UK Covid death toll

[The liquidator]

Just got home from work with terrible news 2 of my best mates wives are in hospital with covid one on a indused coma on a ventilator the other in hospital with breathing difficulties.... One of them ownes a pub and there has been a super spreader in there and has been to another pub as well 9 cases so far both pubs closed down for 2 weeks and a complete clean.... Let me make this clear as well the one on the ventilator her pub has very strict rules on covid. Just shows you whatever you have in place if someone has it you can't stop it...

[Brentbaggie]

I listened to Charles Walker on Radio 4 yesterday and he pretty much sums up where I'm at (and where I've been since March)

"We just can’t save every life, because the cost to the living is too high.”

“The pandemic is not rampant, this is an illness that very sadly really afflicts the elderly and those with underlying health conditions."

“Our focus should be on protecting them, not limiting the life chances of young people and people of middle age who are responsible for running and owning businesses.”

“First world public services do require a first world economy"

“It does seem the government, for the best of reasons, but mistaken reasons, is trying to abolish death. You can’t abolish death. The fact is people in their 80s and 90s die.”

"The only guarantee anyone has when they're born is that at some stage in your 80s or 90s you are going to die”.

“My real concern is these decisions are mostly being made by the middle aged and well-heeled, paid out of the public purse, so they’re not really going to bear the consequences off these decisions.”

Many of you know I lost both my parents to late diagnosed cancer. Cancer Research today spells out that 3 million people have missed out on cancer screening tests since March due to our preoccuptaions with Covid. It makes me want to scream

Proth, I sympathise with you and quite understand your anger. I've got a 12 month post cancer op scan tomorrow that I should have had 7 weeks ago - and I think I'm very fortunate, at least I hope I will be. Losing both parents in the way you did is terrible and difficult to bear.  

My only question is how do politicians square the circle of allowing older and "unlucky" victims succumbing to Covid deaths, while at the same time ensuring that hospitals do not have to admit rising numbers with Covid who will need intensive care? I get that you think the numbers are misleading - and perhaps they are - but numbers on ventilators are going up. Do you think this will cease or do you think that without some kind of regulation these numbers will eventually decrease? What system of dealing with flare-ups would you instigate, if any?  

I think, and this seems to be the concern of politicians and SAGE, that they are trying to minimise deaths - they are inevitable - but in the short term, in the hope that while alternative long-term damage will undoubtedly result, this will be mitigated by the arrival of vaccine at some point within the next 6-9 months.  If it doesn't they will have gambled and lost.  If it does, and is safe, then it seems to me that the terrible shock of what would be 18 months of this nightmare/big damage to the economy/longer-term health issues, is a lesser evil than the alternative, a large number of deaths in the here and now, allied to long-term Covid illnesses in a fair number of other people.

What do you think?

[Ted Maul]

I listened to Charles Walker on Radio 4 yesterday and he pretty much sums up where I'm at (and where I've been since March)

"We just can’t save every life, because the cost to the living is too high.”

“The pandemic is not rampant, this is an illness that very sadly really afflicts the elderly and those with underlying health conditions."

“Our focus should be on protecting them, not limiting the life chances of young people and people of middle age who are responsible for running and owning businesses.”

“First world public services do require a first world economy"

“It does seem the government, for the best of reasons, but mistaken reasons, is trying to abolish death. You can’t abolish death. The fact is people in their 80s and 90s die.”

"The only guarantee anyone has when they're born is that at some stage in your 80s or 90s you are going to die”.

“My real concern is these decisions are mostly being made by the middle aged and well-heeled, paid out of the public purse, so they’re not really going to bear the consequences off these decisions.”

Many of you know I lost both my parents to late diagnosed cancer. Cancer Research today spells out that 3 million people have missed out on cancer screening tests since March due to our preoccuptaions with Covid. It makes me want to scream

Proth, I sympathise with you and quite understand your anger. I've got a 12 month post cancer op scan tomorrow that I should have had 7 weeks ago - and I think I'm very fortunate, at least I hope I will be. Losing both parents in the way you did is terrible and difficult to bear.  

My only question is how do politicians square the circle of allowing older and "unlucky" victims succumbing to Covid deaths, while at the same time ensuring that hospitals do not have to admit rising numbers with Covid who will need intensive care? I get that you think the numbers are misleading - and perhaps they are - but numbers on ventilators are going up. Do you think this will cease or do you think that without some kind of regulation these numbers will eventually decrease? What system of dealing with flare-ups would you instigate, if any?  

