324 Covid Deaths Yesterday, And 2,095 Cases Are They Easing Lockdown Too Early ?

[Gromit]

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

[Peter Pedant]

I remember .....
and anyway have you noticed - cut one modeller hand off,
and seven grow back in sundry places
all scribbling and modelling away ! ( and helping and adding and wasting paper!)

scritch scratch - hahaha! - er sorry just been reading The Plague [le vieil espagnole continuait se frotter ses mains "ils sortent! ils sortent!" avec une joie senile
it reads quite like a day on AB !

[10ClarionSt]

They were in wheelchairs before all this started Ken, and you know it.

There seems to be a sudden concern for the elderly in this country, when in fact lots of elderly people are left to die in hospitals. The pain is treated but not the condition. When the hospital decide to withdraw the painkilling treatment, the patient will die. It's been like that for years. In one local hospital, in the information folder at the end of the bed, it says that staff will assist all they can to help the patient have a peaceful death. I kid you not. So don't give us all this gubbins about concern for the elderly. It's just a blind.

[jim360]

Alternatively, we've been doing the wrong thing for ages and it took a pandemic to wake us up to that tragedy.

[tomus42]

We'll find out soon enough. I'm personally not going to be doing anything too different from what I've been doing for the last few weeks. E.g I won't be attending any barbecues where I have to stay two metres from everyone and sanitise the bathroom after I've been.
It doesn't sound like much fun, so I'll wait a while.

[10ClarionSt]

No Jim. Nothing will change in that regard. The elderly will still be left to die. Medical staff don't try to treat the condition. That stops when it gets to chronic or similar stages.

[retrocop]

10 CS
I recall visiting my father who had been admitted to Eastbourne hospital from his care home in Seaford. He had Pancreatitis. This was a good 25 years ago. Above his bed ,quite open, was the the chalk board with DNR written on it. He survived a good 6-7 years after his discharge.

[KARL]

As it has been asserted on here that most of the deaths are of "old trouts", does anyone know of a source for the data on the age spread in the UK Covid 19 death figures ?

[fiction-factory]

Some recent data here for England & Wales- scroll down to 26th May

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19roundup/2020-03-26

The majority of deaths involving COVID-19 have been among people aged 65 years and over (36,639 out of 41,220), with 46% (16,962) of these occurring in the over-85 age group.

These figures are higher than those announced in briefings as the include cases where no test was done but Covid was mentioned on the death cert

[fiction-factory]

Age group Total
Under 1 year 2
1 to 14 years 2
15 to 44 years 456
45 to 64 years 4121
65 to 74 years 6273
75 to 84 years 13404
85 years and over 16962

[ParsleyDumpling]

It would seem to me that the many on AB, who think lockdown shouldn't be relaxed (exempting those over 70, or vulnerable), are those who don't currently work. Perhaps, because they don't need to, or they have been furloughed, or they are retired? I realise some of you work for the NHS, and maybe your take on relaxation is different again? But, I have to wonder what some on here are afraid of. We have to live with this virus, we can't kill or destroy it, we may find a vaccine that works, in the meantime the more herd immunity we gain, the better for everyone. We cannot hide from it forever, which is what some on here seem to be advocating. Jim360 thinks that this is a chance for us as a society to rethink, so that perhaps we live a more simple life? Fine, we don't need holidays, meals out, spa treatments (just a few examples), but does that mean we shouldn't have them? As for the daily "death rate" I know personally of one person that died of cancer, but the death cert stated Covid19 as COD. How often is this happening, excess deaths are happening because people with life threatening conditions are not being treated, should this also continue?

[fiction-factory]

I've put % here in the spreadsheet
Age group %
Under 1 year 0
1 to 14 years 0
15 to 44 years 1
45 to 64 years 10
65 to 74 years 15
75 to 84 years 33
85 years+ 41
100

[tomus42]

// in the meantime the more herd immunity we gain, the better for everyone //

Herd immunity as far as I know, means just letting everyone catch the disease and those that live live (and so are hopefully immune), and those that die, die.

Is that what we want? It's a genuine question.

[ParsleyDumpling]

Isn't that what happens with other diseases we have no vaccine for? Why should this be any different, as has been shown the vast majority of people dying from this have underlying health conditions, and are in the upper age bracket. Of course an even greater majority of people are recovering, some without realising they were even infected.

[New Judge]

//I know personally of one person that died of cancer, but the death cert stated Covid19 as COD. How often is this happening,...//

Glad to hear that it's more than the two I mentioned (one was 95 and in poor health and was not tested for the virus, though it was mentioned on her DC; the other was very ill and was not expected to live beyond May anyway and she caught the virus in hospital). When I explained this two or three weeks ago it was dismissed out of hand.

[tomus42]

//Isn't that what happens with other diseases we have no vaccine for? Why should this be any different, //

Well, that's what I would have thought, except that every country in the world is treating this differently. We should wonder why - either it's because there's a different level of threat to this disease, or ......well, pick any one of the numerous conspiracy theories if that's your predilection.

[ParsleyDumpling]

They are treating it differently because it is a relatively new disease, and we have no herd immunity or vaccine. Are they treating it correctly, should perhaps be the question we should be asking?

[ParsleyDumpling]

I think are they managing rather than treating it correctly, is a better question.

[Gromit]

Thank you all for a lively debate, and some excellent answers.
Keep up the good work.

[tomus42]

//I think are they managing rather than treating it correctly, is a better question. //

Q1. Are you a scientist, medical professional, epidemiologist, or economist?

Q2. How do you think they could be doing things better, and why?

[ParsleyDumpling]

Tomas, I am none of those, and have never professed to be. I am just a normal person who as a key worker has gone to work every day since lockdown. I just asked whether the way this has been managed needed to be questioned. In my opinion trashing the economy and in effect hiding from this disease, has not helped. At some point, we may have to, perhaps, admit there is no effective vaccine, what then? I know some on here don't like the comparison between the flu and Covid19, but in the sixties how many millions of people died in the flu pandemic, do we have vaccines for all the strains (no), do people still die from it (yes in their thousands every year, but flu is not a notifiable disease)? We live with it now because of herd immunity (in my opinion). Rowanwich pointed out earlier that pandemics naturally kill millions, we have to accept that. Maybe Covid19 will become just another extremely clever virus we are unable to defeat.