Worse than Italy

[Fatasfooook]

The latest daily number of UK COVID19 deaths matched Italy’s worst day, yet we’re told we are still a week or more away from our peak. Doesn’t that imply a worse ultimate death toll than Italy, even though we had several weeks to learn from them?

Italy's cases are concentrated in the North and their aggressive lockdown has done a lot to stop a huge spread across the country.

In the UK we are seeing a number of centres all at the same time - London, West Midlands, Wales.

UK is also a major international transit hub - Bergamo airport is teeny compared with Heathrow and Gatwick - and we have a more mobile population (commuters and spread-out families) compared with Italy or Spain.

Per capita figures are here:
ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-million

Personally, like an earlier poster says, I don't think are, or were that bad at 'following the rules'.

I think it's a line being fed to us so we're ready for a stronger lockdown, although it will also have the effect of fragmenting our already Brexit- fragmented society further as we seek to either apportion blame to those we perceive are 'breaking the rules' (cf MN...); or kick off social unrest because of the unfairness, as, nightly on the news, reports of 'mass flouting of the rules' and 'probably further clamp-downs' are accompanied by 3-4 day old, if not week old contradictory footage of a few people calmly sitting in well distanced groups in parks; or Brighton beach, wide shot, with 8 people in sight; or policemen gathering around a single bloke sitting on a park bench, or 6 cars is a beauty spot car park with no one in sight.

This 'rule breaking' is a narrative they want us to believe, rather than have us examine the reality that they imposed measures too late, due to our exceptionalism.

And the rate of infection is the measure of containment, but one we struggle to measure because we do not have the kits to do so.

Death rates seem simpler, but I think are particularly misleading in a league table!

Exactly @KeepWashingThoseHands - we should be looking at deaths per 1m population (for which UK ranks lower than Spain, Italy, Belgium). The number of deaths is meaningless when looked at in isolation.

Chart:

Attached.

The thing to watch is the trend, not the absolute numbers. Like pp's have said, different counrties measure things differently. I am in Belgium for example and in our death figures all deaths related to covid are included (deaths at home, in care homes, even those suspected of being covid positive but not tested). So it is impossible to compare.

What is possible to compare is the evolution of new cases vs confirmed cases, daily deaths versus total deaths within a country.
Most countries have followed a similar trend. It is when they fall out of the pattern that you see the effects of the measures taken.

This graph shows those patterns.

UK ranks lower than Spain, Italy

But we're at least 2-3 weeks behind them so of course we have had less deaths so far?

Being such a busy transport hub this virus has been well spread around the uk for ages

Italy worry about if/when it will spread to the south where the hospitals are not as good as the north

It’s all equally awful sadly

NHS England has recorded 765 new deaths in hospital from coronavirus. It said that 140 of them occurred yesterday, while 568 took place between 1 April and 7 April.The remaining 57 deaths took place in March, including two on 19 March and one on 16 March

But this is why we can't possibly see trends until way after the event. Too much lag in the system, only hospital deaths, although ONS does sweep them up weekly, and we need to see next Tuesdays figures to have a better idea. I think looking at daily deaths really tells us nothing, until someone can retrospectively look at the actual dates of deaths on certificates, and do the stats from that.

Yes Baaaa

And what are the total deaths from all causes at the mo - we don’t know how many are extra/early deaths and how can we?

'Either that’s a lie and sitting chatting means his pupils are reacting to light or he is wasting an ITU bed that someone else needs.'

I doubt any Intensivist would waste an ICU bed regardless of who it was for. It is perfectly feasible that he had an arterial line in (that cannot be managed on a ward) to monitor his pH, oxygen and CO2. Patients can stay 'borderline' for a day or 2 and it is isn't unheard of, capacity allowing which it c!early was here, to have someone in ICU to monitor them closely.

I think some people think we should have had a full handover including current medication and gcs every 2 hours.

No point looking at total deaths for reasons given (population differences, ways of reporting/recording death differently etc etc)

You need to look at % of total infections primarily. Though these figures will also be skewed by testing numbers. The UK has the second highest mortality rate of those infected after Italy, with the Netherlands in iirc third place. If you factor in Italy having more than double the recorded positive cases, that figure (for the UK) isn't as horrific as it seems, as there is less testing going on, and therefore fewer positive results being recorded. But Italy has peaked, the UK has not. So, it's all just an evolution of numbers.

I recommend, as others have said, the graphs thread for those interested in objective analysis.

It's to be noted too, that very few of the 980 deaths in the UK announced yesterday were in the last few days. They are still reporting deaths from almost a week ago.

Thanks Canterbury

ZOMBIE THREAD

have reported blatantly iffy advertising spam