Can someone explain this to me (covid19!

[TheHouseWeGrewUpIn]

I’m confused, the daily number of deaths is lowering (still these are people and not statistics) but the deaths recorded today didn’t happened this day.

So the lower death count happened whilst in lockdown. Now it seems so many people are flaunting it will the infection rate increase?

My partner said no as now more people are immune to it.

No. The deaths reported today that happened over the last few days to weeks mean the deaths were higher then than they may have actually been today.
It's lowering.

And the figures are adjusted to date of death certificate etc eventually in ons figures.

Nothings ever 100% accurate. You have to look at the statistics as a whole.
Also remember some families are suffering the devastation of family members in icu for 5-6 weeks and then not surviving. So these were people infected up to 8 weeks ago. Before we even hit the peak.

The best thing to look at is the rolling average to get the best picture of what's happening.

On one of the stats thread there was a poster who created a graph and 'backfilled' the numbers by actual date of death rather than the day they were reported.

None of that answers my question though.

The low deaths now are those that happened before lockdown was eased. Now it’s lifted we will potentially see the death rate increase.

Again my partner said no as more people are immune.

Yes, it might rise. Or it may just decrease more slowly if R0 stays below 1 in the general population. The people dying (or reported as dying) today have likely been infected for at least 6 days, possibly up to 6 weeks or more.

No, the numbers reported today could have happened anytime between yesterday and the middle of march.

The number of confirmed cases is still reducing though, even after lockdown was relaxed AND testing being increased.

Fewer cases = fewer deaths.

Immunity is estimated at 2-20% of the population (depends which study) so is not high enough to have a particularly significantly effect on reducing transmission.

Even if all the deaths reported today happened today, they would still likely be people who contracted it before the slight easing of restrictions. It takes a few weeks usually from contracting it to death.
Yes, we may see an increase in deaths due to the easing of restrictions. That’s why it’s being done slowly and gradually, for the impact to be monitored.
The only alternative is to stay in lockdown indefinitely, and obviously that isn’t a feasible alternative.

However diagnosed cases are staying stable despite a huge increase in testing and hospital admissions are dropping which is a good sign.

Likely cases will increase again, yes. And then restrictions may be tightened until they go down again, then lifted, and so on. It's a possibility they'll go down as your partner says but we don't know how widespread infection is in the population.

The point of restrictions isn't to stop cases altogether as that's not really possible without stringently enforced unending lockdown, it's to stop healthcare systems being overrun to the point they collapse and nobody can get any care, for anything, covid related or not. That's what would happen if there was no distancing, as if the entire population caught it all at the same time, approx 80% will not be so unwell they need to trouble the hospital, 15% will require hospitalisation but not in ICU, and 5% will need ICU - and those numbers at population level would swamp any healthcare system that exists.

OP, there's a brilliant thread over on the Coronavirus board, which explains everything very well, with graphs and general analysis.

It will rise and fall day on day week on week. The same was as death during influenza season.

Another poster was correct about rolling average. That will go down if the measures are working. This again is nit an exact science and is based on scientific evidence, behaviour modelling and mathematical modelling.

But what I don't think some people have realised or prepared for is we will hit a point where the number of daily deaths and cases will stabilise. It was be extremely unlikely without a vaccine for them to disappear.

That's where the R rate comes in.