A step toward understanding (part 1)

Using factor analysis to get a handle on the pandemic

In a series of newsletters entitled ‘COVID uncovered’ I have been wading through datasets, concepts, notions and fancies with a view to answering a simple question - just what was COVID meant to be? As I explained in one such newsletter I can understand a diagnosis of diffuse alveolar damage - COVID being a respiratory disease and all - but how does hair loss fit in with that?

Yes, I’ve been following the biochemistry so can mumble on about cytokine and bradykinin storms and, yes, I’ve been following surgeons taking lung sections and pathologists taking other bits but this is very much narrow focus study. What I really want to understand is what COVID looks like from a big picture perspective, perhaps at the level of an entire NHS Trust or even across the whole of England. With this big lens in mind I have been shovelling and cleaning data and am now ready to start baking. We shall start with the story for the whole of England…

England as a lens

The UK GOV coronavirus dashboard download…