I was going to post the following on my Facebook but thought I’d stick it in here first and see what the reaction is. I’m literally just interpreting statistics. I’m not attempting to make any suggestions on how people should live their lives over the next few weeks or months. Those decisions will be partly dictated by the government decisions and also your own judgement.
I’ve just spent a little time on the website of the Office of National Statistics (
LINK) looking in to the death rate from Covid-19 to see what the real risks are and to see who is really vulnerable. The results were both shocking (because it’s not something I’d seen reported in the news) and not shocking (because it seems to show what I’d expect).
The first death reported in the UK occurred in the week ending 13th March. In the following 8 weeks up to the week ending 1st May there have been a total of 33,365 deaths relating to Covid-19. It is totally unknown how many of these deaths were actually caused by Covid-19 as the only reported stats just show those that die while having the Covid-19 virus in their body at the time of death. It’s possible they may have been showing absolutely no symptoms of Covid-19 and their death was caused by something else. We’ll never know the real numbers of actual Covid-19 deaths.
What I have found interesting however if the deaths split by age range.
Age 0 to 39 - 0.64% of total covid-19 related deaths up to 1st May 2020
Age 40 to 41 - 1.52%
Age 50 to 59 - 5.03%
Age 60 to 69 - 10.59%
Age 70 to 79 - 23.64%
Age 80 to 99 - 58.58%
To me it seems very clear that those most at risk are the over 60s and that the older you are, the greater the risk. That sounds familiar, that just sounds like death in general. The older you are, the more you are at risk of dying.
But what shocked me the most is the relatively small percentage of people under the age of 60 who have died relating to Covid-19. Just 7.19% of all Covid-19 deaths have been under the age of 60 and an even smaller 2.16% if you are under 40. Some of you may say that is still too many, well yes, no one wants anyone dying but the cold hard truth is that people die of illnesses every single day. Life is a risk, life has a finite time limit, life comes to an end. But if you are sat at home in lockdown and too scared to go back to work or send your kids back to school or to go to the supermarket more than once a week, just look at the statistics and do your own risk assessment.
If you are under 60 there is only a very small chance that you will be adversely affected by Covid-19. If you are under the age of 40 this risk becomes even smaller, so small that it shouldn’t really be any real concern or affect your life too much. So when the government tell you to ‘Be Alert’, maybe you should be alert to the risks of Covid-19. Children will potentially be returning back to school in the next few weeks because they are in the very lowest of risk categories. The statistics show that those children will be relatively safe and at very little risk. What parents need to be aware of in the coming months is that children shouldn’t be spending time with the elderly. Unfortunately the only way to keep the death rate as low as possible is to keep the over 60s as isolated as possible. Most over 60s are going to be retired and therefore won’t need to return to work. Although they may want their lives to return to normal, they are the ones that need to make the sacrifice and continue their lockdown.
www.cdc.gov
