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They wanted herd immunity, but they couldn’t do it during flu season, so they went for flattening the curve which they succeeded with. Now flu seasons over they

They wanted herd immunity, but they couldn’t do it during flu season, so they went for flattening the curve which they succeeded with. Now flu seasons over they’ve got the capacity to deal with a surge in cases so they’re easing lockdown, they want to create a massive measles party for the summer, so by the time flu season starts again they won’t have to worry too much about another lockdown. Remember the worst case scenario was 500,000 to 1 million deaths. They got away with 40,000

DanBC 6y ago
> so they went for flattening the curve which they succeeded with We cancelled a bunch of routine treatment and surgery in order to provide surge capacity. We converted existing wards into new ICUs. We had to take unqualified student nurses and convert them to temporary nurses[1], we took doctors from their specialities and got them to cover other work. Finally, we stopped admitting certain groups of people to hospital altogether. Look at the death rate in care homes. > They got away with 40,000 That number is for people who died after having a positive test. Many people are not being tested, so there are many deaths of people not included in that figure. At the moment we think the true number is at least 50% higher, so the real number is 60,000. And there are different ways to count death. If the UK used the same method to count covid-19 deaths as it does to count flu deaths we'd see over 100,000 deaths. [1] ...and we said we'd pay them, but now they've finished a lot of them are finding that they're not going to be paid.
- nicky0 6y ago
  Actually the 40000 also includes people who were never tested but showed symptoms similar to Covid.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    No, it doesn't. The 40,000 number is from this government website: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ Total number of COVID-19 associated UK deaths 42,461 Deaths of people who have had a positive test result The 40,000 number only includes those who had a test, and were tested positive.
- drumhead 6y ago
  Which was the right strategy in the circumstances. How much of that capacity was used in the event. How many nightingale hospitals were at full capacity. You say 60000 deaths, based on what evidence, because at the moment we don’t know how many deaths have been misclassified as COVID when they weren’t.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    For evidence, look for reports of "excess mortality", i.e. how many people died this year compared to the same period of time in the average year. Some quick googling finds an ONS report of an excess mortality for 64,500 as of 2 days ago, which confirms the numbers of GP.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    > based on what evidence, There's lots of evidence. See, for example, this: https://ltccovid.org/2020/04/12/mortality-associated-with-covid-19-outbreaks-in-care-homes-early-international-evidence/ https://ltccovid.org/2020/04/12/mortality-associated-with-co... > Data from England illustrates well the importance of paying attention to differences in definitions and methods used to estimate these percentages: the share of all probable COVID-19 deaths in care homes is 27%, whereas the share of probable deaths of care residents is 38%. The share of excess deaths in care homes during the pandemic has been 44% and the share of deaths of care home residents is 52% of all excess deaths. Also, in France, deaths in care homes are 34% of all COVID-19 deaths, whereas deaths of care home residents are 51%. That's from May. Since then we discharged a bunch of people from hospital to care and nursing homes, without testing whether they had covid-19 or not.

DanBC 6y ago

> so they went for flattening the curve which they succeeded with We cancelled a bunch of routine treatment and surgery in order to provide surge capacity. We converted existing wards into new ICUs. We had to take unqualified student nurses and convert them to temporary nurses[1], we took doctors from their specialities and got them to cover other work. Finally, we stopped admitting certain groups of people to hospital altogether. Look at the death rate in care homes. > They got away with 40,000 That number is for people who died after having a positive test. Many people are not being tested, so there are many deaths of people not included in that figure. At the moment we think the true number is at least 50% higher, so the real number is 60,000. And there are different ways to count death. If the UK used the same method to count covid-19 deaths as it does to count flu deaths we'd see over 100,000 deaths. [1] ...and we said we'd pay them, but now they've finished a lot of them are finding that they're not going to be paid.

nicky0 6y ago
Actually the 40000 also includes people who were never tested but showed symptoms similar to Covid.
- DanBC 6y ago
  No, it doesn't. The 40,000 number is from this government website: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ Total number of COVID-19 associated UK deaths 42,461 Deaths of people who have had a positive test result The 40,000 number only includes those who had a test, and were tested positive.
drumhead 6y ago
Which was the right strategy in the circumstances. How much of that capacity was used in the event. How many nightingale hospitals were at full capacity. You say 60000 deaths, based on what evidence, because at the moment we don’t know how many deaths have been misclassified as COVID when they weren’t.
- majewsky 6y ago
  For evidence, look for reports of "excess mortality", i.e. how many people died this year compared to the same period of time in the average year. Some quick googling finds an ONS report of an excess mortality for 64,500 as of 2 days ago, which confirms the numbers of GP.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > based on what evidence, There's lots of evidence. See, for example, this: https://ltccovid.org/2020/04/12/mortality-associated-with-covid-19-outbreaks-in-care-homes-early-international-evidence/ https://ltccovid.org/2020/04/12/mortality-associated-with-co... > Data from England illustrates well the importance of paying attention to differences in definitions and methods used to estimate these percentages: the share of all probable COVID-19 deaths in care homes is 27%, whereas the share of probable deaths of care residents is 38%. The share of excess deaths in care homes during the pandemic has been 44% and the share of deaths of care home residents is 52% of all excess deaths. Also, in France, deaths in care homes are 34% of all COVID-19 deaths, whereas deaths of care home residents are 51%. That's from May. Since then we discharged a bunch of people from hospital to care and nursing homes, without testing whether they had covid-19 or not.