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.

My friends husband has been un hospital since February which is when she last saw him. Hes in his forties without any underlying health conditions. Hes still alive however he has had various bits and pieces removed including a kidney and most of the inside of his nose. So yes whilst I agree the death rate may be low it appears this is a horrible disease that can have awful consequences for the rest of your life.

Really - could you not have posted on one of the many other threads trotting out this shit? Seriously, there are so many posts along these Lines that you Could add your comment to. Why on earth start a new one?

It's the damage it's doing to younger people too. It's thought to leave people with pulmonary fibrosis. I watched my mum die, gasping for breath. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I'm not saying the numbers are wrong by the way but it seems so weird that it's so low and yet I personally know 2 people under 45 who've died.

(Obviously a coincidence but it does make me take the whole thing very seriously!)

Both had children

@Witchend

Not this again.

Okay. You have an accident. You fall from the loft and break your back and hit your head causing severe concussion while doing DIY. In normal times your dp phones 999 and they send an ambulance/air ambulance and you get a hospital bed.

If the NHS is overwhelmed, then you're told that there is no ambulance.
Ever phoned 999 and got through to a message "we are experiencing especially high levels of calls right now, and there is no operator to take your call. Please hang up and call again" and then the line goes dead?
I have. I had that at work. It took 3 times to get through with someone unconscious on the floor with suspected stroke. It is absolutely terrifying and you feel totally helpless. In our case we got through on the third time and then we were told we were high priority- only three hour wait.
We got the person to hospital in the car when they regained consciousness.
With a broken back and head injury you can't do that; potentially deadly if you try and move them.

And maybe there's no bed when you get there. And the consultant/surgeon you would normally have had is off isolating, so they've not got any one who can really deal with you.
And maybe you catch covid in hospital. You're now weak and vulnerable, so you may end up as one of those "doesn't really count" statistics.

Or are you suggesting the doctors look at people and say "you know, this person counts as vulnerable, they've had pretty bad asthma for twenty years, we can't afford the bed for them when we know we'll have someone who has a better chance of survival.
Do you know what's on the list for people with "underlying conditions"? There's certainly several you wouldn't expect to effect chance of survival-like mental health issues.
Maybe they look at your injuries and think "this person will need an ICU bed and we haven't got one" and have to make the decision they won't do the lifesaving operation because there are too many other people needing help with a better chance of survival than you.

That is what you are looking at if the NHS is overwhelmed.

You're not locking down just to stop the elderly dying from covid. You are locking down to enable people to get their cancer diagnosis, their heart operation, their kidney dialysis, their transplant they've been waiting for for three years... and your dc to be able to get urgent treatment when they present with symptoms of meningitis etc.
People will die and be left with life changing conditions because they will not have been able to access what they need. That is the reality of the NHS being overwhelmed.

I would have thought that after around ten months people would have been able to work this out for themselves rather than needing it spelt out.

I was about to write a similar reply! The OP's attitude is such a shallow and blasé one that anyone with half a brain may have thought at one point, but then considered the wider ramifications of this virus and adjusted their thinking. I really do despair of the stupidity of some posters like the OP.

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.

@Cocopogo Yes I wonder how many younger people are dying from cancer and other conditions because they aren’t getting the treatment they need a lot less than there would be if we had let Covid-19 run rampant and not had lockdowns etc
The more people contract Covid the less capacity there will be to treat people with cancer.
I am struggling to understand how you can be so stupid not to realise this.

It’s the lack of treatment when you or your kids get cancer or in a car accident as the NHS work force depletes from those fighting covid and those 20% with long covid who can’t return to work and don’t know if they ever will.

If you feel otherwise, please talk me round
Why the fuck should people waste their time on you? Stop being so ignorant and lazy, use google and read the news.

OP, your logic sounds like "See how few people die getting ejected from their vehicles these days? That proves seat belts are unnecessary."

And lots of other ill people are not getting the treatment they need. So their condition might become fatal because of this.

True, but that's not because of lockdown. Healthcare workers have ALWAYS been treated as key workers, and exempt from lockdown.

The reason why some ill people aren't getting the treatment that they need is because healthcare facilities are being over-run, because there are so many people desperately ill with Covid. This happens to some extent every winter but it's MUCH worse than usual. Lockdowns are at least as much to protect health services so that people can be treated for any emergency as to protect people from Covid in particular.

In addition, some people may decide to avoid hospitals because they are scared of getting Covid on top of their other health problems. It is not totally unreasonable: many cases are contracted in hospitals, and Covid is likely to be more serious if a patient already has another serious condition. Though doctors warn that people should not ignore the symptoms of a heart attack or stroke because of such fears.

