17,731 total deaths from Covid in the UK with no other underlying health issues

[CUniverse]

ONS released this data mid December.

Does it make any difference to how you feel about the way the pandemic was handled? Does it detract from the fears you have about Covid yourself?

Is it even worth knowing these figures?

www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathsfromcovid19withnootherunderlyingcauses?s=08

Sorry if this has been posted before. I have only seem it today and was asking myself if it has any impact on the way I feel about the pandemic, and I'm not even sure.

It doesn't make much difference to my fears. I wasn't scared of catching Covid before reading this and I'm still not.

I believe e lockdowns were necessary to protect the NHS and protect the vulnerable. I do think that some of the lockdowns could have ended sooner (eg summer 2020 when only year 1 and year 6 went back to school initially) and some of the measures were too draconian (eg not being able to attend funerals) but I still broadly support them.

Makes no difference to how I feel. Everyone I know who has died from covid (two close family members and other acquaintances) had underlying medical conditions. However, they were not at risk of dying from those conditions in the near future, it was covid that killed them.

No known underlying conditions, surely?

My concern is as much for those who got it and will always have to live with the long term consequences. There's not enough studying of that going on.

i have never been afraid. The attitude i have towards covid now is the same as day 1 back in 2020 - people reaction was generally way ott and for some it still is.

I think we knew early on that the vast majority of the population was not at serious risk from covid. The only reason they were told that they were was to try to increase compliance with the lockdown measures. If you just look at the impact of covid on people under 70 with no underlying conditions its unlikely that it would have justified any population wide measures, even though some people would have been seriously ill and died.

I personally don't think and have never thought that it is ethical to subject some groups (including vulnerable groups like children) to such significant long-term detriment to potentially protect others, particularly by using an untested intervention like lockdown, where we didn't know how effective it would be or the scale of the harm it would cause. It turns out it was much less effective than predicted and very harmful to many.

The life of someone with an underlying condition is no less valuable than some without. You seem to be implying that we shouldn’t have made any adjustments to keep everyone safe. What a disgusting attitude, I really hope that’s not what you meant to put across.

Good for those with no medical conditions, but not for those who have conditions. I don’t know many people in my age group over 60’s who don’t have any medical conditions.

I think it’s a good figure to know amongst all the other data we have. People will argue against it and try and discredit it as much as possible because we’ve spent billions and done so many harmful things with lockdown etc to so many groups of people ( I am particularly angry about children and teens lives being so disrupted for example) and I think that is hard for us ( collectively) to acknowledge.

So we should have thrown all our mates with asthma under the bus?

I know it was a balancing act between mental and physical health, but the idea that those with underlying conditions don’t count is very unpleasant.

@BigWoollyJumpers

As age is not a pre-existing condition, nor is obesity, many of these deaths will included in these groups. Indeed the stats shown show the majority are 65+, and I would guess within that age range, most will be 80+.

DM died of Covid. She had no pre-existing conditions. She was 93.

Obesity is counted as a pre-existing condition in these figures.

Also diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. I know a lot of very fit and active people with these conditions, including myself because my blood pressure has taken a turn for the worse at age 50.

So no this data doesn't really change how I feel about Covid: not terrified, well aware that the primary risk is to the elderly, much more relaxed post vaccination, but wary and remembering how serious a threat it posed to society pre-vaccinations.

But that could be any underlying health issues, not necessarily life threatening ones, eg diabetes, asthma, under-active thyroid, depression, obesity, high blood pressure, partial sight, artthritis, etc
Some conditions will increase the chance of more serious illness but not all of them. This figure alone doesn't really tell us much. Many people with "underlying conditions" could have gone on to live full lives which weren't limited in length.
You may know more people who have one or more underlying health and than who have none, especially if you are older yourself.

Not really. There are many pre-existing conditions that do not automatically mean someone is living with a significantly life-shortening disease. Pre-existing condition is a very broad term capturing many people that would not have been expected to die had they not caught covid.

At its worse the threat to the majority was/is access to health care not covid itself. Bluntly, we wouldn’t have seen the same restrictions had deaths naturally spread themselves out or if the virus killed people quickly allowing the hospitals to manage a faster turn over of patients. I think we’d still have seen restrictions of some description but not to the lengths we had to take.

No other underlying causes is different to no pre-existing conditions, isn't it?

@EducatingArti they list the pre existing conditions too.

Anyone know why having Diabetes makes the virus more severe? Admittedly I have not checked myself.

@PartyOnKale it is pre-existing conditions sorry. I am not sure if there is an actual difference between the two in my head, but I could be wrong.

I understand both to mean that Covid was the only cause for death and the individual didn't have any other health issues that were exasperated by the virus.

What percentage of people count as having a pre-existing condition and how does this compare to the percentage of deaths?

The number on its own is utterly meaningless.

I think threads like these are quite unpleasant, othering and minimising. We all know people by now who have been seriously poorly with it, surely, and presumably we all surely would rather not catch it?

I'm not saying everything was handled perfectly and there are certainly things we'll look back on and say we overreacted there, but it really doesn't take much imagination to consider how the UK might look now without the measures we'd taken in 2020 and 2021. We forget about the huge mortuaries quietly put on standby and the Nightingales, which were clearly never, er, intended to be places that required a high level of staffing. Without a functioning NHS, would you have been comfortable with mass graves or bodies piling up in rivers here OP?

I think we still don't know for sure why Covid is so dangerous for people with diabetes. Could relate to inflammation, could relate to circulation problems, there are other hypotheses.
www.diabetes.org.uk/about_us/news/seriously-ill-coronavirus

A quick Google suggests that about 6% of the UK population have diabetes and 12% have asthma. The prevalence of hypertension is huge - up to 50% depending on age range.

It's talking about data gleaned from death certificates.
But do death certificates normally say "died from infection, person had well controlled
type1 diabetes / was type 2 diabetic / was obese." I have a pre-existing condition that I doubt would make it into any discussion on death by infection however I'd personally say it's a possible marker of dodgy circulation, certainly of an aging body.
I just don't know enough to interpret those figures.

Probably the most significant data is to compare excess deaths pattern over a few years. (Then try and compare to other countries.)
That's what I keep an eye out for but haven't seen it for months now.

@TheMarzipanDildo

So we should have thrown all our mates with asthma under the bus?

I know it was a balancing act between mental and physical health, but the idea that those with underlying conditions don’t count is very unpleasant.

Has anyone actually said this? My view back in 2020 was that after the initial phase those at increased risk should have been fully supported (financially and practically) and then everything else enabled to keep going, albeit with some restrictions in place.

However what has happened is that everyone has been thrown under the bus and the very people that we were supposed to be protecting are likely to have much worse long term outcomes then they did two years ago.

You can do a rough and ready excess deaths calculation from the raw weekly ONS stats over the previous five years.

But if you want a bullet proof version you need to go to the experts.
www.actuaries.org.uk/learn-and-develop/continuous-mortality-investigation/other-cmi-outputs/mortality-monitor

Does it make any difference to how you feel about the way the pandemic was handled? Does it detract from the fears you have about Covid yourself?

No it doesn't change my view. We needed measures in 2020 as the virus was new and we had no immunity.

No it doesn't change my fear of Covid - I'm not any more scared reading that.