Are people dying of Covid, or with Covid?

[lightand]

As they are different things.

Does anyone actually know?

There will always be people dying with Covid, as the elderly, especially, die, and some of them, like the rest of us, will always die whilst having Covid.

So could 180 per day per winter be an average number going forward, forever now? [and the NHS should well be into the process of gearing up for that?]

Also, shielding is formally over now, by the way.

@lightand

I will also start another thread, in a few weeks, to start to pick apart their fears, so start to help them feel at least a little less anxious, hopefully.

Unless you are a doctor and/or scientist that works in hospitals and has experience with the death certificate process, this is meaningless at best and patronising at worst - as well as being misinformation.

Shielding may be formally over, but plenty of people are still doing it.
They are frightened people.

Well, death from covid is unpleasant - so if someone was CEV, there was a point to shielding. There is also still a benefit to taking some precautions in some situations, especially if you're vulnerable.

As far as I can tell we're the only country that has all this 'died with covid' bollocks when someone has clearly died of covid.

There was a nurse who died (she'd worked treating covid patients, she was young, in her 30s, it was clearly OF covid) and I read an article about her where the journalist kept saying 'she died with covid'. No she didn't, she died of covid directly from doing her job. It's gaslighting Orwellian bullshit and a very sad indication of where we are in this country - and in that instance of how little respect we give HCPs.

I think the number of people who die mostly of something else and covid's on their death certificate are probably more than outweighed by those who die after 28 days of a stroke or heart attack or other direct result of covid but who wouldn't count as a covid death.

As so many PPs have said, the excess death figures are clear.

And yes, covid is a particularly nasty death.

It’s not mainstream media reporting I have found particularly alarming, it’s crackpots on social media trying to turn everything into a conspiracy theory that I find alarming.

To that end, I shall be doing my bit, when out and about in real life, to point out the difference

And I will continue to make them aware that if Covid is mentioned on a death certificate, it is because Covid was the cause of, or a contributing factor to, the death, no matter what crazy story a small vocal minority come out with.

Yeah some of it is so bizarre. My insert relative died of a stroke or heart attack but they put COVID on the DC abd talked my phone etc etc Well given COVID causes these issues it is no surprise really.

@lightand

Shielding may be formally over, but plenty of people are still doing it. They are frightened people.

DPs are utterly terrified, obsessed with news about case rates and daily death figures. It has impacted their mental health. They no longer want DGC to visit all they do is go to the shops and back. It's just so sad to see.

Yes. This is the sort of thing I mean.
I have people staying, but will write some more in a few days time.

We have answered your question though so maybe you don/t need to bother?

OF covid, there you are.

@lightand

Yes. This is the sort of thing I mean. I have people staying, but will write some more in a few days time.

The solution to people having anxiety or MH problems due COVID isn't to pretend it's not happening.

No one benefits from misinformation.

In the uk covid deaths are 1 in every 398 uk citizens so far this pandemic this was culculated on 15th october (total deaths at 166434) so doesnt factor in deaths since then or deaths yet to happen.this also doesnt include deaths from covid after 28 days. Or deaths from thise unable to get treatment from other treatable conditions in time.

To me too may people have died as a result of covid and the pandemic isnt over yet.

The age standardised mortality ratio in 2020 was the same as in 2008. Average age of covid deaths is above the average life expectancy. Currently excess non COVID deaths are high especially in younger age groups, possibly to do with effects from lockdown.
Death certification is far from fool proof and subject to bias as any other process. It has never before been common practice to test every ill patient for a respiratory virus on admission to hospital. For example it has been known for years before COVID that a heart attack or bacterial sepsis is often preceded by upper respiratory tract infection. But previously these patients would not be PCR tested and therefore no infection would appear on the death certificate. Same with frail patients who have a deterioration - there was probably a virus responsible for lots of this but we never knew before.
Bottom line covid is a nasty virus and it would be nice if it wasn’t here BUT mitigation’s do very little and have caused huge huge harms, much more than the disease itself - children’s mental health, the economy, the plastic waste we throw away, the total mess the NHS is in, the polarisation of our society and exclusion of the vulnerable by the vax pass that is already enforced in much of Europe.
I believe the government know this but cannot directly admit that COVID policy was misguided as it would be politically so toxic.

The effects of the pandemic were not mainly caused by the mitigations.

