The average age of people who die of Covid is apparently older than British life expectancy. This can't be true can it?

[Treesofwood]

I've tried to find data rather than just a tweet and I can't. I did find something about the median age of deaths in France being 81. This can't be true either, surely? Median being the middle number if they were all lined up.
I knew it disproportionately impacted older people obviously, but surprised by this data.

Also the measures in the UK do not have the same impact even in different areas of the sane country. Why do you think that what other countries have done would result in the same impact here?
There must be a reason why cases climb higher and faster in some areas than others. Fact is MH and his cronies have no idea why, so they guess in their God meetings what might make the difference. Sorry, I mean Gold meetings.

@SheepandCow how utterly inconsiderate to think shutting our borders now is in any way humanitarian. We are not New Zealand. On the other side of the world. Lucky you for living in Little Britain but many of us live lives between countries and we are managing as best we can. Shutting borders is utterly out of kilter.

@Porcupineinwaiting

Lot of 50 and 60 year olds only survive COVID if there is a hospital bed available for them when they need it. Overwhelm the hospitals and the average age of death decreases.

Obvious IF the hospital is overwhelmed the number of deaths increase. Average age does not get lower - that only happens if older people are no longer getting it.

Even over 84, without Covid about 1in 8 people will die within the next year. At 80+ if you catch covid, there is a 1 in 50 chance you will die from it. (2%). Doesn't really change much does it.

People living in care homes deserve to be cared for well and they deserve to see their relatives and friends. Life extension is not the main aim. Making what is left of life as meaningful and enjoyable as possible is.

Ask yourself - if it was you, 85, frail and unable to care for yourself, without or outwith dementia - would you rather exist longer in close to isolation - or go out (preferably wearing purple) still knowing you are loved and part of the world.

@jasjas1973

Well, of course you could have some time to react if you created that time. As it stands we’ve been fecking about since March. 6 months is not a bad length of time to formulate a plan of action to be fair.

We locked down presumably to buy time for T&T so equally, you could do that to increase NHS capacity & start to ‘mobilise’ before letting it rip perhaps?

Also, we have a precedent of sorts here don’t we?

Obviously the potential big bonus of such a strategy is you’re in & out of the pandemic a lot quicker. Which certainly would have its upsides.

I’m still to see an answer to the question what do we do if there is no decent vaccine or treatment & UK population compliance remains as patchy as it is. Do we live like this for the next couple of decades until it eventually spreads naturally to the majority at a manipulated lower rate? I don’t think that would be a tenable position personally.

twitter.com/MichaelYeadon3/status/1313883285274136577/photo/1

@AlecTrevelyan006 That link you posted, is it saying that all those people are requiring oxygen or that there is oxygen at the bed as is the case for most acute/general beds ?

I’m still to see an answer to the question what do we do if there is no decent vaccine or treatment & UK population compliance remains as patchy as it is. Do we live like this for the next couple of decades until it eventually spreads naturally to the majority at a manipulated lower rate? I don’t think that would be a tenable position personally

A better question would be why we are among the worst performers in Europe and not among the best?
We stopped testing when other countries were ramping up, we aren't testing tracing and tracking in sufficient numbers, which if we don't get a vaccine is the only way forward..... just as it was with Cholera outbreaks in the 1800s.... Public health is a well advanced science, we have chosen to use Serco instead.

So for instance on the ward I used to work on , all 30 beds had piped oxygen to each individual bed, but not every patient required oxygen, this was the same in every ward. So does 'oxygen' mean every acute/general bed or is it more specifically saying that 82% of the people in beds require oxygen, because that is a very high figure ?

@lljkk

I'm still wondering who we're saving the NHS for.

For yourselves

We're not saving the NHS. The NHS will collapse due to chronic underfunding, as a result of the millions of people who will no longer be paying tax as a result of lockdown.

@ChodeOfChodeBall will it though ? Millions of people were unemployed in the 80's and we still have the NHS , what will be different this time ?

Unemployment topped 3 million in 1982, with a population of 10 million less than today.

