Covid : Infection rates v death rates and a possible second wave

[bramling]

I'm not sure where you've picked up that 40% from. At the height of the peak in April it was 6%, and has consistently fallen since, including in the so called "second wave". Are you confusing hospitalisations with ITU admissions?

Part of the trouble is that a lot of the population vastly over estimate the chance of dying from Covid, and the media hasn’t helped - though that doesn’t excuse people not doing their own research.

We have hysteria based on misunderstanding, which is hardly a good thing.

It was one thing back in March when we knew little, but there’s absolutely no reason for it now. We have plenty of data, give or take some of the government’s dodgy counting systems!

 

[Bletchleyite]

My own MIL has Parkinson's and needs to be in residential care because of her physical care needs. Mentally she's as sharp as ever.

It might depend on the individual, but as I said, for me, when I am not physically independent on any level my life is over, and if living wills were a thing I would elect to be "put down" if that happened to me.

As that isn't on the table (and it does strongly anger me that we treat pets better than people in this regard), for me personally, a quick respiratory illness (or something similar where I could decline treatment) would be a welcome way out.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The dominant opinion from them is that their time on this earth is strictly limited, and they'd much rather see it out with the freedom to do what they please and go as they please, and are happy to run the risk of Covid getting them rather than their disease.

That's similar to what I hear professionally too. And they have a point. But it's easy to have that attitude when you know that your time is limited. Covid doesn't just kill people who were about to die anyway.

I'm not sure where you've picked up that 40% from.

As I said on the other thread, it was in the newspaper. Happy to be corrected, but 6% is the percentage of people in hospital who die on any one day, so that isn't accurate either.

We have hysteria based on misunderstanding, which is hardly a good thing.

I don't think we do. Most people know young people without pre-existing conditions have a very very low risk of dying, though "long covid" and other respiratory issues seem to be more of a risk. The issue is that 23% of the population are over 60, almost half are over 40, and the risk really marches up after 40. It's not just a few nannas in their 80s who are sat around waiting to die.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Not everyone in a care home is there as a dribbling vegetable waiting for Godot.

My own MIL has Parkinson's and needs to be in residential care because of her physical care needs. Mentally she's as sharp as ever. She's 81 and someone who, according to various posters, is of "no utility". I'll be sure to tell my kid that her granny doesn't matter because people are so selfish that staying in the pub past 10pm or having a week in Spain is more important.

One could argue that an 80 year old, with a 10% chance of dying within the next 12 months, (figures quoted from MD in Private Eye) ought to be given more freedom to enjoy those 12 months than a 20 year old who has another 60+ years with good health to catch up on any missed experiences.

Descends into bunker with tin hat and supplies of corned beef.

 

[Tetchytyke]

One could argue that an 80 year old, with a 10% chance of dying within the next 12 months, (figures quoted from MD in Private Eye) ought to be given more freedom to enjoy those 12 months than a 20 year old who has another 60+ years with good health to catch up on any missed experiences.

Indeed that's the other side of "protect the vulnerable", which effectively just silos people in care homes.

It's a very tough situation, I'm glad I'm not Johnson that's for sure.

 

[Domh245]

Doing some quick (possibly dubious) maths:

England & Wales hospital COVID admissions to 23/9 : 132,603 (117348+15255) [source]
England & Wales hospital COVID deaths to 23/9: 32,944 [source]
The hospital fatality rate then is 24.84%

Obviously there's gonna be a relatively high uncertainty on that number because of various factors including time lag between admission & death, 'over-eagerness' to certify as COVID on the death certificate, false positive admissions, etc but I don't think there's enough uncertainty there to drop it an order of magnitude.

 

[Huntergreed]

Over 40% of people hospitalised with Covid die of with it. Where I live 24 people died of Covid, all bar two were from one care home. Death's a pretty big consequence, is it not?

Fixed your post, and the difference is very important. As rates increase, of course it will appear more in hospitals. It's about being able to distinguish between those who are in for other conditions and have covid and those who are hospitalised because of covid, and the same of deaths (neither of which, we've been very good at doing so far, so the public think every 'with' death/hospitalisation is actually a 'from/of' death/hospitalisation.

 

[brad465]

I have a lot of professional contact with those undergoing chemotherapy. The dominant opinion from them is that their time on this earth is strictly limited, and they'd much rather see it out with the freedom to do what they please and go as they please, and are happy to run the risk of Covid getting them rather than their disease.

It might depend on the individual, but as I said, for me, when I am not physically independent on any level my life is over, and if living wills were a thing I would elect to be "put down" if that happened to me.

