Page 3 | Four deaths today

StealthPolarBear · 2021-04-19T21:37:35+00:00

Sad and awful for them and their families. Good in terms of overall trend.who would have thought we'd get here when we were at 2000 deaths per day? Thanks to everyone who made this happen.

AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair · 20/04/2021 07:46

[quote Chatterbox1987]@GiveMeTulipsfromAmsterdam it's really interesting... I was talking with friend the other day... at what point do we stop trying to extend life....life expectancy has gone up 50 years in the last 100 years.. there is no way our world can sustain expectancy getting much higher... yet we seem to spend so much time and money on extending every life as long as possible in a world that is already massively over populated.[/quote]
Surely that can't be right, I don't know what it is now but say it's 75 it wasn't 25 in 1920. Do you mean over the last 1000 years?

Whatever the figure is it must be on a more slowly increasing line and will reach a limit.

lubeybooby · 20/04/2021 07:47

Massively grateful to science for getting us out of this. I've said on a few threads, there's more vaccinations all the time but I think we've already broken the back of it and it can only get better now despite all the reopening of things so far. Huge relief.

Some caution still needed for now of course but I'm so delighted with how it's going

Original poster

StealthPolarBear · 20/04/2021 07:58

If it is right (and I can check later) it'll be to do with sharp reductions in infant deaths and, as you say, a gradual increase at the top end

OP posts:

Bluntness100 · 20/04/2021 08:03

Op I agree with you, I was surprised when Boris said it was due to lock down, I’m sure in part it is, but it seemed an own goal, there is no doubt the vaccine program has been successful and is making a major impact, so why down play it, you want to incentivise folks to get the vaccine, it would seem right now they really want to stress how successful lock down is and keep folks complying with the rules.

I suspect when he stated that he was focused on how to get people to comply with the road map.

AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair · 20/04/2021 08:16

@StealthPolarBear

If it is right (and I can check later) it'll be to do with sharp reductions in infant deaths and, as you say, a gradual increase at the top end

I've had a quick look and it seems like global life expectancy might have increased by 30 some years in the last 100 but I can't see the figure of 50 and certainly not in the UK which was what I'd assumed we were discussing based on the 4 deaths figure. You are correct that the average isn't slightly misleading due to the infant death factor.

ElinoristhenewEnid · 20/04/2021 08:17

I agree that a lot of 'covid' deaths are people who died with covid rather than of it.

My friend's df was 90 with multiple health conditions, admitted to hospital terminally ill - covid free when admitted then had a positive test whilst an inpatient. He died as expected but covid was put on his death certificate- a statistic but no way died of covid.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 20/04/2021 08:31

@Bluntness100

Op I agree with you, I was surprised when Boris said it was due to lock down, I’m sure in part it is, but it seemed an own goal, there is no doubt the vaccine program has been successful and is making a major impact, so why down play it, you want to incentivise folks to get the vaccine, it would seem right now they really want to stress how successful lock down is and keep folks complying with the rules.

I suspect when he stated that he was focused on how to get people to comply with the road map.

Tbf to Boris, every statistician/scientist I know who’s been analysing the U.K. figures for the past year has been saying the same thing before Boris did. And I don’t have any reason to think they are wrong.

There is a vaccine effect but the bulk of the reduction in deaths is to do with the lockdown leading to much fewer cases of Covid. 4 is a great number though. And it will still be going in the right direction for at least a while. It’s a huge achievement.!

Original poster

StealthPolarBear · 20/04/2021 08:35

Rafal yes I've seen the same and am sure they're right but it just feels like the vaccine surely must be having a huge impact.

OP posts:

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 20/04/2021 08:52

It’s probably having a greater effect than we can see from the data. It’s just that it’s hidden by the lockdown effect. I’m not arguing that there’s no effect, just that Boris isn’t completely wrong about most of the effect being lockdown at the moment.

The big test will be what happens in a month or so from restrictions loosening, especially the may 17 ones, I think.

MrsHastingslikethebattle · 20/04/2021 09:53

@Deux

Pre Covid about 11,500 people a week die in the UK so about 1600 a day.

A fact that people dismiss or just don't acknowledge.

If anyone dies of Covid its 1 death too many and a tragedy...anything else, that's okay.

RosieLemonade · 20/04/2021 10:20

I think if it less than 10 (possibly more) it should just be presented as -10 rather than a specific number. If it continues to be consistently less than 50, do they need to tell us every day?

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 20/04/2021 10:35

I think you are probably right, Rosie. It would be nice to know the first day there are no reported deaths. I think that’s a significant milestone and probably psychologically important as much as anything else.

user1497207191 · 20/04/2021 10:38

@Pinchoftums

Thank fuck for vaccines.

And the 3 month lockdown!

Delatron · 20/04/2021 10:48

Agree @RosieLemonade especially as lots of these deaths might be from weeks (months!) ago. Why not just tell us when/if they go above say 50 again. Make the information available online for those that want it but do we really need a daily announcement?

Delatron · 20/04/2021 10:49

Just because Covid is an infectious disease why do the 4 people who died of Covid matter more than the 250 that died of cancer? Or suicide?

