Hospitalisations and Intensive Care Figures are rising.

[Nellodee]

People keep saying that although cases are rising, hospitalisations remain low. I don't believe this is true. We need to stop pretending that we can do nothing and everything will turn out fine. Oh, and I'm not being a doom monger, I am sounding the fire alarm. I fucking can't wait to be wrong.

This is from the Guardian:

The daily total for Covid patients being admitted to hospital in England has now passed 150. On 13 September, the most recent day for which a figure is available, it was 153. The previous day it was 143. Only a week ago the numbers were in double figures. The total has not been as high as 150 since early July.

The total number of coronavirus patients in hospital in England has now reached 866. That is the figure for 15 September, up from 782 the previous day. It has not been as high as this since late July.

The number of hospital patients in England receiving mechanical ventilation has now passed 100 again. Today’s figure is 101. It has not been this high since late July.

More people died of suicide during August than coronavirus. 450 patients die EVERY day from cancer. There are countless other respiratory viruses that begin to circulate from september (including flu which is why the vaccination programme starts soon) I’m not blasé and I’ve seen first hand what the pandemic has done. But it all has to be kept in perspective.

Now that Scotland has corrected its fake hospital numbers which were still counting people who 'at some point' had tested positive so had hovered at about 250 for the last 2/3 months the actual number is now 48 and there isn't much movement despite the various spikes we've had. So actually doesn't seem to be much correlation in fact.

Cinderella, I think you are right that people are being admitted to hospital when less sick that they were in March. I think this is great. I'm sure it contributes to much better outcomes.

I also don't think it will continue, if cases continue to rise.

You are looking at data and numbers. I have experience of hospitals and most nurses are if the opinion that the virus isn’t as deadly as before. Patients are just less sick. I can’t back it up with numbers and data but that’s what I’ve seen.

Cancer cases are not rising exponentially. If they were, I would certainly be far more concerned about them than Covid.

@Nellodee. I always appreciate your posts.

The trajectory is scary & I don't understand why people can't see that! Very few seem to understand exponential growth.

@Cinderellashoes

More people died of suicide during August than coronavirus. 450 patients die EVERY day from cancer. There are countless other respiratory viruses that begin to circulate from september (including flu which is why the vaccination programme starts soon) I’m not blasé and I’ve seen first hand what the pandemic has done. But it all has to be kept in perspective.

@Cinderellashoes

Fantastic posts. I would much rather take note of what you say, as a nurse abd who understands statistics better than the average joe

@Cinderellashoes

You are looking at data and numbers. I have experience of hospitals and most nurses are if the opinion that the virus isn’t as deadly as before. Patients are just less sick. I can’t back it up with numbers and data but that’s what I’ve seen.

You are right. I am looking at data and numbers. I can back them up with data and numbers.

[quote MJMG2015]@Nellodee. I always appreciate your posts.

The trajectory is scary & I don't understand why people can't see that! Very few seem to understand exponential growth.[/quote]
Thank you, MJMG2015

I feel like Cassandra predicting the fall of Troy a lot of the time.

@Cinderellashoes great posts

There is a breakdown of the numbers in the charts attached to this tweet (tap/click on them to view):
mobile.twitter.com/ADMBriggs/status/1305793714200117248

A key point about number of cases.

Or should i say, 'known positive tests'.

When we look at the data we need to consider how many people were being tested in March / April. Very few were eligible as we had so few tests available. The percentage of tests that came back positive were therefore pretty high compared to now. From this we can assume that the number of cases in the early stages of the uk epidemic were actually much higher than appear in the 'known positive cases' graph.

We have to consider this when looking at the number of deaths. The death rate will have decreased due to treatment but our ability to measure the death rate has also improved. And if you compare a day in April which say had (made up numbers here) had 1000 positive tests with now, in reality you would probably have 10,000 cases for that day in April due to the number unable to get tests. This is partly why its so crucial we get on top of testing again now so we dont get same distortion and only have to worry about the false positive rate distorting the figures.

Therefore you would expect that the number of 'known positive tests' will have to be at a higher level before we get back to X number of daily deaths than in the initial stage of the uk epidemic, because the % of tests coming back positive is lower (in other words we are picking up more positive tests which would have been missed early on).

Its not just merely a delay as cases pick up that causes the graph to make it look like covid is becoming less fatal. It highlights how high the number of cases there actually were in April and how much that has declined.

That does probably mean we are headed for a problem / peak in a number of weeks time...

