has everyone become too hysterical about Covid?

[tellytubby20]

Looking at all the threads on MN my impression is that everyone has become completely hysterical about Covid and completely misunderstands the difference between personal health risk and public health.

Am not oblivious to the health risks - I have followed all the rules, live next to a major London hospital (so very aware of how busy the ambulance service is) and had covid last year.
BUT
I am also under 40 with small DCs - so am aware that my personal risk of death or severe illness is small - my goal is therefore to ensure that I do not spread it others who are vulnerable.

However, so many people seem to have decided that the threat/risk is massive to their kids and themselves especially with this new variant.....WHY?

AIBU - to think that people are massively over-estimating personal risk if they are healthy and under 50 and have become hysterical about it.

AINBU to think that

I think that people are justifiably worried, and need to take this very seriously indeed

My uncle has died today of COVID. He was admitted to hospital last week with an unrelated matter, caught COVID from a guy in the bed next to him and it has ripped through his system and killed him.

My Aunt is self isolating because she visited him before this other patients Covid status was know. She is alone and grieving. Hers is just one of over 1,000 similar stories tonight.

It’s not the bloody flu. It’s not minor. This is not like every other winter. People who say that need to take their head out of their arses and grow up.

I’m a corporate finance accountant. No medical background so rely on the expert medical information from DH and his colleagues who are at the coalface and see on a daily basis what is happening and can compare it with previous years (for DH’s 25 years as a doctor).

I’d also really like it if MN starting only letting people post if they have a photo ID so we could see which demographic the posts were coming from

You want to ban people with no photo id from mn so you can see the demographics of people who use mn and also have photo id?

OK there is a lot to unpick here, but briefly...

Which ONS statistics are you looking at? Their latest weekly deaths figures on the website go up to the end of December. Comparing the 2020 and 2018 figures shows that the 2020 figures are higher by c.2000-2500 deaths per week through November and most of December. In the last week of December 2020 there were 11520 registered deaths in England and Wales, compared to 7131 in 2018. Hopefully that jump is an aberration but I wonder what January will look like.

Which figures are you looking at where the numbers are the same for 2018 and 2020?

For clarity, I don't think there is anything wrong with using ONS statistics and as far as I know (although you must have a better idea, being a lawyer) there's no legislation barring comparisons. Obviously it's good not to draw any false conclusions though.

I don't think people should be under a compulsion to worry. I do think it's wrong to suggest, however obliquely, that what's happening now is comparable to a normal flu season, whether you look at deaths or hospital capacity.

I think the lockdown is this country is too strict, and I think that affects its effectiveness because its too strict to sustain for so many months. Many other Northern European countries don't find it necessary to have a travel ban within their borders where there is a requirement for no more than 2 persons to be outside or bubble together outwith households.

Many other Northern European countries have a far lower rate if covid, a lower positivity rate, don't have many cases if this new high transmission variant and definitely have a much higher bed to patient ratio (and associated staffing levels).

But yeah other than that its a brilliant comparison.

Deprivation and Age standardised mortality:

Age doesn't seem to be the deciding factor we all think it is.

@GreenlandTheMovie you said
and less than 1000 people under 60 have died of covid with no underlying health conditions.

Thus minimising the position and it has been explained to you that these patients with underlying conditions are not necessarily at deaths door.

The recording of covid deaths (as anyone who died within 28 days of a positive test) is also problematic from an evidential perspective. As is the early recording of some care home deaths as due to Covid despite no positive test.

The above is also pretty untrue too. It has been explained that many deaths recorded as dementia in care homes could have been COVID

Missed photo

Sorry duplicate

No one should be hysterical but everyone should be worried. Although your risk of dying from Covid under 50 is low (currently), your risk of hospitalisation is not that low.

Unfortunately the need to ‘protect the NHS’ has been appallingly phrased and a lot of people on MN just don’t seem to understand what it actually means. It is not protecting the institution but protecting U.K. medical capacity to treat not just COVID, but everything else.

