Jeremy Vine today "1% of people with coronavirus will die"

[ChicChicChicChiclana]

Where did he get this figure from?

[milveycrohn]

I read yesterday that the expected 'death rate' is likely to be less than 1 percent.
AT the moment we cannot tell, because the current test will only tell you if you have it at that time, and so many people who have mild symptoms, (or no symptoms at all), are not tested.
This is why the anitibody test (when produced), will be so important. It will be able to test who has had the virus, and work out a proper 'death rate'

I have read that Germany's low 'death rate ' is because they are testing more. Well, obviously testing is not a cure itself. They have been testing more people in the community, whereas in the UK, the testing has mainly been those who are in hospital.

[titchy]

we assume 60% of people in this country will get it

That's where you're going wrong. as I said before

[EricaNernie]

They have always put out the figures: 80% will get it mildly and 99% will recover.

[Devlesko]

A rather badly worded report weeks ago Boris actually stated "We aim for 80% to contract the disease", even though it's a virus and he didn't really need to tell us we are most likely to die.
it works out about 666,000 apparently.

[ChicChicChicChiclana]

Yes. Germany are not only testing people in hospital (be that patients or medical staff) so they are testing people who are not so severely ill, so their mortality rate looks lower.

I did read your previous comment titchy. I just haven't read anywhere an updated estimate of what percentage of the UK population is expected to contract CV. I can only go on the 60% mentioned at the start. If there is a link to an article which says we are expecting lower infection numbers then I would be interested to read it.

But we are talking about at least a year or 18 months without a vaccine so 60% doesn't seem unlikely to me?

[PeterWeg]

Whaaaat.?!
A SARS vaccine was rushed and had to be withdrawn because it was more dangerous that catching the disease. This sort of thing isn't unusual - which explains why vaccines can take decades to develop.

COVID is also describes as SARS-2 because it is so similar.

[steppemum]

This was on the BBC last night, and they explained where it came from.

The scientists are trying to work out what the mortality rate is using a whole set of different figures.

One that struck me was that on the cruise ship (forgotten which one) they tested the whole ship, and 20% of people tested positive but had no symptoms at all.

They used figures form somewhere lese (maybe South Korea? who have done loads and loads of testing?) to see how many people have mild symptoms.

But all the figures they are dealing with are guess work, even the death rate, which is pretty accurate, doean't include people who died at home, or in care homes, without reaching hospital.

Even so, they think that the rate is about 1% of the people who are infected (not of the population)

What is veyr striking though is that of people in ICU, not just chose on a ventilator, but in ICU in general, they were sayign 50% die.

[okiedokieme]

People die every year, most of them are either old or have underlying health conditions, yet they die of something else eg flu. This year covid 19 is likely to be the "thing" that gets people. It's whether it can strike down otherwise healthy people who were not likely to die in the next 12 months in significant numbers that will determine whether we can ease the lockdown before a vaccine is developed. So far the numbers in that category are very small, but they are trying to work out how to balance this real risk against the need (and desire) to unlock the country. I wouldn't want to have to make the decision, your damned either way!

[RuffleCrow]

That's numberwang

[ChipotleBlessing]

That is absolute bollocks about SARS vaccine. The vaccines never even went to full scale trial because the outbreak was contained before they were ready. It took them 8 months to even sequence the genome. Don’t make up dangerous lies.

[OuterMongolia]

OP, the problem is that you're asking questions that no one knows the answer to, because this is new so we don't have enough data.

[ChicChicChicChiclana]

We're saying Jeremy Vine's "1% of people who contract CV will die" is a best case scenario then with all the curve flattening working.

[ChicChicChicChiclana]

I agree OuterMagnolia. The data isn't consistent or complete so I think it's wrong of JV to give out that bald statement without qualifying it. What I have put in my thread title is what he said on his R2 show today.

[titchy]

We're saying Jeremy Vine's "1% of people who contract CV will die" is a best case scenario then with all the curve flattening working.

No! The death rate is estimated to be 1% regardless of how many people get it - it's fixed for any disease. The aim is now to make sure as few people get it as possible so that 1% is of a smaller number than it would have been if left unchecked. So JV was quite correct, although perhaps he could have said scientists think the fatality rate is 1%.

That's numberwang

[OuterMongolia]

@titchy but surely the death rate will vary depending on how many ventilators are available? If there's a shortage of ventilators, some people will die who could otherwise have been saved. So the 1% isn't fixed?

[titchy]

surely the death rate will vary depending on how many ventilators are available?

Yes true. I assume that death rate assumes ventilators and western standard of healthcare available. It may be higher in certain groups of course - Syrian refugee camps for instance. Hard to imagine

[PuzzledObserver]

The figures I've got in my head from the early stage - when it was almost all in China - was that 80% got mild disease, 20% needed hospitalisation, and 5% needed critical care, what we often call intensive care or ITU.

