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.

It would be better perhaps if it was reported in context. I’d like a report of covid deaths as a percentage of deaths and total deaths vs the average of this long last five years for example. Otherwise 400 or 10,000 or whatever just doesn’t seem like very much to me. I just don’t really know what normal would be. Would also be interesting to see icu occupation rates vs normal.

I do wonder if our higher death rate is because they're not sending ambulances unless someone is blue and can't speak more than a word or two because of breathing difficulties. Surely it's too late by that point.

I get they don't want icu overwhelmed by patients so that can't cope but earlier treatment would surely save some more lives.

My friend has been suffering badly for 3 weeks from it now. Even when they were struggling to breathe because he could manage a sentence 111 would not send help, not even a first responder to check oxygen levels. 111 just trot out take paracetamol, drink fluids etc.

@CyberPixie I think there's a lot of truth in what you are saying

@CyberPixie I hope your friend is okay.

I’d like a report of covid deaths as a percentage of deaths and total deaths vs the average of this long last five years for example.

The second part is exactly what the ONS just published. In the week ending 3rd April, the ONS recorded 16,000 deaths. The five year average for the same week is 10,000. So that is 6000 more deaths in just one week. And the highest number of weekly deaths for this time of year it has ever recorded.

@CyberPixie we certainly are sending ambulances. In fact in my trust we are responding to over 1000 more calls per day. Can you suggest where we can magic those extra ambulances up from? Each 12 hour shift 1 double manned ambulance can complete an average of 5 cases. So that's around 100 extra vehicles needed per day. 400 extra staff working just on the roadside let alone the control and call managing functions over 24hours.

The one thing we are trying not to do is send ambulances to 'check people over' we are trying to use them for people that actually need treatment, be that for covid or a myriad of other life threatening conditions.

If your friends breathing is so bad that they are unable to speak a sentence without pausing for breath then they need an ambulance and I suggest dialling 999.

@3littlemonkeys82

They phoned 111 3x and 999. They would not send an ambulance. We're in the lowest hit area of the country.

Thankfully my friend is starting to feel a little better finally. Still panting for breath when doing the smallest things. Hopefully now over the worst though.

@DippyAvocado but they weren’t all caused by coronvirus? I thought I heard on the news a high percentage were not caused by the virus and they were trying to figure out why this was happening?

It seems likely that with that big spike of numbers in a pandemic, many of those deaths must be attributable to Covid-19 but are not being recorded as such. I don't know what is happening about registering care home/community deaths or any other deaths where the patient hasn't been tested but it's been reported by some journalists that deaths which are believed to have been attributable to Covid haven't been recorded as that.

It was on the Channel 4 news report the other night
www.channel4.com/news/care-home-coronavirus-deaths-are-we-getting-the-full-picture

if majority of these deaths weren't from the over 60 age groups and instead were the under 8's......would you not be as dismissive then?

can't help but feel more people would care and be bothered

There are two things. First the higher number of deaths. Then the MANNER of the deaths. People are dying alone, without access to their family, ‘drowning’ in their fluids. Their families are not being allowed proper burials or cremations.
Ask any ICU doctor if they are scared of dying of COVID and they will tell you they are more scared of the how one dies than of the virus itself.

This will not be over when lockdown ends! How naive are you? I for one, will not be sending my kids to school if they open on this side of the summer holidays. The virus won’t just fold up and leave after lockdown. It’ll be around for a long time, and having vulnerable and ill people at home, I don’t want to lose anyone before their time. Life won’t be the same after this. The world wars changed the shape of the world and how we do things. This will change the world again.

The figures aren’t really rocket science so not sure what you’re finding so confusing. Covid19 is killing 6000 more people a week than say, 2 months ago. People with underlying health problems are having their lives shortened by this virus. Not hard to comprehend is it? And there are still people dying on top of this due to other causes, such as heart attack, stroke etc. So that’s a lot of extra deaths.

@cococorona and that’s fine for you to do but not everyone has the choice of keeping their kids or themselves locked down until treatment or a vaccine is found

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.

And 6,500 of those over the past week, with those likely to be an underestimate from care homes. And this relates to infection caught a month back, before the lockdown. If we had continued like we would have in a normal flu season, we would be adding another zero to those figures in a few weeks.

Regarding a comparison to the Blitz. “Only” 40,000 died from that, most of those over the first couple of years of the war... We’ll likely approach those figures, once care homes are added in, by the end of May.

The second part is exactly what the ONS just published. In the week ending 3rd April, the ONS recorded 16,000 deaths. The five year average for the same week is 10,000. So that is 6000 more deaths in just one week. And the highest number of weekly deaths for this time of year it has ever recorded.

And the impact of CV was far greater in the week following 3 April, so I’m bracing for an ever starker variation from the norm in the weeks to come.

@TheCountessatHotelCortez I understand that, that’s why they should not end lock down so soon.

There will be waves of this. As soon as we’re free to travel again, the cases will increase. I’d be happy if the second wave comes in July/August when kids are at home and then at least the likelihood of contracting the disease and passing it to vulnerable family members decreases as more people become immune.

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

This is the most sensible thing I've read on here in a while.

The current total of deaths worldwide is less than the population of the town I grew up in.

Because 1/3 of the world is locked down to try to stop the spread.

In the UK we've shut half our economic activity and repurposed the entire NHS and still 10-20,000 people have died (we don't know how many because not all deaths are tested).

If we let this run then the final death toll would be anything between 100k and 1.5 million.