As that isn't on the table (and it does strongly anger me that we treat pets better than people in this regard), for me personally, a quick respiratory illness (or something similar where I could decline treatment) would be a welcome way out.

Going by these points of view, some view Covid as another "old man's friend" which we colloquially call pneumonia. There should certainly I think be more freedom about how the elderly and vulnerable are allowed to live at this time, as in, if they're happy to risk getting it in exchange for living their life to the fullest possible extent, or want to shield/be better protected until it's not a huge threat to them, either should be an acceptable choice to those affected.

 

[birchesgreen]

Of course not, you don't imagine that Serco actually back up the data every night.

Probably only once a week, as anything more frequent is not "cost effective".

"It was burned on a CD Minister."
"Where is this CD?"
"Not sure... ah the one you are using as a coaster."

 

[duncanp]

"It was burned on a CD Minister."
"Where is this CD?"
"Not sure... ah the one you are using as a coaster."

"..and when you said burn the figures onto a CD, I thought you meant destroy the CD by setting fire to it...."

Can't help but remember the episode of Yes Minister when they were talking about missing figures, and Sir Humphrey Appleby said "....a lot of the files were lost in the floods of 1964.."

Jim Hacker then asked "..was 1964 a particularly bad year?.." to which Sir Humphrey replied, "..Oh no, 1964 was a very good year, we lost no end of embarrassing files..."

Even though Yes Minister is now nearly 40 years old, it is still true to life as it was in the early 1980s. There was once an episode about a brand new hospital with no patients in it. Now that could never happen in real life, could it?

Oh wait.....

 

[Bletchleyite]

Been suggested that could be because they were on such an old version of Excel........very civil service!

Wouldn't surprise me.

 

[initiation]

Doing some quick (possibly dubious) maths:

England & Wales hospital COVID admissions to 23/9 : 132,603 (117348+15255) [source]
England & Wales hospital COVID deaths to 23/9: 32,944 [source]
The hospital fatality rate then is 24.84%

Obviously there's gonna be a relatively high uncertainty on that number because of various factors including time lag between admission & death, 'over-eagerness' to certify as COVID on the death certificate, false positive admissions, etc but I don't think there's enough uncertainty there to drop it an order of magnitude.

The original post in this was about the percentage of those admitted to hospital who died. The gov covid dashboard listed 143000 UK hospitalisations and 42000 deaths. That gives 29.3%.

Two problems:
1. A very significant minority of deaths (at least 14000 looking at the ONS page) took place in care homes and not with those admitted to hospital. That drops the rate to below 20%.
2. All deaths are with and not because of Covid. It's difficult to believe after all this time the government doesn't have data on a breakdown of deaths.

 

[Meerkat]

It's difficult to believe after all this time the government doesn't have data on a breakdown of deaths.

Why does this surprise you? For the elderly many death certificates are a mixture of educated guesswork and ‘pick from a list’. They have a number of things wrong with them that could kill them and even autopsies would struggle to identify which was the winner. And that’s before you throw in ‘did the co-morbidity kill them or would they have survived without Covid?’

 

[Domh245]

The original post in this was about the percentage of those admitted to hospital who died. The gov covid dashboard listed 143000 UK hospitalisations and 42000 deaths. That gives 29.3%.

Two problems:
1. A very significant minority of deaths (at least 14000 looking at the ONS page) took place in care homes and not with those admitted to hospital. That drops the rate to below 20%.
2. All deaths are with and not because of Covid. It's difficult to believe after all this time the government doesn't have data on a breakdown of deaths.

The ONS dataset breaks deaths down by location (Hospital, Care home, Residential home, Hospice, and other) which is where I was able to get the number of hospital deaths for England & Wales from COVID* - it's also why I had to backdate the hospital admissions to the same time period and exclude Northern Ireland & Scotland. Don't forget that the dashboard figure of 42000 is well below what the ONS gives for the COVID death count (they give 52056 to week ending 18/9)

If you were really inclined you could go through all of the NHS reporting to get numbers of deaths and admissions, but I suspect that they'll still come out near enough to my bag of the packet calculation at somewhere in the mid 20%s

*The caveat being that it's COVID on the death certificate, not necessarily lab certified. Will probably include some 'withs' or even not-at-alls (other pneumonia but chalked up to COVID to be on the safe side) but in the hospital environment I would think this is less of a factor

 

[jtuk]

Over 40% of people hospitalised with Covid die of it. Where I live 24 people died of Covid, all bar two were from one care home. Death's a pretty big consequence, is it not?

