Death toll and hysteria

[CathyandHeathcliff]

I was just thinking if every death from every illness was reported daily in the way the current deaths from Covid are, people would never leave the house again, surely?

The current total of deaths worldwide is less than the population of the town I grew up in. Putting it like that makes me feel weird. Whenever I see the numbers, I like others, panic. My DP said tonight that most people aren’t used to seeing these numbers, in this context so they don’t properly understand them.

I also keep seeing people on social media and on here saying things won’t ever go back to normality as we knew it. I keep thinking that the world and country went through two world wars, with a pandemic thrown in the middle for good measure, and still came out of it and back to normality soon enough. More people lost their lives in the blitz than have so far died of Covid.
I’m hoping my post doesn’t offend anyone, but the whole thing is confusing me and a lot of it doesn’t add up to me either.

You do understand the numbers would be far greater if we weren't on lockdown and the NHS wouldn't be able to function adequately to deliver the care required. The reason we are staying home is to safe lives and to ease the strain on the NHS it wouldn't be able to cope with the volume of people requiring care otherwise.

Also, remember that this number is because we are all staying home. Preventative action is stopping the apocalyptic numbers from occuring.

Some MN posters who have been home for 4 weeks say they think they have it now and got it on a careful trip to the supermarket, or on a delivery of groceries. That's how contagious it is.

Behind every number are devastated family members, friends and colleagues of the deceased. If 10,000 people have died, then probably 100,000+ are grieving.

I’m confused about the numbers. From what I understand of the greater number of deaths, less than half are actually due to corona.

So not only do we have this large spike in poor people dying from the virus we also seem to have a massive problem with even more people dying from other causes than usual.

WTF? And what happens if we end up with huge numbers of people dying of non corona reasons? How is this then saving lives and protecting the NHS?

The death total went up

Even though deaths must be lower for RTAs, work accidents, Pub / club alcohol incidents, even flu (!) etc

The extra deaths from COVID outweighed all that and still gave the highest total

The worse aspect of this is the fact that people are not allowed to be with their loved ones when they are dying as the risk is so great😥. And even funerals are restricted to a few people.

I agree however that many of us are having to think about our own mortality in a way in which we would not normally do, if at all. My Aunt was telling me that 40,000 people a year die from sepsis.
The Lancet on Sepsis, year to April 2017, records showed 77,996 admissions and 15,851 deaths.

I was just thinking if every death from every illness was reported daily in the way the current deaths from Covid are, people would never leave the house again, surely?

Car crashes aren’t infectious. Heart attacks aren’t caused by airborne viruses. Do you really not know this?

So lockdown and social distancing are measures that have a logical rationale. They are not driven by superstition.

There’s a middle ground between neurosis and complacency where sense lives. Try it.

It's the rate of death over time that you need to consider. The 10,000 deaths here have occurred in just 4 weeks whist the other figure you quite are over a period of a year. Also this is killing otherwise healthy people so that the second alarm part of this. I hope that helps to explain.

*quote - lots of typos above sorry! I hope it make sense!

It's just started to hit home for me I think.
At first I just thought only the vulnerable groups need to be worried but now I realise this virus can affect anyone,any age it's quite scary.

And after WW1, Spanish Flu, and Ww2, things didn't return to 'normal', life didn't return to how it had been before.

Here is some context

Source: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending3april2020

'My DP said tonight that most people aren’t used to seeing these numbers, in this context so they don’t properly understand them. '

KLAXON we have an OPs DPs opinion, which we should definitely care about above our own!

Who’s got the “manly view” meme handy?

Op I think the death rate will at least double. So as many people will die of CV than everything else put together. Does that make sense? It's bad!!

I’m confused about the numbers. From what I understand of the greater number of deaths, less than half are actually due to corona.

Probably a lot of those deaths were covid-19 but weren't recorded as such if they weren't tested, especially deaths in care homes or at home.

U.K. deaths military and civilian :

WW1 - 800,000
WW2 - 450,000

COVID-19 prediction if wrong defensive measures taken 500,000 - 750,000

We are fighting ‘WW3’ as is every other state.

I think people are being a bit mean here to op. Not understanding something is fine. I think it's an overwhelming thing to understand.
Just follow the advice and do your best. It's not about normal now it's about giving the systems enough space to be able to cope. This disease is new and will mutate, the mutations could be worse or could be better for us. Virus want to live in us and transmit to new hosts. A virus killing the host is never its primary goal, its goal is to replecate and survive.
So yes it's scary but it's being limited by social distancing. Your not unreasonable not to fully understand, unless your a disease control expert or a medical professional.
Follow the advice as we all are, distance yourself, stay home and protect people as best we can. It's all we can do for now until it's understood more and a vaccine is developed.
It's a stressful situation but we can limit the devastating impact and carry on. Life will go on after but it might change people and often change is a good thing. Xx

Normal average UK death rate= 10,000. Deaths week ending 3rd April= 16,500. That's the effect of Covid-19 on the UK death rate. That's why the NHS is struggling.

I’m with you OP, I don’t get the numbers, in 2018 600,000 people in the UK died, that works out to 10,000 a week, nothing to do with Covid. I get it’s to save the NHS but I don’t think we’re saving lives over all. 40 million poor children in India may die in the next 3 weeks because of lockdown! There isn’t even a million people have died from Covid worldwide, so no it’s not to stop deaths.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52210888

More people lost their lives in the blitz than have so far died of Covid.

3,400 killed each day by drivers worldwide, doesn’t stop people going outside

Ask anyone who works on icu/HDU or covid wards. Or even porters taking people to the morgue. If what they are dealing with in regards to amounts of death is just Normal?

Porters in my trust are taking several people to the mortuary a day. I dread to think how many care home deaths will not be reported correctly.

Of course people die of lots of causes all the time all over the world but it's not all in a few week period and because of the same new illness that has proved quite difficult and time consuming to treat.
If everyone was doing there normal day to day can you imagine how high these figures would be in another couple of weeks. Hospitals are just coping mostly any higher the need for critical care and we would be in trouble.

Lockdown can't last forever I agree but we can help steady the spread and give some people a chance to survive.

But there’s no hysteria about 40 million children starving to death because of lockdown! Funny that.

@Gin96 but this yr it’s 16500 not 10000 plus deaths from other ‘usual’ causes were lower so covid killed a lot of people. It isn’t saving everyone obv but if we (the world not just the uk) weren’t doing what we are doing then the spread would be greater and the death figures would be much higher, plus you would have to factor in that the health services would be even more overwhelmed and people would die from anything unnecessarily because there wouldn’t be enough care available for them. ICU doctors usually see a few deaths a day max and they are dealing with far more than that. Other health professionals are working in covid wards despite it being nothing to do with their ‘usual’ job and they are still stretched, but it would be much more if we weren’t doing all the things we are doing now

@Gin96 the article you’ve linked to doesn’t say 40million children may die. We have no way of knowing what the numbers of deaths from COVID might have been but from the scientific evidence it’s clearly a lot to warrant such strict measures and actions