Are we being hit as bad as everyone thought or have we got it under control?

[stressedmum95]

Sorry for the really stupid question (and I know it is a stupid question) but every report I read seems to tell me something different 😕

Is it true that social distancing is working and we are starting to see the curve flatten while still having plenty icu beds

Or

We are due to over take Italy with the worst death toll in 24 hours, follow a much worse trajectory and won't hit peak for another 10 days and we will have bodies in make shift morgues to cope with demand.

I know nobody can give me a definite answer but there's a lot of bright people on here that seem to be really good at reading all the graphs. Are we totally fucked or are we keeping on top of it the best we can hope?

Italy have only just begun to turn the corner, we're 2 weeks behind them and with a greatly relaxed lockdown compared to them so this is here for the longhaul basically. Numbers that look like peak will be around for much longer than everyone thinks if we don't get tighter measures or manage to stop the idiots still gathering.

@Sparklingplasters

...and at what price has come that "Coping" you talk about?

Low staffing levels across the NHS, Zero routine surgery, so people left in agony with hip and knee issues etc, cancer treatment & tests curtailed and such is the drive for PPE, hospices aren't getting enough, so can't give all of the appropriate end of life care in the community they used too.

It will take years to catch back up and many will die suffering before they get their treatment but their loss will be ignored when this is over.

No we haven't got it under control at all, we just have a friendly media that portrays that image, the stories i hear in adult social care are horrific.

Yeah I dont see why its 10 I am not sure how that is seen as a good indicator because at that point its not really started spreading. Also the UK data is unclear for the first set and the first deaths may be even earlier

I think either 50 or a 100 is a better starting point as that is when it proper spread has started (and actually the comparisions remain the same at those two points).

So pretty much where you would expect on like Spain and Italy

What is notable is that Spain implemented their lockdown far sooner but actually are the worse of them all

Italy and the UK are different because most cases in Italy were concentrated in Lombardy and, in particular, in a number of small towns in Lombardy with ageing populations. Bergamo is basically the Italian equivalent or Bournemouth or Eastbourne.

In the UK, cases are spread all over the country with London somewhat worse (currently) than most other places, although the centre of the outbreak appears to be moving to Birmingham.

The UK also had a two-week head start over most European countries, because we’re an island and further from Italy, but then squandered it with the herd immunity strategy. So we’re in the same place - not behind - if that makes any sense.

As such, in any particular area, we’re not as bad, but - overall - we look worse.

Spain locked down about 6 days after Italy. I think Spain probably was hit harder because its hotspot was Madrid.

Several more huge temporary hospitals are about to be built so what does that tell you!?

David Icke has fried my brain over the last two days. I should have resisted watching his videos but I find him fascinating to listen to.

Whatever the truth I have never believed that what we are told by the governnent on the pandemic is entirely true. I keep having shudders thinking of all those deceased piling up in the cold store rooms. No mention of how many funerals have been allowed to take place.

No post mortems performed on any of these bodies, something I find interesting.

Bergamo's population averages age 45. Massive airport traffic etc. Lots of industry both in the Bergamo area itself and nearby provinces. It's the second (I think) biggest town in Lombardia.
It wasn't because it had an elderly population (it doesn't) It was because the original cases were in very small towns, patient zero wasn't located for ages, patient 1 was a young superspreader, and, fundamentally, neither the regional govt of Lombardia or the national govt acted quickly enough. Same as everywhere else. Lombardia itself was only totally locked down on 8/3. Just two days before the national lockdown.

Oh lordy, I've missed David Icke. What does the think? Is it 5g? Lizards?

when I was watching sky news yesterday they said to focus more on the number of new confirmed cases each day rather than the deaths to be able to see when we hit the peak and when we are starting to plateau. The number of deaths will continue to be high for a few weeks after the number of infections tins start to decline because as we l ow people do t tend to get to itu stage until 2, 3 or even 4 weeks after they become infected

Not rtft but my two points are: deaths are still on a steep upward curve, but hospital admissions are going down, so in a few weeks we should see that filter through into fewer deaths. Re: Italy, unlike the UK, they were not able to requisition any private hospitals, and their private hospital capacity is 40% of the total bed allocation. So that partly explains why they were overwhelmed, along with multigenerational households that exposed older people, and made the Draconian lockdown necessary in the first place. I think our measures will work as they are, but don't forget the definition of "working" is just slowing the spread, not necessarily preventing all deaths.

