Feeling a bit duped about the seriousness of Covid....

[mostwonderfultime]

Found out my district of 55,000 people there have been 156 confirmed covid cases since March. Now I hear there is an enquiry into the over reporting of Covid deaths in England. Average death rate has now lower than average indicating many people who died from Covid would probably died in the next month or so. No surge in Covid cases or deaths since relaxing lockdown measures (I know about Leicester, but we all know reasons why they have more cases and again they haven't had a spike in deaths).
In the meantime, the economy is screwed, Kids have been off school for months, best friends business has gone bust.

Focusing on deaths is the wrong way.

The deaths are terrible. Yes.

What is more important is the ability of the health system to function. Covid is so disruptive because a larger proportion of those who present with symptoms present severely ill and have to be hospitalised than do with seasonal flu.

Essentially, lockdown was not about saving lives. It was about saving the NHS which in turn saves lives.

Some areas have barely been hit. But the impact on local health systems in those areas is actually still quite big. Keeping someone alive on a vent in ICU because they have developed pneumonia is a long, costly and labour intensive undertaking.

The more of these patients there are the less room there is for any other form of treatment.

Essentially- you’ve been looking at this the wrong way. It’s still a super difficult, devastating pandemic. And we all still need to do our bit to suppress transmission. Or we could end up like Texas- where all the hospitals are full and running out of supplies and staff.

@BigBadVoodooHat, I don't doubt that there are trolls etc on the Lungs threads but magnify that many hundreds of thousands of times by the people posting on the Slack, Facebook Covid etc and cases being reported extensively by the BBC, The Guardian etc. It is not all anecdotal. There are even Covid rehabilitation clinics being set up around the country to deal with recovering patients. Do you think the Government would be finding these if there was nothing to worry about?

If we don't lock down again if another wave hits, then the health service will be overwhelmed in the long term with people presenting with short and longer term health problems as a result of the damage this virus does. Ultimately, a vaccine and better treatments are the way forward, not denial.

I'm not in 'denial' about anything.

My post was very clear in stating that citing the 'Lungs' threads, on an anonymous forum well-known for the debatable authenticity of a vast amount of it's user-generated content, as proof of anything is rather daft.

MN threads are not a valid source of medical evidence, and should never be cited as such.

OP, I’ll bet you thought the whole Y2K thing was overhyped too, after all, nothing happened when the clock struck midnight.

(Of course, the fact we spent a lot of time and effort making sure that didn’t happen is neither here nor there)

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/tens-thousands-coronavirus-tests-have-double-counted-officials/

Uk have been double testing though, does this also happen in Florida?

@mostwonderfultime

Found out my district of 55,000 people there have been 156 confirmed covid cases since March. Now I hear there is an enquiry into the over reporting of Covid deaths in England. Average death rate has now lower than average indicating many people who died from Covid would probably died in the next month or so. No surge in Covid cases or deaths since relaxing lockdown measures (I know about Leicester, but we all know reasons why they have more cases and again they haven't had a spike in deaths). In the meantime, the economy is screwed, Kids have been off school for months, best friends business has gone bust.

How do you account for the excess deaths that we had? What caused them, if not Covid?

Just because someone has terminal cancer doesnt mean they cant have their life shortened by something else though, does it. My friend lived with a terminal diagnosis for 3 years before finally succumbing to an infection. And her life didnt suddenly become worthless because she had a terminal diagnosis either. On the contrary, the time she had left became very precious.

I agree. My OH has "terminal" cancer, with life expectancy anywhere between a week and 10 years as per his consultant. He needs treatment (chemo) every year or two to bring it back under control. An infection could finish him off at any time as his immunity system is barely functioning - highest risk in the middle of chemo and in between chemo cycles. Covid would almost certainly kill him. Yet, since diagnosis 2 years ago, we've had 4 foreign holidays including a cruise of a lifetime - we just plan our best around his treatments.

It's incredibly annoying and hurtful when idiots trot out the old line "the vulnerable will probably have died in a few weeks anyway". There are millions of vulnerable (like my OH) who expect many years of quality life - OH is also still working so still contributing to the economy by taxes and spending. Not all vulnerable are sat waiting to die in care homes!

