417 dead

[Standandwait]

417 people under 40 have died of CV in hospital in England from when the pandemic began to Jan 16, according to the NHS. Another 4,081 under 60 have died.

This is out of 60,921 total deaths NHS England recorded; by comparison, gov.uk counts 89,261 deaths total in England to Jan. 17, but they don’t break it down by age group. The quickest glance at deaths in care homes suggests those basically explain the difference in the two totals. I assume it's possible to come up with comparable figures for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, too -- I just happen to live in England and got tired.

Lord knows, I'm not looking to "kill granny." I have a lot of dearly beloved family over 80, and am closer than not to 60. I also have a disabled child, which means I know not only him but many other very vulnerable families. I have followed lockdown rules quite faithfully, myself.

But I really, really am beginning to have grave reservations about locking down again and again. If you feel otherwise, please talk me around.

Anyway - do only people under 40 with no pre-existing health conditions of any sort matter?

40% of the population have some form of chronic health problem, usually quite compatible with a normal or near-normal life expectancy if properly treated. Even among teenagers, it's about 15%.

And literally HALF the UK population is over 40 (median age is 40.6).

@PurpleDaisies

You’re not talking about the same thing *@NikeDeLaSwoosh*

Deaths are not the same as hospital admissions.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-55586994

In the last few weeks, for example, adults aged 18-64 have accounted for 40% of daily Covid admissions to hospitals, data from Public Health England shows. This compares to 40% for 65-84 year olds and 20% for the over-85s.

And there has been a steep rise in the numbers of people in their mid-40s to mid-60s becoming seriously ill with Covid and being admitted to intensive care units.

Deaths are not the same as hospital admissions. But if COVID were let run rampant, hospital admissions now would be an extremely good proxy for future deaths. Many of these people would die without treatment. All icu, probably everyone on cpap and various oxygen treatments. They are only admitted because they can’t manage at home. So let’s say 80% of the one person per 30 seconds admitted currently don’t make it if they can’t get treatment. So 4 people per 2.5 minutes are covid fatalities under the run riot scenario. 16 people per 10 mins. 100 people an hour....

just mentioned on news a quarter of those admitted are under 55
re pp
the volume of those & others who will have long or permeant health problems or disabilities will increase -they will require long term health costs (if you want to look at it that way rather than the personal cost to them) & social care & to welfare & benefits costs.
I repeat
The longer this goes on unchecked the worse effect it will have on death & recovery rates & increases the likelihood of mutations(which have already shown this will happen) which could make things much worse

I don't have any links because I'm working and don't have time to find them. But anecdotally (my daughter is a Covid nurse), in our local hospital, even people in their 60s aren't getting ICU beds with Covid. An 80 year old wouldn't stand a chance.

I'm told that the hospital is in a far worse situation than during the first lockdown, and that people who would have qualified for ICU before, are nowhere near the top of the list now. A far far higher number of younger people are being hospitalised.

That refers to admissions though, not currently occupying beds.

Your point being...?

There's plenty of further data in that report relating to treatment times. Nothing that suggests younger people are being admitted but then quickly discharged - as you seem to be implying (with no evidence - funny how other people need to provide it, but you don't...)

@ddl1

*Yes. People get sick, and sometimes it’s horrible and life ruining.

It’s a normal part of the human experience though, I’m honestly really surprised by the number of adults who genuinely seem to believe they, and their relatives, will live completely healthy lives forevermore.

It’s as if people have literally only just found out that sickness and death are actual things.*

Not true at all. Of course we know that these are actual things. Certainly I do; I experienced chronic illness in my youth (fortunately I'm now much better) and also had family members with even more serious illnesses and as result of that have an INFINITE TERROR of long-term ill-health.

No one thinks they'll be alive and healthy forever, but that's no reason for just allowing people to die or become chronically ill if one doesn't have to!

There could be grounds for arguing that the economic damage of lockdown could end up causing more illness and death than it prevents. If we weren't on the verge of controlling the situation through a vaccine, I might take this argument seriously. But it is absolutely not fair to demand that people accept unnecessary ill-health or unnecessarily premature death, just because death at some point and some degree of illness are inevitable. The logical conclusion would be that we shouldn't have bothered to improve sanitation and nutrition and medicine in the last 200 years, and just be satisfied to see about one child in four dying before the age of 5 , and few people living into old age, because after all illness and death are natural!

Well said @ddl1 It baffles me that people don't get this.

@CountessFrog

In normal times, we have ITU.

They always have younger people in them. Perhaps they’ve been involved in a traffic accident, that wouldn’t lead the government to ban driving.

The only person I know personally who has been in ITU ended up there aged 31 as a result of toxic shock syndrome. Nobody banned tampons to prevent it happening again.

The aim is not to prevent younger people ending up in ITU - because if it was, then presumably we ought to ban cars and tampons.

It’s quite simply to stop the rest of the NHS from collapsing. Because in a civilised society, you can’t turn people away from emergency healthcare, and cancelling elective surgery doesn’t make the problem go away, the waiting list just grows.

When this is over, some younger people will still catch covid and have a bad reaction, just as others have traffic accidents or get toxic shock syndrome. We will not be keeping society closed to prevent it.

We don’t ban tampons because the number of people getting TSS is lower lower than Covid and it’s not causing the SAME impact around the whole world

Hospitals only have so many beds. It does seem unfair to cancel elective patients I agree.

