UK Covid death toll

[baggy1]

The week 44 figures for the week ended 30th October are out and this was a key week based on the trajectory pattern from the 1st wave. The good news is that the excess deaths haven't increased in the same way that they did in March / April, however the bad news is that again we have shown excess deaths for that week (1k vs the 5 year average and 723 vs 2019). Also it appears that the increase in those in hospital has slowed, it's still increasing but not as much as it has been (i'll update that later in the week).

For England and Wales the excess deaths for the year has now increased to over 63k against 2019 and over 57k against the 5YA and these are significant numbers because during the summer months they dipped slightly from a peak of 63k and 54k at the end of May / start of June slightly down to about 61k and 52k. Both of those figures are now increasing again and have passed the excess death figure peak earlier in the year. Overall for the year we are at about 113% of normal deaths and unfortunately we will pass the total number of deaths in 2019 in the next two weeks.

Very positive news on the vaccine and a light at the end of the tunnel, we just need to ensure we don't think that this os over for a few more months as we head into the flu season. Stay safe folks.

[Derek Hardballs]

Happy with my conscience and will keep striving to help people understand actually what's going on. I will keep doing it for my kids and my kids kids. What's a foot is corruption and fraud on a massive scale.

Lockdowns don't work otherwise why 2 and why a spring one mentioned.

How come masks aren't working either.

Like I've said Im not trying to convert people.just provide a.non Ofcom msm handcuffed set of information.

As for you Dekka I can put up with you being stupid but I don't have to.put up with your pathetic digs so fuck off

Why are you so against wearing a mask? They obviously have some benefits, you've alluded in an earlier post to the fact we've barely seen the flu this year and speaking for myself, I've made it to November without so much as a cold. I'd happily keep some of the regulations we've seen brought in over the past few months, people are generally taking more care and consideration r.e. hygiene in public and I wouldn't mind at all if they wanted us to keep masks on in shops. At the very least, if it makes other, more vulnerable people feel a bit safer then surely it's the right and responsible thing to do. It's a very small gesture.

Lockdowns as a tool to slow the spread and give the NHS greater capacity DO WORK. Lockdown 1.0 worked, it slowed and eventually decreased the rise in cases and the only reason we're in a second one is because our Government used the time to spend £12bn on a badly put together spreadsheet rather than an effective track and trace system.

If we are released from the current lockdown into the tier system (do you agree with this?) and a vaccine is gradually made available in the lead up to Christmas, then we may avoid a further shut down during the winter. If (and it's very possible), Johnson and his pals turn the vaccination programme into another of their infamous shitshows then we're likely to have to face up to Lockdown 3.0. Until we've got as close to zero Covid as possible, the economy is never going to function as it did.

With regards to the bold bit. Sincerely hoping you're not vulnerable, ill or have close family members who are. Nobody wants people who are ill and vulnerable to die or to be put under any more risk than necessary. If you do then I can guess that may be a valid place you'd like to see us in - for all the obvious reasons.

If you're not then I'm unsure as to the motive. I can't imagine a society I'd want myself or my kids to live in where we were in such a constant state of fear or anxiety to give up all the pleasures of living in a social society such that we have to wear masks or keep our distance because of a "bad flu" (yes I'll keep saying it). In no other year in the last 50, when there have been equally bad influenza and respiratory outbreaks, have we done so and we've managed to live with things proportionately.

As for the proposition that it's safer and a more responsible thing to do for ALL of us is in my mind preposterous. Subjecting 99.9% of a healthy population to measures that reduce their liberty, freedom, socialisation, fun, joy is not for me. It would be completely out of proportion to any risk and the slippery slope to further draconian measures some of which have already been mentioned like: having to have a test to get a job, having to have had a vaccine to travel, being controlled and scared by an authoritarian government. Don't get me wrong if it was ebola or an actual lethal virus then the measures would be in proportion to the current lethality of that virus. But a respiratory cov variant virus. No.

As for masks. Nowhere in the last 8 months where masks were enforced with the full power of the law since day 1 have they made any difference. BMJ studies, over a number of years, of mask use in highly risk clinical settings have results that are not conclusive one way or the other.

As for your question about the tiering. Then if any lockdown was really necessary to actually protect the health service then a proportionate local way to go would be more effective. But firstly you have to believe that there was an issue, secondly that the issue was caused by admissions and not staff being off work because they had a false positive test (37% of staff in Yorkshire), and thirdly that the cost of doing that was less than the cost of locking that area down (total cost and benefits of all health, business, economy etc). On all counts in my mind the threshold was not reached.