How do you account for the excess deaths that we had? What caused them, if not Covid?

The NHS closing down for everything except Covid perhaps? But, of course, that's still caused by covid indirectly.

Its killed 60,000+ people who would nearly all otherwise be around today. (the UK has 65,000+ excess deaths for this period, the highest in Europe).

As others have said, it has also hit people who have not died from it extremely hard. A "mild" case in many cases is months of breathing difficulties and being exhausted from going upstairs. The long term damage? Don't know.

I will pop some champagne if and when the schools reopen on September 1st, but this isnt a bit of flu and Im afraid half a million people being laid off is a price worth paying for keeping half a million vulnerable people alive. There's obviously no "good" solution, but underplaying its lethality is ridiculous.

Hearhooves

Murderous lockdown supporters apparently.

@MintyMabel

OP, I’ll bet you thought the whole Y2K thing was overhyped too, after all, nothing happened when the clock struck midnight.

(Of course, the fact we spent a lot of time and effort making sure that didn’t happen is neither here nor there)

Beat me to it!

If we take measures which reduce the impact of something, it doesn't mean that the thing wasn't serious in the first place.

@Porcupineinwaiting

Just because someone has terminal cancer doesnt mean they cant have their life shortened by something else though, does it. My friend lived with a terminal diagnosis for 3 years before finally succumbing to an infection. And her life didnt suddenly become worthless because she had a terminal diagnosis either. On the contrary, the time she had left became very precious.

Is that aimed at my post?

I think you're putting a lot of words in my mouth there. Where did I say this mans life was suddenly worthless?
I've had 4 family members die from cancer including my beloved dad.

For what's it worth, he was being cared for at home by his sister who was shielding. He was bed ridden and very near the end of his life. However because he had a temperature just before he died it was written 'with COVID" on his death certificate. He never had a test.

@mostwonderfultime

Found out my district of 55,000 people there have been 156 confirmed covid cases since March. Now I hear there is an enquiry into the over reporting of Covid deaths in England. Average death rate has now lower than average indicating many people who died from Covid would probably died in the next month or so. No surge in Covid cases or deaths since relaxing lockdown measures (I know about Leicester, but we all know reasons why they have more cases and again they haven't had a spike in deaths). In the meantime, the economy is screwed, Kids have been off school for months, best friends business has gone bust.

So disappointing to see such ignorance on display in this thread. Read up about the 1918 pandemic, which lasted 2 years.

www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html

We are at the very beginning of this pandemic. In the absence of a cure or vaccine, it will last at least two years, probably longer because we can't build up long-term immunity to human coronaviruses. If there is no vaccine, it will become endemic and keep circulating. You might not be old enough for it to kill you now, but one day you will be.

Our only hope, absent a vaccine or cure, is for the virus to atenuate (mutate into a less virulent form). What we've seen so far is the opposite - a more effecient mutation has replaced the original strain.

edition.cnn.com/2020/07/02/health/coronavirus-mutation-spread-study/index.html

A virus that can be spread asymptomatically has no evolutionary drive to atenuate. It is already optimised to infect as many hosts as possible.

The 1918 pandemic reduced life expectancy in America by 12 years. Scientists around the world have already demonstrated COVID-19 will impact life expectancy:

academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdaa087/5857763

And that contrary to some opinions, the people who died would not have died anyway. University of Glasgow found an average of 10 years lost per person who died:

www.gla.ac.uk/news/coronavirus/headline_720672_en.html

Long-covid is ruining lives. What we're seeing is a mirror of what happened after SARS.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20337995/

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/415378

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32640-0/fulltext

www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09536-z

Wait until 2022 and see if you still feel duped. This is just the beginning.

Wait until 2022 and see if you still feel duped. This is just the beginning.

Hardly, a successful vaccine has already pretty much been found.

Read up about the 1918 pandemic, which lasted 2 years.

WILL people with no actual knowledge of epidemiology stop mentioning the bloody spanish flu. This is a coronavirus. Not influenza.

