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!

You said it yourself, most people are at home.

Less car accidents, less accidents in general, possibly less murders and so on.

Other than that, I'm at a loss.

Again, I didn't post a 'what's the big idea thread' @Barracker - I've had this name for 3 days.
@MNHQ can clarify.

So you're way off there for a start.

CV isn't a massively lethal disease (it seems anyway)

Many can even be asymptomatic or very mild and that's why it spreads so easily + long incubation

The percentage of the population who will get CV and need hospital assistance or even ICU is a small percentage of our large population, BUT even that number still way too much for the NHS or any health service to deal with if they all need help at once. Hence trying to slow the spread with lockdown measures

Building additional hospital space for thousands of people in peacetime is entirely to be expected then ? Can anyone else remember any government doing this ? If this is a normal event for the NHS to deal with, why go to the expense of building and staffing and equipping the Nightingale hospital ?

Or is Boris a massive drama llama who decided to splash the cash when he got a cough ?

I would love it to be the second option as then hopefully the nightingale and others won’t be needed
Munch like the Chinese emergency built hospitals were not fully needed.

We can only hope

I for one certainly wouldn’t want to end up there or anyone for that matter

This is your "what's the big deal" thread.
This one.

Your, "these deaths this month are really not high enough to justify a lockdown" thread.
Your "but how lethal is it really" thread.
Your "I can't get my head around it" thread.
Your "Can anyone explain it, but if you expect me to listen to the answer I'll tell you to chill" thread.

This is all I'm judging you on.

This thread, where you've spent enough time researching typical death rates to quote them in your OP, but are suggesting you've no comprehension of where this month's COVID-19 deaths extrapolate to in the future.
Despite the tsunami of information available to you every day in the newspapers, tv, radio and internet.

I'm not judging you by anything other than the disingenuous statements you're making here about "if we are facing such a lethal disease".

It stretches credulity too far to pretend you're unaware of what the growth looks like if the virus is unchecked.

You clearly have internet.
And the ability to research.

If you were genuinely posting in good faith you would have put both to use.

seems like hyperbole or are you talking globally?

Globally, the Uk would have encountered in the region of five hundred thousand deaths with no measure, the us, over two million. It would have been millions globally,

The point is the op is looking at it the wrong way. She’s looking at the success factor, with the measures in place, how many died. She is not looking at without the measures, how many would have died, and how many lives have we saved.

She seems to be looking at it and saying well with these measures only x amount died. As such, the risk never existed, she needs to factor in, had we not taken these measures, how many extra deaths would we have had, what would the spike have been, versus what it is, based on the actions we took.

Too many people are misunderstanding and doing this, they focus heavily on death rates, saying, well if ten, twenty, thirty thousand die, was it worth it, when in reality they should also be looking at the lives we saved by taking the measures we have taken.

This is like people.who said it is like yr2k. Everyone made a fuss and see how that came to nothing..it came to nothing exactly becase a fuss was made and many many people put in lots of work to solve the problem. If we are successful in helping the NHS not be overwhelmed by covid 19, there will.be many covidiots saying it was an over reaction and they if we had done nothing it would have been fine

Yes what is really the point of this thread?

Because people are dying, and more are going to die. We are trying to minimise the deaths by lockdown and awareness / distancing.
A thread like this is annoying , and Ive seen similar on Facebook the last few days - it's like an anti vaxxer thread - out of touch with reality of what's actually happening.

Y2K really wasn’t rescued in the way the NHS and lockdown is working to prevent this being more of a disaster it could be

Can I just say, the reason I am questioning these numbers is due to headlines that keep popping up.
You know, the '547 people dead today' sensationalism from the media, when 500 may have died anyway that day, without a pandemic.

I think it's irresponsible of the media to whip people into a frenzy without any clarification.

@Barracker I can't even be bothered to read that post.
I was pointing out a genuine fact that I, personally, saw as a flaw. Others on this thread have explained it to me and I understand it now.

You carry on though, it suits you.

They have died with PROVEN COVID INFECTION.

And no they wouldn't ' die anyway '
I don't think your thread is helpful as it's spreading a sort of media conspiracy thing whereas fir once they are actually reporting fairly accurately

@kingofkings Why are you shouting?

Yes they're dying of COVID, I know! However, as said above, how many of these people would be dying anyway?

I'm allowed an opinion and mine is that the media death counts are sensationalist. They are enough to scare people into a mental health crisis (evidenced by a friend of mine who has relapsed back into her OCD so badly that she attempted to bathe in bleach) without giving any context. I find that irresponsible.

Im not talking about a conspiracy the deaths may be happening, but would they happen anyway? You can't tell me that, if there was no pandemic, there'd be no deaths.

Even without COVID there may have been 500 deaths.

The articles that talk about the death count with absolutely no context are irresponsible.

You need to take others opinions on board especially those who are dealing with it.
You are not listening.
Just do your own research if you prefer.
We are also entitled to disagree with you but you don't seem to listen.

They would not be dying anyway that's ridiculous.

You are not listening.

They are COVID infection deaths.

?? What's not to understand

I think, in general, if you, as someone without expertise in the area, pick up a 'flaw' from reading a newspaper that has somehow been missed by every single expert with a doctorate in the subject and decades of relevant experience, it's a safe bet that you've misunderstood.

Nothing wrong with a post asking for an explanation but at a time when lives depend on people taking lockdown seriously, the various posts suggesting it's exaggerated, unimportant or a mistake are infuriating.

We are only counting the COVID deaths though and not being told all the other deaths that are happening so isn't that why the numbers appear to be the same ?

I don’t think @AmelieTaylor that your figures are what we are talking about.

Point was that of all people who died, 50% were over 90.

Your figures show ‘for each rage group how likely are they to die’.

I have no opinion on the 50% thing at this point, but you are not comparing the same thing I don’t think.

Age!

Number of deaths is what you want:

www.statista.com/statistics/1105061/coronavirus-deaths-by-region-in-italy/

OP

The deaths are on Public Health England and Wales websites daily at2 pm.
I've just arrived in work - do you want me to tel the COVID team to step the hell down the team of consultants, the ten wards ready for covid patients and take our AE tent down?

@kingofkings Don't be ridiculous.
They wouldn't be dying anyway; are you saying that if there wasn't a pandemic there'd be no deaths? Because that sounds pretty far-fetched to me.
Could you please point out to me which poster is working directly with the figures regarding deaths?

@SunshineCake Yes, the media tell us about the COVID deaths, but you can see the total deaths (including those caused by COVID) via ONS.
My point is that, compared to the past 5 years the death #s of this year aren't hugely different.

Which is where my confusion came from.