But this is the harsh reality. You said we can’t turn patients away so what is your solution? Top and tail patients in one bed???

Groundhog Day

Thread after ducking thread on this, the same total misunderstanding

It’s not the deaths, it’s the numbers needing hospitalisations!!!

Fucking! I’m trying to swear here

How many times does this need to be explained?

It's not deaths, it'a people who haven't died that you need to be counting

@midgebabe

It's not deaths, it'a people who haven't died that you need to be counting

Exactly, if 500 healthy/younger people have died DESPITE all the restrictions, lockdowns, hospital treatment, etc., I hate to think how many people would have died without restrictions, lockdowns and hospital treatment. It could be thousands, or tens of thousands, if covid was left free to run rampant through the population. Yes, fair enough, it would be over quicker and we'd probably be past the worst of it now, but the number of avoidable deaths of healthy/younger people couldn't be acceptable, hence why we have restrictions!

@BillMasen : Exactly!

To put it bluntly, the dead are not a problem.

The problem is the very sick living.

Its always been about protecting the nhs , I can' believe even now people don't get this, yes they want less deaths as well.
But how many ops have been canceleld and treatments delayed despite lockdown, imagine how many that would be of we just let the virus go through and even more nhs staff are off , more people need hospital care for covid , half bin men are off sickn, so bins are overflowing etc etc

The same question has been asked repeatedly since last March.

People don’t seem to grasp it.
Today it’s been announced the UK has the highest death rate per capita in the world.
People still won’t grasp it.
Because they don’t want to.
At this point its plain wilful ignorance.

apple.news/A0e79-uQIScuU8y7pqoIsww

OP I sort of get your point, but it also ignores the reality we are in. Yes, maybe if we had German levels of funding, we'd be in a better state, but they have half our rates of infection and are looking into mandatory confinement of people who refuse to quarantine. Brazil is indeed the other example, and they seem on the verge of mass unrest and are dying in droves. The real problem is the conflict between freedom and safety that is unique to a pandemic. The government is trying to find that balance, and apart from the crap coming out of Patel (who at this rate would find a way to reintroduce capital punishment for drinking coffee), is taking logical decisions. The alternative ends up in tge same place with way more deaths - let it rip, people die by the side of the road in an accident. I imagine emergency services wouldn't even retrieve the bodies. Doesn't take long for people to lock themselves in their homes when they see that.

I'm sorry op but actually very ignorant. I would have thought that the phrase "save the nhs" isn't new to you? It's not "save the elderly in care homes".
When are people going to start actually thinking about the actual reason for lockdown. Do you actually think our capitalist Tory government has shut down huge swathes of the economy in case your auntie Edith in four seasons rest home dies of Covid??!

That refers to admissions though, not currently occupying beds.
Does this poster really imagine under 60s admitted with covid are only strolling in to say hi and for some odd reason choosing to have a nights rest in a shared ward with staff around at all hours before striding back out again to grab a takeaway coffee before getting back home to log into work?

To let Covid run thru the population as OP suggested might have worked if they could keep tabs on it with track and trace AND keep a hold on it by protecting our borders, stopping flights in from hotspots, AND by stopping it in care homes, preventing ruthless NHS bosses discharging Covid-riddled patients into care homes.

Our Govt failed to do any of that, or rather simply didn't want to. Personally I think it's because a) Their links to business lobby groups in this case are as toxic as the links of Old Labour to the Unions in the late 1970s, and they allowed themselves to be influenced and b) They don't give a toss about the elderly, always quite happy to see them die imo and this allows the perfect excuse to save on paying out on pensions and prescriptions.

Throw in a. dollop of all-round incompetence and you have the perfect storm where ironically they've only gone and crashed the economy in a way that possibly goes way beyond what Labour left us with in 1979. Its instigators may remain largely unaffected, of course.

I still say facvinating the 40- 70 year olds would save the NHS a lot more then prioritising care homes and over 80s

They are more likely to die but they aren’t the ones causing the NHS to collapse.

If you live to 80 you’ve had a good innings

@Silvergreen

How many times does this need to be explained?

Some people are so stupid they cannot even understand it after 10 months sadly.

I don’t know if you know but people over 40 and/or with health issues matter too. HTH.

@TransplantedScouser

I still say facvinating the 40- 70 year olds would save the NHS a lot more then prioritising care homes and over 80s

They are more likely to die but they aren’t the ones causing the NHS to collapse.

If you live to 80 you’ve had a good innings

Fascinating the 40 to70 year olds might

But as we are vaccinating we are right to stick with the priority list. 75% of hospital patients are on that list. The elderly do tend to die in hospital quicker but the ones that survive spend more time in hospital. So take up beds.

ICU patients are in the younger category but that is actually a smaller percentage of covid beds.

Currently the only age group with infections still rising in the over 80s.

Plus half the over 80s are now done and we are starting on the over 70s. Also the critically vulnerable. So a bit late to change plan if it was wrong

People who “I’m not racist but” usually go on to say something racist.

You say “I’m not looking to ‘kill granny’...but” and then go onto say something that would lead to a lot of people, grannies or otherwise, dying.

@VanillaSheHer

Grannies die. It’s a fact of life and the natural movement of life