11 million people die every year of sepsis.

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51138859

Every year there are around 49 million cases of sepsis, with around
11 million deaths. Sepsis (sometimes known as blood poisioning) can be caused by a cut to your hand, a sore throat, a kidney infection, basically any infection, when your immune system goes into overdrive and starts damaging the organs. Children are most at risk - 40% of deaths are in children under five. There are around 48,000 deaths in the UK from sepsis every year.

When it doesn't kill a patient, it can still lead them needing to be ventilated, having limbs amputated and permanent organ damage.

While covid is a new and worrying illness, I wonder whether some of people's fear is down to the fact that they don't understand the general effect any sort of infection can have on people, no matter what it is. I think people don't realise that a simple infection that one person can shake off can lead to sepsis in another person and that it's very hard to predict when that'll happen.

For me, there’s something terribly tragic about people dying as a result of lockdown, more so than of Covid. I’m thinking particularly about suicides, child abuse, domestic violence, delayed treatments and the long term effects of poverty and austerity. Maybe it comes down to which group you most empathise with?
Also, there are many highly respected academics (‘pesky experts’) that don’t support lockdown measures. I’m not obsessed enough to have researched exactly how many in comparison to those that do, but I’m pretty sure it’s possible to find a scientific arguement to support whatever opinion you hold.

You can't catch sepsis in the supermarket though....

@TheDailyCarbuncle That's all true. It's also true that there has been an increase in deaths from other causes, that NHS staff were very concerned that people were avoiding coming to hospital with symptoms of strokes and heart attacks and that diagnoses of other illnesses like cancer were being seriously delayed

Can you please explain to me why lockdown will have caused this? As a shielder on immunesuppression medication, I have avoided coming to hospital for routine blood tests to check kidneys, liver and blood cells not because of lock down, but because of fear of catching coronavirus. My hospital is open and they have requested I come in for the routine tests wearing a mask. I have opted not to and that has nothing to do with lockdown. I don’t understand why it would because lockdown has not closed down my hospital or GP surgery. My consultant is working she is not furloughed. Literally as far as I can see the only thing stopping people like me seeking tests or treatment is fear of entering a medical building where there is the highest risk of catching coronavirus. I would rather go to a supermarket then enter a hospital. If there was no lockdown that fear would be even worse because the infection rate would be way higher!

Very true, if there was no lockdown people would be much more scared to go to hospital and doctors
Society would be much more scared in general, mass deaths, people dropping like flies would cause mass trauma
Yes of course we should have looked down earlier but most countries made mistakes, mistakes which only those in possession of a crystal ball have much chance of avoiding

‘Mass deaths, people dropping like flies’...the images in your crystal ball look very different to mine!!

I don't have a crystal ball👀
but since you do I defer to your prescience🔮

@KeepYourDistance2m posted too soon. Was about to say you make a really good point, I wouldn’t have had a clue about death rates prior to all this. I think the media’s focus on numbers without putting any of it in context is very unhelpful. Still a high number of excess deaths sadly :(

I nearly died of sepsis last month, stomach infection untreated, massive weight loss chest infection, pneumonia then sepsis.

Couldn't get seen let alone treated due to the pandemic was refereed to the mental health team for anxiety then a secret eating disorder so secret I didn't know I had it.

Not covid related but I'm now having to shield as I'm pretty sure catching it would polish me off the state my body's in.

I might laugh about it when I'm 100% sure my caesarean scar isn't going to split. I'm 31 no underlying conditions but did have sepsis a few year ago.

I think it's more to do with how unaware of death we are tbh.

I’d agree with that, KeepYourDistance, and additionally, what causes death. It many not be recorded as ‘heart failure’ but as ‘sepsis’, if that is what caused the death ultimately.

I also find people on MN wrestling with statistics for the first time and getting it so hopelessly wrong - but being so “THE GOV SHOULD BE DOING THIS, I’M SO RIGHT” - so fun to read.

Lots of things kill and maim and traumatise lots of people every year. What is your point? And how does it relate to a pandemic causing "extra" deaths , hospitalisations and suffering compared to normal times?Because your post seems a little like saying in response to a conflict breaking out that "lots of people are murdered each year, so the fact that lots of people are dying in that war is irrelevant
Exactly this. You say you are not sure how the pp got this from your post but this is exactly what your post is saying. Sepsis is not contagious so I cant understand the point you're trying to make. Of course we are all aware that other infections kill millions of people.

