Worried About Coronavirus- thread 35

[TheStarryNight]

New thread

I was worried about the virus anyway but when there are 72 confirmed cases in your area and 42 have died of the virus from the 72 makes me crap my pants even more.

But those 72 were bad enough to be admitted to hospital, which makes the denominator of the death rate completely incorrect.

Look at the stats from Diamond Princess - lots of old people, half of them had no symptoms.

I'm finally really scared. Having such an isolated time tbh. Just want to go to bed until it's all over. I've got to log on to work now (was 'off' yesterday) and my kids are due back later today but I'm feeling really glum about it all and feeling like I'm not ready if the worst possible case scenario happened.

Hope you're all good

Not quite sure what you mean beijing

@SpillTheTeaa I think @BeijingBikini means that, although the published figures say 72 cases, 42 deaths, in actual fact it's more likely to be 2700 cases, 42 deaths. The vast majority of cases won't have been tested, as they won't have been bad enough to be hospitalised.

Don't worry, the death rate is much lower than the percentages that we're seeing from the confirmed cases.

If you are only going to measure the death rate among people who are already seriously ill then it's going to be seriously skewed @SpillTheTeaa.

I was worried about the virus anyway but when there are 72 confirmed cases in your area and 42 have died of the virus from the 72 makes me crap my pants even more.

All that says is your authority doesn't have many cases in hospital. That could either be because there aren't many cases or they are poor at identifying cases or mild cases are being transfered elsewhere. We don't know which it is.

The stats go on where someone is being treated rather than where they live.

It might therefore be the case that your area isn't seeing local infections but they are receiving patients from elsewhere because they have ICU bed space and are able to treat more serious cases because they have more capacity. Or that mild cases are numerous but the local hospital has limited capacity so only those very ill and more difficult to move further away as they are so sick are kept locally, milder cases are referred elsewhere.

Don't assume that the disease is more deadly in your area. That's not what the data is necessarily saying.

Our data reporting of this as a country is terrible, a mixture of lack of testing, poor data collection and weird reporting means it’s hard to gain any real insight into what is going on

So if I some cases only 1 in 5 cv deaths is being logged as such, AND mortuary figures are low due to shortage of skills AND deaths outside hospitals are not being recorded.. does that mean UK deaths are much, much higher than the public is being told? Would than mean we have higher figures and are on a steeper trajectory than Italy? Trying to make sense of posts above.

I think the government are hiding some of it - that’s why the figures are so weird and they have changed the way they are reported.

I think China also hid a lot and I think Iran definitely is

I think it’s tricky because you have covid19 deaths, deaths where people had covid19 but it didn’t cause them and deaths you simply don’t know waiting isn’t necessarily a bad thing

Just saw this on the British Embassy in Cambodia group (that I was following to try help my brother: I have bolded the important bit.

Message from the Ambassador – 31 March 2020

Flights
I am sorry for the continuing uncertainty and difficulties in finding routes home. I was particularly sorry to see that the second Malaysian Airlines special flight was cancelled (and wanted to acknowledge Beth’s efforts to organise & coordinate).

Malaysian Airlines have informed us that there will be no further flights from Phnom Penh until at least 22 May. As you are aware the last Qatar commercial flight is this evening and has limited availability. I know this is a worrying time for all those affected, and we are doing all we can to help people return to the UK. We are in discussions with Qatar Airways about the possibility of a special commercial flight and will update you all on this later today. The scale of the challenge is unprecedented. Never before has the UK had so many UK travellers in so many different places struggling to get home. You will also have seen yesterday’s announcement of a partnership between the government and airlines to enable more people to get home. As Cambodia yesterday still had commercial options, Cambodia is not in the priority list for these flights, (because of the commercial options and the relatively low number of British nationals in Cambodia) and I recognise how frustrating that must be for all of you.

Visas
Many of you have written about visa extensions, as your visas will expire soon. We have been pushing the Ministry every day to get a definitive answer about a sensible means of extending visas, and will continue to do so. The General Department of Immigration (GDI) continues to accept visa extension applications, either directly or through agents.

State of Emergency
You will also have heard that the government is preparing legislation to enable it to impose a State of Emergency - this is expected to be passed at the end of the week. However, no firm date for its imposition has yet been set.

