Lockdown Deaths

[Alvez_48]

I agree. In fact, I've said before that we all (nearly all) agree that we have to find a way out of lockdown. It should only ever be a short-term measure to try and bring things back under control before implementing a different/better policy response to the virus.

I think what we disagree about is the extent to which the virus has already infected the population. I tend to believe that the evidence shows that we have had a relatively small infection thus far (Vallance has just said 6.78%), whilst others are of the view that it has been much more extensive than that.

Depending on who is correct, the virus either still presents a very real threat to a high proportion of the population, or else it's something that we can be a lot more relaxed about. I would argue that we should err on the side of caution (particularly given the emerging data).

True that is the key point if it's 6.7% then we're ****ed I'm praying that's wrong for sure.
The data seems to be showing consistent drops in infections despite huge numbers of people doing whatever they want and increased testing capacity.

I guess the first true test will be when we're officially allowed to go to a mates house to play FIFA.

 

[spanishman]

But that right there is a huge problem... Let's for sake of argument say that the lockdown deaths are lockdown deaths and the covid deaths are covid deaths and there's no overlap..

That would then immediately put the policy decisions in an extremely negative light and new ways of tackling future outbreaks would need to be found.

If we lump them all as covid by association it just gives the green light for sledgehammer approaches going forward and all the costs that come with it, civil liberties, economic disaster etc.

I am talking about comparing the situation in different countries. There is no other way I can see how you can compare other that look at the policies in each country. Taking into account how many excess deaths they have had.

There are many different factors to consider. It is not just a binary choice between coronavirus and lock down deaths. The analysis will not be completed any time soon. However it will be done at some point.

 

[Billy Horner]

I am talking about comparing the situation in different countries. There is no other way I can see how you can compare other that look at the policies in each country. Taking into account how many excess deaths they have had.

There are many different factors to consider. It is not just a binary choice between coronavirus and lock down deaths. The analysis will not be completed any time soon. However it will be done at some point.

I agree. However, as a bit of a statistics nerd, I can foresee people even taking those numbers out of context.

I think we can all assume that countries such as the UK, Spain, Italy and the United States will fair badly on all-cause excess deaths. As they are all countries which implemented lockdowns (to greater or lesser extents), I can see some people claiming that this demonstrates that it didn't work (or even made matters worse), when the truth is that the virus was already out of control in those countries when lockdowns were implemented.

 

[spanishman]

I agree. However, as a bit of a statistics nerd, I can foresee people even taking those numbers out of context.

I think we can all assume that countries such as the UK, Spain, Italy and the United States will fair badly on all-cause excess deaths. As they are all countries which implemented lockdowns (to greater or lesser extents), I can see some people claiming that this demonstrates that it didn't work (or even made matters worse), when the truth is that the virus was already out of control in those countries when lockdowns were implemented.

I agree.

 

[Cambsred]

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article...nds-of-patients/amp?__twitter_impression=true

Why were scheduled life lenghthing operations suspended? Why did mental health support in hospitals and the community stop instead of adjusting?
Why are garden centers open before every department in a hospital?

It's all to do with systems. If I were a painter, I would imagine it was fairly easy to get up and running again as a business. Single person, probably own the tools. Main requ

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article...nds-of-patients/amp?__twitter_impression=true

Why were scheduled life lenghthing operations suspended? Why did mental health support in hospitals and the community stop instead of adjusting?
Why are garden centers open before every department in a hospital?

I think this is a really important question to ask.

The NHS approach was a simple one- free up as much system capacity as possible. We knew there were not enough ventilators/ staff to cope with what was happening in Italy, and therefore we had to create as much capacity as possible. In London at its peak this was necessary to cover staff sickness so there was enough workforce. If everything was left running you have the two fold risk of infections coming in, as well as not enough staff to cover potential sickness- especially the specialist staff such as anesthetists.

The rest of the country did not suffer as Italy had, and has parts of London did. A lot of staff were retrained at ready for a spike which fortunately never came.

One question is now do you send everyone back and recommence normal business, when it is far from clear whether there will be another spike that needs supporting. If you stand everyone down and there is a spike, you have to stop the whole system again. You can increase ventilator and tech capacity, but you can't increase people capacity- there are not enough staff when running routine care.

The biggest factor is thinking about systems- it is easy to press the big red button and stop a system. But restarting it again is much more of a challenge. For example if you have a person sat at home who needs a cancer screening. You have to have lab capacity (may be reallocated to testing currently). They may need to see a GP- limited appointments due to now requiring PPE and needing to clean more thoroughly. Referral to a specialist- more limited as GP. May require a scan- less available or only urgent so required to open capacity. May require surgery- staff to support this are doing COVID activities and not available yet to support surgeries. Ward space may still be allocated to COVID management. Porters could be elsewhere- potentially covid specific or other. Oxygen capacity has been pushed due to virus patient requirements- would this be free to then accommodate normal cases too.
These are just factors that come to mind- while you then introduce track and trace where potentially if one NHS staff member gets sick, you could lose a ward of staff for 14 days and need to cover that. Some services will have staff shielding- and others sick.