The current vaccination programme will hopefully put an end both to lockdowns and to hospitals' lack of capacity. Though I hope this will show governments the importance of increasing funding for the NHS.

Perhaps they need to look at expanding the capacity of the NHS?

Sorry, but what you have said is disgraceful.
It makes more sense that ever to lock-down until everyone (or at least the more vulnerable) have their vaccines. If we can't wait that long then the everything will have been in vain.
Once again, I am shocked by your callous post.

Lord knows, I'm not looking to "kill granny."

And this line - not to mention your thread title - was the way you chose to express this deep concern you go on to say you have for the elderly and vulnerable. My lovely dad was one of those older Covid victims. You are dismissing his value as a person, no matter what you think. And you can fuck right off with it, and take my utter contempt with you.

I don’t agree with the OP but those saying we are protecting the NHS to enable people to access non covid treatments maybe haven’t been unfortunate enough to have urgent cancer ops cancelled or be paused on an organ transplant waiting list solely due to Covid. I am not anti lockdown but these threads are a kick in the teeth. I don’t blame the NHS for these delays but I think it’s vital to recognise non Covid patients are really suffering as well and despite the lockdown, we are still not getting access to important treatment. I know it’s really crap for many people. :(

The elderly aren't getting ITU beds. The average age in ITU is a lot lower than the average age dying.

Perhaps they need to look at expanding the capacity of the NHS?

You think? Maybe vote for the political,party that advocates that.

You can’t expand capacity overnight. Hospitals need to be built, staff need to be trained,

And taxes need to be paid to pay for it.

Yet another thread about this. Whether or not you are for or against killing granny, you are talking about completely filling up hospitals so that as a result you're killing mum, dad, brother, child etc etc if they need urgent hospitalisation. And yourself, and Granny.

So the 4,500 deaths you've cited are an acceptable number for you to lift lockdown for? But if that's the number given restrictions, what do you think they'd be of everything was opened up?
How many under 60s is it ok to let die before we lockdown,?

Personally I'm not sure we would just ignore the deaths of anyone over 60 either, plenty of men at least will still have children at home at that age, DSs will be 19 and 15 when DH takes the age where apparently life is worthless. Even though he'll still otherwise be expected to keep working

It’s not the deaths, it’s what you need to do to keep people alive
It’s more akin to cancer. 450 people a day die of cancer.
You keep people alive by stopping people getting it ( smoking, sun burn etc) and by keeping them alive through prolonged treatment. You don’t say bollocks to it.

The hospitals are full of younger patients, not the over 80s. Patients are often in for weeks, occupying ICU beds. Lots of NHS staff are off sick. We need lockdown. That and the vaccine can get us out of this. Why don't you understand this yet? Just be patient and put up with it like everyone else has to. Nobody is having a great time at the moment.

Totally agree - but too many people on MN know otherwise and this thread doesn't have a hope in hell of not being overrun by those who know better.

Sorry, didn't mean to post and run. I appreciate the discussion and in the interests of keeping the peace, decline to respond to those few ad-hominem attacks.

I do think on the subject of keeping the NHS from being overwhelmed, you might all want to check out these facts:
the number of hospital beds in the UK plunged to 164,000 in 2018 (the last year for which Statista.com had figures) from 240,000 in 2000, while hospital admissions rose.

The UK has the lowest number of hospital beds per capita in all of Europe except for Sweden and Denmark, which have a lot more at-home nurses by the way (I have relatives in Sweden). The UK has 250 beds per 100,000 people; France has 591, Germany has 800.

Of course it would be stupid for us to overwhelm the NHS now, but it's my understanding the NHS is here to look after us, not the other way around. Our Tory governments appear to have forgotten that.

Of course it would be stupid for us to overwhelm the NHS now, but it's my understanding the NHS is here to look after us, not the other way around. Our Tory governments appear to have forgotten that.
So you don't want to overwhelm it but you think we should let it be overwhelmed because it's not our job, it's the Tories?

Oh, and another point. There is some reason to think the real reason is helping keep the NHS from getting overwhelmed may not be its impact on covid deaths alone. Flu cases are dramatically down this year, and the government's justification for the otherwise slightly illogical rule against driving somewhere further away to exercise seems to be partly that they don't need to be dealing with car accidents on top of everything else.

The UK has a higher death rate per 100,000 people than Sweden (though that might be down to lower population density) or than the US, which has never fully locked down anywhere (bizarrely, even in US regions where schools were closed, shops haven't been; then again, Americans started wearing face masks a lot earlier, at least if they weren't Republicans).