Right now, there is a lot of triage going on, with people who would have been given more aggressive treatment being put on a palliative care pathway (being allowed to die). In addition doctors and nurses are on their knees and making mistakes.

In a week or two, many hospitals WILL be overwhelmed, even if the peak only lasts a week or two. At that point your treatable appendicitis may well prove fatal. And, many cancer patients will once again die due to treatment being delayed too long.

On a population level, we will probably end up losing 125-175k to either Covid, or other treatable conditions going untreated. I guess in the old days 150,000 people. mainly but not all old, dying of disease, out of a population of 70 million, was normal and not noteworthy. But we live in a different era.

So.....it is a time to be sensible and careful. In 3 months it should be a lot better. And don’t listen to the morons who think the above is not happening. Listen to ANY hospital doctor or nurse instead.

Today stats are dreadful in the nw for an increase in the rate of cases.

The parts that were in tier 2 the week before Christmas and then either tier 2 or 3 for Christmas week have seen the highest rises.

This update is the first one 5 days after Christmas day and so where if there was a issue with Christmas mixing it would be starting to show.

Knowsley +322.5% on previous 7 days
Halton +316%
Sefton 238.8%
Wirral +195.7%
Liverpool +195.1%
St Helens 150.5%
Warrington +142.3%
Cumbria +134.5%
Cheshire West +108.1%
Wigan 100.8%
West Lancs +98.8
Cheshire East +85.8%

Not good.

BBC News - Covid: Half of patients at some hospitals have virus

They may well do, but let's try not to panic too much over it

Naturally cases will have a knock-on effect, but this doesn't mean that all these people were admitted with Covid or even that they're symtomatic
As with the rest of the population, if you test absolutely everyone in whatever setting, it'll reveal a lot more people who may otherwise never have known they had it

My CEV mum and dad have just tested positive after being convinced they just had a chest infection. My parents were sure they’d die if they caught it. My dad takes methotrexate an immunosuppressant. They said it was better than flu and are now recovering.

I’m so glad they’ve had this experience to be honest. I had it too but wasn’t fussed, had a headache for 2 days and that was it.

twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1347200811303055364?s=21

Good pictorial charts on the comparisons between Covid and flu cases.

I saw a report that Australia had reported very low flu cases which they attributed to lockdowns and the reduction in social interaction.

[quote Northernsoulgirl45]@GreenlandTheMovie you said
and less than 1000 people under 60 have died of covid with no underlying health conditions.

Thus minimising the position and it has been explained to you that these patients with underlying conditions are not necessarily at deaths door.

The recording of covid deaths (as anyone who died within 28 days of a positive test) is also problematic from an evidential perspective. As is the early recording of some care home deaths as due to Covid despite no positive test.

The above is also pretty untrue too. It has been explained that many deaths recorded as dementia in care homes could have been COVID[/quote]
The big grey chunk in the first covid peak are likely covid deaths that were wrongly categorised as something else.

Deaths categorised as Dementia or Alzheimer's were up 83% suddenly and briefly in April.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/07/so-many-covid-patients-younger-this-time-hospitals-full

Has this been posted yet? It is clear that with overwhelmed hospitals that whilst "less than 1000 people under 60 without underlying health conditions have died of covid" this will definitely increase if there are no beds in hospital for treatment.

Yes, your individual risk is still low but I do think the risk of hospitalisation and poor health outcomes is much higher for people than the flu (particularly those age 35-50ish who people seem to think are immune from covid). Accepting that there are risks to living a normal life with flu around is completely different to the risks with covid around. It may well be that we have to learn to live with a higher risk of death and ill health from viral infections than we have been used to in recent years but on the other hand hopefully vaccines will help to reduce that risk if we ever get as far as vaccinating under 50s before we have to start boosters/ vaccinating for mutant strains in the vulnerable.

And approx. 1 in 4 hospital cases were caught in hospital.

