ONS.

[GotTheCityOnLockdown]

My friend made a really interesting point to me earlier.

According to ONS, in March '19 there were 42,000 deaths in England.
In the first 3 weeks of March '20 there have been 32,559 deaths (including those caused by COVID-19.)

If we are facing such a lethal disease, wouldn't the numbers be a hell of a lot higher?

We're all forced to stay at home, to only go to the supermarket.
We've been told we can exercise once a day, we can't see family/friends, to close our businesses if they're 'non-essential'
The police have been given the powers to fine/arrest people if they're caught out without (what the officers deem as) a good reason.
We're facing catastrophic effects on the economy, people reaching a point of financial destitution.
But the numbers are roughly the same as last year...

Can anyone explain it? I'm more than willing to accept I'm wrong, but I can't get my head around it!

We haven't hit the peak yet

To clarify on the figures;

England and Wales (March 2019) = 43,815 deaths.

England and Wales (first 3 weeks of March 2020) = 32,559 deaths. (Including COVID related deaths.)

@Jollitwiglet I understand that. The figures don't match up to the sensationalist headlines that keep popping up though.
I.E; 'UK death toll up 500 today alone!!!' when it probably would be anyway..

Ok, I think it's pretty pointless to compare to last year's figures as there is so much that can affect it but just to show you. To scale 3 weeks to 1 month you need to divide by 3, then multiply by 52, then divide by 12. Doing that gives you 47029. That is an increase of more than 11%. And you do realise that the death toll is only going to get higher.....

I thought this thread was going to be about a One Night Stand I’ll get my coat...

Based on your updated figure it's an increase of 7-8%. At the start of the outbreak. It's going to get worse before it gets better

@Slomi I get that too, but with the way the virus is being portrayed; Social distancing, staying away from family/friends, incessantly disinfecting and washing hands, having to stay indoors.. I'd expect more than an 11% increase from the previous year when there was no pandemic.

Yes I know it'll get higher. I'm talking more about how, at the moment, the media keep on with 500 dead today!! headlines (as I said above) when it would probably be that amount anyway (without a pandemic.)

I am probably way off, and I'll be the first to admit I'm no epidemiologist; I just find it interesting.

Don't forget last year was an unusually cold winter so deaths would have been higher. It's not realistic to compare year on year. You need to look at say 5 years worth of data to see the impact.

That said. We are staying at home to avoid deaths. The sudden increase in deaths would arise if we all got it at the same time, and therefore there aren't enough nurses/ doctors / ventilators etc., so we are trying to avoid it. Therefore it's not in the stats, because it hasn't yet happened.

@HeartsTrumpDiamonds Oooer, can you have a one night stand from 2M away?

@HeartsTrumpDiamonds so did I. That's the reason I clicked, I'll be honest!!!

Same @HeartsTrumpDiamonds. Wanna meet up somewhere else? 😂😂

I looked at the statistics for Europe too and even with the countries who have spiked the death rates are still lower this year than for the same period last year

It will be quite an embarrassment for the levels taken by the whole world should death rates this year be roughly on par with the last 5 years averages

There was a late flu last year.

Now I feel really dull as the first thing I thought of was Office for National Statistics! I do a lot of stats for work though!

I did the calculation this morning too, 600,000 deaths last year, so that's about 1,640 a day. How many people are dying of other things I wonder.

But if steps aren't taken now to slow it down, the virus may well grow exponentially and the numbers can explode very fast. It's not so much that the number of deaths now is particularly high (of course any number is sad and a waste) but the fact that it has the potential to get out of hand and saturate the NHS very quickly. It is no good to wait until the death rate is massively high as it takes weeks for measures like what have been taken to have an effect on the spread. You have to clamp down before it gets out of control.

I agree that this is really interesting. It relates to another thread where it was raised that all deaths where the person tests positive for coronavirus, regardless of it being the cause, are counted in the death count.

I think it will be interesting when we look back at yearly figures to see how many more deaths there were this year than previous years.

An elderly person in a care home that died of coronavirus may well have died of something else the following week.

Same @HeartsTrumpDiamonds I was about to get all annoyed about someone having a one night stand during these torrid times.

Did all you one-night standers click to come and shout at me? 

Some more stats;
March '18 = 51,131 deaths.
March '17 = 48,577 deaths.
March '16 = 48,562 deaths.
March '15 = 47,820 deaths.

They're figures are all roughly the same, there's no huge jump from then to now.

I feel as though there's a lot riding on this. People are being pushed into destitution, jobs are lost, friends/family going weeks without seeing each other, mental/physical health, the economic impact.
Is it all for nothing? It feels like it by looking at the figures.

@NemophilistRebel I agree; people will be angry also.

The figure for March 2018 was 51229, March 2018 -48664 and March 2016 - 48665, suggesting that 2019 was significantly lower than average for March. A figure of around 48000 would be average.
April will be more telling.

Solami
You've got the math slightly wrong. Since its comparing March to March it does not need adjusting for month length. (32559/21)×31" 48063.. ish.

@willdoitinaminute I'm looking at the figures for just England and Wales alone at the minute, as I could only find the England and Wales total for March '2020.

Sorry op xposted. There are a number of threads sensationalising the figures. Very much arch chair epidemiology and have no idea how statistics can prove everything and nothing.
My Ddad was a hazard analyst and taught us to distrust anyone spouting statistics.

There’s some other interesting s stats on deaths due to respiratory issues on the .gov website that shows a huge spike in December 2019 compared to jan and December the year before

Point two of the main points on the ONS 'Deaths registered in England week ending 20th March' states that these figures are measured against a five year average not year on year:

The average number of deaths for the corresponding week over the previous five years was 10,573; this means that the overall number of deaths in week 12 of 2020 was slightly higher than previous years.