20,000 deaths

[unhappyclap]

I have heard on the news that if 20,000 people die from Coronavirus then they would have essentially done a "good job"...What I am confused about is, who do they expect these 20,000 to be? Will these people be those who are not currently social distancing? Those who are key workers and are still working?

20,000 deaths to me sounds horrific, we are already at over a 1000 which is far too many.

If everyone is at home, following the rules then who are the people getting the virus?

Gavisconismyfriend , I'm really sorry.

If you don't think that by the end of this we will have this sort of number then you really are not looking at the facts of how virulent this is and how long it will last

God I’m sick of sanctimonious comments like this. The facts aren’t that easy to understand!

But you have a better chance of survival this way.

Yeah, if you are that one person in a hundred (using my example figures) then it sucks, but in the end makes no difference to you long term. If you are one of the 80 who doesn't need to go to hospital then you are fine too (as long as you don't get ill with something else that requires hospital treatment, because there aren't any spare...) but it makes a vast amount of difference if you are one of the 4 who are critically ill but may not die if you get treatment, or one of the 15 severely, but not critically, ill who will be fine if you get treatment. Because without that treatment you may well end up dead.

there's modelling today that suggests it could be held under 10k with China style lockdown.

I think the moment has passed for that. China initiated their lockdown after,what, 35 deaths? We waited almost a week longer. That gives our numbers time to double another twice before the lockdown starts to take effect...

I've closed the tab and frustratingly can't find it again to check whether that was forward modelling or retrospective "well, if we'd done that then we'd probably have..."

The big number figures of 250-500,000 were based on the crude survival rates coming out of China.

We won't know for another 1-2 weeks whether or not the current lockdown measures are effective or not. Looking at the infection rate in the government you can see how virulent it is - a very large proportion of staff on Downing St currently isolating with symptoms, and more ministers and junior ministers being named as isolating.

There's a capacity shortage in the system for this. If prayer is your thing, maybe put in a good word with your sky fairy of preference and a request that there's no other major incidents this year that create a further spike in demand.

About 45,000 people die per month in England and Wales, more in winter. Corona virus is expected to take people would be expected to die this year, so there may not be many deaths over this number.

Even if you’re one of the one in a hundred who currently will die even with the best treatment then delaying the point at which you get it is still very much worthwhile because there’s a decent chance that if you can postpone it for another six months then the treatment options will have improved significantly.

ihadadream

Good point. I forgot to take that into account.

Why are the numbers so low in Africa?

I agree with Oakmaiden that lack of testing may be a factor in Africa, Iwannabeadored20 but it may also be that they are at an earlier stage - the first confirmed deaths are only just beginning to occur. I suppose spread has been slower because comparatively few people have been on international flights from affected areas. We were the same a few weeks ago when the first people with coronavirus could all be linked to travel to certain places.

The South African government has just brought in very strict lock down rules - I think they are very worried it will spread very quickly otherwise, especially in the townships.

You can see from the UK that travel makes a massive difference in the spread. So lots of cases initially were from people returning from China and people returning from ski holidays in Italy. Both those groups of people took it back literally to all over the country.
Without lots of international travellers you get infection in smaller areas and a much slower spread out of those areas.

@nettie434

It's the townships there that came to my mind first. They are very vulnerable and I just can't imagine there would be much significant support. I hope I am wrong.

And we already know that people who die of other causes but test positive for covoid 19 are NOT recorded as covoid 19 deaths. These are not people who would have died then anyway.
Sure some may have had only a few years left to live. But if they are recorded as covoid 19 deaths, then they died earlier than they otherwise would have.

The thing about how for most people this is a mild illness. I know someone who was tested early on and so has a confirmed case. She is young and healthy. She was never hospitalised, but she was pretty ill. Sure some do genuinely have symptoms no worse than a cold, but that is not the case with others.

There will also amongst those who recover be some left with lung damage. There were also early suggestions that some males may be left infertile.