Like I say when you've got millions upon millions of our money staked into testing, tracing, ppe and vaccination contracts stopping that tanker without signing your own political career death warrant (undersigned by tory donors) is basically impossible so you're left with pursuing the approach we have.

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Dekka wrote:

"Simply an honest position. You continually say it’s just a bad flu and yet people far better qualified than you disagree. Comparison

I gave up talking to you civilly about this subject when you dismissed my polite and well reasoned position of standing up for the rights of the most vulnerable during the pandemic with a single word.., ‘yawn’. The most honest and telling thing you have said on this subject."

I had to stop reading the comparison when I saw the phrase "Many more people are susceptible to COVID-19 because there is little preexisting immunity to the virus that causes it—SARS-CoV-2". 100% incorrect based on current knowledge of the genome, 30,000 pairs sequenced at the start of the year, and its comparison to 4 existing flu variants. But then I saw the foundation is sponsored to the tune of £3bn by Bloomberg and then the dots started to form.

I can keep saying it because I believe it to be true. You believe it's much much worse than influenza because you believe all the deaths registered as Covid deaths were deaths from Covid. If you believe that then there's really no helping you.

If you really believe I said "Yawn" to that then you're a bigger self righteous cock than I already thought.

So, you want and are happy for the elderly to pay with their lives for something the younger ones in the community are , mostly, perpetuating.

I don't want anyone to pay with their lives. Your statement implies that the young or others not a risk of covid won't pay with their lives at some point down the line.

I find the whole debate, that you actually can't have (intimation of eugenics or killing the old and vulnerable) because the rebuttal by people is just to come out with the "some people may die argument", so facile and bit like an a GCSE response to an ethics question.

Nobody wants anyone to die but after 7 months of protecting the old and vulnerable (which in hindsight has not gone very well at all with the same measures you are advocating now) why we can't have an adult debate about a wider range of risks to the population as a whole.

Seven months of protecting the old and vulnerable? You can go to the pub, go to a restaurant, go to the shops, go on holiday, go to school, go to the gym, go to college, go to university etc. Shielding stopped a couple of months ago it’s been you’re on you own for months. 

The rest have had it far easier than those shielding and will continue to do so. It’s not a choice between the two sections of society they are connected and there has to be a middle way as I said previously.

Let's leave it I'm done with it. You've not answered my question - always the same rebuttal.

Ok I will leave it there but my rebuttal is always the same because the solution you want to see happen doesn’t alter. I can’t change the consequences if the same hypothetical situation is put forward.

Yawn

[billybassett]

Point Dekka?

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12,949 Covid Hospital patients
128,051 non Covid Hospital patients

The health service overrun - is it? - if it is it's because of treatment of illnesses left to lay fallow for 8 months because Covid is supposedly the only thing you can die of.

My wife's breast screening has been cancelled again along with a million other women - say BreastCancer org - who also have not had screenings. Screening 200 women sees 1 women's life saved (as per NHS data).

I'm not going to go hyperbolic here because that would be silly but that's 5000 lives potentially. That's one well known, well screened illness. Wait till we get the cardiac and cancer deaths stacking up because of missed appointments. And yet I'm not supposed to mention proportionality or cost benefits of a lockdown because some already vulnerable people may die.

[The liquidator]

Is this shit still going

[baggiebuckster]

Is this shit still going

Yeah. Didn't you see the news? Got a vaccine for it soon

[baggy1]

The point you keep missing billy is that if we get increased numbers in hospital because of covid they don't have capacity to do other treatments. The numbers in hospital are increasing and if we didn't lockdown or if we removed restrictions then they would fill up more. It isn't just the over 65s in hospital, they are just the ones that pay the ultimate price.

[Derek Hardballs]

Point Dekka?

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12,949 Covid Hospital patients
128,051 non Covid Hospital patients

The health service overrun - is it? - if it is it's because of treatment of illnesses left to lay fallow for 8 months because Covid is supposedly the only thing you can die of.

My wife's breast screening has been cancelled again along with a million other women - say BreastCancer org - who also have not had screenings. Screening 200 women sees 1 women's life saved (as per NHS data).

I'm not going to go hyperbolic here because that would be silly but that's 5000 lives potentially. That's one well known, well screened illness. Wait till we get the cardiac and cancer deaths stacking up because of missed appointments. And yet I'm not supposed to mention proportionality or cost benefits of a lockdown because some already vulnerable people may die.

