Infection fatality rates - can we live with this?

[PuzzledObserver]

Apparently there's going to be an update to MP's shortly about the latest data and how things look for unlocking.

I confess I have been concerned by how quickly cases have risen, already we are nearly a quarter of the daily cases we peaked at in January. However, very reassured by this report which says that the infection fatality rate now is only 1/20th of what it was in the winter wave (which itself I think was lower than the first wave, as we have got better at treating it.)

0.08% of cases now result in death - for every 10,000 people infected, 8 are likely to die. That's 8 too many, but hugely better than it was.

Yesterday there were 14,876 cases reported, which would mean 11-12 deaths eventually. IF maintained at that rate year round, that would be around 4,400 deaths per year - less than seasonal flu.

Is that the sort of level the public will tolerate in return for removing restrictions, do you think?

I appreciate it's not as simple as that - hospitalisation rates, long Covid and the risk of new variants arising are also relevant. But purely on the death rate, do you think we can live with it?

Please please read the Guardian article Tealights. I know that this type of maths doesn’t come easily to everyone, it’s a matter of training over years and decades, but the people who do understand it are really relaxed.

Yes it would be nice to see a further detailed breakdown by age and sex, but the raw numbers are immensely reassuring.

Given how many people have been double vaccinated, including the vast majority of elderly people, I would expect a large proportion of covid deaths to be with people who have been double vaccinated. These are the people most likely to die of covid or just being old whilst having covid as well and that being enough to tip someone over the edge. What proportion of covid deaths would you expect to be in the double vaccinated if we had double vaccinated everyone?

The vaccine doesn’t grant immortality.

@Tealightsandd

Yes OP. Nearly half of all Delta deaths have been in double vaccinated patients. In the UK, that is.

Delta is the dominant strain, ergo it follows that almost all deaths will be as a result of it.

However, vaccines cut the risk of hospitalisation by around 96-98%. So very people will end up ill enough to die from it.

The numbers we're talking are tiny. Three deaths reported today. That's three too many, of course. We don't know if they were doubly, singly or not at all vaccinated. But even if they were double jabbed, and half died from Delta, that's less than one doubly vaccinated Delta death today.

Those who are double vaccinated at this point may well have had other vulnerabilities which resulted in complications also.

One thing that definitely needs to be clarified is that it's not 50% of ALL fully vaccinated are dying from Delta.

With no vaccines at all, the people most likely to die from covid were the ones likely to die from any illness, such as a cold, flu, UTI etc - ie people who were already very unwell, whose health was very precarious. The fact that half of the small number who've recently died with covid were double vaccinated isn't surprising in the slightest - some of those will be people who were already very vulnerable for whom covid was the last straw. I don't know if some people expect immortality or what but it's perfectly normal for people to die from all sorts of infections, covid isn't special in that sense. If they kept track of how often pneumonia killed elderly people and counted every case then people would be utterly terrified of that 'deadly' illness too.

What I don't understand is what people believe the alternative to living with covid might be? We live with hundreds of infections day and day out, which kill on a constant basis. If we were to live constantly in a state of fear of viruses and bacteria what point would there be in bothering being alive at all?

@TheDailyCarbunkle this is something people tell
themselves but it isn't true at all. Boris Johnson is a fairly typical example of a severe covid sufferer, half of whom (taken to ICU) die. If it was only the very frail we would not have locked down, nor - over the course of a year - would deaths be excessive as you'd have expected them to die from other things like flu or infections like you say. The reality is covid during the first two waves killed 4% of over 60s, many of whom had a good twenty years in them.

@TheDailyCarbunkle right now I think the answer is to live with it cautiously. Keep vaccinating, slowly open up , accept there will be some deaths and hospitalizations but make sure that numbers dont utterly overwhelm us.

[quote namechanged984630]@TheDailyCarbunkle this is something people tell
themselves but it isn't true at all. Boris Johnson is a fairly typical example of a severe covid sufferer, half of whom (taken to ICU) die. If it was only the very frail we would not have locked down, nor - over the course of a year - would deaths be excessive as you'd have expected them to die from other things like flu or infections like you say. The reality is covid during the first two waves killed 4% of over 60s, many of whom had a good twenty years in them. [/quote]
BJ was taken to ICU but he wasn't ventilated. There's a big difference in terms of outcome. Also he wasn't frail but he was in the CV category due to his BMI.

