Coronavirus outbreak

[marinyork]

No one has died at the hospital he works at this week. What more evidence could you possibly need

As it happens stats for this were discussed the last couple of days.

A professor of medicine who is a GP said restrictions such as working from home and distancing meant the common cold was at about 20% of normal levels and flu 50% of normal levels, even now. They did want better stats though.

At the moment, unlike Sep/Oct for rsz and rhinovirus, it is thought flu doesn't cause viral blocking and you can get both at the same time and some be in big trouble.

 

[fossyant]

Looks like our Oldham neighbour's aren't behaving. Some local concern that their stupidity will extend lockdown conditions to the whole of Manchester - Wigan's up in arms (quite rightly) due to Andy Burnham insisting it has to be the whole region.

Oldham's infections are now worse than the peak, months ago. Stockport's fell again last week after a week's spike.

I shall be mightily hissed off if I can't go to York for one night next week - trying a little break for our 25th Wedding Anniversary.

 

[fossyant]

Oh, and it's not going to be good in late September - Schools and Colleges back full time. Universities will be very much part time.

 

[kingrollo]

Ive got a trip to the Algarve booked in October ! - Booked before all this started - really undecided what to do.

 

[PK99]

That's a claim you might want to substantiate. Because your series of posts reads very much like encouragement to the rest of us to do something dangerous.

The clam is sound:

Times 12 August

Flu and pneumonia are killing five times as many people as coronavirus at present, with Covid deaths at their lowest since the end of March, figures show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that overall deaths were below average for the time of year for the seventh consecutive week, while deaths from Covid-19 were at a 19-week low.

There were 193 deaths reported in the week ending July 31 that had coronavirus mentioned on the death certificate, continuing three months of falls since a weekly peak of 8,758 in April. It is the lowest figure since 103 died in the week ending March 20, on the eve of lockdown.

By contrast, 928 people died of flu or pneumonia in the last week of July, slightly fewer than previous years. This was the seventh consecutive week in which more people had died of flu or pneumonia than coronavirus.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Isn't pneumonia a consequence of Coronavirus?

 

[mjr]

The clam is sound:

It is not. Can you spot the difference?

Flu and pneumonia are killing five times as many people as coronavirus at present, with Covid deaths at their lowest since the end of March, figures show.

I suspect those two words "and pneumonia" make a significant difference.

And weren't some people posting that all pneumonia deaths were being counted as covid? This seems to contradict that.

 

[icowden]

The "deaths" aspect is a red herring in some ways.

People will get Covid19, this is pretty much unavoidable. Most people will not have a serious outcome. Those that do have a serious outcome require significant hospital resources to treat them. That's the important bit. If too many people are sick at the same time, we don't have the health resources to treat them given that treatment at the moment is limited to assisting patients whilst they try to fight off the infection. So the reason for social distancing etc is to try and avoid spreading Covid19 so that we don't overwhelm services, and people don't die due to lack of ventillators, beds, etc.

Many of the people who will die from Covid19 would have likely died from something else - Flu or respiratory infection. Many of those people are already very ill. Some people who will become seriously ill and may die from Covid19 were not particularly ill. So we try to protect as many people as possible by having sensible measures to try to ensure that spread remains slow and controlled until an effective treatment or vaccination is available.

You then have the balancing beam of increased issues due to social isolation, child abuse / child welfare where children are no longer seen in school every day and only remotely by health professionals. It's hard to balance.

And weren't some people posting that all pneumonia deaths were being counted as covid? This seems to contradict that.

It's a difficult balance. If you get Covid19 and it causes you to develop Pneumonia then did you die of Covid19 or Pneumonia? The answer would appear to be both, in that you may not have developed Pneumonia had you not contracted Covid19. But you can get Pneumonia as a development from a whole range of different respiratory infections. Hence most country comparisons focus on excess death rate over what is normally expected year on year.

