Who is dying from Covid now in the UK?

[YouJustFoldItIn]

In the beginning, pre-vaccine and before the numbers got too great to report on individual cases, we were hearing of case by case stories of people passing away with (not necessarily of but with ) Covid.

Obviously the overwhelming majority were very elderly so the press tended to focus on the outliers who took everyone by surprise - younger people, NHS employees, people who had medical vulnerabilities., people from the ethnic demographics that seemed to be more susceptible etc.

All the NHS frontline workers will have been offered a vaccine now.

All the elderly will have been offered a vaccine now.

All the clinically obese will have been offered the vaccine now.

All people with any sort of medical condition that makes them more vulnerable to being particularly unwell or dying from Covid have been offered the vaccine now.

Even young people who are statistically very low risk have been offered the vaccine now. Obviously some still aren't taking it because they realise they are very low risk and are perhaps more wary of tiny or imagined risks from the vaccine itself than of the risks attached to having Covid.

There are a few cases of people dying in spite of being double vaccinated, but I believe they account for a minority of the recent deaths. So who is dying? If it's very young, ostensibly healthy, statistically very low risk people who have just been extremely unlucky, would we not be hearing about them in the media?

So who is dying now that the numbers are starting to climb again?

Are they unvaccinated elderly people who refused the vaccine?
Unvaccinated medically vulnerable people who refused the vaccine?
Healthy and/or young anti-vaxx refusniks?
People who were already ill with life limiting illnesses?
People who were unable to take the vaccine on medical grounds?
People who went into hospital because of some other issue, had a covid test as a formality and died from the original issue while being Covid positive evenif they were previously unaware of having Covid and possibly symptom free?

Why have we stopped talking about this, when previously the papers were full of the personal stories of many of those who had died yet now, there seems to be nothing.

Off topic a bit but how will the morbidly obese all been offered vaccine on that criteria only? Surely most gps wont even be aware who is obese unless they have been weighed in relation to another issue.

Eg my gp hasnt even listened to my heart in over ten years forget about weighing me

My hospital Covid ward has mainly people under 50 there now and is gearing up for children's admissions to increase. Plenty of people are still waiting for their second dose.

This is from an ICU doctor;
twitter.com/seahorse4000/status/1416152941346627585

That was a shift from a horror film.Get vaccinated, you don’t want to meet me.I can't count the number of times today I wrote "40 years old" (or 30, or 35) "fit and well, no medical history, not vaccinated".They mainly won't die, they're young enough we'll be able to keep most of them alive.Meanwhile all the surgery and cancer operations will be cancelled because ICU is full.I've not seen double vaccinated young people.There have been some double vaccinated older people with other health conditions that could affect their immune system.

So I guess that underlines that it is those who were older and vulnerable due to other health conditions who are dying.

@FizziWater

This is from an ICU doctor; twitter.com/seahorse4000/status/1416152941346627585

That was a shift from a horror film.Get vaccinated, you don’t want to meet me.I can't count the number of times today I wrote "40 years old" (or 30, or 35) "fit and well, no medical history, not vaccinated".They mainly won't die, they're young enough we'll be able to keep most of them alive.Meanwhile all the surgery and cancer operations will be cancelled because ICU is full.I've not seen double vaccinated young people.There have been some double vaccinated older people with other health conditions that could affect their immune system.

So I guess that underlines that it is those who were older and vulnerable due to other health conditions who are dying.

And it also underlines that those who don’t care about catching it, and take risks, are inadvertently leading to people not being treated for cancer and heart attacks. Those other people die when not all of them needed to.

Unfortunately they’re not splitting the causes of death. If someone with terminal cancer dies with a positive Covid test, it goes down as Covid.
A guy I know will have gone down as a Covid death but in fact he had terrible, worsening heart problems.

The dr from Bradford royal infirmary said in an interview that over half of the people in his icu were unvaccinated over 60's.

Hospital admissions in England with covid, week ending 11 July. Mostly people age 65+. Not dramatically different from 2 or 4 months ago in age distribution.

From other ONS data I'm coming up with about 50% of age 18-24 persons in England have had 1 dose of covid vaccine, about 16% have had 2 doses. This will keep climbing fast.

@VikingsandDragons

www.nomoresurgeons.com/post/again-and-again-and-again

An intensive care consultant in a North East hospital keeps a blog, he's discussing in it who is currently being admitted in yesterdays post.

That blog is by a guy working at Newcastle upon Tyne hospital. Adult population in N-u-T is about 226,000.

