Why isn’t there more deaths atm?

[Mummypig2020]

Just that really. Obviously cases are going up and have been for a few weeks. Surely there would be at least an increase of people in hospitals by now at least? Or in a week or so are we going to suddenly have hundreds of deaths again?

Another reason could be we’re outside more when we meet people? Maybe it’s not so potant when caught outside?

@safariboot the NHS did not "get it very wrong" in the early stages of the pandemic. The whole world was putting people on ventilators but the NHS quickly worked out that wasnt working well.The death rate in ICU dropped. The NHS was also trialling treatments in a highly professional fashion so that they found a useful - and cheap - treatment.

As this article explains this trials were largely taking place in the uk because we have a National Health Service. www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/one-uk-trial-transforming-covid-19-treatment-why-haven-t-others-delivered-more-results

We have a health service that is not resourced as well as many European countries but we found one of the first treatments and are developing one of the first vaccines.

To get back to the thread - many people are still taking a lot of precautions to avoid catching this virus. The ones who either dont or cant are often young so less likely to die when they get it. Infections are now at very low levels in parts of the country but there is a still potential for deaths if infection spreads to the elderly or otherwise vulnerable.

Part of the recent increase in positive tests comes from encouraging people who dont have symptoms to test - so more tests from people who are not ill, just capable of infecting others.

Higher levels of vitamin D in summer may be relevant. T cells are important in fighting off the virus and they dont activate if vitamin D levels are too low. Most people should be planning to take a small supplement of vitamin D this winter, between October and March.

The majority of people are being careful. Places where huge numbers of people are cramped remain closed (football stadia etc). The old/vulnerable are generally staying in more than they would normally. Most people are wearing masks, washing hands, etc etc. We're all basically taking some steps to help stop it spreading. All that is also from a pretty low base due to the lockdown. It doesn't need everyone to follow the rules/guidance, adhere to social distancing, wash hands, avoid big gatherings, etc - it's the old 80-20 rule - if 80% of the people are, more or less, taking precautions, then the spread will stay under control.

@Alex50

Another reason could be we’re outside more when we meet people? Maybe it’s not so potant when caught outside?

I don't think it's the potancy it's that transmission outside is extremely low or even not happening at all

@lurker101 has it covered

Your questions OP assumes that no advances in knowledge and treatment have been made in the last 8 months which means you are starting from a false premise that deaths would remain the same for ever.

I think many people had it February and march but we don’t have numbers as no testing was done. People are still getting it but we are only picking up cases due to more testing. The very vulnerable will be taking extra care so fewer getting it.

It’s frankly ridiculous to close the country for a virus that isn’t killing anyone. An utter joke which will end up killing thousands due to poverty, job losses and delayed cancer diagnosis.

Is no one else seething?

We will be picking up many non symptomatic cases now... Also the death rate is around 0.5% so for every 2000 cases only 10 would die. So even if we were having 10k cases a day we would only expect about 50 people to die of it.

Is no one else seething?

Completely. But there's a lot of sheep in this country that believe the media/government scare mongering. Its shameful

@Mummypig2020

Just that really. Obviously cases are going up and have been for a few weeks. Surely there would be at least an increase of people in hospitals by now at least? Or in a week or so are we going to suddenly have hundreds of deaths again?

Cases aren't 'obviously' going up at the moment. They're stabilised according to the latest ONS report.

@loobyloo1234

Is no one else seething?

Completely. But there's a lot of sheep in this country that believe the media/government scare mongering. Its shameful

Yes. Dare to be optimistic and you are shouted down as naive and not caring about the children’s lungs.....

Shameful indeed. Disastrous. And let’s not start on civil liberties and the destruction of education.

I used to think British people had inquiring and intelligent minds.

There's been a significant change in the way deaths are recorded - this is one of the major reasons.

Previously, if you tested positive for C19 in January and died yesterday of a heart attack/infection/another condition that couldn't be largely attributed to something like an accident or other trauma - your death would be recorded as a C19 death.

This open-ended reporting of C19 deaths was also responsible for the UK having no "patients recovered" figures when you compare cases internationally - as there was no cut off point for the death of a positive person to no longer be considered a C19 death.
Therefore nobody would ever be considered "recovered" - as any time you died after being positive would make your death Covid related and recorded as such (unless you say, got hit by a bus).

