I'm not a denier or anything but this got me thinking

[HoppingOnSteppingStones]

A covid denier in know posted on FB. If there's so many deaths. Why aren't we seeing loads of private ambulances, funerals etc about.
I live very close in fact I can see the local main hospital from my house. And often see the private ambulances leaving the hospital. Haven't seen any in months
My pil live less than 3min on the same road as the crematorium and said they don't see a huge increase in services.

I'm honestly not denying anything. I totally know covid exists etc but that did get me thinking.
And im sure someone has a perfectly logical explanation on here.

[Madhairday]

@Nottheduchessofcambridge did you not read this post a few posts ago, the one that has been all over the news?

There were close to 697,000 deaths in 2020 - nearly 85,000 more than would be expected based on the average in the previous five years.

You're getting your information from outdated social media posts.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-55631693

[PastMyBestBeforeDate]

So Cherry says I believe the virus is real with a 99.9% recovery rate for most people.
Inadvertently she's right. Most people, as in 50.1% of the people who catch Covid, do have a 99.9% (or indeed a 100%) recovery rate.
I suspect that's not what she meant to say so you can add a deficiency in English skills to the deficiency in critical thinking.

[magicstar1]

My SIL’s family are undertakers in UK and are busier than ever unfortunately.

[CandyLeBonBon]

My friend is a bereavement counsellor at our local crematorium and she's swamped with work.

[PastMyBestBeforeDate]

Just in case... I'm a shielded (ECV) and at least 5 adults I know in real life are currently +ve or recovering.

[mrshoho]

[quote Nottheduchessofcambridge]@bumblingbovine49 it’s not hard to google. In 2018 there were 541,000 deaths, in 2020 there were 543,000 deaths (rounded the figures as I can’t remember them exactly) now that’s not much of a rise considering there’s a pandemic. I’m not saying people aren’t dying of Covid right now, I’m just giving an explanation why all morgues and funeral homes aren’t being overrun. Deaths attributed to other causes are way down because people are staying at home, less road accidents etc.[/quote]
You may want to go back and look again. The 2018 figure was for England and Wales. The 2020 figure you quoted was for England up to 11 December so not the entire year. Add on the figures for Wales and it is closer to 578000!

[AuntyPasta]

Someone in my extended family died recently. The usual crematorium was only offering 15 minute slots - that’s 15 minutes from the moment the hearse pulls up with the body. When the time is up you have to be outside the building. They went elsewhere to get 10 extra minutes. There are limits on the numbers who can attend and many elderly relatives chose not to attend. What would have been a funeral attended by 50+ people in normal times was attended by less than 20 people.

My mother’s cousin died during the last lockdown and there was no funeral service. His wife was shielding.

Bodies are being shunted through as fast as possible.

[LoudBatPerson]

The have just built at 1300 capacity extension at the morgue of the crematorium near me.

There are a lot of funerals taking place.

[Mincepie5]

My brother is a covid denier. He doesn’t watch the news, doesn’t listen to the radio. Says he doesn’t believe a word of it. Has no idea that thousands of people are dying. People have spoken on here of his sort being mentally ill. I think he lost the plot years ago. My Dad says he’s mad. I’m trying to find out what sort of mental illness he would have. Not getting the answers online though. Would anyone know?

[DamnBadLuck]

@ThatWasThat

Ignorant people unaware of the crisis doesn't bother me at all - unless they then ignore the rules and infect others. Then they have a case to answer.

The two things do tend to go together

[LindaEllen]

My DP works for a funeral company. They're having to store bodies in sealed coffins in the garage because they have no fridges. He comes home quite literally smelling of death as he's in there cleaning his car with dead bodies stacked up around him.

This is a real problem.

We need to stick to the rules.

[Pickle48]

Whilst each death is awful news, I personally think that the incremental rate is too small to notice.

Lets just say for arguments sake there were 530k deaths in 2019, it represents a 16% increase. That assumes even distribution over the year, which clearly its not as it comes in waves. And it assumes an even distribution of deaths over a geographical area too

But would you notice if there were 16% more funerals in the local area.

[MildlyMiserable]

I drove to a hospital appointment today, 5 miles away, I stopped twice in each direction for blue light ambulances and saw another half a dozen either in front or behind me. I drove because I’m shielding and my last letter from the Government instructs that whilst I should attend medical appointments, I should either walk or cycle. Do not use public transport, do not car share, no option but to drive, considering my appointment was in central London driving is not my usual mode of transport but I’m following all guidelines available.
The atmosphere in the hospital was different today, even from just a month ago.
Even the Outpatient staff are overwhelmed because their colleagues have been redeployed.
I don’t think they’re pretending.