The point you keep missing billy is that if we get increased numbers in hospital because of covid they don't have capacity to do other treatments. The numbers in hospital are increasing and if we didn't lockdown or if we removed restrictions then they would fill up more. It isn't just the over 65s in hospital, they are just the ones that pay the ultimate price.

He doesn’t miss it he ignores the you’re making. He also ignores the point not everyone who is vulnerable is old and lives by themselves. Many are disabled, are recovering from serious illness of all ages and will be living with siblings, parents and carers who have to go to work, school, shops etc. The idea they can shield given these circumstances is nonsense over a prolonged period. He also ignores the point that those shielding have jobs, families to support and their own physical and mental health problems just like everyone else. It seems by this logic he wants them be the sacrificial lamb so that everyone else’s economic, social and health problems can be prioritised.

[billybassett]

Point Dekka?

---

12,949 Covid Hospital patients
128,051 non Covid Hospital patients

The health service overrun - is it? - if it is it's because of treatment of illnesses left to lay fallow for 8 months because Covid is supposedly the only thing you can die of.

My wife's breast screening has been cancelled again along with a million other women - say BreastCancer org - who also have not had screenings. Screening 200 women sees 1 women's life saved (as per NHS data).

I'm not going to go hyperbolic here because that would be silly but that's 5000 lives potentially. That's one well known, well screened illness. Wait till we get the cardiac and cancer deaths stacking up because of missed appointments. And yet I'm not supposed to mention proportionality or cost benefits of a lockdown because some already vulnerable people may die.

The point you keep missing billy is that if we get increased numbers in hospital because of covid they don't have capacity to do other treatments. The numbers in hospital are increasing and if we didn't lockdown or if we removed restrictions then they would fill up more. It isn't just the over 65s in hospital, they are just the ones that pay the ultimate price.

He doesn’t miss it he ignores the you’re making. He also ignores the point not everyone who is vulnerable is old and lives by themselves. Many are disabled, are recovering from serious illness of all ages and will be living with siblings, parents and carers who have to go to work, school, shops etc. The idea they can shield given these circumstances is nonsense over a prolonged period. He also ignores the point that those shielding have jobs, families to support and their own physical and mental health problems just like everyone else. It seems by this logic he wants them be the sacrificial lamb so that everyone else’s economic, social and health problems can be prioritised.

Not sure you can speak for me Deko.

I understand it fully. What I don't see at this time is any capacity issues for treating anyone. Before lockdown 2 the only capacity issues the hospitals had were because of missing staff because of the faulty PCR test. Admissions were rising exactly like they do every year and why in a badish flu season in 2018 people were in corridors. What I didn't hear about then were operations / screenings being cancelled and the country in lockdown.

This para:
"Many are disabled, are recovering from serious illness of all ages and will be living with siblings, parents and carers who have to go to work, school, shops etc. The idea they can shield given these circumstances is nonsense over a prolonged period. He also ignores the point that those shielding have jobs, families to support and their own physical and mental health problems just like everyone else. It seems by this logic he wants them be the sacrificial lamb so that everyone else’s economic, social and health problems can be prioritised."

This describes EVERY year where there are any one of 4 (now 5) respiratory illnesses in circulation. For those people you mention it could kill them as easily as Covid. Yet in EVERY other year they take precautions, as do their families and clinics they attend, but the rest of the population 10s of millions go about living their lives, paying taxes, creating joy and wealth so those people can enjoy the NHS services. And if you're going to tell me Covid is much more deadly please do your reading. It's not.

The point you are missing is that for some reason you're locked into the notion that this is a lethal virus. It's not. My last point made is that cardiac illnesses, cancer etc are way more deadly. Hence why at the moment the majority 90%+ of excess deaths are at home - so not covid as they go to hospital. And like I've said to baggy1 before nobody has yet shown me any real evidence that all the excess deaths to date were "of" covid. Lots were, it was tragic. But now your approach is akin to manslaughter of the healthy population. Grim reading at the moment is the nr of excess deaths of under 20s - all obviously non-covid. Shocking.

[billybassett]

Back to some numbers. The Liverpool mass testing madness to find the virus actually has some expected results.

0.7% positive rate (162 from 23170).

So even if you took the false positive rate for this PCR test to be 0.7%, which would be unheard of (too low) for actual gold standard multi primer, low cycle tests, then we can safely say they have currently proved on this sample there is no covid in Liverpool.

Of course there will be but it's not an epidemic and certainly not worthy of shutting the city for....

[baggy1]

When you say expected results, what does that mean? Are these results of tests carried out so far?

And you didn't let me know when you thought there was a worse year (or even comparable) for flu deaths. Is there a particular year that I should look at?