My point is to urge people to understand what the case graph and the death graph show and what changes in methodology / availability of testing over time mean for those graphs.

You can not directly compare March and April with new information from this week for that reason. It has to be contextualised.

It also doesn't mean we aren't heading for a problem.

The ineffectiveness of track and trace and the sudden increase in cases / hospitalisations / covid related inquiries to 111 is data which points to a problem being on the cards which we cant fully explain away as merely being down to it being 'that time of year'.

I hope this is an understandable explanation of data problem and the complexity of comparing stages of the pandemic.

@Cinderellashoes

More people died of suicide during August than coronavirus. 450 patients die EVERY day from cancer. There are countless other respiratory viruses that begin to circulate from september (including flu which is why the vaccination programme starts soon) I’m not blasé and I’ve seen first hand what the pandemic has done. But it all has to be kept in perspective.

This ! Suicides are on the up including 2 people I know ! Why? Because they lost their jobs and no money .. 35 and 42!

Re the death rate, don't forget that it was only a few weeks ago that the definition of a Covid death changed, which is noticeable in the graphs. obviously the pattern of deaths isn't going to look the same right now...

I don’t know about England and NI but in Scotland the vast majority of our university teaching will be online at least for semester one. Obviously that excludes practical labs and the art school local to me is giving one day per week studio time instead of the normal five. The last few weeks at most universities, the one where I work included, are exams only so contact will be minimal as exams are online. Students can get tested if they are going home for Christmas. I don’t know what more you can ask of them tbh.

Sorry, missed out Wales above 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

You do know the number of patients on ventilators has hardly risen?

It turns out that putting covid patients on ventilators is, in general, a really bad thing. This is one of the medical advances since March.

There has been a massive increase in drug addictions, ocd, ptsd and suicides too. But those aren’t reported as widely because then people will question the governments handling of the pandemic. There are much much wider issues than Covid. And most nurses will tell you, winter is shit in any hospital. Lol.

If the number of flu deaths was reported daily on live tv with a bulletin and we had access to data and graphs that were as well publicised everyone would be panicking about flu. But it’s not, and we’re not.

Can you link any sources listing the number of suicides in August?

I was under the impression that the data on suicides won't be available for months because of the time it takes for inquests and data collation.

Yes I do know. I know that treatment now is much quicker and effective but we were dealing with a new virus and everyone was shutting themselves. Deaths have undoubtedly dropped because we know how to treat it now. This is a good thing, right??

@Cinderellashoes

You are looking at data and numbers. I have experience of hospitals and most nurses are if the opinion that the virus isn’t as deadly as before. Patients are just less sick. I can’t back it up with numbers and data but that’s what I’ve seen.

Since you're a nurse then surely you've noticed that people don't get as sick from respiratory viruses in the summer at the last few months and saying that covid just isn't particularly deadly anymore is ridiculous. Now if hardly anyone is dying of covid in January or February you might have a point.

Forgive me if I’m wrong but weren’t the deaths highest during April which is out of ‘flu season’?

Putting patients on ventilators has been shown not to be as effective for Covid patients as it was thought back in March. We now know patients do better with oxygen masks and certain drugs do o would expect ventilator stats to be reduced. If the is an increase in Covid19 patients actually on ventilators then I'd see that as particularly concerning.
I still think we are at the start of seeing another increase in hospitalisations and sadly deaths. It is just that it will take a few more weeks as there is always a lag.
With regards to the cases seeming milder. I suspect it isn't that the virus is weaker. It may be something to do with increased vitamin D levels and immune systems being better at this time of year plus admitting at an earlier stage ( certainly than they were at the previous peak) and an automatic 5 days on remdesivir that I think all Covid admissions bare automatically getting.
Hopefully this will all mean a lower proportion of deaths but unless we get on top of case spread then it could still mean very many thousands.

@Cinderellashoes

Because viruses tend to mutate over time and become less deadly if we go by previous trends. There were around 70 - 80 patients in ventilator beds a few weeks ago, there are currently 106. I work in a hospital and can tell you a change of 20/30 in the whole of the country is nothing! Do you know how many cancer deaths there are per DAY in the U.K.?

I think scientists have confirmed no mutation? More likely less severe cases over the summer as lower viral load. Now these asymptomatic cases are all over the country and likely to pass it on with a higher viral load now the weather worsens. The lack of caution in the government’s approach is so reckless and without regard for life.

In one week during August, coronavirus killed 150 ish people. That same week over 1000 died from flu. Numbers are from ons data