These threads make me realise that actually we need to stop with all the data in the public domain. So much of it can be interpreted differently and from a different perspective it isnt helpful.

There is I think currently two experiments of the Delta variant going on which will be watched with interest for the rest of the world. Our approach which is to go with vaccines that the US/Europe is going to pray is effective. Alongside (for us) some short term travel bans to other countries when they get vaccinations up to scratch

And in Australia who are hoping that tough restrictions work. I hope for their sake it works but I think it is telling that the level they are going to means that restrictions here are probably not worth it. To get rid of it you need to go hardcore lockdowns and with the vaccines working as they are there is just no appetite for it.

Well actually Quartz my family in Australia and New Zealand are very happy with how they've handled it. Unsurprising really. Their lives have been largely normal for the past year. And they're starting to get vaccinated too. Slower than here but there's no urgency. Family members in their early 40s have had their jabs (Pfizer). One is already double jabbed as it's being done on the 3 week spacing, the other has their second next week.

These threads make me realise that actually we need to stop with all the data in the public domain. So much of it can be interpreted differently and from a different perspective it isnt helpful

Ah. So you want censorship. Gagging the news reporters. What next. 'Disappearing' people? Reeducation camps?

And what tough restrictions? A few one or two week proper lockdowns to immediately get on top of things, then straight back to proper normal. No hospital backlogs, no delayed diagnoses or staff off sick. Schools undisrupted.

@TheVampiresWife well then if you go by obesity making somebody CEV then half the adult population might get seriously ill. A fact which the nhs can't take, even with vaccination?

I posted earlier on this thread over my ds who has long covid.
When he had covid, he had a fever, flu like symptoms, sickness and diarrhea.
He had a cough but not like was talked about, his sence of smell and taste went for a little while.

He didn't need to go to hospital and all those symptoms went after 2 weeks however what came in its place was pain, severe pain which over the last 6 months has gotten worse.

Today he has deteriated to the point he can't move as the pain is so bad. He is now in A&E.

There is talk about long covid but not nearly enough, the percentage of people who have it is very high

Watching my ds suffer like he is, I truly believe we do need to slow down with opening up until all vaccines are done and the numbers of covid stays down.

Sorry for the long post but I am really stressed and worried right now x

[quote namechanged984630]@TheVampiresWife well then if you go by obesity making somebody CEV then half the adult population might get seriously ill. A fact which the nhs can't take, even with vaccination? [/quote]
BMI over 40 is considered by higher risk but not CEV. Those with a BMI over 40 were in group six and are now mostly fully vaccinated. As we know, vaccination protects against up to 98% of hospitalisations.

@Quartz2208

These threads make me realise that actually we need to stop with all the data in the public domain. So much of it can be interpreted differently and from a different perspective it isnt helpful.

There is I think currently two experiments of the Delta variant going on which will be watched with interest for the rest of the world. Our approach which is to go with vaccines that the US/Europe is going to pray is effective. Alongside (for us) some short term travel bans to other countries when they get vaccinations up to scratch

And in Australia who are hoping that tough restrictions work. I hope for their sake it works but I think it is telling that the level they are going to means that restrictions here are probably not worth it. To get rid of it you need to go hardcore lockdowns and with the vaccines working as they are there is just no appetite for it.

You want to stop the data being public? Not everyone is addicted to Mumsnet Coronavirus threads like we are so why should the public be prevented from knowing the truth because some of us here interpret them differently?

This is the data they’ll openly share with us, imagine the stuff they won’t!

@bati

So sorry to read about your ds. I really hope things improve for him.

Has he been referred to a Long Covid clinic? More are being set up including paediatric. Hopefully those clinics and the research on various treatments going on will help people suffering from Long Covid.

He has been referred to muscularskeletal and awaiting appointment.
There are massive waiting lists for the long covid clinics 😢

I hope he doesn't have to wait too long x

@Thewiseoneincognito on a daily basis yes I think maybe

I agree flu etc has always been released weekly and I assume at some point (probably not this year) that is going to happen rather than daily updates.

