The tragic news of this Omicron death

[User135644]

Very sad news that someone has now died of Omicron. Are the media going over the top though? I always thought a death was likely at some point. Sadly they may not he the last either.

Is it just the old adage of one death a tragedy, many deaths a statistic?

Just related to last point it’s worth also considering positives and where vaccines have been developed - and their societies. As it’s this not collective restrictions which will help the most it’s vaccines. Plus treatments

Flu season results in 10,000-20,000 deaths a year in U.K. what we need is a health service that is adequately staffed and resourced with adequate beds, ICU beds.
Not society held to ransom every winter ( which could easily be the case) because fund healthcare with the lowest amount ( or perhaps second lowest) per head of population in Europe.

@MarshaBradyo - so by collectivist I’d say Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan. Who I’d say have been relatively compliant with restrictions.

I completely agree that the success of individualism has been the vaccine drive.

I don’t think we have been particularly compliant? Comparatively? Individualism recognises the importance of personal freedom - and that has been a huge factor in the UK with non compliance.

I think a mix of individualism and collectivism is the correct response - and recognising where each behaviour is going to bring the best outcome. A balance. Think in the UK we swing too much in the direction of individualism.

Individualistic nations are massively greedy! I perhaps was being a bit emotive. But if you think that basic needs are food/shelter/warmth - the amount we demand on top of that, or see as our ‘right’ is pretty mind boggling.

They always say “died with” rather than “died of” because you can’t say 100% (I think)

I can't help but wonder if this one death is being pushed because they want to counter the narrative that Omicron is much milder than a cold and harmless ? We (obviously) don't sit and analyse each fatality and it's disrespectful to everyone who has died (and their families) when strangers are chatting about their death like this.
I avoid listening to Covid news now but I can't avoid it totally as I don't want to stop being online.

If someone was in hospital very ill with a heart condition, and then was found to have been hit with a hammer the previous week, it would be unreasonable to assume the hammer blow caused the heart condition. The coroner wouldn't even mention a hammer it if it hadn't directly contributed to her death, whereas covid is mentioned even if its completely irrelevant.

YY. I had a cold last week. If I had a) died in a car crash b) died in a house fire or c) been murdered, then I would have died "with" my cold but my cold would have had zero to do with my death. If you said I died "of" my cold that would be entirely inaccurate.

I can't believe people can't parse this simple piece of information. It's not that omicron did or didn't kill this poor person. It's that WE JUST DON'T HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO KNOW. I would hope they're testing widely in hospitals given how it's gone in the past, so hardly surprising that they would pick it up whether a direct factor or not.

Agree with pp that it's also likely to be the dominant version of COVID now so anyone with it in hospital is relatively likely to have this variant.

[quote Beadebaser]@MarshaBradyo - so by collectivist I’d say Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan. Who I’d say have been relatively compliant with restrictions.

I completely agree that the success of individualism has been the vaccine drive.

I don’t think we have been particularly compliant? Comparatively? Individualism recognises the importance of personal freedom - and that has been a huge factor in the UK with non compliance.

I think a mix of individualism and collectivism is the correct response - and recognising where each behaviour is going to bring the best outcome. A balance. Think in the UK we swing too much in the direction of individualism.

Individualistic nations are massively greedy! I perhaps was being a bit emotive. But if you think that basic needs are food/shelter/warmth - the amount we demand on top of that, or see as our ‘right’ is pretty mind boggling.[/quote]
It’s very interesting and would make a good topic for debate in a class

I see what you mean by greedy in that context

But I’m pretty sure data shows we have been quite good at compliance, higher than expected

I remember a few posts and Whitty talking about it but I’m not sure where to retrieve the info

We have good behaviour change knowledge here and media who uses it effectively - this probably is part of it

Why is Omicron now a whole illness all on its own. Nobody talking about covid any more??

My grandmother had cancer and caught pneumonia which finished her off. The death certificate said cancer and did not mention pneumonia at all. This was a few years ago, prior to this absolute omnishambles. Has death reporting changed since then?

@ImJustMadAboutSaffron

My grandmother had cancer and caught pneumonia which finished her off. The death certificate said cancer and did not mention pneumonia at all. This was a few years ago, prior to this absolute omnishambles. Has death reporting changed since then?

No it hasn't which why as has been repeated my said, the ONS stats which look at cause of death cited on the death cert are the more accurate for numbers of deaths.

It's all a bit moot anyway, the number excess deaths are irrefutable - 130k excess deaths in the last 12 months compared with the 5 years previous.

No one here (I don't think) is denying that a lot of people have died of COVID or that COVID is a serious issue. The disputed claim is that it was omicron/Covid that killed this specific person or that panicking and scaremongering about this one death is justified. A clearer picture of omicron will emerge for better or worse. Do what you personally feel is correct in terms of the things you can control. You can't control what others think or do in their own interests, and it's healthy to come to terms with that fact.

It was tragic and probably avoidable:

twitter.com/LBC/status/1471426923939213312

Well if he refused the vaccine, it’s his own bloody fault then isn’t it? 🙈

@ImJustMadAboutSaffron

Why is Omicron now a whole illness all on its own. Nobody talking about covid any more??

Because they know we’re not scared of Covid anymore so they need a new word to frighten us with.

@LadyCatStark just out of curiosity - whose “bloody fault” is it if you’re jagged but die anyway?

I think the difficulty generally with the "with, not of" argument is there is incidentally with and causative with. For example, an RTA resulting in a fatality and the person is found to have COVID is clearly incidental and not relevant or a contributing factor; someone who dies with a pulmonary embolism or myocardial infarction AND found to have COVID-COVID is likely to be a contributing factor. The data released would need to be a lot more detailed to be able to decide which of these types of scenarios are most commonly reported.
Hopefully, for the majority of people, Omicron is a milder illness-I saw a study saying it replicates 70 times faster in the upper airways (which would explain the higher transmisability and more cold like symptoms) but 4 times slower in lung tissue.

@LadyCatStark just out of curiosity, who’s bloody fault is it if someone dies as a result of a blood clot caused by the vaccine?