Now I don't know enough about opening up a garden centre, but I expect systems may not be as complex, although I am sure logistics and staffing would still pose a challenge- but you can limit your capacity in a garden centre and cope I suspect better than an NHS system would need to.

I do agree in hindsight adjusting would have been easier, but in March, on the basis of what was happening in Italy, and in some London hospitals the country was gearing up for everyone delivering covid care.

 

[ForssAwakens]

Oh I don't back the government at all.. maybe if they had locked down immediately stopped all travel and gone full new Zealand things might have been different.. maybe not but maybe.

Yep that was what was required

 

[Randy]

The language used in today's briefing is wrong and frankly scary.

"We will allow up to 6 people to meet outside"

Allow? Get ****ed Boris.

 

[Millbrook]

I've been told of 3 cases where the cause was given as covid when it clearly wasn't. In one case an 80 yr old women lapsed into a diabetic coma and the death was attributed to covid. When her daughter queried it she was told that if covid went on the death certificate an autopsy wasn't needed. One of the other was a bleed on the brain from falling off a horse.

Interesting article in the Spectator on reporting the cause of death;

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-way-covid-deaths-are-being-counted-is-a-national-scandal

it says;
Normally, two doctors are needed to certify a death, one of whom has been treating the patient or who knows them and has seen them recently. That has changed. For Covid-19 only, the certification can be made by a single doctor, and there is no requirement for them to have examined, or even met, the patient. A video-link consultation in the four weeks prior to death is now felt to be sufficient for death to be attributed to Covid-19. For deaths in care homes the situation is even more extraordinary. Care home providers, most of whom are not medically trained, may make a statement to the effect that a patient has died of Covid-19. In the words of the Office for National Statistics, this ‘may or may not correspond to a medical diagnosis or test result, or be reflected in the death certification’. From 29 March the numbers of ‘Covid deaths’ have included all cases where Covid-19 was simply mentioned on the death certificate — irrespective of positive testing and whether or not it may have been incidental to, or directly responsible for, death. From 29 April the numbers include the care home cases simply considered likely to be Covid-19.

So at a time when accurate death statistics are more important than ever, the rules have been changed in ways that make them less reliable than ever. In what proportion of Covid-19 ‘mentions’ was the disease actually present? And in how many cases, if actually present, was Covid-19 responsible for death? Despite what you may have understood from the daily briefings, the shocking truth is that we just don’t know. How many of the excess deaths during the epidemic are due to Covid-19, and how many are due to our societal responses of healthcare reorganisation, lockdown and social distancing? Again, we don’t know. Despite claims that they’re all due to Covid-19, there’s strong evidence that many, perhaps even a majority, are the result of our responses rather than the disease itself.
It might have been possible to check these proportions by examining the deceased. But at a time when autopsies could have played a major role in helping us understanding this disease, advice was given which made such examinations less likely than might otherwise have been the case. The Chief Coroner issued guidance on 26 March which seemed designed to keep Covid-19 cases out of the coronial system: ‘The aim of the system should be that every death from Covid-19 which does not in law require referral to the coroner should be dealt with via the [death certification] process.’ And even guidance produced by the Royal College of Pathologists in February stated: ‘In general, if a death is believed to be due to confirmed Covid-19 infection, there is unlikely to be any need for a post-mortem examination to be conducted and the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death should be issued.’

 

[Randy]

Also note in the coronavirus bill the NHS has indemnity with regards to covid-19 cases.

 

[Laughing]

I have just re-read this thread. In retrospect it does make lots of interesting points, which I won't belabour. A couple of things occur to me. The first is that we clearly don't understand the epidemiology of covid-19 very well. How it spreads and how it effects the bodies organs.

There is some evidence to suggest that it can cause secondary problems in young children. I also wonder if it causes secondary problems in us all. I suggest this because of the way it attacks multiple organs, not just lungs.

The second thing that occurs to me, and I think Bear mentioned this early in the thread, and I didn't spot an answer to it. Why have excess deaths largely tracked covid deaths? I can't square that circle at all.

Randy, wouldn't the government have indemnity anyway, something to do with holding an organization to account for homicides?

 

[Millbrook]

The indemnity was already there but the bill was introduced to cover any gaps caused by health care staff working to manage Covid.

 

[Alvez_48]

Interesting article in the Spectator on reporting the cause of death;

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-way-covid-deaths-are-being-counted-is-a-national-scandal

it says;
Normally, two doctors are needed to certify a death, one of whom has been treating the patient or who knows them and has seen them recently. That has changed. For Covid-19 only, the certification can be made by a single doctor, and there is no requirement for them to have examined, or even met, the patient. A video-link consultation in the four weeks prior to death is now felt to be sufficient for death to be attributed to Covid-19. For deaths in care homes the situation is even more extraordinary. Care home providers, most of whom are not medically trained, may make a statement to the effect that a patient has died of Covid-19. In the words of the Office for National Statistics, this ‘may or may not correspond to a medical diagnosis or test result, or be reflected in the death certification’. From 29 March the numbers of ‘Covid deaths’ have included all cases where Covid-19 was simply mentioned on the death certificate — irrespective of positive testing and whether or not it may have been incidental to, or directly responsible for, death. From 29 April the numbers include the care home cases simply considered likely to be Covid-19.