[quote frumpety]@ChodeOfChodeBall will it though ? Millions of people were unemployed in the 80's and we still have the NHS , what will be different this time ?[/quote]
Life expectancy has increased since then. Medical treatments have moved on in 30 plus years, meaning that people live longer. People do in any case live longer due to better nutrition and living conditions (on average), etc. When the NHS was founded, I doubt that anyone expected it still to be limping along in 2020.

It's also an undeniable fact that the NHS is funded by taxpayers. There will be millions fewer people paying tax as a result of lockdown. Who will pay for the NHS then?

My hunch is that the NHS will be disbanded at some point in the next five years, as it's financially unsustainable.

The situation will be a whole lot worse once there is no meaningful NHS and only "the rich" can obtain medical treatment (though at the moment, it's only "people with Covid" who can be treated).

Chode I totally agree with everything you have said

‘Unemployment topped 3 million in 1982, with a population of 10 million less than today.’

• That’s true & I lived it. No surprise then to tell you the NHS was pretty basic during those lean times.

Unemployment might not have reached the levels of the early ‘80s (yet) but Chode’s point regarding the taxpayer base is still valid because the difference between 1982 & now is we have a lot more old people now than we did then = extra strain on the NHS.

That’s true & I lived it. No surprise then to tell you the NHS was pretty basic during those lean times.

In what way was it basic ? It was much bigger in terms of estate and beds, people stayed in hospital for longer, but it wasn't as high tech as it is now and treatment and surgical advancements mean a lot of things can be done as day cases, is that what you mean ?

The percentage of the population aged over 65 has only increased by about 3% since the 80's. An entirely expected growth, as life expectancy has been slowly increasing over the last 50 years, although it appears to have plateaued recently.

Unemployment might not have reached the levels of the early ‘80s (yet) but Chode’s point regarding the taxpayer base is still valid because the difference between 1982 & now is we have a lot more old people now than we did then = extra strain on the NHS

There is plenty of money still in this country, just badly distributed and wasted... so the cost of Brexit, HS2, Trident, even Smart Motorways.... all money poured down the drain.

1982 tax rates were also much higher than now & council tax proportionately very much favours more expensive properties i.e i pay approx £1700pa on house worth around 350k, my nr neighbour pays £2200 on a house worth around 1m.
This isn't unique, its how the system was built to favour the better off
, so monies can be raised to fund public services.

But yes should the Tories get in for another 5 years, the NHS will go, regardless of job losses and CV.

The total cost of the UK NHS has increased from £9 billion in 1978/79 to £37 billion in 1991/92. Adjusting this figure to account for general inflation shows a real increase of 50.4% over this period. This gives a reflection of the increased cost of the NHS to the economy.

Funding for the NHS in the UK has risen by an average of 3.7% a year in real terms since it was introduced in 1948.
6.3% a year: The highest average increase for the UK NHS over 10 years, between 1999/2000 and 2009/10.
2.0% a year: The lowest average increase so far, between 1980/81 and 1990/91
(similar rates from 1949/50 to 1959/60 and from 1975/76 to 1985/86).

In real terms, after adjusting for inflation, NHS spending in 2020 is likely to be 10 times as much as in 1950.

Around half of this increase in spending was and will be funded by economic growth – by 2020 the UK’s GDP will be around five times larger in real terms than it was in 1950. The rest of the increase is the result of government decisions on priorities across all public spending. While government revenues from taxes have remained fairly flat at around 36% of GDP since the 1950s (with the absolute revenue growing in real terms as the economy has grown), the UK now spends much less on things like defence, housing, utilities and transport than we once did – leaving more to be spent on the NHS.

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/70-years-of-nhs-spending#then-and-now

The exit route from this is being developed - rapid testing so that groups can meet with less risk, better treatments for those times the tests are not accurate and people still get infected.

Only those who really want to see people die ignore that this will be considerably less of a problem within a year and quite possibly within 6 months.

NHS spending is well below other developed countries, because this government wants to see the NHS collapse.

Alreadytaken
Are you talking about the aptly named Moonshot insanity?

No. Want to take a holiday abroad safely - inexpensive private test at the airport. Pop concert, large wedding - same thing. Government cant afford to keep funding mass testing so those that want to attend mass events will need to pay for them. This will only be worth doing when better treatments are available.

Alreadytaken So wealthy people buy their freedom? Great idea.