Purgatory: Coronavirus

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Comments

  • As above, the current guidance is that people who can't work from home can (and essentially should - given relative levels of government support) go to work -- and I'm not sure how easy it is to retro fit the necessary social distancing measures around shared facilities like toilets etc (not to mention doors).

    Hopefully you're washing your hands after you use the toilet anyway. Wash them before as well. Try to space out visits so that nobody is in there with anyone else, or immediately following anyone else, and you've probably brought the added risk of a shared toilet down to match the simple fact that you're in a room with another person.

    The reality in most offices is that there are a large number of shared surfaces which everyone is likely to touch during the day (phones, switches, doors, taps, soap dispensers, desks, etc) - not to mention shared spaces, and having seen the contingency plans from a number of businesses of different sizes I do not think they are set up to implement social distancing once things get any more complicated than 'have no more than X% of people in the build' and 'sit them 2m apart'.

  • It's certainly not going to be easy, but any attempt to continue some sort of level of social distancing is surely worth the effort?
  • The reality in most offices is that there are a large number of shared surfaces which everyone is likely to touch during the day (phones, switches, doors, taps, soap dispensers, desks, etc) - not to mention shared spaces, and having seen the contingency plans from a number of businesses of different sizes I do not think they are set up to implement social distancing once things get any more complicated than 'have no more than X% of people in the build' and 'sit them 2m apart'.

    "Hot Desking" is bad in the current climate. Having people with their individual phone / computer is better. If you have shift workers so different shifts of people are using the same equipment, give it a good wipe down with Lysol / whatever between users. Same goes for people operating cash registers in stores. If you have enough equipment that you can alternate its use, do that - don't just always use till 1 out of habit.

    If your habit is that you have one computer sitting in a corner of your sales floor / whatever, and everyone randomly grabs it to look something up, you're going to want to change that as much as you can, and you're going to want to have your employees treat the shared computer as though it was a virus-laden swamp.

    It's a mental shift in people as much as it's a thing that you can implement to people.

    Divide the world into your personal stuff and other stuff. Nobody else touches or breathes on your personal stuff. Shared / public stuff is considered contaminated - sanitize your hands between touching it and touching your personal stuff. Your face is part of your personal stuff.

    It's not that hard for a lot of people to reduce the risk of transmission, but it's not something you can do by handing out some PPE and saying "go on as you normally do, but wear this".

    I don't think a lot of people have grasped the idea that "opening back up again" isn't going to mean "immediately go back to normal behaviour".
  • The reality in most offices is that there are a large number of shared surfaces which everyone is likely to touch during the day (phones, switches, doors, taps, soap dispensers, desks, etc) - not to mention shared spaces, and having seen the contingency plans from a number of businesses of different sizes I do not think they are set up to implement social distancing once things get any more complicated than 'have no more than X% of people in the build' and 'sit them 2m apart'.

    "Hot Desking" is bad in the current climate. Having people with their individual phone / computer is better. If you have shift workers so different shifts of people are using the same equipment, give it a good wipe down with Lysol / whatever between users. Same goes for people operating cash registers in stores. If you have enough equipment that you can alternate its use, do that - don't just always use till 1 out of habit.

    This is what i mean by "I do not think they are set up to implement social distancing".
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    I'd say "eat at your desk" but if you have the kind of job that involves sitting at a desk that you could safely eat at, you almost certainly have the kind of job you could do from home, and so you should be at home.
    In more normal times, I'd eat at my desk on occasion (also covers coffee breaks), when I have a lot of stuff on. The pattern of my day being spending the entire morning in a lab processing stuff, come up for air at lunch time and needing to combine eating and catching up on email in as short a time as possible before returning to the lab. I think there are quite a few people for whom lunch break is the only time during the day they get to do something like check emails.

    But, if you do eat at your desk it has to be your desk ... do not eat while using a shared computer!
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Canada, it seems, had a leg up in preparing for this Pandemic. CBS 60 Minutes had a report that told of a Canadian Company, BlueDot, that had an AI that first alerted to a report from Wuhan about a mysterious illness on 31 December 2019. Within 2 hours it was alerting its clients which included nations and airlines about what to expect. This allowed Canadians to stockpile necessary test kits and PPE in preparation for what was about to hit.