I think, and this seems to be the concern of politicians and SAGE, that they are trying to minimise deaths - they are inevitable - but in the short term, in the hope that while alternative long-term damage will undoubtedly result, this will be mitigated by the arrival of vaccine at some point within the next 6-9 months.  If it doesn't they will have gambled and lost.  If it does, and is safe, then it seems to me that the terrible shock of what would be 18 months of this nightmare/big damage to the economy/longer-term health issues, is a lesser evil than the alternative, a large number of deaths in the here and now, allied to long-term Covid illnesses in a fair number of other people.

What do you think?

Probably one of the best posts on here r.e. Covid. Fair play.

Hope all goes to plan with your scan.

[billybassett]

I’ve tried logic and joined up thinking it doesn’t work. 

I think some have this idea we have thousands of NHS staff who can be called upon to deal with an influx of Covid patients (a logical conclusion of to going back to normal) and at the same time treat Cancer and other serious illnesses. Presumably once the cancer and other seriously ill patients are out of hospital recovering or undertaking a course of treatment they are are just told to shield at home for a few months perhaps years because they’ve then become as inconvenient to everyone else’s freedoms as the old, already vulnerable and disabled. 

As you said we to try and suppress the spread of the virus because to not do so means you damage the economy and the health of the country. It should not be a a choice between treating non Covid patients and Covid patients. The problem is incompetence in implementation by the government and people ignoring the rules. That won’t be solved by everyone back to normal because it won’t be ahem normal!

This is the issue. Living with respiratory viruses is the normal. Covid is a non-lethal respiratory virus (more lethal than circulating influenza covid strains mind). You're getting confused with what's normal and not because that's what the govt want.

The PCR test is absolutely flawed, if you need evidence I can provide, thus mass testing only exacerbates the govts requirement to push the "casedemic" and thus negatively affect the general health of the majority of the population. This is also part of the reason the test and trace is flawed and not working because mass testing under the PCR test is flawed.

3.5k people in hospital, circa 24% of those are nosocomial Covid as they are tested for Covid when they enter add that to the PCR false positives plus the asymptomatics are lumped in.

Your unrelenting need to keep coming back to that I'm suggesting it should be "a choice between treating non Covid patients and Covid patients" is completely non-sensical. It shouldn't be a choice as everyone should still be being seen. The fact is the choice you are advocating is not seeing anyone and keeping us locked down.  Median age at covid19 death is 83y, 1y older than non-Covid19 deaths. Are you abolishing death now?

OFCOM has prevented main media from reporting other than the Govt line on covid19 since lockdown day 1. Check out their Coronavirus Broadcasting Regulations. Thus we are all being duped (well not me and maybe a couple more on here) in true 1984 style the Ministry of Cummings Propaganda and van Tam's advice to keep us all from acquiring immunity so he can sell his vaccine that he's associated to.

Wake up and smell the coffee my ponners

So why are they doing it? Why are they making themselves look more and more incompetent or in some cases downright dodgy? Why are Hobbling the economy on the eve of another shit show called Brexit? You seem to be heading down the conspiracy theory route BB and I’m not trying to be rude it just reads that way. If you have a theory then explain it as it might help understand your position more.

I'm going to spool this out off the top of my head. Prof Drosten(?I think) came up with a PCR test for Mers-Covid in circa 2014. That polymerase chain reaction test took just a few 1 or 2 fragments of RNA and uses temperature cycling to make to increase those fragments such that testing can be applied. That PCR test and the one for swine flu previously were proven to not be successful in providing high percentage positive success rates. In 2019 he tinkered on his own computer with then wuhan sars-cov2 strain (I won't digress here but he didn't actually have access to the actual strain when he did this). A strain of covid shares much the same sequencing as all the mutated flus we have each year. In fact to digress, because the covid strain is similar our T-cells (our memory cells for immunology) already have a circa 30% ability to react to the infection. Hence asymptomatic cases.

The PCR test now if you get one has a disclaimer that says something like it can't detect a positive Covid infection. The CDC publication in July in US on page 38 says PCR test is not a successful tool for diagnosing infections.

As to why. Drosten, Wheeler and others are locked into large pharmaceutical supply chains. Drosten during swine flu did the same, said we were all going to die and the PCR test was indicative of that and we all need a vaccine. Millions of doses of tamiflu were bought around the world with tax payer money and many million doses of tamiflu (and other variants) were destroyed using tax payers money as thankfully the powers that be didn't swallow the full ticket of lies. It's only actually the Chinese source of this that has enabled this to get this far. Praying on people's fears.

