I am fascinated by patterns and peculiarities in the BAG COVID figures published daily by SRF, and am interested in hearing other's views.
https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/coro...in-der-schweiz

A brief summary of the tables and patterns:

(1) Hospital admissions

• Number of hospital admissions per 100K population for each age decile
• Admissions increase exponentially with increasing age
• Approx a factor of 2 for each increase in age decile.

(2) Deaths

• Number of deaths per 100K population for each age decile
• Deaths increase exponentially with increasing age
• Approx a factor of 5 for each increase in age decile above the age of 40.

The patterns in the deaths and hospital admissions tables appear similar.

However things look different in the New Infections data:

(3)New Infections

• Number of new infections per 100K population for each age decile
• The pattern is NOT exponential with increasing age, unlike admissions and deaths
• There is a peak at age 80+ (no surprise)
• There is also another peak at age 20-29 (rather interesting)
• There are lows at ages 0-19 and another at age 70-79 (again rather interesting)
• So basically the numbers are lowest for the lowest age groups (0-19), reach a peak at 20-29, steadily decrease reaching another low at 70-79, then shoot up and peak at 80+
• Upto 9.11.20, the numbers for each of the lower age deciles (20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59) exceeded the numbers for the 80+ age decile
• From 9.11.20 onwards, the numbers for the 80+ age decile are the highest but the trend of a steady increase with decreasing age and the second peak in the 20-29 age decile remains
• (Note the Bundesrat introduced stricter measures around 28.10.20, about 10 days before the turning point)

Some passing thoughts and questions:

• Any thoughts on the patterns, particularly for new infections and the peak in the lower age ranges?
  
• Could infections in the lower age deciles be driving admissions and deaths in the upper age deciles?
  
• What could we be doing differently?
  
• Any changes in communication strategy?

Attached Files

BAG COVID in Graphs.pdf (55.0 KB, 26 views)

Under 20s and particularly under 9s is easy - there is very little testing.

Over 80s I would guess is due to intensive testing (understandable given the risks) but I haven’t checked this. Probably also that these are most represented in care homes which I know are riddled with covid.

70s are probably the best at isolating.

Peak in the 20s is down to people not caring.

The second wave has started in the end of October. Around 2 weeks later the total number of reported deaths in Switzerland have increased sharply and stay up until now (these numbers are not in your graphs).

The most affected age group in the second wave is 80+, this is why you see that from 9.11.20 the numbers of new infections for this age group are the highest. This is because people in this age group die from Covid the most, and because of this they are tested the most and have contributed to the new infections stats the most.

If you look at the new infections and admissions by date, there is a slow decline for all age groups from mid-November until now. I think this shows that the actual second wave Covid spread is slowly going down. This cannot be seen in the numbers of total deaths yet, because these numbers overlap with other reasons of deaths (usually during the winter more deaths are expected, for reasons not related to Covid).

The infections peaks for people in their 20s probably because many are studying, living together in the dorms. And if working at this age, then probably they are more likely to have a job which requires presence on site and not the home office.