ONS Five year deaths average

Soutra that really is a poor argument. I won't go into why but anyone who has lost a parent would have given anything for more time with them.
 
Its difficult isn't it?
As long as the average age of death is 82 there is bound to be a discussion on the merits of taking the action we are taking to minimise those deaths.
 
Laughing said:
Soutra that really is a poor argument. I won't go into why but anyone who has lost a parent would have given anything for more time with them.
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Yes, I know it's very hard to talk about this stuff. When a 91 year old with lung cancer and advanced emphysema dies in hospital with a positive Covid test, can you really say that person died because of Covid?
 
Soutra said:
Yes, I know it's very hard to talk about this stuff. When a 91 year old with lung cancer and advanced emphysema dies in hospital with a positive Covid test, can you really say that person died because of Covid?
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Not everyone who has a Covid-19 positive test within 28 days gets registered as a covid death.
 
bear66 said:
Not everyone who has a Covid-19 positive test within 28 days gets registered as a covid death.
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From the government public health website, and pertaining to England only -

"For several months, the Covid 19 dashboard has been reporting, for England, all deaths in people who have a positive test. This a robust measure as it uses the fact of a positive test and the fact of death to derive the number reported. "

Of course the number is an approximation because some people die of Covid who haven't had a test, but there must be many in there who die of something else but are classified as Covid deaths.
 
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Soutra said:
I assume you mean UK civilian deaths?

We aren't at 70k yet, and these are people who died with Covid, not necessarily of it. The 50k are overwhelmingly old people, some of whom would have died anyway.
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Yes. When I said civilian death count I meant civilian deaths 😁
 
Soutra said:
Yes, I know it's very hard to talk about this stuff. When a 91 year old with lung cancer and advanced emphysema dies in hospital with a positive Covid test, can you really say that person died because of Covid?
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I wasn't referring to the cause of death, and in fact regardless of the underlying cause I am suggesting we extend life, where there is a quality of life for as long as we can.

I understand that it's a difficult subject, but surely as a society we don't want to abandon the elderly and vulnerable to make things easier for the rest of us.

I am trying not to use inflammatory language because it is a valid viewpoint, just not one I agree with.
 
Soutra said:
From the government public health website, and pertaining to England only -

"For several months, the Covid 19 dashboard has been reporting, for England, all deaths in people who have a positive test. This a robust measure as it uses the fact of a positive test and the fact of death to derive the number reported. "

Of course the number is an approximation because some people die of Covid who haven't had a test, but there must be many in there who die of something else but are classified as Covid deaths.
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They use that stat because it is repeatable. It is simplistic and flawed but it is flawed from both sides of the argument (non-tested Covid-19 fatalities, deaths from Covid-19 complications who die later as well as those for whom Covid-19 was not the primary cause of death) By arguing one side is more significant than the other demonstrates confirmation bias. It is a simple consistent measure of effect.

There is also the very real truth that Covid-19 is more survivable now than six months ago as treatments have improved. The only valid reason for measures to reduce the spread is to delay excess mortality until a viable vaccine is available and deployable and the only pertinent measure is really simple. It is the number of people in hospital requiring intensive care because of Cv19. I've read a few people playing with the data here and elsewhere. Data like total bed occupancy in the NHS and mostly it is meaningless as is this one. I didn't think I'd be on here defending the Government but by adopting this simple measure they at least get a repeatable result that can be used to measure performance and risk.
 
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