Four deaths today

[StealthPolarBear]

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.

@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?

Ermmm....how does it "matter more"

Or do you mean the fact that it's not possible to treat cancer or mental health when bed and staff capacity is full (which is what happens with an infection disease)?

Also, how to keep cancer and mental patients safe? Did you miss the articles I posted upthread? The ones detailing cancer and psychiatric inpatients who died after catching covid in hospital.

40% of covid cases in the UK were at one stage caught in hospital.

The real question to ask is why does international travel, why do people's holidays abroad, matter more than cancer, mental health, and covid patients in the UK.

Are people not on this thread saying ‘4 too many’ yes it’s very sad that 4 people died but it really has become a situation where it seems only Covid deaths count. Are we denying lockdown has caused deaths? Only we are not reporting or detailing those. I’m asking for a bit of a balance when the total is so low versus all the other things people die from. Some perspective versus the fear would be good...

Not everyone will be hunting down multiple data sources and cross referencing them. Which is why it is important to correct misinformation when you see it!

And no, I don't get annoyed, I was a lecturer for far too long to be annoyed by a lack of engagement. It is a lack of critical thinking, of stopping to think, to critique an unusual piece of information - like 5G, Bill Gates etc.

And I have moaning about journmalosts, lazy media reports, Bobby Bloody Peston et al, for months - you'll get no argument from me about abysmal reportage!

Well again @Tealightsandd nobody here has said international travel is more important than cancer treatment etc have they?

@Delatron

Are people not on this thread saying ‘4 too many’ yes it’s very sad that 4 people died but it really has become a situation where it seems only Covid deaths count. Are we denying lockdown has caused deaths? Only we are not reporting or detailing those. I’m asking for a bit of a balance when the total is so low versus all the other things people die from. Some perspective versus the fear would be good...

See my first repsonse to you... seriously read it and see if you can think why I, and others, find your posts a bit meh!

And again, we are detailing deaths with other causes. They too are reported regularly via the ONS - just as they always have been!

@CuriousaboutSamphire ok well I agree with you about critical thinking and pointing out inaccurate data so 🤷🏼‍♀️ I was also correcting the daily death total and pointing out that it wasn’t actually a daily death total at all. Anyway great work, always good to have accurate data. I wasn’t aware I was saying anything that wasn’t true. Only that many people don’t really understand the daily death total.

Reporting as in the media @CuriousaboutSamphire who is off to look at the ONS daily?

If you find the call for balance in all this ‘meh’ then you may need to do a bit of critical thinking of your own...

[quote Delatron]@CuriousaboutSamphire ok well I agree with you about critical thinking and pointing out inaccurate data so 🤷🏼‍♀️ I was also correcting the daily death total and pointing out that it wasn’t actually a daily death total at all. Anyway great work, always good to have accurate data. I wasn’t aware I was saying anything that wasn’t true. Only that many people don’t really understand the daily death total.[/quote]
Depends who you listen to, what you read. The daily totals are, as they have always been "deaths reported in the last 24 hours" and is regularly explained by many podium talkers, on the graph labels, explained in all data streams.

You are correcting the percpetion held but those who don't understand it!

@Delatron

Reporting as in the media *@CuriousaboutSamphire* who is off to look at the ONS daily?

If you find the call for balance in all this ‘meh’ then you may need to do a bit of critical thinking of your own...

Call for balance? You are repeating some stringly emotive memes...and again are not engaging woth many points thers are raising.

You are focussing on those whose health issues have been made worse by covid.

You are not seeing, or at least not expressing here, the leaps that have been made in opening up the NHS because of the effects of lockdown and vaccines combined.

Unless you think that lockdowns were not needed!?

@Delatron

Well again *@Tealightsandd* nobody here has said international travel is more important than cancer treatment etc have they?

The UK government has said it through their actions, i.e. refusing to implement proper border restrictions and real (airport hotel) quarantine. That's why we had repeated lockdowns, 150,000 dead, ruined businesses, NHS backlog of up to 5 years, and 1 million long Covid cases.

I wish people would realise quite how normal life is in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan.

It's pretty much like before covid, travel abroad excepted. My family in Australia don't need masks, don't need LFT, they go to school, they go out to restaurants and bars, they go to their offices, they've been on holidays and overnight breaks within their state. It's been like that for months.

Perhaps most importantly, their doctor and hospital appointments are running as normal.

Increase in life expectancy in the UK comes from two sources - decrease in infant mortality, and more recently a huge reduction in heart disease deaths amongst people between 35 and 75. That’s why cancer adverts which used to say “one in three of us will get cancer” now say “one in two of us will get cancer. That additional sixth are the people who would previously have died of cardiovascular disease before having the chance to get cancer.

Increases in UK life expectancy in the late 20th century were not about making 88 year olds survive to their ninetieth birthday, they were driven by preventing sixty year olds keeling over on the dance floor at their daughter’s wedding and giving them another twenty years.

