Superspreader – A rambling mind

Where’s the exit?

Imperial College and Harvard forecasts and illustrations of cyclical pandemic behaviour

My title for this post is drawn from a slide I have shown before, from the 17th April Cambridge Conversation webinar, which I reported in my April 17th blog post, and also in my April 22nd blog post on model refinement, illustrating the cyclical behavior of the Covid-19 epidemic in the absence of pharmaceutical interventions, with control of cases and deaths achieved, only to some extent, by Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs).

SARS-Cov-2 modelling situation report

Modelled Cases & Deaths development since Feb 1st - Uninfected, Cumulative Deaths, Uninfected & Seriously Sick

As we start September, the UK situation regarding Covid-19 cases and deaths has changed somewhat.

Since the UK Government re-assessed the way deaths data is collected and reported, the reported daily deaths resulting from Covid-19 infections have (thankfully) reduced to a very low level.

Cases, however, have started to rise again, although for a number of reasons the impact on deaths has been less than before. I have integrated the real world reported data with my model data to assess what is happening.

Model update following UK revision of Covid-19 deaths reporting

Model forecast for the UK deaths as at August 14th, compared with reported for 84.3% lockdown effectiveness, on March 23rd, modified in 5 steps by -.3%, -0% -0% and -0% successively

On August 12th, the UK Government revised their counting methodology and reporting of deaths from Covid-19, bringing Public Health England’s reporting into line with that from the other home countries, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I have re-calibrated and re-forecast my model to adapt to this new basis.

Model updates for UK lockdown easing points

Charts 4 and 13 for the comparison of cumulative & daily reported & modelled deaths, plus trend line, on the basis of 83.5% effectiveness, modified in 4 steps by -1%, -5% -10% and +2% successively

As I reported in my previous post on 31st July, the model I use, originally authored by Prof. Alex de Visscher at Concordia University on Montreal, and described here, was to be updated to handle several phases of lockdown easing, and I’m glad to say that is now done. Alex has been kind enough already to adopt a method I had been considering, of introducing an array of dates and intervention effectiveness parameters, and I have been able to add the recent UK Government relaxation dates, and the estimated effectiveness of each into a new model code. I have run two sets of easing parameters as a sensitivity test.