ICU full of young people

[Sleeplessinsaltend]

I keep hearing from people on here that ICU is full of young people, if we unlock then the wards will be full of 30/40 year olds. Looking at this it seems not to be the case.

Your chat doesn’t have any information about icu admissions, op.

I assume as hospital admissions for the younger age groups, which may also include people who have caught covid while admitted, would suggest that the wards are not teaming with 20/30/40 year olds as posters on here keep suggesting.

Your hospital (not ICU) admission data is per 100,000 population. I can't check the small print for your screen shot as I can't see it - but when I've seen graphs like that previously, it's per 100,000 in each age band. That makes the data useful for comparing the risk of an individual 50 year old ending up in hospital versus an individual 85 year old. What the data doesn't showing is that there are e.g. millions more 45-64 year olds than over 85 year olds - so there are a lot more of the younger people in hospital than your data makes it look like there should be.

Some people on here are all about keeping us scared and locked down. Now that they can't scare us about "killing granny" (because granny is vaccinated) they have to move on to scaring us about ourselves being in ICU.
They can't claim that 30 yesr old are dying because we can look at the data and see that is now true, whereas there don't seem to be statistics on ICU admissions.

If you have GCSE maths, then you should be able to work out that if we unlock too quickly ICU would be full of unvaccinated people, including a much higher number in their 30s/40s than there are currently.

*not true

@Duckchick

Your hospital (not ICU) admission data is per 100,000 population. I can't check the small print for your screen shot as I can't see it - but when I've seen graphs like that previously, it's per 100,000 in each age band. That makes the data useful for comparing the risk of an individual 50 year old ending up in hospital versus an individual 85 year old. What the data doesn't showing is that there are e.g. millions more 45-64 year olds than over 85 year olds - so there are a lot more of the younger people in hospital than your data makes it look like there should be.

And yes - this is correct.

But facts are not always well received so I fear you may be on a hiding to nothing.

The stats are around.

One simple one given by the CMO and PM last week was that 60% of people in ITU are under 70. So, not 30-50 year olds, but still the majority of those in ITU are in groups not yet had a vaccine.

(But, yes. Anecdotally, they do seem to be getting younger. Amongst my work colleagues - teacher - we knew 6 ppl in the local ITU in their 30s the week before half term, half of whom were medical staff.)

That doesn't follow, sorry.

The ONS statistics suggest that the numbers of the unvaccinated groups in hospital is very low. As the ECV groups are vaccinated then we should see a complete drop in hospital admissions for that group. We can see from the statistics that the lies a lot of posters on here spout about Hospitals teaming with young people isn’t true. That’s the only point of my post. I’ve read it in too many threads this week.
Also, as the news about hospital acquired infections was released last week, we know many of those people will have gone in to hospital without covid.

I don’t understand this as surely if ITU’s were full of younger people of working age the government would be going like hellfire to vaccinate them as that is the working population that keeps the economy going, it is also the parents of young children, young children the government would have to look after if their parents were in hospital as currently the grandparents can’t, so to me it doesn’t make sense.

@PracticingPerson

If you have GCSE maths, then you should be able to work out that if we unlock too quickly ICU would be full of unvaccinated people, including a much higher number in their 30s/40s than there are currently.

I do have gcse maths but I can't work out why having more people vaccinated would increase the severity of covid in younger people. It's not as if there is currently a cohort of under 40s being denied critical beds because the over 80s need them. Obvioulsy we can't predict new strais but how iis increasing numbers of vaccintaed linked to younger people with worse cases?

I don’t think that image says anything about the ages of people in ICU beds though, does it? It just shows hospitalisations and deaths. Most people with Covid are not in ICU - some because they are not sick enough, others because they are receiving end of life care.

Anecdotes suggest the average age of ICU patients is early sixties, although I can’t find any stats on this.

If we get to a stage where most people over 50 have been vaccinated, but the virus is allowed to spread more widely amongst the unvaccinated younger people this will result in more younger people becoming critically ill, simply because more younger people will have the disease.

PP means we'd only need one doubling of infection rate to see ITU full of people under, say, 60 (if they currently make up half the cases).

Or two doublings if they make up a quarter.