You are right I just find the desire to need to know everything particularly about those who died slightly unsettling. We are going to have to learn to deal with this as a slightly unknown entity I think that is what I was trying to say not about censorship.

@Tealightsandd I dont think I made any comment about how Australia have handled it up to now at all. Just that actually what they are going through now shows the level of restrictions and control you need in order to suppress Delta - because it is that transmissible. Even with the strict lockdown and tracking they are doing it has evaded far more than previous.

I meant here - the level of restrictions we would have to go to this to suppress it given the differences between us and Australia would be immense. The January lockdown we had for Alpha probably would not contain Delta

Also I think what is making me uncomfortable is that this data is people lives, people who have died and we seem to want to know everything about that

We want to know about who has died because we want to reassure ourselves that we and our loved ones are not like them. Because, whilst we are ok w strangers dying (not happy exactly but, you know, greater good) I doubt many of us are happy to take one for the team or to sacrifice a loved one. It's the same reason as why there's such hostility and disbelief regarding long COVID- its uncomfortable to accept it cant be predicted with certainty and might affect someone we care about.

[quote namechanged984630]@TheDailyCarbunkle this is something people tell
themselves but it isn't true at all. Boris Johnson is a fairly typical example of a severe covid sufferer, half of whom (taken to ICU) die. If it was only the very frail we would not have locked down, nor - over the course of a year - would deaths be excessive as you'd have expected them to die from other things like flu or infections like you say. The reality is covid during the first two waves killed 4% of over 60s, many of whom had a good twenty years in them. [/quote]
You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. Covid, like any illness, kills the more vulnerable more quickly and in bigger numbers. So the people who are dying while vaccinated at the moment are highly likely to be in that category. That's just a plain fact - the numbers of dead people tend to contain a high proportion of people who were already close to dying.

At no point did I say young people didn't die, they did. It's still a fact that your actual individual chance of dying from covid, especially if you are young and healthy, is very very low.

[quote BarbarianMum]@TheDailyCarbunkle right now I think the answer is to live with it cautiously. Keep vaccinating, slowly open up , accept there will be some deaths and hospitalizations but make sure that numbers dont utterly overwhelm us.[/quote]
That's what's happening at the moment. Restrictions were supposed to end this month, they didn't, they waited another month, for caution and hospitalisations and deaths are still very low.

Every month of restrictions causes other problems and other deaths. So the longer we draw it out, the longer we are just moving the problem from one place to another. At some point there has to be an acceptance that constantly running from covid is not a safe or sensible way to live and even with some infections life has to go on. It just has to. The alternative is that we all live in some sort of pointless suspended animation until we die of sheer despair (or the many many many other things that kill people all day every day)

I'm sorry to hear that you are still "running from COVID " and living "in suspended animation" @TheDailyCarbunkle I dont feel like that at all. I feel that we are making steady progress to normality, things opening up, people going back to offices. Hoping they'll stop the self isolation for close contacts soon. I cant get too excited about the idea facemask may be around for a while, as long as I can do stuff whilst I wear one.

@BarbarianMum

We want to know about who has died because we want to reassure ourselves that we and our loved ones are not like them. Because, whilst we are ok w strangers dying (not happy exactly but, you know, greater good) I doubt many of us are happy to take one for the team or to sacrifice a loved one. It's the same reason as why there's such hostility and disbelief regarding long COVID- its uncomfortable to accept it cant be predicted with certainty and might affect someone we care about.

I agree and I think that is what makes me uncomfortable about it because ultimately it doesnt actually change our risk.

All of the data we have has allowed us I think to create a data fortress and we can use the data to help us understand what is going on and give a framework and knowledge about what is going to happen (I think this is especially true for a couple of posters).

But that isnt going to be real life - we are going to have to accept the unknown parts of this. Of course the Government shouldnt hide data - after all it is very much open to interpretation anyway based on what you want. This is as you say always something we have to learn that we cant predict with certainty.

But I think that is very much a 21st Century thing - so much knowledge at our fingertips