Mexico - OMG

[BBCONEANDTWO]

Mexico is really doing badly I just looked at figures:

6,914 new cases and 523 new deaths in Mexico

Altogether number of deaths:

Deaths:
30,366

I didn't realise how bad it was there.

We're at somewhere around 500,000 deaths from COVID so far

Only the official numbers.

Actual numbers will be higher.

@TheAdventuresoftheWishingChair - you're referencing known deaths from lab tests only, it'll be at least double that already if you take current deaths into account, and there will be many more.

Sorry, cross-posted with @ShootsFruitsAndLeaves.

It is more infectious than flu and with a population that has no immunity it's of course going to kill more people than flu does.

The latest thoughts are many people do have immunity based on having had other coronaviruses though. It's being argued by scientists in several different countries and their case is convincing. It's not the case the population has no immunity. There is also debate as to how much of an impact lockdowns have actually had although I think that's a much less clear-cut argument and I'm not sure what I think about the matter.

you're referencing known deaths from lab tests only, it'll be at least double that already if you take current deaths into account, and there will be many more.

Fair enough, although fingers crossed there won't be many more. We just don't know at this stage. It depends on when a vaccine becomes available, how much people do things like wash their hands, how much natural immunity there really is out there. And there are reports that as a proportion of cases, fewer people are getting seriously ill or dying now when they get it than was happening earlier on in the peak (in the cases of places like UK and Italy anyway). So it's not as simple as many more will die. I sincerely hope they don't!

medium.com/@vernunftundrichtigkeit/coronavirus-why-everyone-was-wrong-fce6db5ba809

This discusses natural immunity but he's not alone in covering the subject.

Mexico have a population twice the size of the UK. So the UK are still doing much worse.
Look on world o metres. USA most deaths, UK 3rd highest.
Any death is sad and tragic.

@Hugglespuffed

Mexico have a population twice the size of the UK. So the UK are still doing much worse. Look on world o metres. USA most deaths, UK 3rd highest. Any death is sad and tragic.

It's not a competition.

@feelingverylazytoday definitely not. I'm guessing you got the tone of my message wrong. I said 'Any death is sad and tragic' I'm not the one starting threads about death rates in other countries.

Even if we imagine that COVID doesn’t cause any more deaths than the flu, the problem is that, on the whole, it’s causing deaths as well as not instead of the flu.

(With the caveat that not all countries have the same vaccination programs - or any at all and there is probably some overlap where people who would have died with flu if that had caught it, caught COVID and died from that instead. But it’s not a straight swap, and not everyone who died from Covid would have died from the flu.)

So in a way, it doesn’t matter if it’s more or less deadly than flu. It’s an extra burden on the healthcare system and on people’s health.

We need a population reduction and this is it maybe?

I still know of only 2 people who have had Covid for sure and NONE that have died. This is in my wider circle of friends, family and acquaintances.

I think I have benefited from lots of factors though that are not really in my direct control. Village location, area of affluence, white, detached home, work flexibility, in good health.

I worry about the disparity in our society, as myself and my friends have not been touched by this disease at all, and it is only at the very fringes of my life that I hear about a friend of friends auntie....it scares me that this disease hasn't touched my immediate world.

And yes, I have been adhering to the lock-down rules the whole way through.

The Americas numbers are suss though. Where do we get excess number of deaths reliably for them i saw something (maybe in the guardian a week or so ago)

I don’t understand this argument that covid has spread everywhere. European countries have just gone through crippling lockdowns precisely to stop it spreading... We don’t lock down for the flu.

Strange how people were happy to compare with other countries when they could say "we are the laughing stock of Europe, we have the highest deaths in the world" and could complain about our governments handling of the crisis.