Depressing- death rate

[AnotherMurkyDay]

Just wondered if anybody had any idea what the predicted death rate might be in the UK? I have done my own calculations but not sure if I've gone wrong somewhere as whichever way I've done it the numbers Come out worryingly high. Thanks

People who die of flu or smoking usually have access to health care and proper medication, their families can sit with them while they pass on. actually that generally only happens when the death is expected and treatments are withdrawn. From my own experience:

When I had the flu and was unable to breathe I called an ambulance and by the time they arrived I was collapsed on the kitchen floor. Alone. Nearly died in the ambulance and again in the hospital. Family didn’t arrive until after I was stable and on all treatments.

When I went into cardiac shock my family were there. The crash team were called and they were asked to leave so I was to all intents and purposes alone when I was defibrilated and then wheeled down to intensive care. They weren’t allowed in until I had been at least partially stabilised.

When I had a cardiac arrest it happened after the family had gone home. I felt unwell, rang the buzzer and my heart rate dropped. Was given compressions to try to stop my heart from beating, a process which I was awake for, oh, and alone, and terrified. Having chest compressions while conscious is a deeply traumatic experience. My heart did stop and CPR continued And they were able to start my heart again. Family were called during this process and when they arrived I was down having a temp pacemaker fitted. They had to wait until they knew it had worked before they were allowed to see me.

On all occasions none of my family would have been able to be there while I died.

Sometimes death can be managed e.g. if a ventilator is withdrawn to allow the patient to die naturally in which case the family can sit with them. But for the most part it cannot.

But OP, what does it matter how many people are going to die? It’s not going to change anything is it? The advice is still there to be aware if you have underlying health conditions, to be vigilant and to take precautions not to spread the virus if possible. The death rate doesn’t change those things, and the predicted death rate isn’t going to tell you how many of your own family are going to die, because all families are different.

@AlternativePerspective I’m incredibly sorry for what you’ve been through and are still going through 🌷I hope you get the transplant you need if that’s your best option

However, this is the CoronaVirus topic that MN have set up. People are allowed to discuss whatever aspect of it they wish to, it’s irrelevant whether it’s been DH’s used the day before or not. It’s irrelevant whether people agree or not with what the OP wants to discuss.

I don’t understand why people get their knickers in a twist about topics that they personally don’t with to discuss. Just HUDE the topic.

Thread police need to stop & manage their own behaviour instead of trying to dictate what others can & cant post about!

There’s a hide topic function for those that don’t want to discuss it.

@AlternativePerspective

This topic is becoming like those MH forums where people go on to discuss their wish to end their lives and are supported by others in the same mindset to do so

No it’s not. It’s nothing like that. At all

The South Koreans seem to be dealing with this better than most and their death rate is 0.7%. However the problem with stats is they most people are neither dead or cured and therefore will either live or die. The rates could go up. The death rates from cases with an outcome are much higher currently but they will come down.

Its impossible to predict the death rate when we are only testing those admitted to hospital. The death rate will be hugely inflated as people admitted to hospital will be the sickest of the people who contract it and therefore more likely to die anyway. If 100 people per thousand test died its going to show a 10% mortality, which is ridiculous as there will be thousands infected who are never tested.

The governments plans to restrict testing to keep numbers low and prevent panic will backfire as people will panic more if they think 10% of people are going to die!

The 1-3% case fatality rate is based on situations where the health service hasn't been overwhelmed. China built two whole new hospitals in Wuhan. Italy's hospitals are struggling but they had more beds and more doctors than us to start with, and a rapid government plan to expand ICU capacity that started weeks ago

Meanwhile as an NHS worker I can tell you there has been virtually no central action to prepare us for the coming tidal wave if patients. With the increased demand caused by the lack of any social distancing measures, and the NHS already running at full capacity due to years of cutbacks, we will likely see a CFR far in excess of 3%

Just read the death rate in Italy is 6.8% after 175 new deaths today.

@Loppy10 - great, thanks for that 👍

@walkingtheway

I remember that TV program, I hope I'm not (that) old

Although you had to watch it before you could go do something else

No-one really knows what the death rate is right now. That's the real answer. In order to know what the actual death rate is, you need to know how many people have really been infected. The only way of knowing how many people have been infected is doing a random sample of people after the whole epidemic is over and checking how many of them have antibodies to the virus. We don't even have an antibody test yet.

So anyone who tells you what the death rate is, without giving you a proviso that it is not a confirmed figure, is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

A lot of the South Koreans who have had it were very young as they were part of the church group. Probably why their death rate is so low.

This just shows you can't compare countries.

Sorry, I'm not suggesting that people on here who have given you answers are trying to pull the wool over your eyes. I should have worded that a lot better.

I think our death rate probably will be fairly similar to Italy because I think we have similar issues (lots of travel, tourists, ageing population, rebellious citizens, a fairly high level of smokers, many with second homes, etc.)

Our hospitals are more over stretched and less well funded, but we also don't have a busy ski season and it's not peak tourist season here yet. I can't see that we will be vastly different than them though. That we are an island (well group of islands) could have been used to our advantage but it hasn't been. I think we are moving too slowly to flatten the curve, and that other countries who have been a bit slow to react are probably pretty good comparisons and therefore a reasonable place to draw predictions. Nobody will know the true scale until this is all over.

I read somewhere, not sure how accurate it was, that Italy's smoking rate was 23% and ours was 16% 🤷🏼‍♂️

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus-crisis-to-last-until-spring-2021-and-could-see-79m-hospitalised

The coronavirus epidemic in the UK will last until next spring and could lead to 7.9 million people being hospitalised,
a secret Public Health England (PHE) briefing for senior NHS officials reveals.

an estimated 500,000 of the 5 million people deemed vital because they work “in essential services and critical infrastructure”
will be off sick at any one time during a month-long peak of the epidemic.
The 5 million include 1m NHS staff and 1.5 million in social care.
....
From now on only the very seriously ill who are already in hospital and people in care homes and prisons where the coronavirus has been detected will get tested.
Testing services are under such strain that even NHS staff will not be swabbed,

@JulietTango

Yeah I read similar stats. That's nearly a quarter of Italians and over a sixth of brits at an increased risk of complications.

Some of the people on here would give the CCP censors a run for their money.

These topics must be addressed. The public must wake up and appropriate measures that save people's lives need to be put in affect.

@elmouno

Sorry for being a bit dim. What are CCP censors?

But then you have to factor the ages of the smokers. The younger the more likely the illness will be mild, even with the risk of smoking.
It's not an exact science unfortunately.

@willdoitinaminute I agree with much of your post. It seems that many of the people who have died in the UK were elderly and were more vulnerable to the virus due to their pre-existing health conditions, so if they had not caught this virus, it's possible that they would have succumbed to flu and/or pneumomia in a year or two. That's not to say that their deaths are in any way less sad, or less relevant, just that perhaps they only had a matter of months before they would have succumbed to something else.

There have been younger people affected in other parts of the world though, so the virus is clearly a danger to all ages. I was concerned to hear of the mother and newborn baby who have both tested postiive. Normally a newborn gains some antibodies/general immunity from its mother's colostrum/breast milk, but I guess that is not possible in this case. As the virus spreads, and critical patients exceed ventilator numbers, our doctors will be forced to choose which patients get the ventilation, and which patients they cannot save. I'm sure that age will become a defining factor, and doctors will prioritise the young over the very old, but it will be very tough for everyone involved.

I don't think that any country's health service is equipped for this pandemic, but hopefully people and systems will adapt as far as possible, to get through this somehow.