[AllTheWayFromLondonDAMN]

East London here, definitely see a lot more ambulances.

[dottiedaisee]

I can honestly say that anyone that questions the mortality rate are very welcome to stand in my shoes!! I only work part time 24 hrs a week and I have comforted at least 15 relatives since the 4th January...consider yourself lucky! There is a reason why I am still awake so late in the evening!

[dottiedaisee]

@LindaEllen

My DP works for a funeral company. They're having to store bodies in sealed coffins in the garage because they have no fridges. He comes home quite literally smelling of death as he's in there cleaning his car with dead bodies stacked up around him.

This is a real problem.

We need to stick to the rules.

This ..the undertakers that I have dealings with are sending bodies to Essex from Kent!

[Arobase]

Check on all the doctors that agree online one being dr.Vernon Coleman. Believe what u will but do your own research before you join the rest of the sheep

By all means do your own research, but do it properly, don't go for random certified conspiraloons like Coleman. Look at the BMJ, look at peer reviewed science. What conceivable motive do you imagine that governments all over the world have for buggering up their respective economies for, according to you, a harmless flu type virus? Wanting to track is self-evidently not the answer: tracking and tracing isn't happening in the poorer countries, and in the richer ones they can already do more tracking than they could realistically use effectively via mobile phones and CCTV cameras.

[Pickle48]

Also, anyone who has done a reasonable level of scientific learning would know that you can not form a conclusion based off a small sample size, especially one that is not randomly distributed throughout the entire population.

So to the OP, you cant look out your window and say there aren't that many ambulances or funerals and come to any conclusion from that observation. Actually what you would need to do is randomly choose 50 funeral homes, scattered across the country, take surveys of number of deaths etc etc. Oh and you would have to do that again and again, and take an average. Only then could you start to begin to make a conclusion. You would also need a control group to compare it to ... thats going to be a little trickier as ideally you would have previous years data but that likely doesn't exist.

However... equally, the people who are replying to the OP saying "my friend is an funeral director and they are swamped.. stop being silly" are equally as guilty. Because can't you see that you are making exactly the same mistake as the OP - a single observation isn't statistically significant enough to disprove the OPs theory I'm afraid.

[tolerable]

ah..a deny-er ..nothing to do with tights\stockings then....

[1dayatatime]

Number of monthly deaths between 2015 and November 2020.

Make your own conclusions.

Source Statista

[Heyahun]

Oh gawd stop!!! 😩

[bumblingbovine49]

[quote Nottheduchessofcambridge]@bumblingbovine49 it’s not hard to google. In 2018 there were 541,000 deaths, in 2020 there were 543,000 deaths (rounded the figures as I can’t remember them exactly) now that’s not much of a rise considering there’s a pandemic. I’m not saying people aren’t dying of Covid right now, I’m just giving an explanation why all morgues and funeral homes aren’t being overrun. Deaths attributed to other causes are way down because people are staying at home, less road accidents etc.[/quote]
@Nottheduchessofcambridge
I'm afraid as others have already pointed out , your numbers are wrong


The reason the op hasn't seen many ambulances and has not noticed any funerals is not because we don't have more deaths than average We do. We have more excess deaths this year than we have had for 75 years, this was the case in November and didn't include December deaths.

When looking at age and population standardised mortality, excess deaths are the highest for over 10 years. This means that we have reversed 10 years of improved mortality rates in one year

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-55631693

[iailwfsaidc]

I have had contact with a funeral director and stone mason company as I have been having a gravestone erected. The job has been done now but it's taken nearly a year from first contacting them. All the time they have been very apologetic about the delays because they are completely run off their feet with the increase in deaths.
The boss of the company said they've never been this busy in the 40 years he's been there.

I also had to deal with the council cemetries department due to purchasing a grave and an issue with another family grave and it was really difficult to get in touch with them too. They took a long time to deal with any query - again they were very apologetic and said there were so many burials and cremations going on due to the increase in deaths that they were run off their feet and extra staff had to be moved from another council department.

[WaxOnFeckOff]

Whilst there are a lot of deaths attributed to covid, we still don't know how many people died from covid rather than with covid.

There are excess deaths but there have been previous years in the 21st century with as high or higher death rates. The difference being that we really didn't know anything about them at the time, heavy flu years etc. no lock down, no shielding etc.

I'm not denying covid but apart from hot spots, you really aren't likely to notice too much unless you are in a hospital or in Scotland getting the daily lecture.

[shamalidacdak]

Maybe you should stop thinking OP