Have you asked you family in Australia what they think about the news over the last week or so?

About families still not allowed back home?
About what will happen with the rest of the world, or is NZ enough?
About rejecting vaccines and slowing down the rollout programme?
About the 2 - 4 years they expect to remain 'locked in country'?

They have a lot of their own issues. That they are quite different from the issues here in the UK doesn't make them any less onerous and abnormal.

You are right I’m not seeing any leaps being made by the NHS @CuriousaboutSamphire I’m seeing a hugely missed opportunity to invest in it in the past year since it can barely function in normal times....Instead billions have been wasted elsewhere.

I have mixed feelings on lockdowns. They should be the last resort if you’ve really have no other options. I would have preferred we went hard early and were stricter with border controls/quarantine and huge events such as Cheltenham. I would have preferred the government to have reacted quicker in December. I think we have suffered three longer lockdowns due to their incompetence not because lockdowns are so effective and such a good strategy. That’s my opinion.

But yes thankful for vaccines that’s one thing we’ve got right.

4 is a number that sounds very low and a relief

I hope it stays down

I spoke to them last night. They're content to wait it out a little longer for the vaccines. They have pretty much normal lives and are virtually Covid free. They don't feel the urgency for vaccines that we have in the UK. It's already being rolled out to over 50s.

They feel sorry for the minority of Australian residents stuck abroad but are pragmatic that it was the lesser of two evils.

Australians were given 6 months to return with a generous free (paid for by government) airport hotel quarantine. Most of those still abroad are very long term residents abroad (we're talking years, not months).

One of their parents lives in New Zealand. They're not rushing to visit just yet. They're taking a cautious wait and see approach. Maybe later in the year if all goes well.

Obviously it's shit for the minority abroad who want to get back, and there are people who visit very ill family abroad....but it's better than the alternative.

Around 6 to 10,000 Australians abroad delayed in returning vs the UK situation of 150,000 dead, 1 million long covid, ruined businesses, 5 year NHS backlog.

They're very grateful to be in Australia and not the UK. Children's lives not disrupted like here in the UK, everything open - including all non Covid healthcare. No delayed or missed cancer diagnosis there.

That's one reason why my (seemingly unpopular on MN) preference was for a Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan approach. There's temporarily no foreign holidays, but equally there's no diagnosis or treatment delays in those countries.

The NZ health system has gone into crisis (to be fair, this had been in the pipeline pre-covid).

www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/its-crisis-overwhelmed-ed-staff-in-hospitals-often-tears-experts-say

i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/300262252/new-zealand-hospitals-in-crisis-after-biggest-january-february-on-record

www.google.com/amp/s/www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/03/hospitals-across-new-zealand-stretched-to-breaking-point-as-government-promises-reform.amp.html

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/hospital-overload-patients-forced-to-wait-in-the-back-of-ambulance-at-eds/6E6MY3KLJN2SS6WI3IMYSXIR2E/

Cases are also very low. Seeing these figures I feel like mn is lagging it still feels like we were back when they were really high

We’re getting out of this.

Goodness. If it's that bad with them being virtually Covid free, just imagine how bad it would have been with covid free to spread! I guess they too would've had 150,000 dead, 1 million with long covid (including doctors and nurses), up to 5 year treatment backlog. The UK has seen so many NHS frontline staff suffering from PTSD after the year they've had working in covid overwhelmed hospitals. Sadly some ICU nurses ended up being sectioned from the trauma of it all.

@canary1

Works out as 18 suicides per day in the Uk - pre Covid figures. Higher now I’m sure. Condolences to those families too.

450 cancer deaths per day in the Uk. Sorry for those losses too.

Well yes but OP has made a thread about covid

I think you missed my point. @Tealightsandd

I too have relatives in Australia and, whilst they are enjoying their unlocked daily life, they are only too aware of the commercial impact and are as yet uncertain about how the increasingly delayed vaccine porgramme will affect this long term!

They're happy with the situation in Australia. They're very grateful it's not like it is here in the UK, where the economy has taken a huge hit as well as all the deaths, long covid, and NHS backlog. They know no way is perfect during a pandemic but their way is definitely the better of the two choices.

You mean their accident of geography!

Because when all of this is analysed there will be 2 main factors:

Geography
Type of society

So Geography favours hotter climates, less dense populations, and those that can actually close their borders
Type of society - well, I'd not swap the UK for Korea, etc

Densely populated countries.
South Korea (what do you have against South Koreans?), Taiwan, Japan, Singapore.

Densely populated cities. Like Auckland in NZ.

Anywhere can restrict their borders. There's no invisible force stopping them. It's entirely within each country's control. It's a choice.

NYC has a comparable type of society and density of population to UK. They temporarily closed their borders. And their geography makes it harder than for is. They're not an island or even a separate country.