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Dutch testing policy is acknowledged by national bodies to not be representative at all. Moreover, so is our death rate. We have a lot of hidden deaths of elde
by rocqua 7y ago
Dutch testing policy is acknowledged by national bodies to not be representative at all. Moreover, so is our death rate.
We have a lot of hidden deaths of elderly people who decide not to go through the trauma of an ICU stint and instead decide to die at home.
I don't recall exact numbers but think it was estimated the true death toll is about 50 to 100 percent higher.
- jaynetics 7y agoThe middle part is an interesting point. A study of the first 50 hospital patients in Heinsberg (worst affected region in Germany) found that of 8 who had died, 4 had rejected ICU treatment.
- Thlom 7y agoIn Sandinavia we see a lot of covid-19 related deaths at elderly care homes. These are older people, often with a lot of underlying deceases in addition to their old age. Very seldom these patients are moved to a hospital, so they die at the home with only palliative care. I guess in many cases they are not in any position to decline or accept ICU at all due to dementia.
- simonh 7y agoPneumonia patients in hospital have their blood oxygen continuously monitored, with alarms if it goes too low because the symptoms of oxygen starvation are very hard to spot even by a trained nurse, but can be rapidly fatal. The most common cause of death is heart attack because the heart isn't getting enough oxygen. So these people dying at home probably think they're not at serious risk and don't want to take up a hospital bed from someone in a worse condition, so they try to tough it out but then they suddenly die.
- rocqua 7y agoThese are also (usually older) patients who decide they don't want to go on a ventilator because they feel their quality of life, if they were to survive, is so low as to not matter. These are decisions made in concert with the 'huisarts' (General Practitioner).