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!

But they are using statistics and maths to calculate this pandemic?

So we shouldn’t trust Chris witty and the government?

I think April will be a more meaningful comparison. This wretched virus is just getting started.

I have a feeling that overall death rates will not be much higher than average. The group that is mainly susceptible may well just die a little earlier than anticipated. We may see a significant drop in following years because the deaths expected have died a year or two earlier.

The difference is the exponential rise in deaths in an epidemic.

The number of deaths now will double every so many days if left unchecked.

So say you have 3000 today that’s
6000
12000
24000
48000
96000
Etc etc etc

That is what needs to be stopped. There will be a lag of a few weeks before it is certain measures have helped (because this is the time from infection to death).

As numbers get quickly and increasingly higher, any delay costs more and more lives the longer the epidemic goes on.

You have the nous to research mortality stats but you haven't thought to look up what 'exponential' means?

Further, the article states that

'Looking at the year-to-date (using refreshed data to get the most accurate estimates), the number of deaths is currently lower than the five-year average. The current number of deaths is 138,913, which is 4,869 fewer than the five-year average. Of the deaths registered so far in 2020, 108 mentioned the coronavirus (COVID-19) on the death certificate; this is 0.1% of all deaths. Including deaths that occurred in week 12 but were registered up to 25 March, the number involving COVID-19 was 210.'

The rice on the chessboard story/example is a good illustration:

medium.com/@purposefocuscommitment/the-rice-and-the-chess-board-story-the-power-of-exponential-growth-b1f7bd70aaca

Neil Ferguson has said that up to two thirds of those dying of coronavirus would have died soon anyway. Their death may be brought forward but wouldn’t increase the annual death rate.

In Italy, half of all those who died are over 90.

Lumene - the deaths may be exponential but for a very large number they are bringing forward deaths that would have happened within the year. It is still shocking but there is a question as to how many are excess deaths. This BBC article is very good.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

@Barracker Chill out. I'm no epidemiologist as I said, I found those figures after me and my friend spoke. Remember; educate, don't berate.
Deep breaths.

@Lumene Thank you for the link! I'll take a look at that.

@Eyewhisker That's what I was thinking. I know that he had the potential to spread like wildfire and make people really unwell; I just thought (after having it rammed down our throats for 2/3 week and having just finished week one (?) or an indefinite lockdown) we'd have been at the 'peak' already.
I do think the government went to lockdown too quickly, going by the figures anyway.

Exactly and the exponential rise people are saying we should expect hasn’t been shown true anywhere yet even with Spain and their rates.

Cause of death is the problem. Old age is never used unfortunately and there are a considerable number of over 80s whose lives hang by a thread ( heroically managed by the NHS). They will appear fairly healthy from the outside but there is a lot of work going on just keeping them alive. One minor infection is often all that’s need to cause a cascade effect.
Covid-19 is causing not just respiratory problems but poor immune systems and organ failure. End of life is very complex which is why deaths are being recorded as with Covid rather than because of Covid.
You may get them through the respiratory complications but their dodgy kidneys can’t cope so then you have to treat kidney failure. This probably explains the prolonged treatment ultimately ending in death.

So there are a bit over 4 weeks in March. If in a normal year you get approximately 42k deaths in that month then that’s an average of about 10k a week. If the first three weeks of this March has roughly 32k a week then that fits well with the average.

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one

Neil Ferguson has said that up to two thirds of those dying of coronavirus would have died soon anyway.

Has he actually said that? It seems a fucking stupid thing to say and a lot of made up stuff is assigned to him.

If you look at the report on the initial serious cases in the UK 2/3 have substantial co-morbidities and/or are elderly. That is not remotely the same thing as 'will die soon anyway'.

The bottom line is that the best estimate we can give is that hundreds of thousands will die if this disease spreads in an uncontrolled way. It will be great if we've overestimated that but it's crazy not to act now given how bad (and how very possible) the worst case scenario is.

The people claiming to know more than the experts are dangerous idiots.

Presumably also because of lockdown there will a reduced death rate from other causes eg, accidents at work, traffic accidents etc?

Who’s claiming to know more?

Other than those 5g vaccine theory idiots

Very interesting to read!

The rest of us or at least vast majority of us are listening to the instructions we have been given and the reasons why and are obeying them

@GotTheCityOnLockdown

One point you’re failing to take into consideration there though is that people are dying approximately 23 days after getting it. So we’ve a long way to go before we see the benefits of lock down. The people dying now contracted it before lockdown - the peel is a way off yet

& re deaths year in year lots of reasons as others have said including far fewer RTA & other accidental deaths as people are travelling less & doing less

We didn’t go into lockdown too quickly, we didn’t go in quickly enough. THOUSANDS have died already - unnecessarily.

Thing is, staying at home and social distancing together may have forced down all sorts of other causes of death: flu, other infectious diseases, auto accidents, etc.

Very true plank.
Be really hopeful that if at the end of this we come out with similar overall death rate because accidents have been less

I do think the government went to lockdown too quickly, going by the figures anyway.

If the lockdown works we are probably 8-14 days from the death rates levelling off. 569 people died today.

It's very unlikely we can keep that below 1000 deaths a day, perhaps a lot worse. The NHS will be at breaking point (at least in London and the Midlands) if we manage to get the disease under some control.

Also, given even cancer operations are being scaled down massively, the end result will be a lot more deaths on top.

Don Quixote - Yes, Neil Ferguson did say that up to two-thirds of those who died would have died soon of other causes. This is not a stupid thing to say. Half of all those who died in Italy are over 90. Yes, it is very sad that they died, but it is likely that many of them would have died this year.

The BBC article shows how the corona death rate tracks almost exactly the annual death rate by age. Once one is over 90, the chance of dying within a year is almost 50%.

So no, he is not being stupid.