Worried About Coronavirus- thread 38

[TheStarryNight]

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Wintertravel , You may not think the figure of 76% more deaths than the last 5 year average for that week is shocking to read but I do!

You may not think the figure of 76% more deaths than the last 5 year average for that week is shocking to read but I do!

It is very tragic and sad but I would not call it shocking. Most of these deaths fall into the hospital death statistics announced on a daily basis. The period covered included the possible peak of hospital deaths for London (April 4).

There were no real surprises in these numbers.

No real surprises but I find these statistics give the stark reality. Even listening to the high daily death numbers there'd be some comments of 'oh well most of those people would have died normally' blah blah, but seeing just how many extra deaths whether covid related or not is a shocking statistic.

Is the peak over? BBC headline says it might be but how can anyone tell when the reporting of deaths is lagged. Post mortems take time and I imagine there's a backlog with those too. For several weeks there's always been a drop on a Monday so even without the lag and delays it seems very premature to be saying the peak might be over. And then of course there's all the unreported Covid deaths outside of hospitals. But people will jump on this headline and run with it and people will start taking risks leading to deaths and cases rising again.

Ciwirocks- you asked about Italian hospitals being overwhelmed and UK hospitals not- because in Italy Covid was pretty much restricted to the north, specifically to a smallish (relativel speaking) area in the north west. The south was, and largely remains unaffected- to the point that 2 regions in the south will reach "zero infection" on 25/4.
The virus only really arrived in the south at all after the 7/3 when the bastards who did it chose to flee Lombardia before it was locked down on 8/3.
Since then, in the town I am in, there have been 20 confirmed cases and 4 deaths, all of whom had contact with someone coming down from Lombardia that night.

I'm just catching up on threads now. Disgusted but unsurprised to learn of the government social media disinformation campaign using sock puppets. If it's not criminal it should be. It's certainly very very morally wrong.

Yellow Interesting most patients are over 70 in Bristol hospitals. I wonder whether Bristol being relatively affluent is a factor? The large numbers of younger people in hospital or dying from Covid - is this more in poorer areas? Poverty and many of the comorbidities often go hand in hand. Bristol has some deprived areas, I know, so perhaps it's simply sheer chance? I heard the total number of cases is low in Bristol too. Thanks to lockdown.

I could be wrong but I suspect Carl Henegan is somebody who doesn't value individual lives. Tens of thousands of unnecessary untimely deaths won't be a huge issue for people like him. Possibly motivated by an eugenics type view. The majority of deaths from Covid are the elderly and younger people with underlying conditions. No matter these conditions are very common in the UK. I suspect he also hasn't considered (or doesn't care) that the BAME community is being disproportionately affected by Covid-19. I'd prefer a more moral approach personally.

pocketem that telegraph article is shocking. We have healthcare workers and transport staff dying and being put at risk daily because of lack of PPE but our government is ignoring manufacturers?

@TheCanterburyWhales you probably would not have seen it and it would not have been good for your blood pressure but i was screaming at the t.v at yesterdays gov update. The deputy science expert alluding to multi generational living etc in italy. Has been good to have someone to dispel this information. I spend most of my time screaming at the goverment updates,espcially when they mention france and Italy and give the wrong information.

Humphries- no, thank goodness, my blood pressure goes up enough every time I open MN though am trying to channel calm people like the lovely ones on this thread and the graphs one

"Eleanor Riley, professor of Immunology and Infectious Disease at the University of Edinburgh, said that the shape of the second wave was likely to be dictated by policy decisions. “If we simply go back to normal now, then there will almost certainly be a second wave,” she said.

“If we wait longer and relax gradually there will probably be a bit of an increase in infections, but much less. But this is not an exact science.

“Politicians will be making some big decisions — with major implications — on the basis of very limited information. I suspect they are currently waiting to see what happens elsewhere as they come out of lockdown. That could help us to figure out how to go about it.”

Martin Landray, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, said: “We have to prepare for some sort of second wave. When, how big, what shape, what sort, how long for and so on — I don’t actually think anybody knows.”

From Times article on second wave:
www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/britain-must-be-ready-for-second-wave-of-coronavirus-leading-scientist-warns-jsvrlmchq?

Re bristol im in the area.
And part of the people that think they may have had it before xmas.
My dad caught something -glocester area and then me dd2 caught it and pil had it too (s.wales)
I got it last week of xmas term. Felt very rough . But well enough to go out. Was absolutely exhausted and just about managed xmas shop for food before xmas. Could literally not wake up xmas day so missed stockings. Im early 40s took weeks to recover. Then got awful conjunctivitis early jan i couldnt see.

