Corona Virus

[st albans fox]

17 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

I'm sorry but that's simply just not true.

 

We haven't had that many deaths in a day since before mid April. Around half that now. Don't forget about backdated reporting.

 

We should be thinking very hard about everything and that includes the impact of lockdown on health, physically and mentally. 

 

The loosening will be cautious anyway and that's without factoring in how cautious our fear-stricken population will act out of lockdown. Plus many of the most vulnerable will already have been plucked off. Plus we're further out of winter. Plus we have more ICU capacity now. Plus other nations coming out of lockdown are so far proving there has been no instant, massive second wave.

Don’t forget that these countries haven’t  been out of lockdown for more than a couple weeks, possibly three.   the virus needs some time to gain traction and then up to a fortnight to show symptoms. I wouldn’t be making that statement until next week in places like Austria and Denmark, a fortnight away in Germany,

 

 

[yorkie1999]

6 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

There’s a lag ....... it’s deaths reported in the past 24 hours and covers the past few weeks ...... we do have too many care homes deaths at the moment which is masking the lowering number in the hospitals.   The issue with care homes is that here we have a ‘captive audience’ of potential victims who cannot escape. They are already locked down and the deaths are being recorded under lockdown circumstances. I don’t see what affect easing lockdown will have on care homes unless you feel that more care workers will become infected and take the virus back into some homes which may be getting on top of their problem. 
 

 

Don’t they take the people in care homes to hospital when they get ill?

[Nod.E]

2 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Don’t forget that these countries haven’t  been out of lockdown for more than a couple weeks, possibly three.   the virus needs some time to gain traction and then up to a fortnight to show symptoms. I wouldn’t be making that statement until next week in places like Austria and Denmark, a fortnight away in Germany,

 

 

True, but it's also worth noting that we got to our peak in April off the back of 'normal life'. Gigs, sporting events, night clubs etc etc.

 

Considering we won't have those things on top of all the other factors in my previous post, we can be very confident any second peak would be substantially flatter if we were to get one.

[Webbo]

A large percentage of the population will now some immunity. I'm sure the rate will rise again but it shouldn't be as bad.

[bmt]

 

22 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

 

Deaths are backdated, around a third of that number probably died over a week ago.

The lack of clarity around the figures is astounding though, you can see why people are confused.

[yorkie1999]

18 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Catching up on those that are reported even though they might have died up to 10 days ago.

Might be wrong but I think we are  reporting everyone who has died that has the virus, not necessarily the virus being the cause of death. I read somewhere they are going to change the way we work it out by using additional deaths over the expected amount of deaths based over the last 5 years, which in theory shows the deaths due to the virus

[bmt]

1 minute ago, yorkie1999 said:

Might be wrong but I think we are  reporting everyone who has died that has the virus, not necessarily the virus being the cause of death. I read somewhere they are going to change the way we work it out by using additional deaths over the expected amount of deaths based over the last 5 years, which in theory shows the deaths due to the virus

That would include indirect deaths of Covid too though. And would ignore deaths that haven't occurred due to things like road traffic accidents, but do happen in normal circumstances.

[Paninistickers]

33 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

I'm sorry but that's simply just not true.

 

We haven't had that many deaths in a day since before mid April. Around half that now. Don't forget about backdated reporting.

 

We should be thinking very hard about everything and that includes the impact of lockdown on health, physically and mentally. 

 

The loosening will be cautious anyway and that's without factoring in how cautious our fear-stricken population will act out of lockdown. Plus many of the most vulnerable will already have been plucked off. Plus we're further out of winter. Plus we have more ICU capacity now. Plus other nations coming out of lockdown are so far proving there has been no instant, massive second wave. Plus chances are hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people may already have had the virus without displaying symptoms. Plus we know for a fine fact now that unless you're obese, have prior ailments or are over 70, you could consider yourself woefully unfortunate to come down with a serious condition of this.

 

Things will begin to loosen from next week, and I believe it's the right move.

 

A great post. Thanks.

 

I think there's one extra factor to add. There appears to be a will to completely eliminate risk. That isn't sensible nor realistic. 

 

We are creating a very frightened population. As you say, it would be terribly bad luck for a reasonably fit and healthy adult up to even 75 to become seriously ill with his thing. 

 

I'm.content and understanding enough to realise that although I'm in a fairly safe zone, I am rein in my behaviour to help protect those who aren't.

 

But sometime between this summer and the next 18 months, the first world is going to have to accept an element of risk.

 

On that note, how's overcrowded third world shitholes like Sao Paulo and Nairobi doing?

[Nod.E]

1 minute ago, yorkie1999 said:

Might be wrong but I think we are  reporting everyone who has died that has the virus, not necessarily the virus being the cause of death. I read somewhere they are going to change the way we work it out by using additional deaths over the expected amount of deaths based over the last 5 years, which in theory shows the deaths due to the virus

This is absolutely massive.