So they are there for something else

Over 40% of covid admissions to ITU are under 60.

www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports

khn.org/news/clots-strokes-and-rashes-is-covid-a-disease-of-the-blood-vessels/

Being such a new disease has meant that the word "flu" doesn't really describe Covid after all - it has taken them a while to unpick what's going on - but generally it is being discussed more as a vascular and neurological disease rather than respiratory, the lungs are affected due to how it impacts the vascular system and also why deaths after 28 days are counted. (read attached article which will explain the impact on the lining of the lungs, not same as flu) all there.

But some people are sure they know it's just flu and that's the subject closed, think pneumonia is the worst of it etc. same as any year etc.

We can't see the blood vessel damage, it becomes apparent over longer period of time in the people that have been severely affected - so it pays to respect this disease while the experts are still only learning about it and not declare "it's just like flu, every year" blah blah

The staff that will treat you if you are if you have an accident are not normally at risk of the same illness, across all age groups, or at home isolating, even in those very bad flu years. So, no it isn't like a bad flu year etc.....

@hamstersarse

And approx. 1 in 4 hospital cases were caught in hospital.

So they are there for something else

It necessarily disagreeing but do you have a source for this.

Looks like there may be a bit of positive news here - and goodness knows we could do with it:

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/tocilizumab-sarilumab-covid-drugs-treatment-b743038.html

[quote Northernsoulgirl45]@GreenlandTheMovie you said
and less than 1000 people under 60 have died of covid with no underlying health conditions.

Thus minimising the position and it has been explained to you that these patients with underlying conditions are not necessarily at deaths door.

The recording of covid deaths (as anyone who died within 28 days of a positive test) is also problematic from an evidential perspective. As is the early recording of some care home deaths as due to Covid despite no positive test.

The above is also pretty untrue too. It has been explained that many deaths recorded as dementia in care homes could have been COVID[/quote]
Thats actually two examples of purposive thinking - deciding on the answer you want and then working backwards to find evidence to try and prove it.

Whereas what you are supposed to do is to use evidence to make evidence-based decisions.

Do other Northern European countries which don't have draconian nationwide travel bans on their citizens actually have significantly lower death rates than the UK? Do we all use a standardised method of using death rates now, ie any positive Covid test within 28 days goes down as a Covid death in any European country? I don't think so.

The countries with the worst death rates also locked down harshly and very early - Italy and Spain.

I'm genuinely worried that lockdowns lead to prolonging viruses and encouraging the thriving of more infectious strains. Obviously I have no evidence for this because lockdowns are such a new and untested response to viruses that no-one yet has the comparative data necessary to study their efficacy. Usually viruses which kill their hosts work their way through a certain percentage of the population and then die out fairly quickly. Its unusual to have a virus with such a high death rate mutate and then become more infectious. Is there any other virus which is so fatal which has lasted so long in recent history?

Almost 5000 people have been reported dead in the U.K. in the last week of a preventable disease. Covid. Because of reporting lags this number is likely to be revised upwards.

We know covid deaths are preventable because so many other countries have prevented them better than we have.

Yes I know, about 8/195 other countries haven't killed more of their citizens than us

But I only care about here right now. Because my dad and my grandads and my husband live here and men in their age groups are most in danger of ending up in ITU. Which is currently overrun.

I wouldn't characterise how I feel as "hysterical" but we should have strong feelings about that, shouldn't we? If we care about our country or our people.

@GreenlandTheMovie it is actually finding evidence to dispute your totally unfounded claims.
As said previously 28 days is also problematic because COVID can kill after 28 days. Anyway the 28 day figure doesn't really matter because ONS produce figures from death certificates and they are actually higher than 28 days figure

[quote Puzzledandpissedoff]Looks like there may be a bit of positive news here - and goodness knows we could do with it:

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/tocilizumab-sarilumab-covid-drugs-treatment-b743038.html[/quote]
That's why I hope it will only be 25,000 British dying unnecessarily of covid in January instead of the 30,000 I expected.

But honestly, looking at the trajectories I won't be surprised if it's 50,000.