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.

@FaithfullyYours

I agree OP. And as usual PastaRed and Delatron make good points .

@Moonstone1234 it's sad really.
I don't understand why people would want to scaremonger just for the sake of it... there is no sense or logic that prevails in their posts as well, just anecdotes.

I assume this is meant ironically?

“We have had a big range of age groups. We have had people in their 20s and people in their 70s and 80s. The vast majority are between 40 and 60. The peak is probably around 55 to 60 years old.”

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/david-hepburn-doctor-advice-coronavirus-19263490.amp

So this is a report from Israel.

www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/1947887/frightening-israels-hospitals-are-full-of-younger-seriously-ill-patients.html

The figure that they give is that at this stage of vaccination 40% of the seriously ill in Israel's hospitals are under 60.

They describe the age group 50-59 as now being very vulnerable, and detail in total some 100s of patients below 50 who are in a "serious" condition. They give numbers (but not the total numbers so the % isn't clear.)

I think the message of the article appears to be to urge younger people to get vaccinated.

There was an article in the Telegraph recently suggesting that there is significant scientific concern that large numbers of the population remain vulnerable at this point as not yet vaccinated.

This includes

• people who have not yet had the vaccine in vulnerable groups for whatever reason
• people who are vulnerable but don't know it (not vaccinated yet)
• people who are vaccinated but might still be vulnerable if they get infected. Vaccines aren't 100% against infection. We are still at an early stage of studying the effect of vaccination, some groups may still have some residual vulnerability (that's how I understand the argument)

So if numbers go up very much with relaxations, especially with more contagious variants or ones likely to cause more serious illness, then there is a possibility of more morbidity and mortality happening in younger age groups.

But this is quite a nuanced and hypothetical argument (though the risk is of significant concern). It might be too subtle to percolate through until we face some undesirable consequences a few weeks down the line.

It would be really interesting to know more about what is happening in Israel as they are enacting all this out in advance.

@RandomGrammarPun

Thanks for summonsing me with the @...

No, not made up bollocks at all.

I think you said my discrepancies were around using the phrase "right now" incorrectly. OK. The people I knew of in ITU were all in at the same time in the last week of January. I was last in school two weeks ago so have up to date info on some of them but not all. I'm not sure whether that's a discrepancy? I was taking the timescale allowed to be discussed as "this wave" or "since lockdown 3" or "pretty recently, since vaccinations have started are more younger people getting very ill" as being the allowed timeframe. Apologies if not.

I incorrectly said that they were all HCPs or education staff. 7 out of 8 are (the 8th having caught it from her teacher dh).

Someone above twisted what I'd said to be "I knew" 8 x 30 year olds. I clearly said two were in their fifties (one, a very good friend of ours who has just come out of hospital). I also didn't claim to know all of these people myself. I said, in conversation with colleagues, we were shocked to realise that many of us knew someone pretty young all very ill at the same time.

There's no agenda in my post. It's not bullshit. It's not scaremongering.

I believe you.

I'm guessing that you're in either London/Kent/Essex, which all had extremely high covid rates in November and December? I am too, and now know from friends, family and colleagues of 8 covid deaths from October to January. Five were aged 70+, but three were in their 40's, (one was obese, two had no known underlying conditions).

As the highly infectious Kent variant mostly only affected the south-east, it's easy to see why people in other U.K. areas seem to find this difficult to believe.

As regards points made previously,

• if older people are vaccinated then fewer of them will get ill

• so if we ease lockdown, especially with more virulent strains circulating, we could expect to see a rise in infections in unvaccinated people, and these will increasingly be younger people.

• if there is a pool of unvaccinated younger people, they will continue to get ill, to much the same extent as before. Perhaps previously x% were admitted and y% would sadly die - but low numbers

• If community infections increase by 3 fold, then the numbers of these younger people getting ill will increase by the same amount (3x% will be admitted and 3y% will die)

• some of these younger people will be overweight and some may have other health conditions eg asthma. (though we still would not want these young people to be seriously ill or dying).

• if the older group are increasingly absent from hospital as they have a large level of protection, those beds will be increasingly occupied by younger people. This isn't scaremongering, it's maths.

• as regards the 28 days rule, this excludes a lot of people who took more than 28 days to die of covid, and probably underestimates the total number of deaths due to covid by 10% or so. Although it may have brought the UK more in line with how other countries were reporting covid deaths last year.

I just hope we can avoid another surge (go vaccinators). And let's hope we can avoid more virulent variants coming into play.

Not quite. But in an area that actually had much higher rates than London and Kent until about a week before those areas exploded.

I honestly hesitated to post in the first place because, really, what's the point in anecdata?

I know 6 people who died in the first wave and they were all over 60.

I don't know anyone who's caught it in the second wave who IS over 60.

That doesn't mean I think you can extrapolate from my anecdotes to provide statistics for the whole country.

I don't know anyone who's caught Covid who works in a factory or is a security guard. Because I don't know anyone who works in a factory or is a security guard. Doesn't mean I think the stats about the death rates in those occupations are made up.

@herecomesthsun Why would the 28 days limit underestimate the number of deaths when people are tested regularly in hospital/under treatment for Covid/in care homes? Regardless of how long they've had it, they would therefore have tested positive and so be classed as a Covid death. Or did you just fancy some scaremongering last thing at night?

www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-reported-sars-cov-2-deaths-in-england/covid-19-confirmed-deaths-in-england-report#age-and-sex-distribution

Data here shows age mortality in England up to end of January

ICus are not full of 30/50 so stop the bullshit as your making yourself look an idiot

440 healthy people under 40 have died within 28 days of covid test

Daily deaths ar deaths within 28 days of a test - not deaths from covid

30:40

Also don’t forget most hospitals -only have 8/10 icu beds so even if full hardly bursting at the seems

@Pastanred

30:40

Also don’t forget most hospitals -only have 8/10 icu beds so even if full hardly bursting at the seems

They may do normally, but capacity was massively expanded.