 

It could be as simple as loads of people having the virus, including people that are dying. People always have and always will die, so identifying a virus that may or may not be deadly doesn't really give us the full picture.

 

You can understand why caution has prevailed but I do get the feeling as a global population we've sh*t the bed somewhat, with the benefit of partial hindsight, of course.

[Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot]

Fingers crossed, I'm starting to lose it and so is my partner, a bit of human interaction would go a long way. 

[davieG]

10 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

This is absolutely massive.

 

It could be as simple as loads of people having the virus, including people that are dying. People always have and always will die, so identifying a virus that may or may not be deadly doesn't really give us the full picture.

 

You can understand why caution has prevailed but I do get the feeling as a global population we've sh*t the bed somewhat, with the benefit of partial hindsight, of course.

BBC

 

Italy has a higher proportion of older people and a smaller proportion of children (who are much less likely to be severely affected) so, if all other factors were equal, you would expect more coronavirus deaths in Italy than the UK.
The other thing you might want to adjust for would be the overall health of the population, which would be relevant for how many people you would expect to die in a given period.
This is usually expressed by giving the number of excess deaths. If you were looking for the number of excess deaths in April, for example, it would be the number of people who have died minus the average number of deaths in April over the previous five years.
It is important to compare with the same period in previous years because we expect more people to die in winter than in summer.
In Italy, from 20 February when the first coronavirus death was reported until the end of March, there were 90,946 deaths from all causes, compared with the average of 65,592 for the previous five years - that's an excess of 25,354 deaths.
If you compare that with the six-week period after the first coronavirus death in the UK, there were far fewer excess deaths - 89,735 people died from all causes in the UK, compared with an average of 72,812 in the same period of the previous five years, which is an excess of 16,923.

 

 

 

[murphy]

3 minutes ago, Webbo said:

A large percentage of the population will now some immunity. I'm sure the rate will rise again but it shouldn't be as bad.

We don't know this.  If we assume mortality rate of 1% then working backwards from 30k deaths, that would mean 3 million infections, around 5% of the population and not enough to make any difference to transmission.

[st albans fox]

32 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Don’t they take the people in care homes to hospital when they get ill?

Some but elderly people aren’t often intubated and I expect the majority of those infected in care homes to remain there. 

[Nod.E]

7 minutes ago, davieG said:

BBC

 

Italy has a higher proportion of older people and a smaller proportion of children (who are much less likely to be severely affected) so, if all other factors were equal, you would expect more coronavirus deaths in Italy than the UK.
The other thing you might want to adjust for would be the overall health of the population, which would be relevant for how many people you would expect to die in a given period.
This is usually expressed by giving the number of excess deaths. If you were looking for the number of excess deaths in April, for example, it would be the number of people who have died minus the average number of deaths in April over the previous five years.
It is important to compare with the same period in previous years because we expect more people to die in winter than in summer.
In Italy, from 20 February when the first coronavirus death was reported until the end of March, there were 90,946 deaths from all causes, compared with the average of 65,592 for the previous five years - that's an excess of 25,354 deaths.
If you compare that with the six-week period after the first coronavirus death in the UK, there were far fewer excess deaths - 89,735 people died from all causes in the UK, compared with an average of 72,812 in the same period of the previous five years, which is an excess of 16,923.

 

 

 

Interesting and definitely a better metric.

 

Wonder whether the excess deaths will go the other way over coming months, though. I.e. if deaths have to some extent just been expedited.

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, murphy said:

We don't know this.  If we assume mortality rate of 1% then working backwards from 30k deaths, that would mean 3 million infections, around 5% of the population and not enough to make any difference to transmission.

Nobody knows. I've seen figures of 0.1, 0.5 and 0.3. It's all guesswork atm. Most of the victims have been elderly or in poor health and they'll still be in lockdown anyway.

[murphy]

59 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

I'm sorry but that's simply just not true.

 

We haven't had that many deaths in a day since before mid April. Around half that now. Don't forget about backdated reporting.

 

We should be thinking very hard about everything and that includes the impact of lockdown on health, physically and mentally. 

 

The loosening will be cautious anyway and that's without factoring in how cautious our fear-stricken population will act out of lockdown. Plus many of the most vulnerable will already have been plucked off. Plus we're further out of winter. Plus we have more ICU capacity now. Plus other nations coming out of lockdown are so far proving there has been no instant, massive second wave. Plus chances are hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people may already have had the virus without displaying symptoms. Plus we know for a fine fact now that unless you're obese, have prior ailments or are over 70, you could consider yourself woefully unfortunate to come down with a serious condition of this.

 

Things will begin to loosen from next week, and I believe it's the right move.

 

The government sent out 1,500,000 letters to the most vulnerable to be shielded.  At least 98% of them are still with us.

[st albans fox]

1 minute ago, murphy said:

We don't know this.  If we assume mortality rate of 1% then working backwards from 30k deaths, that would mean 3 million infections, around 5% of the population and not enough to make any difference to transmission.