Previous PHE UNDER-counting dwarfs recent over-counting:

COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group

https://c8930375-0dbb-4319-ae2f-025f70d4b441.filesusr.com/ugd/ab45f7ed709364eaf741e9ae1aed450de5b962.pdff

Summary
In this bulletin we note the recent news about the unreliability of daily COVID-19 death figures in England1,
and re-state our belief that the metric of excess deaths is the most reliable way of gauging the pandemic’s impact.

Hence, nothing has changed – it remains the case that over 60,000 have (very likely) died from COVID-19.

We have analysed the difference between ONS and PHE-reported deaths, tracing the growing difference over time.

Although the figures are different, the total erroneous reporting to date changes nothing.

However, although the ‘quantitative’ aspect is almost immaterial,
we are concerned that the ‘qualitative’ aspect – of reduced public trust in the numbers, or Government advice – may have unwarranted consequences.

< e.g. as the OP >

Yep. It's been a shower of xxxx this year. They should have had the kids back in school over the summer and normality and then shut in the autumn if it leaked with flu season. But nope. They've locked us all away for the summer and in September they expect us to send the kids to school. Get back to normal whilst releasing warnings of a second spike in cooler months.

@BakedBlossoms
something about counting chickens. there are promising developments with vaccines. Nothing has been "found". We may need to wait months to see if the vaccines (eg the Oxford one) works long term/has side effects/suitable all ages etc. etc.

@Milicentbystander72

I've been slightly about the figures since my friends uncle died from cancer. On his death certificates they said "with COVID". Hmmmm he had terminal cancer.

I’ve seen this argument a lot. For the sake of clarity, on a UK death certificate the cause of death section has two parts. One part for recording the direct cause of death, and one for any other significant conditions that the patient had which contributed to but didn’t directly cause the death. Obviously it depends on the exact circumstances, but if your uncle had Covid-19 (or if he wasn’t tested, a high clinical suspicion of the disease) at the time of his death then it was most likely entirely correct to record this on the death certificate.

Would that explain the c65000? EXCESS total mortality in the UK over the period, OP, or would someone dying in the next month anyway not have caused this spike? Given the lockdown, we'd expect not an excess mortality but a reduced aggregate mortality from the reduction in RTA, industrial accidents and so on. Before someone offers MH and suicide, we've noticed a reduction over the period though it's possible this will change in the longer term.

What would explain the excess total mortality would be COVID, especially given deaths in the community where testing didn't happen. We noticed a massive spike in spontaneous cardiovascular and other deaths in our patient population in the community who never got a COVID test or anywhere near a hospital. When we sat and looked at the number of COVID deaths pro rata for our patient population and the huge spike in patients who had died over the period, massively more patients died than represented by the COVID numbers.

@Badbadbunny

How do you account for the excess deaths that we had? What caused them, if not Covid?

The NHS closing down for everything except Covid perhaps? But, of course, that's still caused by covid indirectly.

Really? That accounts for 65,000 + deaths? They were still open for emergencies.

Have a look at the States right now - is that all over exaggeration and duping too?

Total UK deaths in UK from all causes peaked massively during March - May compared to previous years

and total deaths for most other countries peaked massively too

However, we have been down to "Normal" total deaths for some weeks now, hence why the end to lockdown,
but with SD etc to avoid a recurrence this winter

.

Death is horrendous at any time at any age and by whatever cause and it's something that will happen to everyone at some point. Some lives will be cut short which is cruel but theres more than covid that cuts life short at the moment.
Theres too much focus on the daily deaths that scaremongers. Yesterday there was around 3000 reported deaths to due to covid globally, with a world population of 7.8 billion the % is minuscule. The government and media have built this huge fear in people that as soon as they step outside the front door they are going to die of Coronavirus.
I wonder if they announced daily deaths from heart disease, lung cancer, suicide, stroke, drug and alcohol related deaths as well as Covid deaths would people realise that's theres bigger killers amongst us.
We can all take steps to reduce the risk of any death but you cant prevent it entirely and we cant get consumed by covid hysteria. It's just something else we need to learn to live around and take precautions the best we can we must carry on with our lives or we are merely just existing.

Everyone is an expert on here, comical!

The UK - like other countries - saw deaths come down to normal levels BEFORE lockdown was lifted significntly