Who are you talking to, Pasta?

Who is saying 30-50 year olds are dying? The thread asked for a conversation about ITU admissions.

32,000 died of covid in January in England alone this year

Only 26000 are over 70

So whilst people are going into icu they’re are not all droppping like flies is my point

I’m just speaking generally to the scaremongers on this thread!

Ok.

Yes, the vast majority of the deaths are in the elderly. No one has disputed that.

[quote HopelessBlue192]@herecomesthsun Why would the 28 days limit underestimate the number of deaths when people are tested regularly in hospital/under treatment for Covid/in care homes? Regardless of how long they've had it, they would therefore have tested positive and so be classed as a Covid death. Or did you just fancy some scaremongering last thing at night?[/quote]
re posting, it's not scaremongering (which is not a word to use for intelligent discussion ) ,I thought I would bring some depth of discussion to the debate

The 28 days rule means that people who have been diagnosed with covid for more than 4 weeks don't get counted in that set of figures when they die of covid.

So, for example, the lovely Michael Rosen was in hospital for a very long time with covid (thankfully pulled through) and was in ICU for 47 days. If someone now died of covid say at day 46, it wouldn't be counted in that set of figures as it was more than 28 days after diagnosis.

Likewise Derek Draper, who is the husband of Kate Garraway off the telly, has been in hospital since last spring, very ill, with covid. If he died tomorrow, he wouldn't be counted under the 28 day rule.

We know that quite a number of people with covid take more than 28 days to die, as I said before.

(the rules for counting cases got changed last summer)

there is another list of deaths for people 28-60 days

I brought it up as it was mentioned elsewhere in the thread that people think the covid death reporting is inflated, and I think that isn't the case.

The figures for Friday included deaths from last April so not sure about that 🧐

That's interesting, though last April, we hadn't had the tests for very long, they became available in March if I remember rightly. People might have died in April 2020 but tested positive less than 28 days earlier (in March or April 2020).

There was a big rejig of figures in the summer to take all that into account.

Happy to stand corrected if there has been any more recent change.

@Pootle40 two 16 years old have died one with pre existing conditions and one without. I would expect morbid obesity to be counted as preexisting as when I had a procedure it appeared on my records as a co- morbidity even though actually I wasn't even morbidly obese.
Not an expert though but when things like migraine and dermatitis are counted as pre existing who knows?

@Mittens030869 yes they should hopefully have been offered first dose which in a few weeks will hopefully kick in but obviously not offering full protection but pretty good . Even my group 4 dh won't have his 2nd dose till near the end of May so early June before full protection.
God knows when I as a 50 something with mild asthma and obese but not quite morbidly will get mine. Our area seems behind.

All this talk of 'scare mongering' is just . The people chucking the word around aren't engaging with the topic at hand.

If someone doesn't understand that the same percentage of a larger number of people could become ill if rates increase post lockdown, that's either lack of understanding or just putting heads in the sand because the whole issue is too much to process.

Since the beginning of discussions about covid in Dec 2019 there have been people shouting 'scare monger'. They have been proven wrong repeatedly because the facts, both biological and mathematical, are just facts.

Rates will rise amongst unvaccinated groups as we begin to unlock.
Different % risks for different age groups will remain broadly the same unless vaccinated.

a x b is a smaller number than a x 2b or a x 3b. That is all we are discussing on this thread - and the people who shout 'scare monger' are making loud noises but they have no alternative reality to live in.

Thank goodness for vaccines as that will change the numbers in the basic equation.

I hope non medical people understand that anyone can end up in ITU at any age due to a wide variety of problems, not just Covid like the press want you to think!!!

@SakuraEdenSwan1

I hope non medical people understand that anyone can end up in ITU at any age due to a wide variety of problems, not just Covid like the press want you to think!!!

This is a big part of why we need covid rates low because it isn't a good time to fall off a motorbike due to extreme NHS pressure.

The media is not to blame for the fact that a very high percentage of hospital admissions are covid related.

@Weepingwillow22

I found this chart for The Netherlands, 32% of ICU admissions are below the age of 60 and 51% of hospital admissions.

That looks interesting do you have a link for it please? I googled but couldn't find anything

Do note that British (E/W/NI) data has already been linked to this thread (post at Sat 20-Feb-21 08:00:52)

@scaevola

Do note that British (E/W/NI) data has already been linked to this thread (post at Sat 20-Feb-21 08:00:52)

I have already read that thanks. Just thought that chart looked interesting.

@OliveTree75 It is from here, quite an interesting read although dates from last May. <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/nl/Documents/deloitte-analytics/deloitte-nl-sots-covid-interventies-factbook.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjPh8jnx_ruAhVMXsAKHS-7CxwQFjAAegQIAhAC&usg=AOvVaw1qM5DTXekevUtjy6rt2Rox" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/nl/Documents/deloitte-analytics/deloitte-nl-sots-covid-interventies-factbook.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjPh8jnx_ruAhVMXsAKHS-7CxwQFjAAegQIAhAC&usg=AOvVaw1qM5DTXekevUtjy6rt2Rox