Why is the death rate not falling?

[Wetfloortiles]

Nearly 4 weeks after lockdown it's not falling?

Thanks

It looks like it might be peaking, if you look at the graphs on the facts/data thread. The ft one using a 7 day average is looking hopeful.

The incubation period is 14 days (can be quicker of course, but...). If you’re going to go downhill it happens on days 7-10 (makes 21-24 days). Then about a week of hospitalisation before death = 28-32 days from infection to death. So I would expect to see a drop from now-ish

Due to the lag of people catching the virus, showing symptoms, getting worse about day 10-14, and then a couple of weeks in hospital before they die. We won't see much change in the rate for at least another 7-10 days in my opinion.

There are simply the same numbers coming through from 3-4 weeks ago. If we try hard enough it may fall in the next three weeks

This is what a flattening of the curve looks like.

www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

This is the link, it seems to be using the data sensibly.

It is now spreading WITHIN households.

That means that cases will continue to come through. But the actual case fatality rate may well rise, because when one person infects a second (and third, and fourth) person in the household, the chances of it being a severe case seems to go up.

Partly because the person who is infected second (and third and fourth) is more likely to be an elderly or more vulnerable person. But also because cases passed on within households seem to be more severe anyway. It is probably because the second infectee is basically being blasted with the virus from the first person all day long.

The lockdown may even temporarily make this a bit worse, as it may increase the viral load in the household and result in the second infectee being blasted with the virus for more hours per day. Of course, the lockdown will slow the death figures after a bit, but in the very early stages the death and hospitalization figures may look quite ugly.

In Wuhan, they did not just do lockdown----they also, after a while, starting adding centralized quarantine, meaning that many infected people were removed from their households. In Europe and America, we are doing the lockdowns without the quarantines, so our death rates are likely to be higher.

Well, let’s think about it. Millions of people are still working in contact with others everyday and likely to be spreading the virus.

For people isolating:-
Lockdown was less than 4 weeks ago, the virus can take up to 21 days to become apparent and it is normally days 7-10 of symptoms when patients deteriorate, so up to day 31 after infection.
People don’t die immediately they deteriorate, it can be a number of days later, say 7. So that’s up to 38 days or 5.4 weeks.
Even some of those isolating are still having to go out so the risk of infection is still there.

The figures will plateau at some point in the next couple of weeks, I would imagine, but another spike would not be surprising.

Thank you. Makes sense

@testing987654321
That's a great link, thanks

This is useful (BBC)

The heartening thing is it's not spiking or jumping up! It's levelling. As others said I understood that the incubation period turned out to be longer than thought and so it's a four week point not a two week point that we will hopefully see a drop.

I suspect infections are not at the same place than before the lockdown.
Before= general population
Now= care homes, anywhere where people are in close confiment (army barracks?), hospitl of course, families

incubation period then when ill it seems day 10 is the worse, like BoJo

The model means it isn't going to fall in the short term and that's the plan so that the numbers stay manageable.

It's going to rise slower then it's going to plateau then it's going to start to fall
All in a slower and longer time period than the alternative.

The alternative was a fast rise then a short peak then a fast fall.

They haven't shown the graphs for a while but those were the two models depending on if we locked down and distanced or not.

What alarms me somewhat is that Italy's rate is still really high. Where Spain has dropped to 200-odd, Italy is still 700-odd every day.
This is despite their very strict lockdown that started before ours (a couple of weeks before I think?)

This is what a flattening of the curve looks like.

Exactly. I hate to think what the death rate would be if we were NOT self-isolating. Remember, only about half of the population is actually self-isolated. The rest are still working either because they're essential workers or can't work from home.

Spain reports numbers in two measures, so we will not know their true figure for today until midnight. Yesterday's weren't great

People take a while to die. It's the hospital admissions and exits that show the true trend. I'm in Belgium and they publish every day the number of people tested and confirmed, the number hospitalised, the number leaving, the number dying, care homes included - this is about 50% of total deaths at the moment, the number in ICU, about 20% of those in hospital, and the number ventilated, about half again. In the last week the number dying is still high, but the admissions are now well outweighed by those leaving.

We probably reached peak about a week ago. UK still has some way to go.

I have wondered about UK hospitals where all the talk is of ventilators. In Belgium most covid cases in hospital are not in ICU, let alone on ventilators according to the figures. It seems they are treating most people before they get REALLY sick.

Because we haven't fully copped on to how serious and unbeatable this illness is. It's going to kill hundreds of people per day for the foreseeable future until herd immunity is reached.

Lockdown will slow the process, relaxing lockdown will hasten it, but it only ends when we've all had it, and it's killed the people it's going to kill.

And no amount of bromides about vaccines (which don't exist) and tests (which don't work) will change that.