Science, Statistics and Studies [SARS-CoV-2]

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15168206/

what's his chart for influenza deaths/cases so that we have a comparison?
Oh wait, there isn't one because people are ignoring the already existing massive numbers of influenza that the northern hemisphere suffers from every year during the 'winter' period, you understand Excess Winter Mortality right?
5000 china deaths is a drop in the ocean of their influenza deaths.

Early testing simply produces more +ve results and then people add 2+2 and get 5, the video on YT i've linked to explains why.
if testing and isolation was that important why is that not already a thing for influenza which kills over a million every year, that killed 32,500 in England and Wales last year alone?

We should isolate forever if we are to believe this is such a big threat given flu will still kill more and infect more because it doesn't get reported as much and people are less stringent in their basic personal hygiene.
And as we know, Corona Viruses exist every year and kill people every year already and have done for over half a century.

Could you isolate yourself?

Yeah that's all fine, but if your hospital has run out of ventilators and you can't bury your dead in good time with proper ceremony, what is actually going on?

Excess Winter Mortality doesn't usually result in that.

@Velocio
My conclusion was that infection rate is higher, deaths are massively higher and has been much worse going back.
Have you fact checked the weekly documented number in hospital per week/100k from influenza?

As an example this is week 49 December 12th 2019

Hospitalisations in ONE WEEK from influenza 5.0/100k
ICU cases for ONE week 0.22 cases/100k
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/851695/Weekly_national_influenza_report_week_50.pdf

Go further back Week 3 for 2017, 0.48 ICU cases per 100k reported across 116 from the 144 Trusts at the time.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/676759/Weekly_national_influenza_report_week_04_2018.pdf

Which is putting more people in hospital per week, the bigger threat is not from C.19

1 Attachment

Check the hospitalisation and ICU cases from flu in my above post.

As a front line worker I can't do that entirely, oh, you're throwing insults, gotcha.

Not an insult. A request.

Genuine question, what type of key worker are you?

Works for Timpson.

Is the fact that increase in total deaths per day has fallen well below 33% in Italy due to quarantine measures implemented two weeks ago, or an inherent characteristic of the growth rate of the epidemic?

I assume quarantine measures would have a 3 to 4 week lag in their impact on reducing death rate, therefore would not have had an impact on daily increase in deaths in Italy yet?

I'm doing 388 (UK deaths to date) multiplied by 33% (current daily increase in total deaths in the UK) to the power of 21 (3 weeks) and scaring myself about where we would be in 3 weeks time, but I am sure the assumptions behind that calc are flawed.

This one is about a study in the Lancet about death rates
(I can't find the og paper)

https://youtu.be/-60EvBSLulo

Pretty grim
In short, we should reckon the death rate ratio based on the number of infected 2 weeks ago, rather than today. This is because people will die from about 2 weeks onwards after symptoms.
Reckoning this way then the death rate is over 5% rather than 1% currently believed.

Feeding the isolated, infirm and elderly through a local authority backed social community organisation. We also do lots of other things including pumping any money left over into other services to support those that need it in the area that need extra help.

Additionally we support the local Age UK hospital discharge scheme with welfare bags and send welfare bags out into the community every week, we also support the community with nutrition checks to ensure they are getting enough of the right foods/calorific intake to stay well or hopefully get better and bring them out of the malnutrition band in quite a few cases.

Based on flawed rates from the start off, there will be millions who have it but aren't tested simply because it's impractical to test for it for everyone, nor should we increase testing, it's a waste of resources.

https://twitter.com/neil_ferguson/status/1241835454707699713 - O_o

Not sure how much this has been talked about, but overweight and obese patients account for 70% of the first 196 critical care cases with confirmed COVID-19. It's three days out of date though, but certainly fits with some of the news footage from Italy and USA.

https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/a9875849-f16c-ea11-9124-00505601089b

So everything is fine and I dont need to worry. Thanks. In all seriousness isn't the fact its a new corona virus to add to the flu and other corona bugs a worry esp as it causes respiratory problems v quickly one of the major worrys about this one. Good luck with your work by the way.

I guess it’s not surprising that if you are overweight / obese and you get in to respiratory difficulties you are going to be more likely to need a serious intervention to help you breathe

The BMI vs age distribution for the UK is similarly shaped so possible red herring. Reports from France that obesity was a common comorbidity in younger critically ill patients so maybe the metabolic component does predispose patients to more severe illness.

An ICU admission rate of 0.22/100k per week would give 13.2 new ICU cases per week assuming a London population of 6 million.

As of yesterday, there are 230 ventilated C19 patients in London. These have presented almost entirely in the previous 10 days. Even if you assume that’s 2 weeks worth of admissions it’s a rate of ~2/100k population, so 10x your flu figure.

@Mr_Bump The reason (as I’m sure you know) we do not all go into lockdown over flu every year is because there is a (admittedly varyingly effective) vaccine. This allows us to protect the most vulnerable (elderly, COPD, HCW’s) directly and protect the rest of the population indirectly via herd immunity. That option is not available with C19 hence social distancing etc in lieu of that.

Saying that C19 caused less deaths in China that seasonal flu, and that this shows we’re overreacting, is nonsense. The C19 deaths occurred in the context of massive military enforced lockdown and building extra hospitals to cope with admissions. The only relevant statistic would be flu deaths in Wuhan vs C19 deaths in Wuhan.

Additionally, I’m not sure your point about more surveillance for C19 be flu is correct. The detection rate of severe cases of flu should be high atm - all suspected C19 cases that are tested are also swabbed for flu, RSV etc.

The final point I will make is that it will take a long time to ascertain the true excess death rate from C19. There will be deaths due to indirect causes, mostly the breakdown in care provision for heart attacks / strokes, and the suspension or limitation of cancer surgery and oncology treatments.

The good doctor makes some valid points, especially on the deployment of tests in places where they are more likely to come up positive. Only time will tell how much worse this really is than normal 'flu. But you've seen the footage from Italy, the hospitals beyond capacity. Surely you'll acknowledge that a lot more people are dying from respiratory illness than those hospitals are used to? So it seems likely that something is different this time. Of course, it could be that we've got it wrong, it's a bit worse than regular flu but not much, almost everyone who is going to get it has had it, and it will run its course in a few weeks – but would you want to take that risk? There's a huge price to pay if we're wrong about that.

The new coronavirus may already have infected far more people in the UK than scientists had previously estimated — perhaps as much as half> the population — according to modelling by researchers at the > University of Oxford.
https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b

Here's the paper:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Model%20%2813%29.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Model%20%2813%29.pdf?dl=0