It's all about large pharmaceuticals and their sponsors, about poor leadership and scientific advice. SAGE should all resign it's disgraceful the information that's being put out. Last night BBC put out a big 65 deaths today headline - guess what the sub title was at the bottom - all deaths not just covid.

van Tam is linked directly to companies who are desperate to make a vaccine. Ferguson has no experience in respiratory illness and is a Physicist by education. Vallance's shocking remarks about re-infection are so wide of any scientific immunology research/knowledge it's palpably corrupt. The 50000 a day modelling was laughed out of town by most hugely respected scientists in the field.

There's currently a class action I believe that's started that is trying to bring a Crimes Against Humanity claim against those who started this misinformation and corruption. Whether it will get anywhere I don't know but it's off the back of many testimonies already to a Corona commission that took place in July.

If there's any justice it should succeed but at very minimum show these charlatans for what they are - bunch of power mad paid for corrupt tossers.

[Ted Maul]

143 deaths in the last 24 hours, quite the jump from the end of last week.

[Protheroe]

I listened to Charles Walker on Radio 4 yesterday and he pretty much sums up where I'm at (and where I've been since March)

"We just can’t save every life, because the cost to the living is too high.”

“The pandemic is not rampant, this is an illness that very sadly really afflicts the elderly and those with underlying health conditions."

“Our focus should be on protecting them, not limiting the life chances of young people and people of middle age who are responsible for running and owning businesses.”

“First world public services do require a first world economy"

“It does seem the government, for the best of reasons, but mistaken reasons, is trying to abolish death. You can’t abolish death. The fact is people in their 80s and 90s die.”

"The only guarantee anyone has when they're born is that at some stage in your 80s or 90s you are going to die”.

“My real concern is these decisions are mostly being made by the middle aged and well-heeled, paid out of the public purse, so they’re not really going to bear the consequences off these decisions.”

Many of you know I lost both my parents to late diagnosed cancer. Cancer Research today spells out that 3 million people have missed out on cancer screening tests since March due to our preoccuptaions with Covid. It makes me want to scream

Proth, I sympathise with you and quite understand your anger. I've got a 12 month post cancer op scan tomorrow that I should have had 7 weeks ago - and I think I'm very fortunate, at least I hope I will be. Losing both parents in the way you did is terrible and difficult to bear.  

My only question is how do politicians square the circle of allowing older and "unlucky" victims succumbing to Covid deaths, while at the same time ensuring that hospitals do not have to admit rising numbers with Covid who will need intensive care? I get that you think the numbers are misleading - and perhaps they are - but numbers on ventilators are going up. Do you think this will cease or do you think that without some kind of regulation these numbers will eventually decrease? What system of dealing with flare-ups would you instigate, if any?  

I think, and this seems to be the concern of politicians and SAGE, that they are trying to minimise deaths - they are inevitable - but in the short term, in the hope that while alternative long-term damage will undoubtedly result, this will be mitigated by the arrival of vaccine at some point within the next 6-9 months.  If it doesn't they will have gambled and lost.  If it does, and is safe, then it seems to me that the terrible shock of what would be 18 months of this nightmare/big damage to the economy/longer-term health issues, is a lesser evil than the alternative, a large number of deaths in the here and now, allied to long-term Covid illnesses in a fair number of other people.

What do you think?

Firstly, fingers crossed for tomorrow pal.

Every decision you make in life is based on the concept of opportunity costs. The opportunity costs in this situation are complex:

Some degree of a functioning economy / A healthcare system that can deliver cancer & acute care / A healthcare system that doesn't collapse under the weight of Covid / Minimisation of deaths

To have the latter three you need the former one. A strategy of containment until a vaccine is found is NOT a strategy. We may never have a vaccine, we cannot live in a permanent bankrupt economic and general healthcare twilight zone. If the cost of that is more deaths of those in their 80s and 90s then, and I'm going to say it - is a price worth paying to save younger lives. As it is the lives of those in their 80s and 90s are miserable enough without family or community contact. I genuinely believe my mum was lucky to die when she did.

We have the barely used Nightingale Hospitals for Covid sufferers.

Which brings me back to the point I've made for months on here - if there is a total lockdown it must be amongst those most at risk. The average age of a Covid death in the UK is still over 80 - this is not a disease that affects the vast majority of sufferers to any great degree.

Keir Starmer has tonight come out as the cheerleader for "the middle aged and well-heeled, paid out of the public purse" demanding restrictions on the rest of us. I was hoping he'd do something to make me loath him and he's managed it, bravo Keir.