So now they've sorted out that absolute shambles that has made the UK death data a) impossible to compare with other nations and b) falsely high; the deaths will be a lot lower. A heck of a lot lower.

Scotland for example have only put deaths down to C19 if they happened within 28 days of a positive test from the very beginning (fewer than 2,500).

People were dying unnecessarily because the NHS were putting them on ventilators -which was completely the wrong treatment.

Lurker - great post👍

I went on the train to London on sat - loads of space, everyone wearing masks. No one coughing. It’s going to be nothing like Feb/March when we were all coughing and spluttering over each other. The more vulnerable are going to be more protected on the whole and we may even have low flu numbers.

The issue with the world reacting as they did was because of the scenes in China and Italy. And they were only scary because every single person who had a cough turned up at hospitals which just made it look much much worse than it was. If in those early days only the ones who needed to be in hospital were l, than it would not have looked anywhere near as scary

It must be those mandatory magic masks; they certainly keep Mumsnet alive. 

Younger people getting it.

The graph of hospital admissions in Scotland has been way, way down since June. The graphs showing the ages of people testing positive show almost all of them are in the 18-44 age group, very unlikely to need hospitalised.

You'd also hope that after 6 months the care homes would have decent procedures to stop it spreading if someone does test positive.

Zero to do with masks, imho.

I while a go I read a piece that said that there were 6 different strains, 4 relatively mild ones that could be dealt with at home and 2 that tend to require hospital intervention If it's the less serious strains which are being transmitted then there are less serious symptoms and less hospitalisation.

There are minute DNA variations, but these make no difference - it is still just one strain. There is certainly no 'mild' strain and a more serious strain. The impact varies according to your age and underlying vulnerabilities.

I while a go I read a piece that said that there were 6 different strains, 4 relatively mild ones that could be dealt with at home and 2 that tend to require hospital intervention If it's the less serious strains which are being transmitted then there are less serious symptoms and less hospitalisation.

Its not 6 different strains. They have just divided the symptoms up into 6 different subsets. It's still interesting because the official guidance is still just aimed at the most severe cases, whilst a lot of people may have the milder symptoms and not realise it's covid and will carry on infecting people.
www.kcl.ac.uk/news/six-distinct-types-of-covid-19-identified

I read about the different strains a while back as well, I do wonder if it is this.

I first had symptoms on March 9th, then quickly deteriorated.

I have since had Respiritory Physio, Speech & Language Therapy, Urgent XRay for suspected collapsed lung, investigated for DVT, had to see an Optician, & this week I started inhalers, as well as all sorts of other things going on, and this is 5 months later.

Im waiting to be seen in a Clinic for post Covid patients. Im 45, average weight, dont drink, dont smoke etc.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803105246.htm

Article about the strains.

Completely. But there's a lot of sheep in this country that believe the media/government scare mongering. Its shameful

Clearly no-one you know has died or suffered badly from it then. I'm not a sheep, but clearly I understand risk better than you do.

@Newgirls thanks 😊 I 100% agree with you in regard to flu, we’ve been discussing this at work (socially not in a related field) and we think that the previous behaviours of “struggling in” when you obviously had a cold/bug will be so frowned upon in post-Covid world that a lot of transmissions will be cut. I’ve been guilty of going in when I know I shouldn’t have so many times, despite quite relaxed workplaces.
Plus a lot of people are washing their hands much more frequently now - I hope that doesn’t change 🤢
I think it was Ireland that reported a massive decrease in chickenpox, similarly, the sexual health clinics have been reporting dramatic decreases in STIs and STDs due to lockdowns for obvious reasons

The sneering at people trying to follow the guidelines is really dull.

Just a quick very rough calculation of hospitalised Covid against Covid positive tests at the moment suggests that around 4% of all positive tested individuals are hospitalised. If you apply this to figures when the first wave was peaking, if only 4% were needing hospitalisation (remembering that only those hospitalised were tested) at the peak there may have been upwards of 100000 per day being infected. Far higher than the figures indicate. I don’t think for a minute that the 15-45 yr old age group were somehow immune in March but now are more susceptible, I believe that the over 65s are taking it seriously and effectively shielding. Our increasing knowledge has allowed grown up thinking and risk assessment to take over.