There was a study published by ICNARC last week (professional body for ITU doctors) on the treatment and outcomes of COVID-19 patients. The take home figures are that pretty much 50% of those admitted to ITU will die. If there were no ITU beds available, presumably few of those would survive.

www.icnarc.org/About/Latest-News/2020/04/04/Report-On-2249-Patients-Critically-Ill-With-Covid-19

So - with sufficient ITU capacity, the death rate is 1%, but with no ITU availability, it could be as much as 5%. However, that is of those who have tested positive, and at this stage we don't know what proportion of people are completely asymptomatic. I've seen one report saying 20%, another saying 50%.

Other factors which come into play are age, other health conditions, nutritional status - which is why this is going to rip through poor communities with high rates of HIV like a bush fire.

For us in the UK, the worst case scenario is overwhelmed ITU for a period of time, which would push the death rate over 1%. They still think the maximum proportion of the population who would catch it without social distancing measures is around 80%.

The best case scenario is that we keep up the social distancing strategies so that the number of cases drops away to a very low level, and at that point we introduce rigorous testing, contact tracing and quarantine like South Korea did from the start. That will keep the total number of people who catch it way down..... until there's a vaccine.

So, the death rate is not going to be 1% of the population. How much less it is depends on the decisions about social distancing/lockdown (the ones the Government makes, and the ones we make as individuals about sticking to the rules), how quickly testing can be ramped up, and how soon effective treatment and/or vaccine can be found.

[BigChocFrenzy]

"I have read that Germany's low 'death rate ' is because they are testing more. "

Milveycrohn I live in Gemany and testing is only one step:

Once someone has tested positive, they are monitored closely - daily at home for mild symptoms - and treated immediately if they worsen
This can prevent "moderate" cases suddenly turning serious and ending up in hospoital after the damage has already been done

Also, their contacts are traced where possible and these can also be tested and monitored

And anyone who tests positive is ordered to stay home, no outside exercise or anything, with serious penalties for disobeying.
That is not possible to require for people in the UK who are not tested and may just have some other bug going around.

[BigChocFrenzy]

This crisis may go on for another 18 months,
so imo the UK also needs to staff and train teams to properly monitor all confirmed cases, visit them at home, treat promptly any worsening symptoms, check they have food etc

[BigChocFrenzy]

The concern is whether the Uk has sufficient ventilators for all patients at the peak in another week or so

Boris before his illness reportedly phones up several countries and said the Uk desperately needs more ventilators

So far, the USA, German, China, Taiwan have sent some, but nowhere near the numbers gap.
Thousands will be coming within the next month or two, but may be too late for this 1st peak

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/german-army-donates-60-mobile-ventilators-uk-coronavirus-nhs

At present the NHS has about 10,000 ventilators available,
but Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has said that 18,000 are needed
to ensure there will be ample capacity in seven to 10 days, when it is believed case numbers will peak.

[YakkityYakYakYak]

I agree, it’s really confusing with all the different numbers being thrown around.

The gov’t have said that 20,000 deaths are expected. I know this was a minimum figure but if we work from there - 20,000 is 1% of 2 million. So for 20,000 deaths we would expect only 2,000,000 people in the UK to have contracted it. That’s only 3% of the population! Is it really realistic that only 3% would contract it, I saw something the other day saying that Neil Ferguson estimated that 10% have already had it.

Even if the deaths were 40,000 it’s still a surprisingly low number of people who would need to have had it.

So which part of this is incorrect? Possibly my maths to be fair.

I suppose until antibody testing studies are conducted properly it isn’t really possible to know either the proportion of the population who have had it or the death rate. My (uneducated) guess would be that more people than we realise have had it asymptomatically and therefore the death rate is lower than 1%.

[soshesaid]

The 1% figure is pretty speculative. We really need accurate antibody testing and/or time fo understand the disease to have any idea of the true picture.

Totally anecdotal but I work in an area where we have treated hundreds of COVID-19 patients already. About 15% of our staff have been off sick with mild symptoms but recovered. The rest of the staff have had NO symptoms or symptoms so mild as to not really notice them but with exactly the same exposure and minimal (as per guidelines) PPE.

My equally speculative guess is that the death rate will be much less than 1%, maybe even closer to 0.1 - 0.2%.

[Derbygerbil]

No one knows... 1% is a crude estimate based figures available. There’s little point trying to over-analyse.

[Derbygerbil]

I have read that Germany's low 'death rate ' is because they are testing more

Even Germany is >2% based on current data. Of course, there will still be many who were asymptotic or had mild symptoms who wouldn’t have been tested even in Germany.

Also, deaths seem to have a long “tail”. Look at South Korea’s stats. 0.8% a month back once their infection peak had passed... now above 2%.