UK Covid death toll

[Brentbaggie]

My view is that we - and by 'we' I mean the government - created our own dilemma by going into lockdown later than other countries; a decision taken seemingly on the basis of nothing more substantial than bluster and a misplaced idea that we could somehow blag it. The delayed start inevitably led to a delayed exit and the inescapable conclusion that we had now fallen behind those same countries.

The government then couldn't handle the pressure that went with the consequences of their original indecision and have decided to implement an easing sequence based on the same flawed approach that led to their inertia in the first place.

By any measure Johnson and the cabinet don't come out of this well.

I took the late lockdown as a given btw. Inept.

[baggy1]

The death rate is not a good guide. The infection rate is the one we should be really worried about - unless you're dead of course - and that is now stubbornly around the 1000 mark.  Hospital admissions have fallen which is welcome but the numbers becoming infected should have fallen much further by now - as they did in Spain and Italy. Still reckon we came out of lockdown a week - 10 days too early.  Now it's a free-for-all as far as many people are concerned - except they're not concerned.

Slightly disagree with the best guide BB, the infection rate is basically a figure that is as good as what we can test, it's a good indicator of how much is out there but because test and trace has been so poor then we are not getting a good picture of where the figure was to compare with now. The figure I'm watching is the hospital admissions figure which is much more certain.

That figure is dropping but it is almightily slow - Hospital admissions at it's peak at the start of April was over 3.5k, that dropped below 3k on the 9th April, below 2k on the 18th April and below 1k on about the 8th May (it went above that for a couple of days but has stayed below since).

It then took nearly a month to get to below 500 (6th June) where it has slowly dropped to just under 400 now (nearly 3 weeks later). Hopefully it continues to drop and I'm keeping an eye on it and there don't appear to be any spikes following the recent events which is a good indicator of what is out there and being spread around.

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It's probably worth adding to that the data is only up to 23rd June as of today so about a week behind

[Babel]

Summer weather and the feeling that we have suffered and can now relax will do us all in—on either side of the seas.

Our specialist scientific expertise and knowledge vastly outstrips our social and cultural intelligence. indifference will be our downfall.

[strawman]

Deaths in week up to 19th June below 5 year average

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53233066

[baggy1]

A 'good' week for excess deaths (week 25 up to 19th June) - compared with 2019 there are 119 less deaths in this equivalent week. This is the 1st week we have had that since week 10 (6th March). The breakdown by age group is 15 less deaths for the under 45s, 56 deaths more in the 45 - 64 range, and 160 less in the over 65s.Overall for England and Wales we have just dropped below 63k excess deaths for 2020 compared with 2019, hopefully we have turned a corner.

Concerningly up until last Friday the government published the daily hospital admissions figures and they were pretty up to date. For some reason they have stopped that this week and replaced it with data that is much further back, I had the data up to 23rd June as of Friday, so 3 days lag, but the 'new' dataset (labelled the latest data) only goes up to the 16th June as of today (14 days lag). At this point in time one of the critical indicators is up to date info on hospital admissions is crucial to know what is coming down the line. The government have decided to stop giving us that info. It really is one big fuck up.

[billybassett]

A 'good' week for excess deaths (week 25 up to 19th June) - compared with 2019 there are 119 less deaths in this equivalent week. This is the 1st week we have had that since week 10 (6th March). The breakdown by age group is 15 less deaths for the under 45s, 56 deaths more in the 45 - 64 range, and 160 less in the over 65s.Overall for England and Wales we have just dropped below 63k excess deaths for 2020 compared with 2019, hopefully we have turned a corner.

Concerningly up until last Friday the government published the daily hospital admissions figures and they were pretty up to date. For some reason they have stopped that this week and replaced it with data that is much further back, I had the data up to 23rd June as of Friday, so 3 days lag, but the 'new' dataset (labelled the latest data) only goes up to the 16th June as of today (14 days lag). At this point in time one of the critical indicators is up to date info on hospital admissions is crucial to know what is coming down the line. The government have decided to stop giving us that info. It really is one big fuck up.

They want it to all go away now so the economy can be kickstarted. So stats like that would be unhelpful

[baggy1]

It looks like they've revamped the website and it is taking a while to get data in that they already had published for some reason. It is getting better and showing that the hospital admissions are still falling. Fingers crossed it's accurate and looks like we are still heading in the right direction. God knows why they couldn't have carried on with the old way of showing the data until they had got the new one working.

https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/healthcare

[FenlandBoing]

USA posted a record number in infections for a single day today. Chile and Peru will sail past us with infection numbers in next few days. We aren't as well off as some, but better than others. Will be interesting to see real numbers in 6 months time.

[Derek Hardballs]

USA posted a record number in infections for a single day today. Chile and Peru will sail past us with infection numbers in next few days. We aren't as well off as some, but better than others. Will be interesting to see real numbers in 6 months time.

I’m not sure we should be comparing ourselves to Peru and Chile. Perhaps it would be better as a test of how we have done to compare ourselves to our European neighbours.

[Ossian]

With the benefit of seeing how quickly the situation had spiralled in Italy we had the opportunity to do better, and wasted at least 2 to 3 weeks prevaricating; we never caught that time up. We also failed to make use of the natural advantages afforded to us by virtue of being an island.

Slight tangent, but I thought the Welsh first minister summed it up perfectly when he talked about the UK government "making an announcement first and then trying to work out what was meant by it..." We've seen examples of that on almost a daily basis.