UK Covid death toll

[Brentbaggie]

Er, the lockdowns don’t work, cases are rising rapidly and health authorities in the north are warning about the danger of hospitals being unable to cope and you argue we should return to normal. I don’t get your logic. What do we dispense with? Do you mean everyone over 56 say just stays in their houses but everyone else do as they wish? The figures above are up to the 26th September. Numbers are rising exponentially every 11 days so I’m not sure you’re recommendation will help. It’s no longer the case that numbers admitted with Covid are low or those on ventilatiors are rising slowly as of the last few days. I’m not sure how we peg them back to safeguard hospitals and NHS staff but I don’t understand what or who “Everyone who can should get back to normal” means or refers to.

This is a cyclical debate on here now, with no real answer to the question what happens to the most vulnerable if everyone goes back to normal (It’s not going to be normal as a pandemic isn’t what we are used to) ! It’s not just the over 55s it’s thousands of people confined to their homes for ex amount of months / years. If that is the answer then society is fecked!

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For the tin eared...

Here’s a stat I’ve just released by the ONS so can we please stop chatting crap!

Of all death occurrences between January and August 2020, there were 48,168 deaths due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) compared with 13,619 deaths due to pneumonia and 394 deaths due to influenza.

Influenza and pneumonia was mentioned on more death certificates than COVID-19, however COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death in over three times as many deaths between January and August 2020.

The highest number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia occurred in January 2020, however influenza and pneumonia deaths were below the five-year average (2015 to 2019) in every month.

Deaths due to COVID-19 were higher than deaths due to influenza and pneumonia between March and June.

Age-standardised and age-specific mortality rates for deaths due to COVID-19 were statistically significantly higher than mortality rates due to influenza and pneumonia when compared with the five-year average and 2020 rates.

The proportion of deaths occurring in care homes due to COVID-19 was almost double the proportion of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia (30.0% and 15.2% respectively).

In comparison with the deaths due to influenza and pneumonia occurring in the year to 31 August 2020, deaths due to COVID-19 have been higher than every year monthly data are available (1959 to 2020).
Statistician's comment

“More than three times as many deaths were recorded between January and August this year where COVID-19 was the underlying cause compared to influenza and pneumonia."

“The mortality rate for COVID-19 is also significantly higher than influenza and pneumonia rates for both 2020 and the five-year average."

“Since 1959, which is when ONS monthly death records began, the number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia in the first eight months of every year have been lower than the number of COVID-19 deaths seen, so far, in 2020.”

Sarah Caul, Head of Mortality Analysis

1% of us won't reach our next birthday.

Covid mortality is a small factor of that. Like seasonal influenza. The stuff you've posted has zero context. We live in a world where each year there are a multitude of killers. Nearly every year up to 20000 people die of flu. We don't lock down every year.

It is already clear that, far from being an unusually virulent & lethal virus, improving estimates of the morbidity & mortality associated with covid19 show it to be rather ordinary.

This is why we are where we are. Sensationalist number throwing with no context to scare us.

What is 1% if not a sensationalist number? I agree it has to be taken in context, just like Covid figures.  The UK mortality rate has been rising since 2014 - something that should really worry a lot of people but politicians, or at least this lot, has chosen to ignore. I stated that I'm not sure what should be done with regard to policy on Covid, and would agree that wholesale lockdowns are not the answer, but I still would like you to elucidate on what “Everyone who can should get back to normal” means.  

Which section of the population lies outwith the "normal" and what should be done with them? Do teachers over the age of 55 for example continue in schools, an environment where they will almost certainly be exposed to large numbers of children with the virus, etc., etc? Your answer is too simplistic and fraught with variables.  Just like Covid. 

I'm not interested in nit-picking I only know that the answer to the problems we face is not a straightforward/simple one as you seem to imply.  And I come back to the fact that one of the main reasons for what passes as strategy so far is to protect NHS staff and try to keep hospital admissions to a minimum. The present course seems not to be working but the one you advocate would, I suggest, result in a nightmare that I hope I never have to encounter or deal with.