Lies, damn lies and ...

I like numbers. The current COVID-19 pandemic is generating a lot of numbers. Let's do some maths.

I know it's a moving target but as I write this, according to the excellent John Hopkins CCSE COVID-19 dashboard, there are 34,009 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Germany and 8,167 in the UK. Or, if you prefer:

n_g = 34,009
n_u = 8,167

So, as at 12.48pm on Wednesday 25th March, Germany has about four times as many confirmed cases as the UK, because...

n_g / n_u = 4.16

At the same time, Germany has 172 deaths and the UK has 422. Or...

x_g = 172
x_u = 422

Now I know the actual number of cases in both countries is likely to be much higher, because of under-reporting, but let's work with what we've got. And what we've got so far tells us that the mortality rate in Germany is about 0.5% - look

x_g / n_g * 100 = 0.50574....

Whilst in the UK it's somewhat different:

x_u / n_u * 100 = 5.16713....

Yes. 5%. Does this mean that you're ten times more likely to die of COVID-19 in the UK than you are in Germany. No, of course it doesn't. But it does suggest that if you contract COVID-19 in the UK you are ten times more likely to die from it, with a one in twenty chance.

Of course, try hard enough and you can prove anything with back-of-an-envelope maths. Certainly there would need to be some more rigorous research into how comparable reporting of confirmed cases was in the two countries. But here's an interesting chart from some proper, peer-reviewed research:

Source: Rhodes, A., Ferdinande, P., Flaatten, H. et al. The variability of critical care bed numbers in Europe. Intensive Care Med 38, 1647–1653 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-012-2627-8

Or ... well, you know the drill by now:

b_g = 29.2
b_u = 6.6

Now admittedly these figures are nearly eight years old but, assuming nothing much has changed (a big assumption - I'm willing to bet the UK figure has got worse in that time), this suggests that, like for like, Germany has more than four times as many critical care beds as the UK, look...

b_g / b_u = 4.42r

It's almost like there's a correlation between surviving a serious illness and having a critical care bed.

This reasoning is, of course, specious at best. If I'd chosen Italy, for example, instead of Germany, as the comparator no doubt I would have been drawing different (but possibly equally dodgy) conclusions. But one thing is clear - years of under-funding have left the NHS operating on a shoestring, and a ragged, part-worn shoestring at that. I'd like to think that one positive from the COVID-19 pandemic is that afterwards, when things are heading back towards normal, successive governments might realise that they need to fund the health service properly. Of course I need to temper my naïve optimism on that score with the fact that, when this is over, the nation is going to be not only skint but massively in debt. There's not going to be any money for the level of investment that is so clearly needed.

That's more than enough syntactically correct but ultimately worthless maths for today. But in case you're in any doubt (I know you're not) as to the funding gap that's opened up around the NHS, here's a little "spot the difference" game you can play.

pic.twitter.com/OPdKRgsqLM

— Sally B (@mahamummy) March 23, 2020