Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

I think the government has really constructed a parallel discursive reality and people are falling for it. It was a stroke of genius to only report hospital deaths, allowing the government to pretend its crisis management has been a success so far. Quite unbelievable what Boris said on Monday, if you think about it. I think it’s easily on par with Trump:

thanks to our collective national resolve
we are on the brink of achieving that first > > clear mission to prevent our national health > service from being overwhelmed in a way > > that tragically we have seen elsewhere

If this was a movie, I'd have walked out now because the plot is implausible. I think I need to put the world on mute.

From what I read Vallance was the one that suggested the "herd immunity" not Whitty.

Any nuance may not matter though if the Tories/general public want to see somebody punished.

I’m not a conspiracy nut but this all does seem far too convenient for boris.

Haha, that’s a good way of putting it!

Are they going to retroactively add all of the care home deaths so far, or only the daily new ones? The BBC ticker item I read didn't really talk about that.

2 weeks.

Post 11267 if anyone is asking.

That article seems to say the ban on birthing partners was only some trusts and that was reversed anyway so it seems likely that a partner being present is normal for normals as well as our dear leader.

He should be on paternity leave for a few weeks now then

He should do that though, not least to set an example of what a supportive partner should be like.

Don't know. I imagine however they can spin it so it doesn't sound too awful.

Also, I thought fathers aren't allowed to go to hospital at the moment? More special treatment for Boris?

They can go for the birth but have to leave shortly after.

Is the reporting of only hospital deaths (and not care home/community deaths) something only the UK was doing, or is it the norm amongst other countries?

Trying to understand if this makes our figures even worse than they already are compared to other countries.

Is this just an ignore watch update? Looks like you've got a few...glad I'm still part of your viewing pleasure.

Belgium, iirc, is already adding them, which is part of the reason for their high death toll. France started doing it at some point in several 'batches', which is why their death numbers suddenly spiked to double or treble the normal values a few times. Not sure about Spain and Italy.

Yes, they already are adding the deaths outside hospital but they do this separately and the only stat they had for the first few weeks was 'deaths in hospital'.

They're probably relying on the fact that a sudden jump in deaths (by now reporting on all deaths in/out hospital) would be seen as a huge jump and spook many people who just look for a headline number.

At first it was the only number they had, and so they're going to continue using that same number as the primary metric. They should also be publishing the total number of known deaths and reiterating that there are delays in gathering these figures.

The problems with deaths outside hospital are:-
a) Deaths outside hospital take much longer to be reported and filter through to the central stats gathering service (ONS)
b) Deaths outside hospital are less likely to have already been tested, therefore there's also a delay for post-mortem nasal swab tests to check for Covid-19 before this can be formally put on a death certificate
c) There's no guarantee that every death outside hospital will be tested, and there's still a judgement call to be made on whether someone who died who tested positive for Covid-19 actually died from the complications of Covid-19 or whether they were asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and died from something unrelated.
d) etc...

Even for deaths within hospitals much of that applies, there can be significant delays, here's the data from a week ago showing date of death and date of report of death:-

https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1252586603580731393?s=20

So if a death occurs in hospital the most likely date that it will be properly reported is two days later.

Hospitals lag by two days on average, but then there's a long tail from testing.
Deaths outside hospitals lag by weeks.

Adding the deaths from two weeks ago to the "day's stats" makes for misleading and not very useful stats, especially when vast swathes of the current media just want to headline with a single number.

is it the norm amongst other countries?

Italy were not doing it. Not sure if they are now.

Good explanation on the pitfalls of doing so above.

Yep, this is true where I am (source: partner having a baby imminently). Allowed to be present for the birth and afterwards, but not allowed on the post-natal wards, so if my partner has to stay in overnight, I have to go home.

Pitchforks away on this issue!

So Boris going on Paternity leave for a few weeks now?

No, he said he's delaying until later.

There's two distinct options for death certificates: Positive Covid19 and Suspected Covid19 (even if they test negative this can be used). Are they doing postmortem swabs?

Also, if I've read ONS correctly, any pneumonia with a positive Covid19 is being counted in the Covid19 pile. This could include things like aspiration pneumonia and pneumoccal pneumonia.

Tekkers there's
Two ICD 10 codes for covid
And then on the death certificate
There's
1 main bit, 2 bits that underly 1, and a.3rd bit that may or may not be related.o

Given how many kids he's rumoured to have had, I think he's on semi-permanent paternity leave.

I think he and Vallance were integral to the 'herd immunity' / delayed lockdown / 'behavioural science' strategy that contributed to where we are.

Why do you think this?

The times article portrayed Vallance as close to Cummings but Whitty not.

{edit: wot @JWestland said}

People seem surprised by the early delivery of Septimus or Octavius Johnson or whatever his name will be. Please bear in mind that lizards have a gestation period of under 9 months.

FT Graphs now include 'excess mortality'.