London's peak is expected to be in a week or so, rest of country following?

So we won't know for a little while if we gave succeeded in flattening the peak. But the rise in number of cases this week is a bit lower than prediction, which is a good sign even though it's still too early to tell

"David Icke has fried my brain over the last two days"

One bit of advice that works for this or any future crisis:

Do NOT read / listen to Icke

The lizard people fantasies fried his brain, so he fries yours

Same number of multi-generational households in Italy as in the UK give or take. (I looked the census figures up for both countries a few weeks ago when this kept being given as a reason Italy's death toll was so high)
Italy has a much higher ICU capacity than the UK.
The reason Italy was overwhelmed initially was that, as can still be seen, the majority of cases are in one area, the densely populated and industrialised north west. Many patients were moved to ICU hospitals (including private ones) down in Rome and even further south. Some went to Germany.

Until they do proper testing we will have absolutely no idea what the truth of the situation is. The figures for the uk don’t include those who died in care homes. I just wish they would start being honest with us.

I read something that said the daily death toll is the date that deaths are reported and not the day someone has died. So today's toll could include people who died up to 2-3 days ago.

Also the testing is such a small portion of the population that is also unreliable indicator if we just look at new cases.

And then there's the fact that people who died at home or in care are not included.

I feel none of the statistics are reliable and whatever the final outcome will be is only the tip of the iceberg.

Several more huge temporary hospitals are about to be built so what does that tell you!?

That we’re still not sure where the numbers will go. That they could still spike but they might not. That it’s better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them. It’s called preparedness.

Every country which has had Corona has followed the same trajectory. That doesn't mean the same number of deaths but the same exponential pattern of growth (when you graph new cases against total cases logarithmically they all follow the exact same course).

Every country which locked down saw a levelling, then decline in cases. China and South Korea acted quickly and had fewer deaths. Italy and Spain have turned the corner recently.

Our lockdown is working. The number of new cases is starting to level off. The death toll will continue to rise for at least another week because of the time it takes for the disease to act. 1000 died yesterday,
it may drop on odd days but the death rate will be well over 1000 a day when it finally levels. Our daily death toll will be second only to America.

How quickly the death toll declines depends on the severity of the lockdown. A few people not following ours will have a big effect on dragging it out and killing more people.

I would guess our final death toll for this wave only will be in the region of 20-25k. Our total death toll for this wave will be in the top 4 countries in the world (unless Russia let's it rampage).

Also the testing is such a small portion of the population that is also unreliable indicator if we just look at new cases.

It gives us no idea of total cases but s very good idea of growth. Effectively we are only counting serious cases.

@donquixote - depends on what you mean by ‘this wave’. Sadly, once it’s established in the many poorer countries that it hasn’t yet reached, many more people will die. We may have one of the highest official death tolls, however, as many of those dead will go unrecorded :’(

@TheCanterburyWhales I stand corrected. I though Bergamo was smaller, and older, than it was. AFAIK Italy, as a whole, has a much older population than any country in the world outside of Japan.

depends on what you mean by ‘this wave’. Sadly, once it’s established in the many poorer countries that it hasn’t yet reached, many more people will die.

True. I am talking only about the UK's current wave in terms of numbers and it's fair to say that comparison can really only be made for first and second world countries where we have reasonable data.

I hedged my prediction precisely because the disease will probably continue for some time and have a much more complex path than simple peak and decline, even in the UK.

That's true London but Italian grannies etc are on the whole very healthy. We are currently trying to stop my 91 year old father in law from driving off into the country to tend his olive trees every morning!

The brutal fact is, give or take, countries following the same, give or take, procedures are going to be the same.

The UK is currently testing a woefully small number of people (as are most countries with few exceptions) and deaths in the community are not yet being counted. At the end of last week (the day when there was a big dip in deaths which turned out to be because they were changing reporting and so the figures only covered 8 hours) it was said that many of the deaths counted in the statistics on a specific day could have died anything up to ten days before.

I don't think we'll know truly until it's over.

The "worried about Coronavirus" threads (they're not full of people "worrying" more a kind of rolling discussing the situation and reputable sources as they come through, along with the graphs and numbers threads are very sane and very informative if anyone is interested)

I don’t think once you get to the deaths per million there will be much in it between US UK Spain and Italy although at the moment I think Spain may well take it

And I agree you can only compare developed nations I think parts of Africa you won’t get much reporting from