Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director of Public Health England, today warned the rising death toll from Covid-19 was likely to 'continue for some time' because of the spike in cases. It can take infected patients several weeks to fall severely ill, meaning the consequences of Britain's spiralling outbreak are only just starting to be seen.
But the number of deaths is still a far-cry away from the peak of the pandemic during the spring, when more than 9,400 patients died in the worst week. And to bring the figures into perspective, Covid-19 was only responsible for one in 16 total deaths in the UK in the most recent week, and flu and pneumonia killed twice as many people.
Enough is enough! I never thought I'd say this but...perhaps we should be more European?
A cure worse than the disease? Sage is desperate for its own Dr Walter Freeman.
ReplyDeleteToday (28 October 2020) he Covid death count on Worldometer website records 45,365 in the UK and 5,861 in Bangladesh.
ReplyDeleteDoes Bangladesh have better social distancing or a better health service?.
Well MOMO indicates that there is no increase in the "excess deaths" rate for the U.K. https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#excess-mortality
ReplyDeleteWith quotes like: "It can take infected patients several weeks to fall severely ill", it sounds like Public Health England is moving the goalposts(again!). Quarantine is currently 14 days, does it have to be longer? Also, 1 in 16 deaths is around 6%. A lot, but still concentrated among the elderly. Not sure that burning the economy to the ground is helping that segment of the population.
I am still very aware of the fact that I cannot discern any difference in the statistics between those who died 'WITH' Covid-19 and those who died 'OF' Covid-19.
ReplyDeleteThe case of the young motor-cyclist who died in a road traffic accident and whose corpse was tested positive for Corvid-19, and whose death was registered as a Corvid-19 death comes to mind.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteOf course not, because Bangladesh is not looking for it as hard, and then counting everyone with a positive test result (of which some unknown but probably high proportion are false positives) as a covid death.
Overall mortality is the only really important number, and it is robust as well. Many of the covid deaths are merely competing risks, displacing influenza and other similar proximal COD in the elderly, frail, and weak, and there will be a heady mix of both positive and negative effect of policy on mortality to utterly confound any attempt to make any sense of this.
APL, that is actually one of the few things the authorities have right. You aren't likely to start to show symptoms more than 14 days after exposure, but if you do become symptomatic during that time it usually takes some weeks to develop life-threatening illness.
ReplyDeletePlease can we hang them for crimes against humanity. They have destroyed normal family relations from attending death beds and funerals to celebrations, are busy destroying everything that makes life pleasurable such as eating out, live music or joining a choir. They have severely limited our ability to see the world or even meet our neighbours. What’s left? Jobsworths employed by government neither sensible nor productive and giant corporations hoovering up the trade of the high street, censoring exchange of ideas and conductingbusiness with the slave state of the Chinese Empire.
ReplyDelete"Sage is desperate for its own Dr Walter Freeman."
ReplyDeleteThey seem to have enough Mengeles...
"Does Bangladesh have better social distancing or a better health service?."
Heh!
"Not sure that burning the economy to the ground is helping that segment of the population."
With another national lockdown looming, no. Not helping any section of the population. Apart, of course, from the segment cushioned from its effects..
"The case of the young motor-cyclist who died in a road traffic accident and whose corpse was tested positive for Corvid-19, and whose death was registered as a Corvid-19 death comes to mind."
The tip of the iceberg, I fear.
"Overall mortality is the only really important number, and it is robust as well. Many of the covid deaths are merely competing risks, displacing influenza and other similar proximal COD in the elderly, frail, and weak..."
ReplyDeleteWhy is no-one asking undertakers if they are run off their feet?
"They have destroyed normal family relations from attending death beds and funerals to celebrations, are busy destroying everything that makes life pleasurable such as eating out, live music or joining a choir."
And they plan to continue.