I know Ijustwannabeadored20 How will they manage when so many people live so closely together? Let’s hope the strict lock down works.

We will have people die in Britain who did not need to die if measures had been put in place sooner.

I was reading about this in India. Infected people told to self isolate when they live in one room with their family. It sounds like the beginnings of a major catastrophe there. And India there is a lot of travel for seasonal work.

The 500k each year who die in the UK, as well as being spread out in number, as well as geography (C19 is in clumps currently), and not all being hospitalised - also don't die of the same thing so don't all need the same medical teams and the same equipment. We don't need ventilators all at the same time usually.

Yes true. So 1 in 8 die of advanced dementia. alzheimers. Nobody will be putting them on ventilators.

"if everyone is at home, following the rules then who are the people getting the virus?"

"Easy - the people on MN who think the rules don't apply to them and can gallivant around the country doing as they please"

No, the majority of the passing-around will be among the people who are supposed to go out---key workers etc. Not their fault obviously and there is no alternative to this as we need food grown and delivered, power plants run, and so on and so forth.

What we will need to do, next spring, is look at overall mortality stats---ie the numbers of people who have died this year and in the 2020-2021 flu season, and then see how this compares to standard years. If they are up a LOT, it will mean we have had a lot of very untimely deaths. If they are not so much different from other years, it will mean that a lot of deaths will be of those who would have been carried off by flu a year later. It will not be all of them but it will be a fair few.

This site here has TOTAL mortality statistics for all countries. So far not much to see--however, bear in mind the caveats described on the page: it does not show regional breakdowns, and there are delays in reporting stuff that are not yet showing up in the data. It is also likely that things like shutting down traffic is resulting in a fall in things like traffic accidents and premature deaths from stroke and heart attacks etc. which are often triggered by poor air quality. This site is the kind of thing to look at as the months go on.

www.euromomo.eu/index.html

Unfortunately we will certainly see some healthcare worker deaths as they are exposed to high viral loads when doing things like intubating patients, and the NHS appears to have shortages of protective equipment. :(

Another number, in India there are 800million poor, what percentage of those people will die of starvation from 21 days lockdown? I bet a lot more than the coronavirus. Say 1% die of starvation that’s 8 million people.

Who will be catching it? The people who are in essential jobs where they are exposed to it either directly or indirectly regularly. The people in non essential jobs whose bosses are making them work without social distancing rules. The people who are still doing whatever they like because they think it won’t happen to them or that the rules don’t apply to them. The people who are going shopping or out for their daily exercise and mixing amongst others without the 2m distance. We need total lockdown as that would deal with most of those scenarios and I suspect (hope) that those measures are stepped up soon for all our sakes

Just to put the numbers context as 20,000 sounds a huge number but 500,000 people die in the UK every year before the coronavirus.

This cannot be repeated often enough. Even if the deaths directly attributed to CV were 100,000 that seems much less frightening when put in context against the usual 500,000.

There will of course be tragically unexpected deaths but the majority, though still tragic for their families, will be far from unexpected and many of those people would likely have died this year anyway, or were always at risk of it due to having complex high needs conditions.

This needs to be put in context. Most of those who will sadly pass away will be at or near end of their life due to other health conditions.

Bullshit. A large chunk of the ‘other health conditions’ are ones you would expect to allow victims to live for a long time. For example under control diabetes, arthritis, heart failure (most minor types now have a very good prognosis), type1 or 2 cancers.

Meanwhile in Sweden......🤔

Meanwhile in Somerset I'm still coughing

The 20,000 could be anyone. I’m observing social distancing. I leave the home to walk the dog on my own in uncrowded places and essential food shopping (In village shop) only. Haven’t had to go to a supermarket yet. I wear disposable gloves when food shopping. I wash my hands. There could still be someone who has coughed over something I buy and I could pick it up.

I’m interested to know how much the numbers are skewed with the people who are dying WITH Coronavirus and those who are dying as a direct result OF Coronavirus as both are counted in the numbers