So at a time when accurate death statistics are more important than ever, the rules have been changed in ways that make them less reliable than ever. In what proportion of Covid-19 ‘mentions’ was the disease actually present? And in how many cases, if actually present, was Covid-19 responsible for death? Despite what you may have understood from the daily briefings, the shocking truth is that we just don’t know. How many of the excess deaths during the epidemic are due to Covid-19, and how many are due to our societal responses of healthcare reorganisation, lockdown and social distancing? Again, we don’t know. Despite claims that they’re all due to Covid-19, there’s strong evidence that many, perhaps even a majority, are the result of our responses rather than the disease itself.
It might have been possible to check these proportions by examining the deceased. But at a time when autopsies could have played a major role in helping us understanding this disease, advice was given which made such examinations less likely than might otherwise have been the case. The Chief Coroner issued guidance on 26 March which seemed designed to keep Covid-19 cases out of the coronial system: ‘The aim of the system should be that every death from Covid-19 which does not in law require referral to the coroner should be dealt with via the [death certification] process.’ And even guidance produced by the Royal College of Pathologists in February stated: ‘In general, if a death is believed to be due to confirmed Covid-19 infection, there is unlikely to be any need for a post-mortem examination to be conducted and the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death should be issued.’

I pointed this out repeatedly right at the start of lockdown as soon as the coronavirus bill passed... Not a peep from the guardian, surely it's the type of reporting they would be all over but nope.

 

[Alvez_48]

I have just re-read this thread. In retrospect it does make lots of interesting points, which I won't belabour. A couple of things occur to me. The first is that we clearly don't understand the epidemiology of covid-19 very well. How it spreads and how it effects the bodies organs.

There is some evidence to suggest that it can cause secondary problems in young children. I also wonder if it causes secondary problems in us all. I suggest this because of the way it attacks multiple organs, not just lungs.

The second thing that occurs to me, and I think Bear mentioned this early in the thread, and I didn't spot an answer to it. Why have excess deaths largely tracked covid deaths? I can't square that circle at all.

Randy, wouldn't the government have indemnity anyway, something to do with holding an organization to account for homicides?

You could square the circle by also realising that the excess deaths spiked when covid deaths spiked AND when all other medical provisions essentially stopped AND care homes were locked down. Again I reiterate 80% of care home guests have dementia, when they have a huge disruption to routine they deteriorate and then sadly die.
I'm not saying covid isn't involved but the way we count the deaths has made it easier to over count then under count. I've had it back and forth with Billy on this.

 

[Laughing]

Alvez, that indicates the vast majority of the non-covid excess deaths are in care homes, is that the case? What do we have about 30,000 excess deaths not attributed to covid, any idea where I can get some numbers for where these deaths occurred?

 

[Second Mate]

Hmm South Korea no lockdown... Also all in the southern hemisphere. Super.

I can't comment on what any othose nations health services did in terms of other care. I know ours shut everything down.

All in the Southern hemisphere?? Japan?? South Korea?? Must have moved in the many years since I was a navigator at sea.

 

[Alvez_48]

All in the Southern hemisphere?? Japan?? South Korea?? Must have moved in the many years since I was a navigator at sea.

I was referring to Oz and NZ but yes my bad

 

[Alvez_48]

Alvez, that indicates the vast majority of the non-covid excess deaths are in care homes, is that the case? What do we have about 30,000 excess deaths not attributed to covid, any idea where I can get some numbers for where these deaths occurred?

I think they are but maybe you could show me I'm wrong I'm sure I've seen that the majority of excess not marked as covid have been in care homes.
Also please note I reference the change of provisioning of care in the NHS also.

 

[Randy]

Under 200 deaths per day??

 

[SmallTown]

Under 200 deaths per day??
View attachment 3639

Well no. That graph shows under 200 deaths in one single day. You probably think that's acceptable anyway...

 

[Randy]

Well no. That graph shows under 200 deaths in one single day. You probably think that's acceptable anyway...

Give it a rest, you follow me about a lost puppy dog.

It shows multiple days in hospitals where the worst symptomatic cases go. But because you are actively hoping more and more people die from covid-19 to satisfy your dystopian wet dream you aren't happy. Must be real depressing in your house, I'd usually block somebody like you on a forum but your constant baiting does make me chuckle most days.

450 people on average die of cancer everyday. Think about that the next time you get in your car or turn on your kettle.

People die. It's a fact. You will die, I will die. Kids die, old people die. Men die. Women die. Death is sad but inevitable. If you fretting over it every day gets you through the day crack on.