[Brentbaggie]

I get most of what you say but I don't necessarily agree about the strategy "NOT" being a strategy. It may not work, it may not even be a good one but it is a strategy. You might argue "hope" is not a strategy but I still think this is what most governments are banking on. You clearly feel the risk is too great but to argue we may never have a vaccine sounds to me like you simply discount it.

I don't think you can do that. You may feel it's too risky but it's rare, not to say unique, for so many different companies and organisations to pursue a single purpose vaccine at the same time. The alternative is simply to say we must live with this forever. Why? Do we live forever with all diseases without ever intending to pursue a cure. Again, you may be right and a vaccine might not be forthcoming, but it makes sense to attempt to develop one and the speed with which this is being done is unprecedented.

I try not to be cynical - difficult in such times with such an incompetent government. I think Starmer arguing for a circuit breaker type strategy makes him allied to much of the science community. Maybe he's been opportunistic and it's not a strategy you agree with but it's not an argument I'd go to bat over either. Hard times. Ta for the fingers crossed - trouble is I've got two missing.

[Baggie_Nick]

143 deaths in the last 24 hours, quite the jump from the end of last week.

[Baggie_Nick]

I listened to Charles Walker on Radio 4 yesterday and he pretty much sums up where I'm at (and where I've been since March)

"We just can’t save every life, because the cost to the living is too high.”

“The pandemic is not rampant, this is an illness that very sadly really afflicts the elderly and those with underlying health conditions."

“Our focus should be on protecting them, not limiting the life chances of young people and people of middle age who are responsible for running and owning businesses.”

“First world public services do require a first world economy"

“It does seem the government, for the best of reasons, but mistaken reasons, is trying to abolish death. You can’t abolish death. The fact is people in their 80s and 90s die.”

"The only guarantee anyone has when they're born is that at some stage in your 80s or 90s you are going to die”.

“My real concern is these decisions are mostly being made by the middle aged and well-heeled, paid out of the public purse, so they’re not really going to bear the consequences off these decisions.”

Many of you know I lost both my parents to late diagnosed cancer. Cancer Research today spells out that 3 million people have missed out on cancer screening tests since March due to our preoccuptaions with Covid. It makes me want to scream

Proth, I sympathise with you and quite understand your anger. I've got a 12 month post cancer op scan tomorrow that I should have had 7 weeks ago - and I think I'm very fortunate, at least I hope I will be. Losing both parents in the way you did is terrible and difficult to bear.  

My only question is how do politicians square the circle of allowing older and "unlucky" victims succumbing to Covid deaths, while at the same time ensuring that hospitals do not have to admit rising numbers with Covid who will need intensive care? I get that you think the numbers are misleading - and perhaps they are - but numbers on ventilators are going up. Do you think this will cease or do you think that without some kind of regulation these numbers will eventually decrease? What system of dealing with flare-ups would you instigate, if any?  

I think, and this seems to be the concern of politicians and SAGE, that they are trying to minimise deaths - they are inevitable - but in the short term, in the hope that while alternative long-term damage will undoubtedly result, this will be mitigated by the arrival of vaccine at some point within the next 6-9 months.  If it doesn't they will have gambled and lost.  If it does, and is safe, then it seems to me that the terrible shock of what would be 18 months of this nightmare/big damage to the economy/longer-term health issues, is a lesser evil than the alternative, a large number of deaths in the here and now, allied to long-term Covid illnesses in a fair number of other people.

What do you think?

Best of luck with the scan.

[Tom Joad]

I don't come on the politics bored often and now I have I'm regretting it. My blood pressure is in turmoil about the £12B Track and Trace fiasco. Dido bloody Dataloss. Contracts awarded without tendering. Serco, P14Medical, Deloitte (What do they know about PPE, other than they got the contract to acquire it)? Most people were prepared to give Boris a chance based on the fact, no one had really faced a pandemic anytime recently, (Also based on the fact he wasn't Jeremy Corbyn). Mistakes were forgiven, originally. But continued mistakes aren't forgivable and corruption never really should be.
Back to the thread though. I don't know any more than anyone else on here just how deadly this virus is but I do recognise the facts that hospitals are filling up rapidly and ICU occupancy levels are creeping up again. At the start of this, The W.H.O. said "Test, test, test" yet we still don't appear to have any real consistent system in place. I'm absolutely gutted at this new semi lockdown but I also realise doing nothing wasn't really one of the options.