That's basic maths. And what we'd get if we opened up society with few measures when, say, only the over 60s or over 50s were vaccinated. More younger people would be in ITU and die - and they already make up a decent percentage.

@PracticingPerson

If you have GCSE maths, then you should be able to work out that if we unlock too quickly ICU would be full of unvaccinated people, including a much higher number in their 30s/40s than there are currently.

Why would the age of people in ICU suddenly increase?

@RandomGrammarPun

The stats are around.

One simple one given by the CMO and PM last week was that 60% of people in ITU are under 70. So, not 30-50 year olds, but still the majority of those in ITU are in groups not yet had a vaccine.

(But, yes. Anecdotally, they do seem to be getting younger. Amongst my work colleagues - teacher - we knew 6 ppl in the local ITU in their 30s the week before half term, half of whom were medical staff.)

Therefore if the overall numbers catching covid double, or triple, across the population, and nothing else changes, we could get ICU occupancy higher than current levels despite the fact the older groups have been now been vaccinated.

Info on ICUs during COVID

www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/fa237058-f072-eb11-912e-00505601089b

You can't read across from general hospital admission data to ICU admission.

So far, we've just managed that everyone who needs an ICU bed got one. Scores of patients - for medical reasons - are not admitted to ICUs (even when a bed available) because it is held not to be in their best interests to have that level of intrusive treatment with vanishingly low chance of improvement. And that is a major reason why figures just cannot and must not be read across in that way.

Wider hospital admissions is of course important - getting numbers with severe disease (whether ICU or not) down is important, as when the danger of NHS being overwhelmed has ebbed (ie we come off level 5) then the chances of being able to open up safely increase considerably. That is why the vaccination priorities are as they are.

And of course the difference between rate per 100k and absolute numbers.

Under 50’s are not at great risk of hospitalisation unless CEV and they will be being vaccinated. It makes no sense to say that the risk will increase once people are vaccinated. Covid won’t decide to go harder on the under 50’s as it hasn’t got them to infect anymore. Physically the under 50’s are not particularly in danger of hospitalisation from covid of healthy.

Younger means under 70.

I do have gcse maths but I can't work out why having more people vaccinated would increase the severity of covid in younger people. It's not as if there is currently a cohort of under 40s being denied critical beds because the over 80s need them. Obvioulsy we can't predict new strais but how iis increasing numbers of vaccintaed linked to younger people with worse cases?

That’s not what is being said. When restrictions are eased infections will continue. If they are eased too far and too quickly the infections will rise amongst the unvaccinated young. If more young people have the disease the same proportion of them will become critically ill but this will be a larger number.

@buttheywereonlysatilites - I didn't say the age would increase, I think you misread my post.

I do have gcse maths but I can't work out why having more people vaccinated would increase the severity of covid in younger people. It's not as if there is currently a cohort of under 40s being denied critical beds because the over 80s need them. Obvioulsy we can't predict new strais but how iis increasing numbers of vaccintaed linked to younger people with worse cases?

It won't increase the severity but more people will catch covid if not in lockdown. There will be more cases, so there will be more in their 30s/40s getting seriously ill. This is simple multiplication.

Agree OP - remember it's another tactic designed to scare us into compliance as they can no longer talk about killing Granny.

Well, that's not true, is it?

We know that CEV are most at risk of dying. No idea about needing ITU. None of the six people I'm taking about aged between 29-37 in ITU at the moment have any underlying health conditions. Nor my two friends in their 50s who were ventilated a few weeks before that. (All 8 of these anecdote cases were HCPs or teacher, so viral load very probably paid a part.)

No, CV won't randomly attack younger people just because others are vaccinated - but it will if measures are eased.

@HopelessBlue192

Agree OP - remember it's another tactic designed to scare us into compliance as they can no longer talk about killing Granny.

Yes absolutely, because the scientists and medical doctors (you know, the ones who have degrees in this stuff) are just sheeple who are obsessed with the roolz and love lockdown.

People who can't do maths are the real experts, we should listen to them more I think.

@Sockwomble

Younger means under 70.

Probably - depends who is speaking

I find it usually means 'working age' so as that's 67ish, then under 70 means much the same (used to say 65, but changes to retirement age have changed this too)