The number of new coronavirus cases in the UK has reached its highest in 77 days – once again driven by cases in England – but you’d struggle to discern it from the government’s official data page. In fact, at first glance you’d think it had fallen dramatically.
The first chart on the page for cases by the UK’s constituent nations has 26 August as its latest update – and claims England had only 21 cases:

The next chart, “Daily cases by date reported” has not been updated since 24 August, four days ago. But the only when you get to the 3rd chart on the page have the data been updated to include 27 August – showing a massive 1,522 cases, driven almost entirely by England:

And the same chart reveals, correctly, that the number of cases in England on the preceding day, 26 August, was not the 21 cases reported at the top of the page, but more than 870:

Yesterday’s total of 1,522 cases is the highest for the UK in 77 days – and like almost every day, England’s high and increasing per-capita infection rate is the driver, with a clear resurgence showing:

The Tories continue to play the country for fools as they push children and teachers back to school – and to make the UK a global object of horror for their mismanagement of the pandemic crisis.
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And yet . . .
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How many deaths have there been from flu/ pneumonia so far this year, or other respiratory problems? Are they up or down? I just want to know the full scale of this, I can’t see the wood for the trees. The establishment are being purposely chaotic. Are they that daft they can’t give a detailed breakdown of facts? Wearing masks from the end of July when Covid was known from December/January, and flights in and out of the UK being allowed to continue, allegedly unchecked, right up to June! I have no faith at all in what they are telling us.
The Tories were wrong-footed from the start. They’d let stocks of PPE rot in warehouses and couldn’t replace them quickly enough so they tried to hide that fact with “take it on the chin” and “no lockdown” and “we’re not Italy” – at that time they were diminishing the danger of CV while they wasted fortunes on replacing spoiled PPE at pandemic prices – not letting doctors count deaths as CV even with diagnostic symptoms, only with tests was part of keeping the public numbers down while they tried ineffectually to catch up. They returned sick elderly people to care homes on the quiet – so that hospitals understaffed and underfunded BY THEM might have a chance of coping with the anticipated rush.
That accelerated the spread.
They were caught unprepared time after time – but their job is to BE prepared so for months they did little more than push the furniture around and spend a thousand fortunes to try and cover their arses.
They left it far too late – there was a huge pool of already-infected people by the first week in March, which is why cases rocketed immediately after Mar 16 – lockdown day iirc.
Now it’s tapering off because of lockdown they only care about getting the kids to school and getting us oiks back to work they’re trying to poohpooh the danger again.
If a new wave does begin we won’t know until it’s well established – again.
Confused? You should be.
You think you can’t see the wood for the trees?
Look at any Tory – think they have a clue? Half a clue?
I fully agree the government and public health England caused thousands of needless deaths with their policy of putting bed blockers into nursing homes. In my view, restructuring public health England in the middle of the pandemic is the sort of thing you’d expect fro an episode of The Thick of It.
We’ll never know the full story. However, I don’t believe we are being purposely fooled but when you buy into a narrative you try your best not to undermine it.
We have followed the Epidemiology which was wrong from the start. Once it was shown to be massively over estimated it was too late and many other hastily introduced measures were also wrong. Things like death certificates showing death with Covid-19 on the strength of a third party claim of the deceased having a cough or a temperature and no test or post mortem. Also death from anything being recorded as with Covid-19 if the deceased had a positive test at any time in the adt 3 months.
We have all been bombarded with fear inducing rolling news feeds and this has been te biggest catastrophe any of us had ever faced. The economic fallout will be enormous and long lasting.
“The economic fallout will be enormous and long lasting.
Yes it will be. Such are the consequences of neo-liberal ‘pure’ capitalism: first the pandemic itself, second the schizoid governmental reaction to it, third the inability of a long starved Health System to deal with the extra strain, fourth the failure of the ghost of the Welfare State to ensure a smooth transition into unemployment, short time work and work from home.
The market failed and there have been many deaths because of it. That is the lesson to be learned not the right wing nonsense that there is no crisis because a few tens of thousand dying is no big deal and the show of capitalist exploitation must go on because there is no alternative.
There isn’t an alternative you idiot. There is no political party to rescue us, the establishment is as safe as it could be, people are happy to carry on voting for managed democacy. Under current circumstances we have to do everything we can to protect jobs, housing, education and social security.
Lessons learned come later and they won’t be the ones you’d like. An economic reset is going to be imposed on us and guess who’s going to pay for it?
They intend to blame the virus for the now ongoing economic collapse,and you and others here are helping them lundiel.Just how much of the misinformation we have endured is down to sheer incompetence and reduced public capacity to collate information and arrive at effective policies,and how much is due to deliberate obscuring of the facts,and stats,we will probably never know,but whatever the cause,we have been woefully and chronically under informed.The consequences we will see playing out over the next couple of years.
