to not understand what Sue Perkins is referring to?

[avrilpoissons]

"I see Britain’s third best eugenicist has been using the crayons again...."

WTF is she on about? It's obviously something super intelligent but it's beyond me.

What I mean is, about 500,000 people a year die in the UK anually, this March is no worse than previous years.

Coronavirus deaths are ADDITIONAL to this.

It’s not like the cancer/other deaths take a year off

There’s also the heavy impact this has on HC workers. Very quickly the HS is overwhelmed. Funeral directors can’t cope and bodies pile up.

If anyone thinks that the economy ticks over merrily while all this is happening then they are spectacularly clueless.

The recession will come whatever we do. The best thing for the economy is to get this under control as soon as we can.

Besides, nobody seems to be arguing the death rate is phenomenally high, anyway - just that too many people are getting ill at the same time. There is no easy, harmless way to stop too many people getting sick at the same time, especially since the elderly and vulnerable are least able to survive in isolation - they are the ones who need constant physical interventions from other human beings.

What I mean is, about 500,000 people a year die in the UK anually, this March is no worse than previous years.

Coronavirus deaths are ADDITIONAL to this.

Laurie, they very likely overlap, considerably.

Laurie, they very likely overlap, considerably.

There’s no evidence of considerable overlap.

We’re seeing many people die of CV with underlying conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure which are easily managed with meds and with which they could reasonably be expected to live many years more.

‘Underlying health conditions’ does not mean ‘at deaths door’

In the analysis of the first 6,000 people to die in Italy, the average age was 78.

75% of them had two chronic health conditions, 50% had three or more.

IT doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out there's going to be considerable overlap.

And another way of looking it - this isn’t like the flu, it’s a new virus that has come into existence in addition to the flu... one for which there is no human immunity, unlike the flu. We need to know about the actual virus we are dealing with, not keep obsessing over the idea it’s just like a totally different virus altogether. I wouldn’t trust anyone whose modelling was based on the assumption this virus is like the flu - and it is just an assumption, given the argument of the people using it is that we don’t have enough data to suggest otherwise. If there is not enough data, then there is not enough data in either direction.

Italy has a very high life expectancy. You can live a long time with chronic health conditions in normal times. There’s nothing to prove these people would have died this year. So no, that doesn’t prove considerable overlap.

Also 10% of Italy’s death toll were healthcare workers. Enormous problem on many levels.

If the overlap in Italy was so ‘considerable’ why are the funeral directors struggling to cope.

It's 82.

The reason they're struggling is because of the localised effect.

Health care workers are a real concern. They need hazard pay + PPE.

Oh well, now it’s coming into spring and summer, there will be less overlap with the flu. That should help make the picture clearer. Also, more figures on lung damage and any other possible long term symptoms as opposed to death would be useful.

Basically, Toby Young is arguing that in the face of a worldwide pandemic, with a virus we don’t know enough about, we should trust people who say it’s just like the flu and not people who say we don’t know enough about it and must try to control its spread until we do.

Forza14 - nope, you’re still a ....

@Forza14, I take back what I said earlier, intelligent debate has gone out of the window. I wouldn't even engage with people like @Walkaround who stoop to insults.

I remember how in 2019, when hundreds of thousands of old people, mostly with underlying health conditions, died in the UK - it was considered normal. It didn't even make the news.

Now, in 2020, this is considered a tragedy worth pausing the economy. Weird how quickly things change.

I'll just wait for someone to come along and tell me how a 13 year old died. I know. Very sadly, 6,000 children die each year in the UK and not even 1% of them will be from coronavirus.

Forza was on a thread calling me a fuckwit last week for saying the same thing that she's saying today, I think she's just generally irascible.

We shouldn't call people fuckwits or dim. It really isn't necessary.

For those arguing that most of the italian victims would have died in the time frame anyway, read this ...

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-funerals.amp.html

True, SharonasCorona - I do apologise for using that originally. It was borne from extreme frustration because it I do not think it is a helpful way to frame a debate about a new virus that nobody knows much about, yet it keeps cropping up. Why compare it to the flu? In what way is that helpful? It isn’t the flu. Fact. You can argue whether we should use worst case scenario modelling or best case scenario, but why fixate on the flu?

They need hazard pay

Hazard pay won’t stop them dying.

I understand that Laurie. It's a localised effect rather than evenly distributed across the country. That's why funeral homes are struggling.

The numbers in the end will not be statically significant. I don't know why we're not talking more about statistical significance.

Hazard pay won’t stop them dying.

No, it won't, but without people working, the NHS can't exist anyway.

Austerity kills too.

No, it won't, but without people working, the NHS can't exist anyway.

Without people returning to work.

I can’t believe people are still bleating ‘it’s just like the flu’.

It’s a totally different disease than the flu, it is much more infectious than the flu and it has a higher death rate (as far as we can tell from the info we have).

We haven’t got a clue how it will behave over time, whereas we’ve lived with the flu for a long long time now and we understand a lot about it.

Pretending this is the flu is just idiotic.

Austerity kills too

Yes it does.

Now imagine your society with a non functioning health service. Is the economy ticking over like normal? People buying cars, shopping for interiors? Is the board of M&S reporting good profits to its shareholders.

No, the country is in crisis.

It's a localised effect rather than evenly distributed across the country. That's why funeral homes are struggling.

So were other areas reporting lower than usual deaths/funerals? No, they weren’t.