 

[midlife]

Pneumonia was called the old man's friend way back when I was on the wards. Unfortunately it was the event that took the lives of most of the very ill people. Even with antibiotics I guess it's much the same now?

 

[kingrollo]

Pneumonia was called the old man's friend way back when I was on the wards. Unfortunately it was the event that took the lives of most of the very ill people. Even with antibiotics I guess it's much the same now?

Yup - my dad getting on 3 years ago.
however IMO he had a heart attack about 5 months earlier and never really recovered - his weak heart meant couldn't clear the fluid from his lungs - so pneumonia went on the death cert. I still say he died of a weak heart.

 

[mjr]

Meanwhile, govt.NZ puts Auckland in a 3-day lockdown due to 4 cases suspected of being local transmission, likely to be extended if local transmission cannot be disproved.

And Spain's confirmed new case rate just hit a 7-day average of 72 per million, up 3%, with Moldova, Kosovo and Bosnia the only worse in Europe and they're small countries where a small outbreak has a bigger effect on the "per million". The next highest western European countries are record-it-all Belgium at 34 (-31%). The UK is currently at 14 (+16%).

 

[kingrollo]

The "deaths" aspect is a red herring in some ways.

People will get Covid19, this is pretty much unavoidable. Most people will not have a serious outcome. Those that do have a serious outcome require significant hospital resources to treat them. That's the important bit. If too many people are sick at the same time, we don't have the health resources to treat them given that treatment at the moment is limited to assisting patients whilst they try to fight off the infection. So the reason for social distancing etc is to try and avoid spreading Covid19 so that we don't overwhelm services, and people don't die due to lack of ventillators, beds, etc.

Many of the people who will die from Covid19 would have likely died from something else - Flu or respiratory infection. Many of those people are already very ill. Some people who will become seriously ill and may die from Covid19 were not particularly ill. So we try to protect as many people as possible by having sensible measures to try to ensure that spread remains slow and controlled until an effective treatment or vaccination is available.

You then have the balancing beam of increased issues due to social isolation, child abuse / child welfare where children are no longer seen in school every day and only remotely by health professionals. It's hard to balance.



It's a difficult balance. If you get Covid19 and it causes you to develop Pneumonia then did you die of Covid19 or Pneumonia? The answer would appear to be both, in that you may not have developed Pneumonia had you not contracted Covid19. But you can get Pneumonia as a development from a whole range of different respiratory infections. Hence most country comparisons focus on excess death rate over what is normally expected year on year.

There are that many stats out there -you can pretty much interpret them how you want. for me the important ones are:-

1. The natural rate of infection for COVID - is thought to be a high as 4 - much higher than flu
2. Those requiring hospital treatment is estimated at 20% - much higher than flu
3. The mortality rate up to 3% - flu is 0.15 I beleive

Many of schools have been closed since march, many people are WFH , or on furlough - so that pushes Covid and other stats lower.

In the end you can beleive this is problem - or you can say its overhyped hysteria - there are stats for either.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Many of the people who will die from Covid19 would have likely died from something else

This is basically wrong.

Various estimates have been made, but the numbers seem to be around ten years of life lost per COVID death.

 

[kingrollo]

This is basically wrong.

Various estimates have been made, but the numbers seem to be around ten years of life lost per COVID death.

but what about all those people who got covid and were then run over by a bus months later ???/ - Oh yeah there weren't any. Edit there were 4 !!

 

[mjr]

This is basically wrong.

Various estimates have been made, but the numbers seem to be around ten years of life lost per COVID death.

But it's technically correct because we're all going to die of something, or at least that's the best guess at the moment!

I'm watching foreign news and the comment was made that more and more European cities are requiring face coverings even outside in centres. I can understand that they may want to reduce the amount of risky doffing and donning — even in countries with much better public health education than England, with films and news items explaining how to do it safely, by the straps and cleaning hands afterwards, actual public practice looks a bit random — as people go between shops and so on, but is there much evidence supporting that change? Or is it more to make policing easier, rather than having police have to look inside shops?