HazeyJaneII · 20/04/2021 10:53

@Delatron

Just because Covid is an infectious disease why do the 4 people who died of Covid matter more than the 250 that died of cancer? Or suicide?

They don't 'matter more', the numbers matter because although things are improving and we are moving forward, we are still in a pandemic, and the only way we can move forward safely is watching the figures for hospitalisations and deaths, and monitoring new variants.

AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair · 20/04/2021 11:20

@Delatron

Agree *@RosieLemonade* especially as lots of these deaths might be from weeks (months!) ago. Why not just tell us when/if they go above say 50 again. Make the information available online for those that want it but do we really need a daily announcement?

I thought that was how the information is communicated each day. When is the daily announcement, I keep having to Google the web page very time I want to see the stats, for purely selfish reasons I'd find it easier to watch an announcement

user1497207191 · 20/04/2021 11:48

@Delatron

Just because Covid is an infectious disease why do the 4 people who died of Covid matter more than the 250 that died of cancer? Or suicide?

Exactly because it's infectious. You can't "catch" cancer or suicide from other people.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 20/04/2021 11:58

@Delatron

Think cancer deaths will be rising now for years to come unfortunately. Many missed diagnoses.

And no it’s not a ‘death off’ but we do need to get some perspective here.

Yes!

The perspective is that with covid cases being so bloody low we are ever closer to a normal running NHS. THANK FUCK FOR THAT!

Many missed diagnoses and many new diagnoses made during covid restrictions but also a shorter period of NHS restrictions than we might have had. THANK FUCK FOR THAT!

Maybe a more rounded perspective is required than just looking for the negatives. The swings and the roundabouts, if you see what I mean!

CuriousaboutSamphire · 20/04/2021 12:03

@StealthPolarBear

Bluntness yet the PM says the fall in rates is all about lockdown and nothing to do with vaccine. I really don't understand that, and if he's bending the truth I don't see how it benefits him. But I do agree with you, how can it not be when the majority of our over 80s had their first dose months ago now. Have we ever had numbers this low?

That's because vaccines work best when the viral load, socially , is lowest. So lockdown got the numbers of infections low, now the vaccines will be able to keep them low, help reduce them to levels we/the government can deal with whilst living more normal lives.

Of course, that we have effective vaccines so quickly has been nothing short of a miracle! Imagine what we would be doing now if that had not happened...

It's more of that incremental data, the ever changing information streams, corrections to older data and updating knowledge bases. The stuff that makes conspiracy theorists thrive - cos They keep doing u-turns etc!

CuriousaboutSamphire · 20/04/2021 12:08

@Delatron

Agree *@RosieLemonade* especially as lots of these deaths might be from weeks (months!) ago. Why not just tell us when/if they go above say 50 again. Make the information available online for those that want it but do we really need a daily announcement?

Where have you been?!

What do you think the ONS, and may other government and Health offices do?

Those deaths from weeks(months!) ago are signs of the data still being live. Corrected as and when new data comes in. It is why we have such good data analysis, something many other countries do not have.

It drives me mad when the data streams are so poorly understood and yet so easily denigrated. We get a lot of information. We can ignore all of it. But it is there.

Delatron · 20/04/2021 12:18

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Yes the data is corrected I am aware of that. It doesn’t change the fact that many see the death total and take it to mean that those deaths happened in the last few days. Which many didn’t.
Last week they added quite a few on from March 2020, obviously they need to do this to have an accurate total figure. But many papers claimed deaths were rising etc and this was misleading.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 20/04/2021 12:25

[quote Delatron]@CuriousaboutSamphire

Yes the data is corrected I am aware of that. It doesn’t change the fact that many see the death total and take it to mean that those deaths happened in the last few days. Which many didn’t.
Last week they added quite a few on from March 2020, obviously they need to do this to have an accurate total figure. But many papers claimed deaths were rising etc and this was misleading.[/quote]
Ignoring the papers, journalists have their own agenda, that people misunderstand this is because they don't listen, perhaps.

Every singe podium talk explains the numbers. Explains the corrections, any changes etc.

People who don't connect with data are easiest to mislead. That has always been the case. That's whay some posters (me ncluded) relentlessly post corrections to the more misinformed or negative sounding posts - even though it can make me sound like a Boris loving numpty!

My questions to you would probably be: Why 50? Tell us how? Where online? And others, but I am sure you get my drift... no one procedure would be right for everyone.

Delatron · 20/04/2021 12:32

@CuriousaboutSamphire I’m not what you’re arguing about. You are someone who is interested in data and gets annoyed when the general public don’t understand it? Who are you annoyed with? The people who ‘don’t connect with data’?

My view is that it is presented through the media in a misleading way, possibly via the government. You can’t honestly think the government does not leak things to the media that suit their narrative. Now yes I take it with a pinch of salt and search different sources. Many people don’t though. So my beef is with the government and the media. Not everyone will be hunting down multiple data sources and cross referencing them.

RedcurrantPuff · 20/04/2021 12:35

@DirtyDancing

4 too many. 4 more families broken in grief

Oh give over