    It just irks me that our administration would ignore such warnings and do relatively little until 1 March 2020. That is three months of inaction. On top of that, since we have withdrawn our funding of WHO we are not participating in the joint effort to come up with treatments or vaccines for it.

    I have come to the conclusion that (t)Rump is a callous murderer.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    I have come to the conclusion that (t)Rump is a callous murderer.

    And every Republican in the Senate except for Mitt Romney is a willing accessory.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Eating at your desk is against the French Labour Code. I'll be interested to see how this might be circumvented.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Aye, when in Japan my contract with Fukushima University included a clause that I (along with all other staff) needed to take a minimum 45 minute lunch break outside the building. Otherwise the Japanese staff wouldn't stop working at all, and just grab the barest minimum lunch to avoid excess hunger - often at their desk.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Canada, it seems, had a leg up in preparing for this Pandemic. CBS 60 Minutes had a report that told of a Canadian Company, BlueDot, that had an AI that first alerted to a report from Wuhan about a mysterious illness on 31 December 2019. Within 2 hours it was alerting its clients which included nations and airlines about what to expect. This allowed Canadians to stockpile necessary test kits and PPE in preparation for what was about to hit.

    I wish this was generally the case, but I think they're just talking about a specific hospital here.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Eating at your desk is against the French Labour Code.

    Why, out of curiosity?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Marsupial wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Canada, it seems, had a leg up in preparing for this Pandemic. CBS 60 Minutes had a report that told of a Canadian Company, BlueDot, that had an AI that first alerted to a report from Wuhan about a mysterious illness on 31 December 2019. Within 2 hours it was alerting its clients which included nations and airlines about what to expect. This allowed Canadians to stockpile necessary test kits and PPE in preparation for what was about to hit.

    I wish this was generally the case, but I think they're just talking about a specific hospital here.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Eating at your desk is against the French Labour Code.

    Why, out of curiosity?

    At a guess, because it's a good way of actually working, unpaid, through your lunch break. Which quite apart from being exploitative is Blasphemy against the Holy French Lunch.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Right on both points. Also health considerations: dedicated spaces in which to eat.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Blasphemy against the Holy French Lunch.
    Almost 20 years ago I was working on an EU project, and we were doing some field work in Dumfries and Galloway which included a French research group. We'd arranged for a local hotel to provide lunch, which was quite good. But, the French were not satisfied and got into their car. 15 mins later they were back having followed their noses or something to shops in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to produce several freshly baked loaves of bread, a variety of cheeses and cooked meats, and a couple of bottles of red wine.
  • John Crace being rather sharp about cabinet battles ahead, "is it worth tens of thousands more old people dying, to kick start the economy?" (Guardian). Boris likes the fun stuff, and Latin tags, here's one, morituri salutamus, we who are about to die, salute thee. (Longfellow).
  • W HyattW Hyatt Shipmate
    cgichard wrote: »
    BroJames wrote: »
    cgichard wrote: »
    I've just watched this video of two doctors in California discussing the clinical reality they are seeing there, compared with the theory about COVID-19 spread. Very interesting and well worth watching.

    @cgichard that link seems to be to a video of what is (eventually) a White House press briefing.
    Many apologies. I evidently picked the address of the video that followed on automatically. Try this instead. Of, for an abridged version, but with less good audio, this.

    I watched some of the abridged version and it seems like even if it's accurate, it's rather misleading. He suggests that since the numbers for Covid-19 seem to be similar to the seasonal flu, we should respond to Covid-19 in a way that is similar to the existing response to seasonal flu, but I think it's pretty clear from the various hot spots around the world that doing so would be disastrous. The prevalence and the mortality rates may be similar between the two, but that does not mean that the diseases are similar. It also does not mean that responding to them in the similar ways would lead to similar results. The results are only similar in a state that has been locked down since early in the pandemic. The results in New York City are not at all like the seasonal flu, and relaxing the lock down in California too early and too quickly could lead to results that are more similar to New York.

    They may be experts in microbiology and immunology, but they are not epidemiologists and they don't seem to be thinking things all the way through carefully.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    W Hyatt wrote: »
    I watched some of the abridged version and it seems like even if it's accurate, it's rather misleading. He suggests that since the numbers for Covid-19 seem to be similar to the seasonal flu, we should respond to Covid-19 in a way that is similar to the existing response to seasonal flu, but I think it's pretty clear from the various hot spots around the world that doing so would be disastrous.

    One of the ways we respond to the seasonal flu is by large scale vaccination programs that particularly target the most vulnerable populations. How's that SARS-CoV-2 vaccine coming?
    W Hyatt wrote: »
    The prevalence and the mortality rates may be similar between the two, but that does not mean that the diseases are similar. It also does not mean that responding to them in the similar ways would lead to similar results. The results are only similar in a state that has been locked down since early in the pandemic. The results in New York City are not at all like the seasonal flu, and relaxing the lock down in California too early and too quickly could lead to results that are more similar to New York.

    Have we now reached the point where social distancing has succeeded in reducing projected deaths enough for people to conclude that social distancing was never necessary in the first place? I see we have.

    In other news, since you're not getting wet in this alleged "rain storm", you obviously don't need that umbrella you're carrying.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Modelling in France suggests lockdown has prevented 60,000 hospital deaths arising from covid-19.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Lockdowns have undoubtedly saved lives. In France and elsewhere. But it's pretty clear that the earlier the lockdown, the more lives they save.

    I suppose one should add 'for the present'. This thing can lie in wait. Probably will. Lives saved may yet be deaths deferred. I wish that were not true. Without a vaccine it probably is.
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Lockdowns have undoubtedly saved lives. In France and elsewhere. But it's pretty clear that the earlier the lockdown, the more lives they save.

    Yes, and one of the problems in the UK is that if you leave the lockdown for too long; what would have been a good policy choice for the follow through (suppress then control via track and trace) becomes difficult and costly - and so studying the exit plan of a country that took the opposite track in terms of having a strategy and minimizing impact isn't going to be particularly fruitful.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Depends on how low the low point of new cases becomes before restrictions are lifted.

    So far as I can see, Spain, Italy, France and the UK face a similar challenge in that respect. I hear there are plans to employ 20,000 people in tracing in the UK. That's a hell of a lot more than New Zealand will need and given current new case numbers it might not be nearly enough. Plus we're still low on testing.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Marsupial wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Canada, it seems, had a leg up in preparing for this Pandemic. CBS 60 Minutes had a report that told of a Canadian Company, BlueDot, that had an AI that first alerted to a report from Wuhan about a mysterious illness on 31 December 2019. Within 2 hours it was alerting its clients which included nations and airlines about what to expect. This allowed Canadians to stockpile necessary test kits and PPE in preparation for what was about to hit.

    I wish this was generally the case, but I think they're just talking about a specific hospital here.

    I believe they showed how one hospital in Canada handled the information, but there are strong indications other hospitals in Canada used the information to prepare for the pandemic too.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    List of countries with at least 10,000 known COVID-19 cases.
    1. United States - 1,010,507 (814,714 / 138,990 / 56,803)
    2. Spain - 229,422 (85,069 / 120,832 / 23,521)
    3. Italy - 199,414 (105,813 / 66,624 / 26,977)
    4. France - 165,842 (97,036 / 45,513 / 23,293)
    5. Germany - 158,758 (38,132 / 114,500 / 6,126) 5.1%
    6. United Kingdom - 157,149 (135,713 / 344 / 21,092)
    7. Turkey - 112,261 (75,570 / 33,791 / 2,900)
    8. Iran - 91,472 (14,733 / 70,933 / 5,806) 7.6%
    9. Russia - 87,147 (79,007 / 7,346 / 794)
    10. China - 82,836 (648 / 77,555 / 4,633) 5.6%
    11. Brazil - 67,446 (31,701 / 31,142 / 4,603)
    12. Canada - 48,500 (27,525 / 18,268 / 2,707)
    13. Belgium - 46,687 (28,602 / 10,878 / 7,207)
    14. Netherlands - 38,245 (33,477 / 250 / 4,518)
    15. India - 29,451 (21,375 / 7,137 / 939)
    16. Switzerland - 29,164 (5,299 / 22,200 / 1,665) 7.0%
    17. Peru - 28,699 (19,492 / 8,425 / 782)
    18. Portugal - 24,027 (21,742 / 1,357 / 928)
    19. Ecuador - 23,240 (21,020 / 1,557 / 663)
    20. Ireland - 19,648 (9,313 / 9,233 / 1,102)
    21. Sweden - 18,926 (15,647 / 1,005 / 2,274)
    22. Saudi Arabia - 18,811 (16,136 / 2,531 / 144)
    23. Israel - 15,555 (8,151 / 7,200 / 204)
    24. Mexico - 15,529 (5,009 / 9,086 / 1,434) 13.6%
    25. Austria - 15,274 (2,363 / 12,362 / 549) 4.3%
    26. Singapore - 14,423 (13,314 / 1,095 / 14)
    27. Pakistan - 13,915 (10,594 / 3,029 / 292)
    28. Chile - 13,813 (6,288 / 7,327 / 198)
    29. Japan - 13,614 (11,330 / 1,899 / 385)
    30. Poland - 11,902 (8,874 / 2,466 / 562)
    31. Romania - 11,339 (7,557 / 3,141 / 641)
    32. Belarus - 11,289 (9,474 / 1,740 / 75)
    33. Qatar - 11,244 (10,168 / 1,066 / 10)
    34. United Arab Emirates - 10,839 (8,667 / 2,090 / 82)
    35. South Korea - 10,752 (1,654 / 8,854 / 244) 2.7%

    The listings are in the format:

    X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]

    Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.

    If American states were treated as individual countries eighteen of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.

    No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
  • I'm just going to leave this here.

    BBC Panorama: Has the Government Failed the NHS?

    I cannot begin to find the words I need to respond. NHS staff have not hesitated to step forward in response to this horrible disease.

    Our government has completely failed all of us. And it continues to lie about it. It is my friends and colleagues and their families that they have put at grave risk.

    I think I'll write something on a Hell thread later.

    An Incan-fucking-descent Alien.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    It took me a moment there wondering why you'd brought your native South American heritage into it before I realised what you meant.
  • I was reading a film critic who said he can't watch films, as they seem flat. I have that experience with many things. I can't read very much, but TV comedies are fun, and "Normal People" is pretty ace, (BBC). It's a kind of desaturation of reality. But walking and gardening are good. What an odd way of life. One of my neighbours has an immune deficiency, so she is well locked in. We go from one day to the next.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    There is also growing disquiet about the UK government's record keeping. What looked initially like a bug is now appearing as a feature, in order to keep the 'official' death toll down. No one, not even the ONS, appear to have the front to actually tally the figures up. But it's looking increasingly like somewhere between 50-75% of deaths are occurring in hospitals. The deaths in care homes are increasing, as the hospital deaths are falling, but they're not being counted or collated until two weeks later, and then never included in the headline figures.

    Our "apparent success" is around 50k dead. But who knows?
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    I'm just going to leave this here.

    BBC Panorama: Has the Government Failed the NHS?

    I cannot begin to find the words I need to respond. NHS staff have not hesitated to step forward in response to this horrible disease.

    Our government has completely failed all of us. And it continues to lie about it. It is my friends and colleagues and their families that they have put at grave risk.

    I think I'll write something on a Hell thread later.

    An Incan-fucking-descent Alien.
    On Facebook this morning the word "criminal" is being used a lot. We can hope for actual charges, but the goons in government are probably going to deflect the blame to some junior bureaucrats who were struggling to do their best in difficult circumstances created by the politicians above them who are adept at finding scapegoats.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    There is also growing disquiet about the UK government's record keeping. What looked initially like a bug is now appearing as a feature, in order to keep the 'official' death toll down. No one, not even the ONS, appear to have the front to actually tally the figures up. But it's looking increasingly like somewhere between 50-75% of deaths are occurring in hospitals. The deaths in care homes are increasing, as the hospital deaths are falling, but they're not being counted or collated until two weeks later, and then never included in the headline figures.

    Our "apparent success" is around 50k dead. But who knows?

    I am not sure that the two death toll curves are diverging - the ONS figures come with a significant delay. I'll try to find properly tracked figures.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    edited April 2020
    This man (economics editor, FT) seems to know his onions.

    (eta)

    It's excess deaths that are the worrying number. Yes, there's a lag, but no one seems to be reporting those lagged figures. 20k+ deaths sounds awful, but when the alternative is reporting a number that is 2x, 3x that?
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    This man (economics editor, FT) seems to know his onions.

    (eta)

    It's excess deaths that are the worrying number. Yes, there's a lag, but no one seems to be reporting those lagged figures. 20k+ deaths sounds awful, but when the alternative is reporting a number that is 2x, 3x that?

    Yep. Two slightly separate issues here.

    I said something like 20 pages back (Can't be bothered to go check now) that the excess death figure will be the key. Some of the Coronavirus linked deaths will have happened anyway and there will be more deaths from other causes because of the societal strain and pressure on healthcare resources.

    So yes, the ONS figure does give a much more accurate picture of the total death toll than the daily figures.

    Up to 17th April.

    I've just been on the ONS website and looked at the charts. The total deaths and the recorded in hospital ones are basically tracking. We don't know yet, but up to 17th April, there wasn't a divergence indicating that the epidemic is behaving differently in care homes etc.

    Thus if your question is how are we doing at containing the epidemic? The day-to-day charts from NHS England are informative (and essentially up to date).*

    Conversely, if your question is what is the total cost in lives lost? Then the ONS data (with its 7-10 day delay) is the one you want.


    AFZ


    *Assuming that this pattern continued from 17th April - We'll have to wait and see on that one.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    I saw a graph - which I now can't find - that showed the hospital deaths (arranged by date of death) decreasing steadily, but care home deaths (on that same date) increasing. If I can find it, I'll link it.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    I saw a graph - which I now can't find - that showed the hospital deaths (arranged by date of death) decreasing steadily, but care home deaths (on that same date) increasing. If I can find it, I'll link it.

    Fair enough. That is the key to this.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    AFZ

    The tracking point is important. I'll have a look as well.

    I think the government briefings have been clear about the reasons why they use hospital deaths only in keeping an eye on trends. That in itself is reasonable. But they have not been clear about the numerical impact of deaths in care on the COVID-19 related death rate and it is increasingly clear why they have not.

    The Panorama programme is an indictment of government actions and inactions. Today's news briefing will be required watching.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    It took me a moment there wondering why you'd brought your native South American heritage into it before I realised what you meant.

    AFZ or Atmf--

    Would someone please explain the Incan reference?

    Thx.
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    AFZ

    The tracking point is important. I'll have a look as well.

    I think the government briefings have been clear about the reasons why they use hospital deaths only in keeping an eye on trends. That in itself is reasonable. But they have not been clear about the numerical impact of deaths in care on the COVID-19 related death rate and it is increasingly clear why they have not.

    The Panorama programme is an indictment of government actions and inactions. Today's news briefing will be required watching.

    Completely agree.

    What's the betting they actually get asked about Panorama? Or answer such a question, for that matter.
  • He's splitting the word, as in absobloodylutely.
  • Interesting analogy to "the curve is flattening, lift the lockdown", " the parachute is slowing
  • Sorry, the parachute is slowing our descent, time to take it off.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    It took me a moment there wondering why you'd brought your native South American heritage into it before I realised what you meant.

    AFZ or Atmf--

    Would someone please explain the Incan reference?

    Thx.

    Incandescent
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    It took me a moment there wondering why you'd brought your native South American heritage into it before I realised what you meant.

    AFZ or Atmf--

    Would someone please explain the Incan reference?

    Thx.

    Incandescent

    Thank you.

    Sorry... :blush:
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    There is wriggle room, AFZ, and I expect most of it to get used up.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    I saw a graph - which I now can't find - that showed the hospital deaths (arranged by date of death) decreasing steadily, but care home deaths (on that same date) increasing. If I can find it, I'll link it.

    Fair enough. That is the key to this.

    Found it.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    I saw a graph - which I now can't find - that showed the hospital deaths (arranged by date of death) decreasing steadily, but care home deaths (on that same date) increasing. If I can find it, I'll link it.

    Fair enough. That is the key to this.

    Found it.
    That graph doesn't seem to be saying quite the same thing. For a start, it shows cumulative deaths rather than daily death rates. At first glance the ratio of total deaths to deaths in hospital seems to be approximately constant which would suggest that deaths outside hospital isn't increasing while deaths in hospital decreases.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    I saw a graph - which I now can't find - that showed the hospital deaths (arranged by date of death) decreasing steadily, but care home deaths (on that same date) increasing. If I can find it, I'll link it.

    Fair enough. That is the key to this.

    Found it.
    That graph doesn't seem to be saying quite the same thing. For a start, it shows cumulative deaths rather than daily death rates. At first glance the ratio of total deaths to deaths in hospital seems to be approximately constant which would suggest that deaths outside hospital isn't increasing while deaths in hospital decreases.

    Yep, that would be my interpretation too but it's hard to break down properly without the actual numbers.

    The ONS is amazing for transparent publishing of data and in time I am sure this will all be interrogatable (is that a word?) But I think the inevitable lag in reporting makes that difficult right now. I think the non-hospital death data is really important for the total count but I don't think there is (as yet) a divergent trend. But it will be at least another week until we know.

    AFZ
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    There was a better graph, that separated the place of death per day, rather than the cumulative number, but this one still shows the dark blue/light blue as a greater proportion of deaths at the end of the graph than at the start - indicating that deaths outside hospital are increasing (as a proportion of daily deaths, if not as an absolute number) against in-hospital deaths.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Sorry, I'm still not seeing it. Eyeballing the second graph (the bar chart) for 1st April what I see is approx. 4,000 deaths in hospital and approx. 2,000 in each of the at home and in care home categories. So, approx 50% of total deaths in hospital. At the end of the plot I eyeball those numbers as 19,000 10,000 and 9,000 with an extra 2,000 for other - which is still approx. 50% of total deaths in hospital. I agree that the deaths per day figures (especially if we take a rolling average to even out the weekend effect and the like) might show differences more clearly.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    edited April 2020
    (I've just downloaded the ONS data)

    w/e 10/4
    Hospital deaths due to C19 - 4957 (80%)
    Outside deaths due to C19 - 1256 (20%)

    w/e 17/4
    Hospital deaths due to C19 - 6107 (70%)
    Outside deaths due to C19 - 2651 (30%)

    Preceding weeks are more hospital deaths, fewer outside deaths. (10%, 7%, 3%)

    (eta - sorry buggered that up. Right figures are now in place)

  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited April 2020
    I wonder how much of that is covid specifically, and how much of that is due to indirect impacts of covid - low mood depresses the immune system and stress impacts all sorts of bodily systems. If you have high blood pressure for example, it may well be worse when you are worried sick about your family etc.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    I've also gone hunting for data to do my own analysis.

    For total deaths I've found ONS data for England & Wales giving total deaths in week long periods and average number of deaths for the same period over the previous 5 years: I've taken the difference as the "excess deaths value".

    For deaths in hospital I'm using the .csv file downloaded from the data.gov.uk which gives UK totals only upto 27th March, thereafter also gives numbers for each of the nations.

    That gives three weeks of numbers to compare (England & Wales):

    Week ending . . Total Excess . . Total in hospital . . Difference . . Ratio (in H : out of H)
    3rd April . . . . . . 6082 . . . . . . . 2730 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3352 . . . . . . . . . 1.23
    10th April . . . . . 7996 . . . . . . . 4986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3010 . . . . . . . . . 0.60
    17th April . . . . . 11854 . . . . . . . 5210 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6644 . . . . . . . . 1.28

    There's something odd about the week ending 10th April compared to the other two weeks, whether that's significant ... who knows? I think the biggest problem with this analysis is it's comparing apples and oranges. On the one hand, for the total number of deaths this is an excess (difference between number of deaths and expectation based on previous years). But, the hospital deaths is those who have tested positive for Covid, some of whom would have died anyway so this isn't an excess number of deaths.

    [I did the best I could with formatting the table]
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    (I've just downloaded the ONS data)

    w/e 10/4
    Hospital deaths due to C19 - 4957 (80%)
    Outside deaths due to C19 - 1256 (20%)

    w/e 17/4
    Hospital deaths due to C19 - 6107 (70%)
    Outside deaths due to C19 - 2651 (30%)

    Preceding weeks are more hospital deaths, fewer outside deaths. (10%, 7%, 3%)

    (eta - sorry buggered that up. Right figures are now in place)

    Chris Giles of the FT has redone his estimates - I assume the rest of the thread will follow shortly.
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