11-17-2020, 12:02 PM
(11-17-2020, 10:49 AM)baggy1 Wrote: And onto week 45s (week ended 6th November) figures and unfortunately they don't look good. Compared with the 5 year average there are just short of 1.5k more deaths than normal at this time of year and compared with 2020 there are 1.1k more. 11,812 deaths compared with (2019) 10,697 and 5YA (10,331). That means that over the last 4 weeks we have had over 4k more deaths than the 5 year average. These figures all for England and Wales only. The year to date excess death is now at 58.5k against the 5YA and 65k compared with 2020.
There are some positive pieces of news coming out this week around vaccines and mega testing facilities for the future so there is light at the end of the tunnel.
And on a personal note, this is all very depressing for all around me at the moment, but there isn't a simple way out of this. For those that feel the cure is worse than the disease, it simply isn't. We are entering into a phase where covid can transmit easier, we're indoors more, large groups are getting together, schools and colleges are meaning it can spread and it simply is. There isn't a simple solution.
And I apologise if the weekly stats are boring some people but as I have been doing them for so long I think that some on here find them useful. I'm not looking for platitudes there folks, I know some find them useful and I would be looking at the info myself anyway.
Apart from the vaccine news this week, I think the biggest point that needs to be considered is the situation in Sweden and their new approach. They took a view that they would see how things went with less restrictions and nobody knew if it was right or wrong, we all had opinions which were just wind. They've realised now that the approach they took has caused more damage than not taking the lockdown approach. There is no global conspiracy here, there is a virus that is in virtually every country on the planet causing deaths and it will multiply exponentially unless we take strict measures to contain it until we can live with it. At the moment we can't live with it.
In your opinion.
Without going over old ground you've no idea whether excess deaths are actually covid related or not. In fact the data tells you at the moment that most aren't covid related. You're still to respond directly to the Q about total net costs/benefits of our approach since June. But I can see from this statement that you believe what we have done is overall cost beneficial. And you've still not explained what's happened to every other respiratory illness since June.
As for your statement about Sweden: "They've realised now that the approach they took has caused more damage than not taking the lockdown approach". What a complete whitewash of what's happened there by you in that statement. Got to laugh at that one - calling me one-eyed and then putting that down in black and white. They've been having mass gatherings, concerts, no lockdown, economy ticking along, less deaths per cumulative total per 1 million population, retail and hospitality open all hours. They have now decided to take some measures - no doubt under pressure from their populous and wider orgs. Might or might not be the right thing to do but to come out with that porky well well...
Funny how you quickly latch on to Sweden but you make no reference to a country who has locked down much harder than we have. Let's take Argentina. Still under massive restrictions. Full masks, draconian lockdown that has basically been in place since March, no travel into the country, no public transport. Look how well they've done.
Makes a mockery of the sense that covid can be controlled by locking down and wearing masks. If it worked we'd see a difference across countries who took harder measures as opposed to those that didn't. PANDA have some interesting data on this that shows no correlation whatsoever.