I’m sorry that we don’t have all the answers, and are unable as yet to confirm a suitable option to travel home. We are working on it. We will update both the Travel Advice page and this page.

Goodness.

Would than mean we have higher figures and are on a steeper trajectory than Italy?

No because the Italian system has its own faults and reports of deaths not being counted as they are not officially diagnosed as they are outside hospital.

It does affect where we are in terms of the outbreak though. We could be much more advanced with a time lag.

Many of the cases - where people are bad enough to be in hospital - is because they caught it in hospital. Not because they were admitted with it. That is in my local hospital.

The government cannot hide the number of deaths as all deaths are recorded. Whether they go down as covid or other reasons there will still be a record . When the ONS publish the stats today we will be able to see the totals and compare them to the same period in previous years.

Morning I was dreaming I had pneumonia last night I guess y chest was really tight as I was struggling to breathe in the dream.

You will also have heard that the government is preparing legislation to enable it to impose a State of Emergency

Are they?

I suppose that just because they have the ability doesn't mean they will actually utilise it...

Re government cover up of deaths and the figures due to be published today.

I don't know whether the data due to be published is a new series of data or the next one in this series:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-mortality-surveillance-2019-to-2020
Weekly all-cause mortality surveillance: 2019 to 2020
How the actual number and type of death registrations in England and Wales compare to predictions for each week.

Someone posted it on this thread before.

It's not been made clear at all what the data will actually show, whether it will give a more detailed breakdown by cause of death. My suspicion is it will be the same series.

I had a look through this the other day.

So far, I think there is only one or two weeks this year apparently showing no statistically significant excess mortality.

I believe the same has been observed in Italy.

However we know we've had unprecedented numbers of deaths in Italy in some areas because mortuaries and crematorium have been so overwhelmed they have had to have the army come in and take people away. Bergamot has had a number of deaths significantly higher than normal.

Trying to get my head around this, I wonder a) what the statistical margin of error is, so if the covid-19 death rate is low it might not show easily b) whether this year's unusually mild winter is hiding a statistical difference as less people would have died more than normal combined with a highly localised pattern of death associated with covid-19 c) whether we might later see a deficit in deaths as people have died now rather than later.

It's intriguing as we do know something unusual is happening but the way we record data apparently isn't picking it up. That doesn't mean something isn't happening, it means we are not observing it in data.

It suggests that covid-19 isn't perhaps as deadly as feared, but it doesn't mean there isn't a problem, and I have to be honest it's slightly concerning me that there isn't something showing up. There has to be an explanation and the failure of an adequate explanation is a concern.

Is the data too generalised and not localised enough? Is it not properly adjusted for certain factors? Have we overreacted in some way (we have not as its not just about deaths but also hospital capacity)? Will there be a delay and a later excess for indirect causes (eg cancer deaths go up in six months time)?

I don't know.

I await the data. It is however extremely unlikely that there is some kind of government cover up regardless of whether there is an issue with covid-19 death reporting as much as some people here might think there is.

It is likely we are seeing a very uneven pattern going on which is particularly localised.

Intriguing whatever the reason.

I err on the side of no cover up too. Even if the data is a bit messier here.

You will also have heard that the government is preparing legislation to enable it to impose a State of Emergency

Isn't that in relation to the Cambodian government not the UK government?

@picklemewalnuts you say: Yes people are dying before their time, but most of them are dying a little before there time rather than a lot.

No way of knowing this. My DH's DGF lived up to the age of 91, despite having very bad asthma from childhood, when no one thought he would survive. He also had bad emphysema in later years.

It's a good thing he isn't around now( he passed away 14 years ago), but it shows that someone aged over 70 could well have many good years ahead of them. I'm

The stats of confirmed cases are meaningless, as they're still not testing in the community. I've had bad symptoms for 3 weeks, cough, chest pain, spiking temperature and they've said it's probably COVID-19, but they haven't tested me.

@RedToothBrush

I assumed it was the next version of this one.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

I don't see why they would want to cover it up anyway - they're going to "want" (obviously not want want, but to an extent) the outbreak to be bad enough to justify the immense effort and expense they are putting into it. But while keeping it low enough to prove it worked.

It's a balancing act though, and to minimise it completely isn't in their interests.