| Country | Cases | New Cases | Deaths | New Deaths | Critical | Recovered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 4630040 | 9284 | 127976 | 6 | 210 | 4301985 |
Introduction | Videos | Analysis | Evaluation | Policies | Disclaimer | Contact
In this section, we give a short summary about our projections for United Kingdom.
NOTE: We have updated again our projection. New first projection day for U.K. is September 25, 2020.
If there will be any more updates, we will inform you on this page. You can view projections of other countries here.
These videos are an animation of confirmed cases and deaths with embedded the measures taken from country authorities. We believe that with these timelapses it is more easy to understand the magnitude and the speed of spreading of COVID-19. These videos will not be updated daily, but whenever is necessary. To see the projections scroll up to the top of this page.
Our analysis for COVID-19 progression in United Kingdom is based on multiple parameters. Some of them are the Mobility and Activity Index (MAI), number of daily tests, positivity rate. These parameters are presented in the figures below.
Τhe Mobility and Activity Index (MAI) is based on the data provided from Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports. In this dataset Google provides mobility trends for Grocery & pharmacy(grocery markets, food warehouses, farmers markets, specialty food shops, drug stores, and pharmacies), Parks (local parks, national parks, public beaches, marinas, dog parks, plazas, and public gardens), Transit stations (public transport hubs such as subway, bus, and train stations), Retail & recreation (restaurants, cafes, shopping centers, theme parks, museums, libraries, and movie theaters), Residential (places of residence) and Workplaces (places of work).
Τhe Mobility and Activity Index (MAI) is created by applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in 5 out of 6 trends, we left out Parks as they highly collerated with seasonality. By definition the Mobility and Activity Index (MAI) is a weighted sum function of the mobility trends and shows the mobility and economic activity of each country.
For United Kingdom the first principal component (PC1) of PCA can explain 93.13% of the total variance.
Mobility and Activity Index (MAI) = 0.36*T(Retail & Recreation) + 0.14*T(Grocery & Pharmacy) + 0.32*T(Transit) + 0.3*T(Workplaces) - 0.11*T(Residential)
NOTE: announcement from Google: "2020-09-22 20:45 GMT We have temporarily suspended updates in some categories to prepare for an improvement to how we’ll compute retail, recreation and other categories. The upcoming update will ensure consistency in the way that the data is being reported. We are working to resume updates as soon as possible."
The baseline is calculated by Google as the median value, for the corresponding day of the week, during the 5-week period Jan 3–Feb 6, 2020. After lockdown of March in UK we see a dramatic drop of the MAI at a level of -78.5%. In May some measures were lifted and the MAI started to increase with a linear trend. During June and July the trend continued and by the end of July UK gained around 40% percent of the economic activity. In summary, Mobility and Activity Index for UK gained 46.1% from the support level and has a 32.4% percent to achieve pre-coronavirus levels.
Another figure that can explain qualitative the COVID-19 curves by its quantity over time is the daily tests performed. Data for testing are available from Our World in Data via Github here.
As it can be observed the number of tests for UK did not followed the decrease of cases. In September testing capacity is around at a level of 226,578 daily tests.
We combined the data of daily tests with the daily confirmed cases to produce a figure of positivity rate. This rate is a good indicator about our control over the COVID-19 pandemic. A positivity rate under 1% is considered safe zone, a positivity rate above 20% is considered hot zone. WHO threshold for re-opening is 5% for 14 consecutive days.
We observe that from May and on the positivity rate drop nearly to zero levels. This was a good indicator that test were enough and the prevalence of the coronavirus slow. In September we see a steady increase of positivity rate in UK. Now is around 2.4%. This indicates that COVID-19 in UK is under control for now, but if we see a sharp increase in this indicator reaching a level of 5% then new measures must be imposed and the capacity of testing must be increased.
The aforementioned information were derived from the data and from this point on we analyze our assumptions, choices and conclusions based on our simulation model. The results of which are diplayed as projections in the first figures of this webpage.
The basic assumption is that the reported data are not showing the reality of COVID-19 spread. This is based on the fact that there is no efficient testing on the whole population. For our analysis, only daily deaths can give a good estimation of the disease progression. This is the reason why we do not calibrate the model to the data, as we want the model to capture what happens in reality, without overfitting.
The initial population of United Kingdom that has been incorporated into the model is 67,886,004.
The first case reported on 31/01/2020 and the first death reported on 06/03/2020.