Although earlier action would have meant the mitigations could have been more effective, probably shorter and with a better outcome.

@Hotcoffee10

The age standardised mortality ratio in 2020 was the same as in 2008. Average age of covid deaths is above the average life expectancy. Currently excess non COVID deaths are high especially in younger age groups, possibly to do with effects from lockdown. Death certification is far from fool proof and subject to bias as any other process. It has never before been common practice to test every ill patient for a respiratory virus on admission to hospital. For example it has been known for years before COVID that a heart attack or bacterial sepsis is often preceded by upper respiratory tract infection. But previously these patients would not be PCR tested and therefore no infection would appear on the death certificate. Same with frail patients who have a deterioration - there was probably a virus responsible for lots of this but we never knew before. Bottom line covid is a nasty virus and it would be nice if it wasn’t here BUT mitigation’s do very little and have caused huge huge harms, much more than the disease itself - children’s mental health, the economy, the plastic waste we throw away, the total mess the NHS is in, the polarisation of our society and exclusion of the vulnerable by the vax pass that is already enforced in much of Europe. I believe the government know this but cannot directly admit that COVID policy was misguided as it would be politically so toxic.

I love this post. 👏🏻

@Hotcoffee10 so you had to go all the way back to 2008 to find one figure that suits your argument. Not the raw figures but the age related mortality figure during the worst flu year for ages and obviously all the advances in medical treatment etc wiped out.

[quote Backofbeyond50]@Hotcoffee10 so you had to go all the way back to 2008 to find one figure that suits your argument. Not the raw figures but the age related mortality figure during the worst flu year for ages and obviously all the advances in medical treatment etc wiped out.[/quote]
I do agree- a lot of people have died as a result of Covid (and Covid mitigations/ policy). There’s no doubt about that. As @Hotcoffee10 said It’s a nasty virus, and we all wish it were gone.

But we lived through 2008 without this kind of global crisis. I’ll wager the majority of people didn’t even register the awful flu season, or the excess deaths. Children went to school , people did their jobs, the health system didn’t collapse, no one was locked in their home without a “reasonable excuse” to be out, families weren’t separated, the borders weren’t closed. Etc etc.

I prefer how we handled things in 2008. It seemed just fine to me.

@Hotcoffee10

Currently excess non COVID deaths are high especially in younger age groups, possibly to do with effects from lockdown.

What's your source for this please?

@Bizawit remember those excess deaths in 2020 were with the mitigation though. The raw numbers in 2020 were still higher than 2008 even adjusting for population differences.

@leafyygreens No the solution is not to pretend it's not happening but it does need to be recognised that a Covid has caused people MH and health problems while never having had the actual virus. My DPs are shadows of themselves, previously outgoing, sociable and active now they cower inside fearing the virus is lurking everywhere. Some of the media and public health messaging especially in the early days was designed to scare people into compliance but it had a terrible effect on some people.

How are we explaining the huge drop in covid fatality numbers against a background of high rates of infection if the way covid deaths are counted isn’t fairly accurate?

No the solution is not to pretend it's not happening but it does need to be recognised that a Covid has caused people MH and health problems while never having had the actual virus.

I've never heard one person, not one, claim that there's no other consequences of the past 18 months other than covid infection.

“ I do agree- a lot of people have died as a result of Covid (and Covid mitigations/ policy). There’s no doubt about that. As @Hotcoffee10 said It’s a nasty virus, and we all wish it were gone.

But we lived through 2008 without this kind of global crisis. I’ll wager the majority of people didn’t even register the awful flu season, or the excess deaths. Children went to school , people did their jobs, the health system didn’t collapse, no one was locked in their home without a “reasonable excuse” to be out, families weren’t separated, the borders weren’t closed. Etc etc.

I prefer how we handled things in 2008. It seemed just fine to me.”

@Bizawit - I don’t remember the 2008 flu season actually causing the exact same medical issues, do you? Oxygen and intensive care beds were certainly not in such short supply in 2008. Are you attempting to conflate the flu and covid? And to pretend that mitigations didn’t work at all to reduce excess mortality? And that pre-vaccine, we could have hoped to behave as though covid was “just another flu”? How can you argue that a completely different virus didn’t cause the issues covid has, so you think covid should have been handled in the same way as a completely different virus?

Whenever anyone mentions flu and Covid in the same sentence they're accused of conflating flu and Covid. Even if they're not.