Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Barnfred 55]

Being my whole point.

Test, don't guess.

Only had a quick skim at the numbers but total England an Wales registered deaths per week;

Average weekly deaths this year so far: 12,957
Average weekly deaths over 5 previous years up to now: 11,574

Up until 27th March, the average weekly registered deaths in England and Wales in 2020 was tracking 293 behind the average for the previous 5 years.

So, up until recently - as far as I can tell from ONS - this year, England/Wales actually had a lower number of weekly deaths vs the average. I never would have expected that...

It could just be something simple like the timing of this years flu epidemic being a bit earlier. Maybe December/January rather than January/February. If you look at the figures for the end of 2019 it may well be higher than the average.

 

[jamieni]

Haven’t seen any yet but presumably there will be lots of analysis over the coming months which will be interesting to see.

@Walken has linked to some of the excellent work done in Kerala https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52283748
but I feared India overall was going to find it very hard to control coronavirus in part because of their high population density, especially when saw the crowds at train stations after the lockdown announcement.

Yet thankfully they don’t seem to be, there are only around 1000 recorded deaths. Some of that is undoubtedly underreporting due to a lack of testing etc but as we’ve sadly seen in Ecuador or New York a bad outbreak is pretty obvious and the limited testing they are doing is coming back with positivity rates of ~5% which would support the conclusion that spread is low.

Cheers!

 

[navidson]

This is massive if true

 

[PhilM]

US Intelligence community says it wasn't.
Trump said that crap after this came out because it goes against his usual play of distract and blame others.
Also, he notoriously does not read his intelligence or any other briefings and barely listens when advisers try to give him the highlights so anything he saw or heard was from OANN or similar

His administration team and those behind his campaign (the real power men and women) must wonder sometimes why the hell they chose Trump to be their man.

While he does apparently (well unfortunately) appeal to a fair percentage of the US populations, the fact that he appears to just change direction must be terrible.

I do wonder how much of a negative influence he's had on the US management of the virus because of his tendency for an outrageous verbal faux pas.

It's not like he's tried to subdue the growing movement calling for lock down to be relaxed or totally gone, where in fact he's probably only flamed the fires.

EDIT: I go over to the Trump thread and then read this...

View attachment 85246

 

[Barnfred 55]

Just saw the edit.

In previous years, that would be attributed to Pneumonia.

I reckon Pneumonia deaths will be down vs average.

You'll probably find in practice they list both. Or put something like cause of death pneumonia brought on by suspected CV.

 

[LinekersLegs]

 

[GrandOldTeam]

You'll probably find in practice they list both. Or put something like cause of death pneumonia brought on by suspected CV.

They're not mate, people are sharing death certificates online etc.

They're also not taking samples to retrospectively check.

 

[OGG]

How do you come to this conclusion?.

All hospital deaths have been tested. For those community and care home deaths that have not been tested, GPs have been instructed to record suspected CV19 on the death certificate wherever the deceased have shown symptoms of the virus. The ONS figures include all deaths were CV19 is listed on the death certificate whether it be tested or suspected. Many of the suspected cases could very easily be a common cold or other flu like illness. But the likelihood of somebody dying in the community of CV19 without showing any symptoms would be very slim I imagine.

So what makes you say that CV19 deaths are being under reported?

It is factually accurate based on data. I am an actuary and it is part of my professional role to analyse mortality data.

Because cause of death is not a precise measure and it depends on what is put on the certificate by a doctor, the only true way to gauge the impact is to look at actual deaths against what the number would have been without Covid-19.

This year, death rates (adjusted for age, population size etc) were pretty much exactly what they were last year until mid-March.

Since mid-March they have diverged, so in the last 6 weeks to 27 April we have approx 45.000 excess deaths - hugely more than was reported.

Part of this will be second order issues related to lockdown - working in both directions (some people not seeking treatment who should have, car crashed reduced etc). However this figure is a pretty reliable assessment of the number of deaths due to Coronavirus.

 

[ForeverBlue92]

@tsubaki lets hope its true and it wasnt just a cold we had lol

 

[tsubaki]

@tsubaki lets hope its true and it wasnt just a cold we had lol

My holiday to France might depend on this.

 

[Blues Harp]

Wondering if Johnson's assertions that "we have hit the peak" may encourage those who will think its now all over, to descend on tourist hot spots this Bank Holiday weekend? I don't profess to know if we have or haven't as there are so many conflicting views....as far as I am personally concerned, I am still observing lockdown, and will be for the foreseeable future. It only takes a few irresponsible people to ignore this, and then the floodgates will open, leaving us vulnerable to another wave of Infections...sincerely hope I am wrong.

 

[tsubaki]

We will probably be told that States have responsibility for Federal prisons tonight.

 

[LouReedwalkonthewildside]

Wondering if Johnson's assertions that "we have hit the peak" may encourage those who will think its now all over, to descend on tourist hot spots this Bank Holiday weekend? I don't profess to know if we have or haven't as there are so many conflicting views....as far as I am personally concerned, I am still observing lockdown, and will be for the foreseeable future. It only takes a few irresponsible people to ignore this, and then the floodgates will open, leaving us vulnerable to another wave of Infections...sincerely hope I am wrong.

Deffo a lot people will see "We have hit the peak" as everything is fine mate, and not as we still have to be 'vigilant'.

 

[PhilM]

They're not mate, people are sharing death certificates online etc.

They're also not taking samples to retrospectively check.

I suspect that's because they want to prioritise the continuous testing of people who are suspected of having the virus and their life being at risk or key workers.

Rightly or wrongly, the testing of a person who is dead simply to confirm it was COVID-19 is probably not seen as a priority just yet and would be political ammo.

"You said you're doing 100k tests per day but thousands of them are actually dead..."

 

[roydo]

Wondering if Johnson's assertions that "we have hit the peak" may encourage those who will think its now all over, to descend on tourist hot spots this Bank Holiday weekend? I don't profess to know if we have or haven't as there are so many conflicting views....as far as I am personally concerned, I am still observing lockdown, and will be for the foreseeable future. It only takes a few irresponsible people to ignore this, and then the floodgates will open, leaving us vulnerable to another wave of Infections...sincerely hope I am wrong.

Its a bank holiday? Blimey, didnt have a clue! If so, M5 southbound is very quiet.