2019 Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) hits the UK

These figures in isolation are starting to bug me. People are fixated...I'm interested to know the numbers of people diagnosed and dying of other things today to see how they compare. Cancer, stroke, heart attack, accident, flu, alzheimers, parkinsons, mnd, murder, suicide etc.


hear hear - numbers quoted in isolation mean very little. Especially if they are inaccurate.
 
hear hear - numbers quoted in isolation mean very little. Especially if they are inaccurate.

Numbers mean everything.

But only if they are accurate.

And it’s not fixation. The only way to make sense of this is by the numbers.

Would you rather trust your friendly imbecile rag (newspaper) or gaga outlet (tv news reporters) for your information?
 
These figures in isolation are starting to bug me. People are fixated...I'm interested to know the numbers of people diagnosed and dying of other things today to see how they compare. Cancer, stroke, heart attack, accident, flu, alzheimers, parkinsons, mnd, murder, suicide etc.

What do mortality rates from other diseases and conditions tell us about what's happening with SARS-CoV-2?

If you're claiming they give us some perspective on this pandemic you'd perhaps be right, but none of that changes the reality that this is a highly virulent disease that's 20 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which we already know and is now undeniable.

Knowledge of other mortality rates changes nothing in terms of the severity of this illness and the urgency of dealing with it.
 
What do mortality rates from other diseases and conditions tell us about what's happening with SARS-CoV-2?

If you're claiming they give us some perspective on this pandemic you'd perhaps be right, but none of that changes the reality that this is a highly virulent disease that's 20 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which we already know and is now undeniable.

Knowledge of other mortality rates changes nothing in terms of the severity of this illness and the urgency of dealing with it.

...and this pandemic is causing all of these deaths on top of those that are to be expected in more normal times.

And causing more than would be expected. Cancer treatments, as simply one example, are hugely curtailed. No Chemotherapy means people are going to die because of that sooner than they otherwise would.

It makes no sense to imply that the extra 50,000 or more deaths this virus will cause in the UK over the year is somehow lessened by comparison to deaths from ‘usual’ causes.
 
Dr on News Night just said that 25% of GP's are off work at home self-isolating but only 15% of tests to be made available to sick staff is proposed. So even if the tests go forward it won't be enough and as is the 25% is a whopping figure of absent staff in the face of the growing crisis.
 
Numbers mean everything.

But only if they are accurate.

And it’s not fixation. The only way to make sense of this is by the numbers.

Would you rather trust your friendly imbecile rag (newspaper) or gaga outlet (tv news reporters) for your information?

But thats the point - they are not accurate. Every country counts in different ways and it would be very revealing to see the statistics of individuals who have died ‘with’ Covid19 compared with those who have died ‘due to’ to Covid19.

We have evidence from previous pandemics that counts are skewed to inflate the amount deaths from the virus - also did you note that in the latest set of emergency powers in Scotland they have suspended review of some death certificates.

Figures are fine if they are accurate. ;)
 
Dr on News Night just said that 25% of GP's are off work at home self-isolating but only 15% of tests to be made available to sick staff is proposed. So even if the tests go forward it won't be enough and as is the 25% is a whopping figure of absent staff in the face of the growing crisis.
My sister's a front line NHS worker. Her department is 30 percent down at the moment.

They're reliant on agency staff to fill some of the gaps, though there's a far from unlimited supply of agency workers who also lack the necessary specialist knowledge.
 
What do mortality rates from other diseases and conditions tell us about what's happening with SARS-CoV-2?


Well for example - if in a 'normal' month we have 1000 deaths from respiratory disease, 1000 from coronary disease, 1000 from sepsis, 1000 from infection etc. etc. - are we still seeing the same levels of deaths in those conditions or have the numbers gone down whilst deaths from Covid19 have risen to take in some of those deaths?. This maybe ties in to the claim from the professor that 2/3rds of Covid deaths would have happened anyway.
 
it would be very revealing to see the statistics of individuals who have died ‘with’ Covid19 compared with those who have died ‘due to’ to Covid19.

How do you make that determination? I think the point is that people are dying prematurely even when they have an underlying health condition.

Does that mean they died of their underlying condition or from Covid-19? Both arguably contributed to their death, but you can't work out the extent to which each was a factor. How would you express this? As a percentage?

Personally I think we have to conclude that they died from Covid-19, because in the overwhelming majority of cases they'd still be alive if they hadn't contracted this virus. They were simply more vulnerable to its effects.

I don't know where this conversation gets us. People seem desperate to find some way to downplay the severity of this illness, but these are blind alleys that lead us nowhere useful.
 
This maybe ties in to the claim from the professor that 2/3rds of Covid deaths would have happened anyway.

But presumably not at that precise moment. Everybody dies, it's simply a question of when and how.
 
But thats the point - they are not accurate. Every country counts in different ways and it would be very revealing to see the statistics of individuals who have died ‘with’ Covid19 compared with those who have died ‘due to’ to Covid19.

We have evidence from previous pandemics that counts are skewed to inflate the amount deaths from the virus - also did you note that in the latest set of emergency powers in Scotland they have suspended review of some death certificates.

Figures are fine if they are accurate. ;)

I appreciate the point.

But ’died With’ and ‘died due to’ is not a useful distinction unless the deaths due to each category were to have happened simultaneously.

If Covid-19 in any way accelerated a death from any other cause, then it is the cause.
 
