Worse than Italy

[Fatasfooook]

The latest daily number of UK COVID19 deaths matched Italy’s worst day, yet we’re told we are still a week or more away from our peak. Doesn’t that imply a worse ultimate death toll than Italy, even though we had several weeks to learn from them?

[feelingverylazytoday]

No one knows yet. You actually need to monitor the number of new cases, as that will indicate if the rate of infection is stabilising or reducing. Also, bear in mind that some some days spike higher or lower than others due to how data is collected, and some deaths occur in the community and will be added on later.

[pisspants]

I believe we have been on course to overtake Italy for a long time unfortunately. We could see what was going on there yet 2.5 weeks ago (mothers day weekend) people were carrying on as normal, having lock ins at pubs, flocking to beaches etc. And our lockdown is nowhere near as strict as Italy's. So I think we will surpass their numbers sadly

[lubeybooby]

Yes. Our lockdown was slower and more relaxed theirs - the maths is simple from there.

[Graceymac99]

Monitoring new cases doesn’t tell you anything as only hospitalised cases are being tested. It doesn’t tell you how widespread it is in the community. Other countries have different testing criteria so it’s hard to compare. Only icu admissions and deaths are accurate but in the in the UK I read only hospital deaths are recorded, those that occurred in the community aren’t so the figure also is inaccurate.

[SorrelBlackbeak]

Deaths that occur outside hospitals are recorded (every death is recorded) but it takes a while for the information to be gathered up from the various coroners and registry offices and sent to the office for national statistics. These reports are issued weekly.

At the moment community deaths from coronavirus are about 7% of the total.

[Scruffyoak]

People are still continuing to have contact with others so it has not hit a peak yet :(

[Yester]

Please also remember our own PM was shaking hands with CV patients only 4 weeks ago. When I was ill with possibly CV on 5th March Public Health told me to send my dc to school. This is not the fault of people walking on a beach however muxh the government and media are trying to shift the blame. Before that weekend the schools were open despite people like me begging my MP to close them.

[CherryPavlova]

Much worse is yet to come, I fear.
Our mortality figures are far worse per capita than any other European nation.
Figures are skewed because lack of testing means community deaths aren't being recorded.

Government has much to answer for by failing to respond to the pandemic exercise report in 2014/16.
Now they’re jollying people up about lovely shiny new ventilators but not mentioning that we’ve very low oxygen supplies, shortage of sedation drugs in some trust’s and ratio of ITU nurses moving from 1:1 to 1:6 patients.

Meanwhile we’re told Boris is in good spirits and sitting up chatting in an ITU bed. Either that’s a lie and sitting chatting means his pupils are reacting to light or he is wasting an ITU bed that someone else needs.Nobody is admitted to ITU to sit beside a ventilator ‘just in case’. Oxygen can be administered very easily on an ordinary ward.

[Wonderbag]

Well it’s looking that way isn’t it
The chart showing new cases only goes up and we had 900+ deaths yesterday.

[feelingverylazytoday]

Monitoring new cases doesn't tell you anything
Yes it does. It means we can predict the potential number of deaths in hospital. Deaths in the community are being monitored alongside, currently they are running at 7% of the total.

[TheDrsDocMartens]

Community deaths still aren’t properly recorded either. Care homes losing most of their residents would increase local area stats substantially but not all are recorded.

[Logoplanter]

Now they’re jollying people up about lovely shiny new ventilators but not mentioning that we’ve very low oxygen supplies, shortage of sedation drugs in some trust’s and ratio of ITU nurses moving from 1:1 to 1:6 patients.

What's your source for this Cherry please?

I don't believe our mortality rates are worse than other European countries. If you look at the stats on Worldometers you'll see that our deaths per one million of population are 105 people whereas Spain's are 316 and Italy's are 292. That's substantially lower.

All deaths are tragic but please don't make it sound like we are doing worse than we are.

[feelingverylazytoday]

People are still having contact with others so it has not hit a peak et
It's impossible to achieve a 100% lockdown. A peak will still be reached.

[feelingverylazytoday]

TheDrsDocMartens well yes that may well be true, but it's not unique to Britain. France and Spain (and presumably Italy as well) have experienced delays in recording deaths in the community and had to adjust their figures. Presumably the UK will do the same.

[Beansandcoffee]

Our numbers will be higher than Italy as our population is bigger. It’s number of deaths per 1000 that’s important.

[Holdingmybreath]

I think our oxygen supplies are ok but the pipes delivering it to the bed areas were not designed to allow high flow to all bed simultaneously.
Yes the ITU nurses are no longer 1:1 but ward nurses,ODPs /anaesthetic nurses are working with the ventilated patients too so staff/patient ratios are not too bad.
I am getting a bit sick of the ventilator emphasis as though if we put everyone on one they would be cured.
The numbers are irrelevant it's keeping them jogging along at a manageable rate that lock down is achieving ATM.We'll see what happens when other European countries reduce lock down.

[FairlowWonder]

Sweden’s deaths are similar to ours but with a fraction of the population. We are no way going to be the worst hit by this.

[Random63638]

There's a pattern of lower numbers on Mondays and Tuesdays because of underreporting I we the weekend, then Wednesday has a big upswing as the records catch up. It's not reflective of the actual deaths per day. A seven day moving average has been suggested by some data analysts as a better reflection. But ultimately all the numbers are a bit wrong. Very frustrating.

[nagynolonger]

Some from the UK picked up the virus skiing in Italy during the February half term.
I'm guessing not many from Europe came here for a holiday. Could that have made any difference?

Also Mothering Sunday is a day lots travel to visit family in the UK. I think they celebrate Mother's Day later in the year on the continent. That wouldn't have helped.

[PicsInRed]

Iirc, our overall mortality for the period vs average deaths were indicating that covid deaths were 22% higher than officially reported. I imagine that discrepancy will get worse as more people die (given mass testing is still unavailable and many are dying at home or in care facilities).

[juglover2008]

cherrypavlova I said the same about Boris I'm sure there's more to it and he wouldn't be on ICU unless he was on a ventilater.

[EricaNernie]

Did anyone see the Guardian photos yesterday? one of them was Naples, in lockdown, at a busy market, unbelieable the amount of people, all wearng masks admittedly but it was shocking. i can't link the picture, just the whole article
www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2020/apr/08/newborn-babies-crowded-streets-and-a-supermoon-wednesdays-best-photos

[mochojoes]

I'm surprised that posters assume that only people in the UK

[mochojoes]

too soon

people in the UK don't stick to the lockdown rules.

[GoodbyeRosie]

Knowing how arrogant and selfish we have been as a nation lately, I fully expected us to have worse death toll respective of population in Europe by the end of this.

The people banging pots and pans every Thursday night for the NHS are the same ones still going visit relatives, having a nice chat in the middle of ASDA and going on group bike rides.