Could someone please explain this to me?

[Lou0808]

I apologise if this is a silly question, but can anyone explain the death toll to me?

So at the start of lockdown we were seeing in the excess of 800 deaths.

The deaths yesterday were 55.

We’re still seeing over 1000 new cases daily although I know this is much less than it was.

So my question is, have the deaths reduced because of the number of new cases declining or is it because the virus is becoming weaker?

Or is it because of the amount of people that had existing medical conditions now contracting the virus has reduced?

I’m interested to know the reasoning behind it. Could anyone explain?

Number of new cases has declined

Lack of testing at the outset so realistically the number of cases would have been far higher than was reported. Number of new cases are now falling.

So if / when we see an increase in cases, the death toll will rise again?

Number of new cases has declined, meaning that there are also fewer people severely affected. Those people severely affected have more chance of getting specialist treatment sooner, as there is less pressure on facilities, equipment etc.

So they have more chance of recovering than they would have had at the height of the epidemic.

Yes, if there are more cases then there will be more deaths.
Basically, locking down (such as it has been) has worked to reduce transmission and therefore cases and deaths.
I know it varies over the country but some places still have enough cases that it can easily tip over into numbers rising again.

AdaColeman the medics also know a lot more about how to treat compared to when the first critical cases came in.

Can anybody tell me what the total UK death figure was in April 2019 and what it was in April 2020?
Please?

redwoodmazza why not google that? The ONS has that data.

@redwoodmazza

This is a link to the ons - it’s gives you the amount of deaths vs average

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

Don’t rely on the number of new cases to tell you anything as testing policy changes.

You could have googled it in the time it took you to ask someone else to do it.

@ Whatnametomorrow10
I have already looked at that site but there seem to be so many variables I end up totally confused. I just hoped I could put in a month [eg April 2019] and I could get the total UK death figures. Then I could update it to 2020 and do the same. I don't seem to be able to.
Thanks anyway.
Guess I'll never know.

You could have googled it in the time it took you to ask someone else to do it

And you could’ve just not typed this pointless reply and moved onto the next post.

The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in April 2020 was 88,153; this represents an increase of 38,430 deaths in comparison with the previous month and an increase of 44,030 deaths in comparison with the same month in 2019.

Well I could Lou but I was busy doing Reds Google search

There is also a theory that the most susceptible caught it in the first wave so those catching it now are the ones less likely to die from it.

The studies they are doing to find cases in the community are showing there are probably 5000 new cases a day, when we locked down they believe there were 100,000.

We are finding a good number of the cases in circulation, they are mass testing more health and social care facilities and looking for it now. When we locked down we had no ability to do that.

The drs still can't treat patients for covid.If you get as far as needing ventilation what we know is that you could be on it longer than we thought.We then fire fight trying to treat problems as they are thrown up ,look after you as well as we can and keep our fingers crossed.

The studies they are doing to find cases in the community are showing there are probably 5000 new cases a day, when we locked down they believe there were 100,000

I wonder why these aren’t being reported as part of the daily cases?

Also bear in mind that the figures released on a Monday are always artificially low due to inconsistencies in weekend data collection. The number of deaths reported later today will be higher.

They do report it, weekly on the briefing. www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports

There is also a theory that the most susceptible caught it in the first wave so those catching it now are the ones less likely to die from it. yup mostly the vulnerable have had it or are shielding /self isolating. Seems impossible the figures won't rise again once lockdown is over