If Covid-19 in any way accelerated a death from any other cause, then it is the cause.

Exactly.

Even if we could conclude that Covid-19 played no part in two thirds of recorded deaths (and I'd argue strongly that we can't), what can we do with that information? Does it change how we respond?

I think what lies beneath this line of questioning is a need to feel reassured that the virus is less lethal than we fear. I can understand people feeling comforted by such a conclusion.
 
can someone please destroy my much wine influenced scribbling please? It has to be nonsense.

ive got to go to bed whilst I remember where iit is:thumbsup:

Today's claimEd total deaths in the UK is 1500.

If the mortality rate is 1% and it takes two to three weeks to die from this disease, than that means that two to three weeks ago there were at least 150,000 infected people in Britain.

That number has since grown exponentially until the lockdown last Monday.

A 2.5 day doubling is the average so if on average it takes 15 days to die from first infection, then that number of 150,000 has doubled 4 times until last Monday’s shutdown.

So, last Monday there were around two and a bit million infected people on Britain.
 
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If the mortality rate is 1% and it takes two to three weeks to die from this disease, than that means that two to three weeks ago there were at least 150,000 infected people in Britain.

That number has since grown exponentially until the lockdown last Monday.

A 2.5 day doubling is the average so if on average it takes 15 days to die from first infection, then that number of 150,000 has doubled 4 times until last Monday’s shutdown.

So, last Monday there were around two and a bit million infected people on Britain.

When you put it like that... :eek::eek::eek:
 
This is quite in depth, but worth a read. Obviously US based.


"The worst cases of COVID-19 can result in what’s called acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a serious lung injury that can be caused by many types of severe infections. Hospitals have well-defined methods for how to handle ARDS."

Slightly relating to this, one thing we don't appear to be hearing about is how many people who recover have long term damage to their respiratory system. As it's obviously great people survive, but what about long term damage to those who do. Not everyone can be making a full recovery.
 
Hope this is not a dumb question..... ;)

If you have health workers that have or probably have the virus, but thankfully they don't actually feel very bad.
And you have people in hospital that have the virus and need attention.

Why not let these infected health workers help the infected patients?
If both sides have it, then where's the problem?

As long as they are kept away from others.
Further to what encaser said, this article might be of interest... as some preliminary studies are showing that (similar to influenza) the more viral particles an individual is exposed to the worse their symptoms tend to be.


So a healthcare worker with COVID-19 treating a patient infected with same disease is probably going to end up making both their cases worse!
 
If you like numbers and risk analysis, this is good:

Excellent article. I really like the to highlight. That shows what the problem is. I don’t understand why some people fail to grasp this simple message.
 
Quickly cycling back home last night at 5ish (I live a mile away from work) I saw some medical staff bringing some bodies out of house under the cover of black body bags on a stretcher and placed straight into the back of the vehicle.
It was all hush, very quiet, no alarms or sirens.

It was a glance by me and I did not stop of course to look and why would I.
There is no pleasure in the misfortune of others... (that could be me one day)
A sombre moment indeed and something for some folks to think about that still think its okay and all this is some sort of bad dream or some govt conspiracy.

I could have cycled past these folks in the past whilst they were walking there pets or said good morning or good evening to them. I don't know, I probably never will.

It can be said, the sad deaths of these folks could have been something else and not from the COV19 but......................................

SAD :(
 
Today we will get a more accurate death figure from the GOVT because they will for the 1st time add deaths taken place at home to the those that happened in hospitals across the nation.

A friend who lives in Dudley says he been given an account of bodies being laid on top of one another in their local hospital. Much like what we have seen from the pictures yesterday taken in Brookyln, NY.
 
Today we will get a more accurate death figure from the GOVT because they will for the 1st time add deaths taken place at home to the those that happened in hospitals across the nation.

A friend who lives in Dudley says he been given an account of bodies being laid on top of one another in their local hospital. Much like what we have seen from the pictures yesterday taken in Brookyln, NY.
Is it known what the start and cut off date will be? Will it include testing post mortem? There is a multi day test result wait.
 
last Monday there were around two and a bit million infected people on Britain.

While I can't fault your wine induced mathematics, the figure you cite presumes r has remained constant, which is unlikely due to social distancing measures over the last week.

Even if that total is broadly accurate, that's still only four percent of the UK population, which gives some indication of how far we are from herd immunity (reportedly achieved at 60 percent of people recovered).

This again highlights the absolute importance of testing. To effectively fight this we have to know who currently has is, who's recovered and should now be immune, and who's yet to be infected. Otherwise we're flying blind.

If looking for some good news, South Korean testing revealed that large numbers of young people have had SARS-CoV-2 without knowing. In fact, more South Koreans aged 20-29 have been infected than any other age group, many of whom remained asymptomatic. This surprised researchers who anticipated that the rate of infection would have been highest among older people.
 
Is it known what the start and cut off date will be? Will it include testing post mortem? There is a multi day test result wait.
I don't think anyone knows buddy...
According to Icelandic scientists who have taken the Cov19 apart in their labs say presently there are now close to 50 strains of it...
 
I don't think anyone knows buddy...
According to Icelandic scientists who have taken the Cov19 apart in their labs say presently there are now close to 50 strains of it...
That’s a few more than the two I’ve seen mentioned, although not unsurprising.
 

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