282,374 84,279 10,612
Some individuals are tested more than once for clinical reasons. The figure for the number of tests excludes data from Northern Ireland. Testing data reflects the latest reported data although the timing of reporting cycles differs between labs.
Hope things go well for you and your family and friends in the UK: I believe the normal flu kills about 300k-600k(globally) every year so the numbers on this new virus already are staggering considering the effort put in to self isolate everyone/(lots-of-people) from the workplace.
I’m just in little old Perth, Western Australia and we feel basically oppressed by the endless instructions about not being able to do something else everyday but for you in the UK this is fair dinkum serious.
I’m glad you still feel free enough to get out of the house a bit though- because cabin fever sucks ****!
“Stiff upper lip, buddy: ‘oi oi oi!!!!'”
Thanks for your good wishes SML,
The latest updates on “getting out of the house” under lockdown over here:
I trust you are able to get plenty of fresh air down under at the moment?
Today’s “official” death data update:
James Annan’s COVID-19 model has convinced him that the UK is now past peak daily deaths, which is comfort of a sort I suppose if that’s how things ultimately pan out:
Following today’s grim statistics from the Department of Health Boris Johnson seems sadly unable to take his own advice:
Today’s news from our glorious Government’s web site:
Some rare “good news” from the official statistics:
Slightly fewer hospital deaths reported over the last 24 hours than the previous day. Has “the curve” flattened yet, do you suppose?
I learned today via Richard Betts on Twitter that Sir John Houghton, founder of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, has succumbed to Covid-19:
Today’s gov.uk totals:
Personally I no longer suppose that the curve has flattened.
I was born in Yorkshire. My Grandad survived being gassed in WW1 and became a great Leeds United supporter:
Norman “Bites yer legs” Hunter has succumbed to COVID-19
RIP Norman
Today’s other death details:
The number of Covid-19 cases and deaths from Her Majesty’s Government:
To summarise:
James Annan reports via Twitter that his new paper has been accepted by medRxiv:
Today’s official announcement:
To summarise:
Significantly fewer hospital deaths reported, perhaps due to the apparently recurring “weekend reporting” effect?
Today’s report from the Department of Health reveals another decline in deaths:
To summarise:
Cumulative: 386,044 people tested, 124,743 positive cases, 16,509 deaths in hospital
Daily: 14,106 tests, 4,676 positive, 449 deaths
Let’s await tomorrow numbers with bated breath, as the “weekend effect” wears off.
P.S. Here’s James Annan’s latest projection:
The “weekend effect” has well and truly evaporated:
To summarise once again:
Cumulative: 397,670 people tested, 129,044 positive cases, 17,337 deaths in hospital
Daily: 11,626 people tested, 4,301 positive, 823 deaths
James Annan’s projection is still on track, even after the sudden jump:
Heading back towards James Annan’s projected midline today:
Summarising again:
Cumulative: 411,192 people tested, 133,495 positive cases, 18,100 deaths in hospital
Daily: 13,522 people tested, 4,451 positive, 759 deaths
Another modest reduction in daily reported hospital deaths:
In summary:
Cumulative: 425,821 people tested, 138,078 positive cases, 18,738 deaths in hospital
Daily: 14,629 people tested, 4,583 positive, 616 deaths
The projection:
We’re trying an alternative format for the official daily deceased report today:
Daily deaths = 684, plus Dr. Annan’s extrapolation:
According to the BBC:
James Annan succinctly sums up today’s official numbers:
The “weekend effect” seems to repeating itself once again:
The latest daily deceased numbers have been published, in all probability still suffering from the “weekend effect”:
The traditional increase in daily hospital deaths after the weekend is upon us:
When you view the latest Dept. of Health daily numbers of deceased due to Covid-19 please bear in mind that they now include deaths “across all settings”, not just “in hospitals:
James Annan’s current comment on the new numbers reads as follows:
P.S. Here’s his updated projection, based on the “tested positive” numbers: