UK Covid death toll

[Ted Maul]

"Britain’s death toll during the pandemic was below average for western Europe, an international comparison has concluded.

Although recorded numbers who died of Covid are higher in Britain than in countries such as France and Germany, the gap vanishes when looking at excess deaths. Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, favoured using this broader measure, which tracks how many more people have died than average, as a better way of making comparisons."

Interesting from the Sunday Times, yesterday.

Doesn't this just mean that in general we're worse at keeping people alive than countries such as France and Germany? 

[baggy1]

"Britain’s death toll during the pandemic was below average for western Europe, an international comparison has concluded.

Although recorded numbers who died of Covid are higher in Britain than in countries such as France and Germany, the gap vanishes when looking at excess deaths. Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, favoured using this broader measure, which tracks how many more people have died than average, as a better way of making comparisons."

Interesting from the Sunday Times, yesterday.

Which article was that Proth, I can't find it. Be an interesting read

[Protheroe]

"Britain’s death toll during the pandemic was below average for western Europe, an international comparison has concluded.

Although recorded numbers who died of Covid are higher in Britain than in countries such as France and Germany, the gap vanishes when looking at excess deaths. Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, favoured using this broader measure, which tracks how many more people have died than average, as a better way of making comparisons."

Interesting from the Sunday Times, yesterday.

Which article was that Proth, I can't find it. Be an interesting read

Apologies, Saturday's Times. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uks-c...-xw90c59zg

Behind the paywall I'm afraid

[baggy1]

Thanks Proth, good article showing that the excess deaths globally for the period are 3 times higher than being reported with 5.9M reported as dying of covid in 2020 whereas the actual global excess death figure for that year was 18.2M. I think we kind of knew that the reporting was all over the place for some countries that were reporting low covid numbers.

Interestingly it also says there is "no clear relationship between levels of excess mortality and different levels of restrictions ... across western, or indeed the whole of, Europe". On the face of it that means that those against the restrictions will be shouting they were right all along, however i'd look at it differently. The only way we could have compared like for like was by letting it run wild everywhere, if that would have been allowed then our health services would have collapsed, the restrictions (even if the numbers ended up being the same) spread the load out over a longer period allowing the health service to deal with it. Also I would say that if it would have let it run without restrictions then we would have been left with a much higher death toll.

Our biggest benefit to our excess deaths being kept down was the roll out of our vaccination program which was much better than Germany and France, yet we were still only on par with them when you would have thought that would have put us better off.

I do think that we have earned our freedoms with what we have dealt with as a country over the last couple of years - I do have concerns about the numbers in hospital but the freedom of a nice meal with the wife on Friday and a night out with the boys on Saturday up town felt very good (although I am slower today than normal)

[Protheroe]

I have a similar takeaway B1. Essentially the opportunity benefit of more draconian restrictions than we were under didn't / doesn't exist.

[baggy1]

Funnily enough we have just opened up the office with a phased return and last week we started it, one of the staff tested positive over the weekend (asymptomatic) and the MD was running around yesterday and messaging me about our emergency notification system and asking me to run a refresher (she had the same training I had so god knows why I remember it any better). We are either going to have to accept that people in the office will catch covid or we develop a system where we continue to work from home, trying to have an open office and then close as soon as someone tests positive will never work.

[Protheroe]

Funnily enough we have just opened up the office with a phased return and last week we started it, one of the staff tested positive over the weekend (asymptomatic) and the MD was running around yesterday and messaging me about our emergency notification system and asking me to run a refresher (she had the same training I had so god knows why I remember it any better). We are either going to have to accept that people in the office will catch covid or we develop a system where we continue to work from home, trying to have an open office and then close as soon as someone tests positive will never work.

Quite. It's complete overkill.

[Birdman1811]

Well, we're back in panic mode in the hospital I work for, so many bays and wards closed due to covid.

[baggy1]

Well, we're back in panic mode in the hospital I work for, so many bays and wards closed due to covid.

One of my gripes with the current situation is how close we are to spring when it would have made much more sense to open up. Opening up in February was purely a distraction tactic and plain stupid IMHO. It really isn't surprising that we are were we are with hospital numbers.

[Kit Kat Chunky]

Well, we're back in panic mode in the hospital I work for, so many bays and wards closed due to covid.

Would you say that those people are gravelly ill, Birdy, or just occupying beds that should be used for other purposes if these people weren't ill?