@cologne4711

Sepsis isn't contagious but we need effective antibiotics to combat it. Overuse of hand sanitiser will lead to even more antibiotic resistance.

We have to stop all this sanitiser nonsense. Wash your hands with soap and water often and put the anti-bacterial sanitiser away!

Lockdown itself will kill a large number of people. It seems that many consider those deaths to be worth it yes.

How precisely will hand sanitiser lead to more antibiotic resistance?

@Summerflowers79 - I think the right decisions were made at the time, because it was unavoidable, but a few things happened:

1. Many appointments were delayed for months including scans and are still not happening yet; those with a diagnosis may or may not continue getting treatment, but those without a diagnosis have been delayed. 5-(8?) months delay has the potential to cause serious problems.
2. Covid has a lot of symptoms than can be other things from tonsillitis to sepsis. People may be deciding they have covid when they need urgent treatment for something else.
3. People have tried not to go into hospitals to avoid catching coronavirus; this can lead to leaving conditions too long so that they can't be effectively treated. Appendicitis, heart attacks, strokes etc.
4. Ambulance delays, 111 call delays (we had to wait over an hour earlier in lockdown just to get through and we weren't calling about covid, nor had any screening before this delay) - these can cause death too.

A financial downturn doesn't have to result in lots of deaths. Unfortunately we have a heartless, self-serving government who will do anything to remain in power and protect the rich. They have a media that will protect them and blame the poorest for being feckless.

@Weepinggreenwillow -

1. One hypothesis suggests that when averaged out over 12 months the total number of EXCESS deaths will not be anywhere near as high as expected.This is due to the fact that a lot of the people who have tragically died as a result of COVID in the first 4/5 months of this year would have been people who would most likely have died of other underlying conditions in the coming months.
2. I also did not quote figures for how many years of life people are losing

"Most likely have died in the coming months" / "how many years of life".
The reason I put a clarification about your comment is because that's exactly the hypothesis you posted, which has been refuted by research on many countries including UK, USA and Italy (e.g. wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 for the UK). Best to read what you actually wrote first next time.

When Sepsis has the same R0 as covid maybe we’ll worry about it. We don’t because it’s a reaction to an infection and in itself isn’t contagious. I don’t understand why people are trying to compare covid to illnesses that can’t be transmitted to other people. Yes, people die from cancer, heart attacks, sepsis, but you can’t catch these because someone coughed, or didn’t wash their hands. They aren’t comparable.

Sepsis itself isn't something you can pick up from your environment but many of the causes of sepsis are - strep, e coli, flu. Bacterial infections, which you can pick up anywhere and from anyone or anything are the most common cause of sepsis. Millions and millions of people die every year from all of these different types of infections. It's not an unusual thing at all.

That's not to say that deaths from covid are any less worrying or tragic. It's to say that every infection, no matter what it is, carries a risk - this isn't the new and fearsome thing some people are making it out to be.

Seriously? You dont see the difference in contracting sepsis or cancer or strep throat and us being in a worldwide pandemic affecting hundreds of thousands of people at the same time overwhelming health services across the world . Yeah alright then

With covid you can have no symptoms at all, mild to moderate symptoms or severe symptoms that lead to long term problems or death, just like all the other infections in the world that lead to 11 million deaths every year. People are treating deaths from covid as if they're an entirely new thing never ever seen before. They're not. Yes covid itself is new, but dying from an infection is absolutely not new at all.

Dengue fever is a pretty big killer also.

But why on earth do you think it would be a consideration in a country where it is not a major killer?

I hear HIV kills lots in southern Africa.

Some people are really really hard of thinking.

Yes covid itself is new, but dying from an infection is absolutely not new at all

I really do think everyone realises this. It's not breaking news!

Sepsis presumably though is one of the outcomes of Covid 19 that causes death?

this isn't the new and fearsome thing some people are making it out to be.

I was pretty fearful, impending sense of doom it's a symptom.

@TheDailyCarbuncle don’t waste your breathe, the only deaths that matter anymore are Covid. The majority on here understand perfectly well the point you are making in spite of us being so very very hard of thinking