17 July data: 196,753 people have had first covid jab dose in Newcastle-u-T, 87% have had 2 doses. 136,617 2nd dose (60%) - eligible. In Middlesborough, approx. 106662 adult population, 92496 have had one dose (86% of eligible, 68% of everyone), 73010 have had 2 doses (68% of eligible, 53% of everyone)

So why does the doctor say on 16 July that only 46% have had one dose, only 27% have had 2 doses in Middlesborough?

I wish the numbers matched. Maybe he is talking about one specific ward or one specific ethnic group or just recent uptake stats.

@YouJustFoldItIn

Ascertaining a cause of death and drawing those lines is difficult though- take the example of a very elderly person who breaks their hip, goes into hospital, contracts covid, gets pneumonia and dies- it’s very reasonable to say that you could take the “contracts covid” bit out of the sentence and the outcome is the same, but how do you know? Plenty of people recover from fractured hips so who can say?

Of course. I fully understand that. But were they doubled vaccinated, or not? That's the issue. And if not, why not?

I am going to stick my neck out and guess that the people dying of covid now, as opposed to just with it, are people who probably should have prioritised the vaccine for themselves because of old age or other aggravating factors, but didn't.

There are still too many who are holding off on the vaccine. I really do think that as a drive to get the rest of the population vaccinated ASAP then if it's mostly the unvaccinated (by choice) who are dying or needing hospitalisation now then we should be told.

Sadly Covid is still killing people and it can still be indiscriminate, which is scary, especially with Freedom Day tomorrow. But I don't ultimately think it helps to try to label who is going to get it.

probably people going into hospital with something else and then catching it in there.

There is not clear data atm. Please don't try to substantiate bias with insufficient data.

We had enough of the yeah, but to try and justify high death rates prior to vaccination.

I can understand that people want vaccination to be the magic bullet. It's improved things for now but it's not a magic bullet. PHE publish data and whilst they don't break it up meaningfully it is clear to see that the case fatality rate for those over 50 and hospitalised for the vaccinated is around 3.03% compared to the unvaccinated of around 5.6%. Even though absolute numbers appear to suggest that more vaccinated over 50s are hospitalised and dying than unvaccinated.

So from a personal viewpoint as someone who can be vaccinated, I'd rather be vaccinated. But this does not justify attacks on the unvaccinated that assumes they are all anti-vaxers rather than carrying out personal risk assessment with the advice of their health care practitioners.

And then there's all the other stuff which transcends my risk, my kids risk, national and international risk, long term implications, vaccine avoidance. No wonder our government devolved responsibility. Shame they kept the power.

But I don't ultimately think it helps to try to label who is going to get it.

It seems we can pretty much label who is going to die from it though.

does anyone know whether people who have already had covid are cathcing it and becoming seriously unwell, or do the antibodies they have protect them? I saw the Israel study something like 40% in hospital unvaccinated and 1% with previosu infection, so wondered how that was presenting in UK ICU wards. Does previous infection provide a good protection? Or does that vary with age?
The reason I ask is we all had this in January, all quite unwell with it, and now I don't think my teenagers need the jab as their young immune systems will have provided a marvellous set of antibodies. But I don't have enough data to be sure. One will soon be of an age to be vaccinated so am trying to ensure I understand what data is available.

Coincidentally this just popped up on my facebook feed. Very interesting indeed.

theconversation.com/most-covid-deaths-in-england-now-are-in-the-vaccinated-heres-why-that-shouldnt-alarm-you-163671?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

I've seen reports this week that have said that 50% of people in hospital with covid were admitted for other things and didn't know they had covid until they were tested routinely in hospital.

And the majority of Covid hospitalisations are now in young (under 30) unvaccinated people, yet the majority of Covid deaths in hospital are in the vaccinated elderly.

This is such an excellent question. The state media will report on something only if it's what it is what they want us to hear at any given moment. Sounds paranoid but check out the OFCOM guidelines at the start of all this

There have been numerous reports of non-vaxxers' regrets over the last couple of months, when they have ended up in the ICU or from families grieving.

I know 2 people who died from covid in the last 3 weeks
Both early 70s, both had no underlying health conditions, both had 2 vaccines
My SIL works at our local hospital and says that those in icu are mostly under 50 and unvaccinated

@VikingsandDragons

www.nomoresurgeons.com/post/again-and-again-and-again

An intensive care consultant in a North East hospital keeps a blog, he's discussing in it who is currently being admitted in yesterdays post.

Interesting report.