John, the current economic collapse was baked into the cake already, well before Covid. The danger is that it can now be blamed solely on Covid, justifying “business as usual” into the future. Yet another sticking plaster on a gangrenous wound.
Teresa, if they did everybody would come to realise that their way of dealing with the pandemic was a shambles from the word ‘Go’. In that context we need to also consider that they have stopped forwarding data detailing infections and deaths to the WHO some time ago. Transparent and honest is not what I would describe the tories as.
For goodness sake skwawky. No one’s trying to con anyone. The rates are reported every day on the news, they get the stats from gov.uk. If you ask your phone it will tell you the daily update.
You should be looking at job losses along with coronavirus cases. While death rates are very low we’re likely to see more than 3.5 million unemployed this year and many more next year.
Off topic but a presenter on Ch4 news just said to Ed Davy “You’ve already said you won’t work with a right wing party, that means you won’t work with Labour, who will you work with?”.
Quite frankly I am very suspicious about the test being used to determine if the subject has coronavirus. I have personally heard of people who test positive one day and then a few days later test negative. We moved from looking at coronavirus deaths, to coronavirus cases at which point they were going up, at the point when the deaths were going down. Even with the “cases” going up – the deaths are still going down.
I haven’t looked for it specifically but a phase shift between cases and deaths would be expected – the longer the incubation period the greater the rightward shift of the deaths curve.
On a graph of deaths overlaid on cases it would appear as a large peak with a smaller peak starting and remaining further from the origin.
Even on Worldometer I only remember the two graphs shown widely separated and at different scales as if comparisons weren’t wanted by anyone in charge.
‘Adjusted’ scales are a useful tool for the propagandist.
The testing regime has never been fit for purpose despite BloJob’s bluster about it being the best in the world – unless you count the purpose of obfuscating Tory incompetence.
Swabbing nasal cavities has proved to be hit and miss, leading to the false negatives that the Covid deniers conveniently ignore.
‘swabbing nasal cavities has proved to be hit and miss, leading to the false negatives that Covid deniers conveniently ignore’
If the above is the case this would mean that more people are actually infected with Covid. Again what are the number of deaths attributed to C19? that’s what I’m interested in. Can these death certificates be accurate? Did people die with covid and other co morbidity, or did they simply die from Covid complications? How old were they? We know that ‘bed blockers’ were sent back into care homes, and any flu like virus would prove fatal for a lot of the infirm residents. That was a crime, no doubt about it and the government should be held to account.
If there are more cases, because they aren’t being picked up by the ‘hit and miss’ tests, then the death toll by percentage in relation would fall.
I’m interested in the data from the last ten years, what’s the % of deaths relating to flu, pneumonia, and other respiratory illness, ie smoking related, emphysema, C.O.P.D ? Has 2020 seen that category increase or fall? When we can see that data on a graph we can get a better picture of the % of Covid deaths in relation to those who tested positive . I haven’t seen anyone give that information, so far, in any clear presentation.
I know one person who was hospitalised with C19 and on O2 therapy, and one who died with C19 but who had a long term serious illness.
I’m also concerned about the imminent second lock down. Come September it’s no secret that’s the time when all the cold and flu symptoms increase, always been the same ever since data has been collected. We know that the tests can give a positive for other corona bugs, again giving misleading data, clouding the maths even further.
My point is, without the correct data we don’t know the full impact this virus is having, yet we have legislation changed overnight on its merit. Without the correct data we don’t know what we’re up against.
I suppose it really is a case of the blind leading the visually impaired.
The NHS issued statistical data as long as June which stated that 95% of the fatalities have 1 or more serious illnesses and did not die with Covid 19 as the primary cause of death. In addition, they also stated that the median age of death was 80 years of age. Numerous studies in various countries regional health authorities confirm this eg Northern Italy. The statistics for the number of fatalities is way way way less than the official figures first used to justify calling it a “ pandemic. Moreover in terms of numbers, more people have died in road accidents than from the pandemic by a considerable margin. If you look at the link at the bottom of the page, you can read in great detail from numerous independent medical institutions, virologists, doctors not in the back pocket of big pharmaceutical corporations, B&MGF or with vested business interests in the “pandemic “, what the actual facts are about Covid 19.
Teresa Steele, good luck getting meaningful numbers before the history is published in ten or twenty years.
Tories have constantly changed reporting requirements, the criteria on which a determination of cause of death is made, the way the data are collected and the way they’re analysed – all supposedly in the name of providing greater accuracy.
Nothing wrong with accuracy, but ALL the raw data from the beginning must be re-analysed according to new imposed criteria to avoid drawing false conclusions on the disease’s progress, efficacy of treatments etc – either that or the original methodology must be maintained as a secondary data stream in parallel with the new for comparison in real time.
Otherwise it all follows Alice down the rabbit hole into Toryland – where a mad hatter government, journalist or virus denier can eventually prove black plus an apple divided by white equals eleven.
Constant change, however they attempt to justify it as “following the science,” is intended to spread responsibility too far and wide for any Tory ever to be prosecuted for criminal negligence.