With this in mind, we assume that around 300 exposed persons entered United Kingdom between 25/01/2020 and 09/02/2020.
In our projection model season has an effect of 30%.
The reaction time of people to the measures is 6 days, on average.
The confirmed cases now are around 65% of the real number.
We estimate that until 24/09/2020 a 3.73% percent of the total population of United Kingdom has been infected and 3.55% percent of the total population of United Kingdom has been recovered.
Overall, the situation in UK is not under control, after the loosening of measures and opening schools it has become very fragile. Our projection shows a scenario where the measures that imposed in September made people to follow the rules for personal protection measures at a level of 65%, from 60% that was in summer. If no other measures are taken then a general lockdown at around 9th of November will bring this number to 85%.
More details about the model can be found here.
Please visit the official website of U.K. government for official information.
We use as evaluation metrics the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and median absolute percentage error (MdAPE) on the cumulative cases and deaths, respectively. We made this decision in order to allow comparability of our models with other forecasting models for COVID-19. See details of performance of other prediction models here.
The overall performance of our projections is obtained by a weighting average of the metrics of each model. As weights the normalized to one number of days is used.
The partial and overall Absolute Percentage Errors (APEs) of our projections of COVID-19 for United Kingdom with the confirmed cumulative cases it shown in the next table. Lower value is better performance. Retrospective change in data affect the metric, the real error for affected models is lower.
Confirmed cases where revised to follow the official numbers. As the official announcement denotes: "The methodology for reporting positive cases changed on 2 July 2020 to remove duplicates within and across pillars 1 and 2, to ensure that a person who tests positive is only counted once. Due to this change, 30,302 previously reported cases were removed from the UK total. Numbers of lab-confirmed positive cases throughout this website (national, regional and local authority level) now include those identified by testing in all settings (pillars 1 and 2). Due to this change many cases previously not attributed to any area are now included in area totals. This is not a recent surge in cases – the cases now being reported occurred from April onwards." (source)
| Model | Start Date | End Date | Days | MAPE | MdAPE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2020-05-01 | 2020-06-14 | 44 | 4.41% | 3.24% |
| 2 | 2020-06-14 | 2020-07-05 | 21 | 9.37% | 9.1% |
| 3 | 2020-07-05 | 2020-07-31 | 26 | 1.32% | 1.25% |
| 4 | 2020-07-31 | 2020-08-18 | 18 | 0.69% | 0.58% |
| 5 | 2020-08-18 | 2020-09-25 | 38 | 5.59% | 3.91% |
| Overall | 2020-05-01 | 2020-09-25 | 147 | 4.42% | 3.57% |
The partial and overall Absolute Percentage Errors (APEs) of our projections of COVID-19 for United Kingdom with the confirmed cumulative deaths it shown in the next table. Lower value is better performance.Retrospective change in data affect the metric, the real error for affected models is lower.
Death data are revised with the 28 days cutoff. "The 4 UK Chief Medical Officers have recommended that a single, consistent measure is adopted for daily reporting of deaths across the UK. The UK government and the devolved administrations have agreed to publish the number of deaths that occurred within 28 days of a positive lab-confirmed COVID test result on a daily basis."(source)
| Model | Start Date | End Date | Days | MAPE | MdAPE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2020-05-01 | 2020-06-14 | 44 | 8.8% | 9.37% |
| 2 | 2020-06-14 | 2020-07-05 | 21 | 7.33% | 7.36% |
| 3 | 2020-07-05 | 2020-07-31 | 26 | 10.7% | 10.66% |
| 4 | 2020-07-31 | 2020-08-18 | 18 | 12.72% | 12.74% |
| 5 | 2020-08-18 | 2020-09-25 | 38 | 0.1% | 0.06% |
| Overall | 2020-05-01 | 2020-09-25 | 147 | 7.16% | 7.32% |
The measures taken by U.K. authorities by date (Day/Month/Year) are:
| Policies | Date | Level | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| School closing | 18/03/2020 | 3 - require closing all levels | 0 - targeted |
| School closing | 23/03/2020 | 3 - require closing all levels | 1 - general |
| School closing | 01/06/2020 | 3 - require closing all levels | 0 - targeted |
| School closing | 13/08/2020 | 2 - require closing some levels | 0 - targeted |
| School closing | 01/09/2020 | 1 - recommend closing | 1 - general |