The general feeling is somewhere between 10 and 20%. unless we make significant super fast progress on a vaccine or find an effective treatment to relieve symptoms, I fear we are kicking the can down the road to autumn and a further big instalment of this. I assume that the scientists are hoping that a background level of infections after lockdown over the next 3 or 4 months will allow enough transmission through the community to take that percentage to 40/50% which will help enormously when that autumn wave arrives ......

[Nod.E]

Just now, murphy said:

The government sent out 1,500,000 letters to the most vulnerable to be shielded.  At least 98% of them are still with us.

What if the 2% were the weakest of the weak?

[yorkie1999]

26 minutes ago, bmt said:

That would include indirect deaths of Covid too though. And would ignore deaths that haven't occurred due to things like road traffic accidents, but do happen in normal circumstances.

Yes it would, but how else could they make an educated guess as to deaths due to the virus. They've got to measure what we have now compared to when the virus wasn't present. I don't think we'll know for a few years anyway, but what if we look back in a few years time and discover there's actually less deaths this year than previous years. There can't be many deaths due to road accidents at the moment and i also read there are less deaths due to pollution respiratory problems. This is just in europe so imagine how many less deaths there are in places like china and india where air pollution is terrible.

https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/health/109627/improved-european-air-quality-has-led-to-11-000-fewer-premature-deaths-says-new-study/

[Dirkster the Fox]

Deaths last year in 2019 Below. ONS Figures for England and Wales (+ ex-pats) only

 

(Not Scotland and NI)

 

In the first 3 months of 2019, 143,652 people died.

 

In the first 3 months of 2020, 150,082 people died. In a population of just over 60 million people (England & Wales) its a 6,430 increase year on year.

 

If April 2020 is massively above 2019 (44,123), say 40-50% higher, then we know this has been a major incident.   

 

 

[davieG]

1 minute ago, Dirkster the Fox said:

Deaths last year in 2019 Below. ONS Figures for England and Wales (+ ex-pats) only

 

(Not Scotland and NI)

 

In the first 3 months of 2019, 143,652 people died.

 

In the first 3 months of 2020, 150,082 people died. In a population of just over 60 million people (England & Wales) its a 6,430 increase year on year.

 

If April 2020 is massively above 2019 (44,123), say 40-50% higher, then we know this has been a major incident.   

 

 

As posted above

 

In Italy, from 20 February when the first coronavirus death was reported until the end of March, there were 90,946 deaths from all causes, compared with the average of 65,592 for the previous five years - that's an excess of 25,354 deaths.
If you compare that with the six-week period after the first coronavirus death in the UK, there were far fewer excess deaths - 89,735 people died from all causes in the UK, compared with an average of 72,812 in the same period of the previous five years, which is an excess of 16,923.

[Dirkster the Fox]

1 minute ago, davieG said:

As posted above

 

In Italy, from 20 February when the first coronavirus death was reported until the end of March, there were 90,946 deaths from all causes, compared with the average of 65,592 for the previous five years - that's an excess of 25,354 deaths.
If you compare that with the six-week period after the first coronavirus death in the UK, there were far fewer excess deaths - 89,735 people died from all causes in the UK, compared with an average of 72,812 in the same period of the previous five years, which is an excess of 16,923.

I've copied from the official ONS figures spreadsheet for deaths in England and Wales.  Feel free go and check.

 

They are the official figures not mine.

 

Only 6,430 more year on year for the first 3 month.  They've not released the figures for April to cross check.

[yorkie1999]

10 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

What if the 2% were the weakest of the weak?

Or what if 50% of the 2% just gave up the will to live after reading that they wouldn't be able to see their family for a number of months.

[fuchsntf]

34 minutes ago, davieG said:

BBC

 

Italy has a higher proportion of older people and a smaller proportion of children (who are much less likely to be severely affected) so, if all other factors were equal, you would expect more coronavirus deaths in Italy than the UK.
The other thing you might want to adjust for would be the overall health of the population, which would be relevant for how many people you would expect to die in a given period.
This is usually expressed by giving the number of excess deaths. If you were looking for the number of excess deaths in April, for example, it would be the number of people who have died minus the average number of deaths in April over the previous five years.
It is important to compare with the same period in previous years because we expect more people to die in winter than in summer.
In Italy, from 20 February when the first coronavirus death was reported until the end of March, there were 90,946 deaths from all causes, compared with the average of 65,592 for the previous five years - that's an excess of 25,354 deaths.
If you compare that with the six-week period after the first coronavirus death in the UK, there were far fewer excess deaths - 89,735 people died from all causes in the UK, compared with an average of 72,812 in the same period of the previous five years, which is an excess of 16,923.

 

 

 

Not forgetting Italy,in January had an Influenza outtbreak( Not CVirus) of nearly Reported as being 3 million...

[yorkie1999]

48 minutes ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

Fingers crossed, I'm starting to lose it and so is my partner, a bit of human interaction would go a long way.