I looked at the data and SW did have high death rates dec or jan cant remember. It was i think higher than london.
So either it was covid or it was an awful flu that may have killed a few people off so less to be affected by covid. (The GP had flu jabs as did my dc). (Dd2 had a slight fever and wouldnt do her xmas show so tiredness -nothing like what i got)

Other than that maybe just not many skiing trips.

The gov never said whst happened with sentinel testing so they may have found cases dotted around.
They did find someone in hospital who had returned from a cruise previously though.

I have been thinking about the Henegan "quotes" and looking at the data he may have used to back it up.

Bascially, none of it makes much sense.

His contention is that our peak number of deaths was reached on the 8th April, therefore our peak number of infections must have been reached on around the 18th March. Which makes sense looking at the data we have so far on the number of deaths.

However, for this to be true you would expect that there would be a corresponding drop in the number of hospital admissions about a week before this (so starting from 1-4th April.) This didn't really happen. In fact, in the last graph I can find showing the number of hospital admissions per day the line was still rising on 7th April. How can the number of cases (indicated by hospital admissions, not by testing) be rising, while the number of deaths has already peaked or is starting to fall?

The only explanation I can find is - hospitals started admitting people with less severe symptoms, thus saving more lives. Therefore the peak represents not a decrease in the rate of infection but an improvement in the proportion of ill people saved. Or the data is very wonky. Or something external caused a spike in deaths which isn't the actual peak - somehow people who could on average have lived a few more days all for some reason expired on the same day, causing a spike on that day and a slightly depressed number of figures for the week after.

I have no idea, really. I am just really bothered by the fact the numbers don't match. And a little bit bothered by the fact we are no longer being shown the data on hospital admissions... they haven't included it on the slides for 2 weeks now. Which is really odd, since they were telling us this would be the data which proved we were over the peak.

Oh. Or people are taking a lot less than 3 weeks to die. That would explain it to, I think...

What does everyone think of Carl Henegan opinion from Oxford uni in that we didn't need to lock down and we should begin to open Friday.

He was talking on Newsnight yesterday. I found him scary too.

But reading another thread here where hundreds of people working in the NHS are saying that hospitals are empty ... there is no longer a need for all of this ... he might be right.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3886452-The-hospital-I-work-in-is-so-quiet

Yes Oak I find it misleading and mentioned before that the slides now show people in hospital beds rather than hospital admissions. As people die the hospital beds figure will also reduce.

But reading another thread here where hundreds of people working in the NHS are saying that hospitals are empty ... there is no longer a need for all of this ... he might be right.

This conclusion I find very concerning. Like watching a crash in slow motion.

I think also though that we, the public, are being played massively in all of this.

We're being sold a continuously changing lie and manipulated into whatever suits the government at the time. Currently they're panicking about the economy (understandably) and Carl Henegan is probably another stooge to make us all think it's now fine to go back to work.

Who knows?

I’d take his report as one of many, needing further investigation and a cross check against others.

If he suggested we contained it better than we think outside London then our deaths are not a good indication for us. Particularly against Germany.

Considering that elective and no -urgent surgeries and treatments have been cancelled or postponed and people are isolated and therefore not catching as many bugs or having as many accidents the it's not surprising that staff are saying hospitals aren't full. ITU and HDU are likely a different story though. Beds were freed up to cope with the potential influx of Covid-patients.

I think our deaths peaked early because we ran (too?) stringent triage on ventilation. Countries like Italy and France are having a slower taper because they have tried to save more lives. We went into this with a lot of fatalism, perhaps expecting it to be so bad that we overdid things trying to preserve beds for young patients. And yes I know over 70s don’t fare well on ventilators—but I mean more the early 60s types with underlying conditions.

Bristol may be quiet but I'm told Gloucester and Cheltenham is not - according to Gloucestershire live we are currently consistently getting approx 5 - 10 deaths per day. 7 reported today. Plus cases are still increasing

I was hoping that the conclusion drawn from the thread above was that more people should be admitted to hosptial/ or earlier, not that we should not have lockdowned or should come out of lockdown. I think agree with oak, and we need more information on hosptial admissions. How is the death rate so high when there are so many beds. Does not make a huge amount of sense to me.

@Keepdistance my daughter and (then) new baby got the awful conjuntivitis at Christmas and then I got it Christmas night! Baby just has horrid eyes but my daughter and I also had colds but no cough. Two really good friends both had terrible chest infections at the same time- both said they had been so ill for years... so who knows makes you wonder. Could have been flu of course?