| Workplace closing | 16/03/2020 | 1 - recommend closing or work from home | 1 - general |
| Workplace closing | 21/03/2020 | 3 - require closing or work from home for all-but-essential workplaces | 1 - general |
| Workplace closing | 11/05/2020 | 3 - require closing or work from home for all-but-essential workplaces | 0 - targeted |
| Workplace closing | 29/05/2020 | 2 - require closing or work from home for some sectors | 1 - general |
| Cancel public events | 19/03/2020 | 1 - recommend cancelling | 1 - general |
| Cancel public events | 20/03/2020 | 1 - recommend cancelling | 1 - general |
| Restrictions on gatherings | 23/03/2020 | 4 - restrictions on gatherings of 10 people or less | 0 - targeted |
| Restrictions on gatherings | 24/03/2020 | 4 - restrictions on gatherings of 10 people or less | 1 - general |
| Restrictions on gatherings | 04/07/2020 | 4 - restrictions on gatherings of 10 people or less | 0 - targeted |
| Restrictions on gatherings | 18/09/2020 | 4 - restrictions on gatherings of 10 people or less | 1 - general |
| Close public transport | 20/03/2020 | 1 - recommend closing or significantly reduce volume/route/means of transport available | 1 - general |
| Stay at home requirements | 13/03/2020 | 1 - recommend not leaving house | 0 - targeted |
| Stay at home requirements | 22/03/2020 | 2 - require not leaving house with exceptions | 0 - targeted |
| Stay at home requirements | 23/03/2020 | 2 - require not leaving house with exceptions | 1 - general |
| Stay at home requirements | 13/05/2020 | 1 - recommend not leaving house | 1 - general |
| Stay at home requirements | 15/06/2020 | 1 - recommend not leaving house | 0 - targeted |
| Stay at home requirements | 01/08/2020 | 0 - no measures | 0 - targeted |
| Restrictions on internal movement | 22/03/2020 | 2 - internal movement restrictions in place | 0 - targeted |
| Restrictions on internal movement | 23/03/2020 | 2 - internal movement restrictions in place | 1 - general |
| Restrictions on internal movement | 13/05/2020 | 2 - internal movement restrictions in place | 0 - targeted |
| Restrictions on internal movement | 06/07/2020 | 1 - recommend not to travel between regions/cities | 0 - targeted |
| Restrictions on internal movement | 01/08/2020 | 2 - internal movement restrictions in place | 0 - targeted |
| International travel controls | 08/06/2020 | 2 - quarantine arrivals from some or all regions | 1 - general |
| Policies | Date | Level | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public information campaigns | 20/01/2020 | 1 - public officials urging caution about COVID-19 | 1 - general |
| Public information campaigns | 31/01/2020 | 2 - coordinated public information campaign | 0 - targeted |
| Public information campaigns | 01/02/2020 | 2 - coordinated public information campaign | 0 - targeted |
| Testing policy | 20/01/2020 | 1 - only those who both (a) have symptoms AND (b) meet specific criteria | 1 - general |
| Testing policy | 18/05/2020 | 2 - testing of anyone showing COVID-19 symptoms | 1 - general |
| Contact tracing | 31/01/2020 | 2 - comprehensive contact tracing; done for all identified cases | 1 - general |
| Contact tracing | 12/03/2020 | 0 - no contact tracing | 1 - general |
| Contact tracing | 27/05/2020 | 1 - limited contact tracing; not done for all cases | 1 - general |
| Contact tracing | 01/06/2020 | 2 - comprehensive contact tracing; done for all identified cases | 1 - general |
| Policies | Date | Level | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Income support | 20/03/2020 | 2 - government is replacing 50% or more of lost salary | 0 - formal sector workers only |
| Income support | 26/03/2020 | 2 - government is replacing 50% or more of lost salary | 1 - transfers to informal sector workers too |
| Debt/contract relief | 18/03/2020 | 1 - narrow relief, specific to one kind of contract | 1 - general |
Level is in ordinal scale and higher value means more strict measures. Detailed explanation about the table can be found here.
This analysis contains Work in Progress (WIP) results. No rights can be derived from any of the results.
The projection that is visualized is only one simulation run and is not forecast neither future prediction.
We are not directly or indirectly owned or managed by any governmental organization, public charity, non-profit, or private foundation. Covid-Analysis is not affiliated, associated with, or in any way has any official status with the United Nations or any other official organization.
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If you find this analysis useful please do not hesitate to contact us at: info@covid-analysis.com