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There are crucial gaps in the data available to map England’s response to Covid-19, according to researchers who have developed an interactive visual tool that condenses disparate streams of publicly available information to help the public make sense of the numbers.
The one-stop dashboard – developed by an interdisciplinary research team at University College London (UCL) – found substantial deficiencies in the quality, consistency and availability of reliable figures needed to manage the pandemic.
For example, there is no routinely collected data on how 14-day isolation requests are met, which makes it essentially impossible to know how effective NHS Test and Trace is at reducing transmission. The number of people who isolate themselves with symptoms in England is also unknown and there is no data on those who need or receive any kind of support, the researchers said.
“We don’t know what percentage of people with symptoms and a positive test are actually isolating themselves over the entire period of time, and we don’t know about their contacts and that’s very important because, if people don’t isolate themselves, then it’s a species. showcase, ”said UCL professor Christina Pagel, part of the team behind the dashboard.
Less than 20% of people in England completely self-isolate when asked to do so, documents from the government’s emergency science advisory group were revealed in September.
Another key problem, Pagel said, is the lack of granular local data from NHS Test and Trace. “It has been suggested that in the Northwest they have achieved fewer contacts and fewer cases and this is obviously very important,” he said. “This kind of regional variation is something we would really like to include not only in the tests we have, but in the contact tracking as well.”
The publicly available data used in the dashboard comes from sources such as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and NHS, but some statistics are published daily and some weekly.
“Our dashboard can be updated continuously, in order to clarify how these pieces of data should be displayed in the context of the entire pandemic,” said UCL professor Deenan Pillay, one of its developers.
“What we’re also trying to do is discover the internal logic of why testing, tracking and isolating are important,” he added.
“I think the way the pandemic has developed and the response in the UK, it’s easy for people to become … disenchanted with the constant demands, such as isolation, without the continued appreciation of why this is important. .
“I think we should trust the people with the data,” Pagel added. “If we were left with thousands of armchair statisticians, that would be great. I feel that our problem as a population is that people don’t compare themselves to the data, they don’t put enough effort into evidence and if we can encourage it then we should.
One thing she noticed when looking at the bigger picture was the huge number of cases lost due to the focus on testing symptomatic people. “It just highlights the fact that it’s something we should consider.”
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