People have been over that 40% figure so I won't touch that. Consider this article:

An Outbreak of Human Coronavirus OC43 Infection and Serological Cross-reactivity with SARS Coronavirus - PMC

In summer 2003, a respiratory outbreak was investigated in British Columbia, during which nucleic acid tests and serology unexpectedly indicated reactivity for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV). Cases at a care facility were ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

That is indicating that, for a high risk group, the common cold could have up to a 6% death rate. Not of those hospitalised, just in general. Yep, this current form of Covid is pretty nasty for the extremely susceptible. So is everything else. A bit of perspective is required.

 

[yorkie]

Spreadsheet issue split to the following thread:

Spreadsheet error resulted in missing Sars-Cov-2 cases for track and trace

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/covid-infection-rates-v-death-rates-and-a-possible-second-wave.208012/ Some credit to the BBC this time I think for actually headlining the error rather than scaremongering the daily increase number...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Bantamzen]

Case numbers are meaningless now. The government and media need to concentrate on hospitalisations and deaths. Although obviously they won't, because that doesn't fit the FEAR narrative - the hospitalisations and deaths are rising, but very slowly and definitely not in any kind of pattern that shows the dreaded second wave.

They could also show these against other respiratory deaths (flu/pneumonia), and indeed against the same trends in previous years, to help alleviate worry in the population. But of course, that is not the narrative.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the headline figures being thrown up every day are not actually cases but infections. Case should be defined as infections leading to symptoms, this would paint a far more accurate picture of where we are and the impact on the NHS (the main driver for restrictions) but this might not support the current government narrative.

Edit; Where I have said the headline figures are infections, on reflection a more accurate description should be "positive results", because these could potentially include people who have had the virus but have killed it, and tests that came up false positive.

 

[Tetchytyke]

That is indicating that, for a high risk group, the common cold could have up to a 6% death rate. Not of those hospitalised, just in general. Yep, this current form of Covid is pretty nasty for the extremely susceptible. So is everything else. A bit of perspective is required.

It's a bit older, but one study suggests that Covid is "as dangerous as Ebola".

A third of patients admitted to hospital in the UK with Covid-19 are dying, according to a major study whose authors said the observed death rates put the illness on a par with Ebola.

The study tracked the outcomes of nearly 17,000 patients – around one-third of all those admitted to hospital in the UK – and found that 33% had died, 49% were discharged and 17% were still receiving treatment after two weeks.

The figures present a stark picture of outcomes for those whose illness escalates to the point of needing medical help.

Third of UK Covid-19 patients taken to hospital die, study finds

Authors of the study said the observed death rates put the illness on a par with Ebola

www.google.com

The nature of the illness makes it particularly difficult to logically assess risk. It doesn't just kill nannas in care homes, but it also doesn't kill many young people. But there is growing evidence that "long Covid" does affect younger people and, whilst it doesn't kill them, it does give them nasty chronic illness.

As my colleague Ed Yong explained, many COVID-19 patients experience protracted illness. These “long-haulers” suffer from a diabolical grab bag of symptoms, including chronic fatigue, shortness of breath, unrelenting fevers, gastrointestinal problems, lost sense of smell, hallucinations, short-term-memory loss, bulging veins, bruising, gynecological problems, and an erratic heartbeat. And according to the neuroscientist David Putrino, chronic patients are typically young (the average age in his survey is 44), female, and formerly healthy.

COVID-19 presents an array of health challenges that are serious, if not imminently fatal. The disease occasionally sends people’s immune system into a frenzy, wreaking havoc on their internal organs. Several studies of asymptomatic patients revealed that more than half of them had lung abnormalities.

What Young, Healthy People Have to Fear From COVID-19

The White House’s new science adviser says: nothing. The science disagrees.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Domh245]

But there is growing evidence that "long Covid" does affect younger people and, whilst it doesn't kill them, it does give them nasty chronic illness.

"Long Covid" still seems to affect only a small minority of people. More than those who die as a result of Covid, sure, but enough to justify the theatre?

 

[Bletchleyite]

"Long Covid" still seems to affect only a small minority of people. More than those who die as a result of Covid, sure, but enough to justify the theatre?

I'd like to see some figures on this and see how they compare with other "post-viral syndrome" situations, which are fairly common with other viruses.

 

[adc82140]

It is not on the same level as Ebola. What a load of tosh that article is. Ebola will pretty much guarantee you a trip to hospital, with only a 10%-50% survival rate. There is no such thing as asymptomatic Ebola. There is no such thing as mild Ebola. The WHO insist that everyone with Ebola goes to a medical facility.

Edit: That article is also from the end of April, before mass testing revealed the true number of infections.

 

[Tetchytyke]

"Long Covid" still seems to affect only a small minority of people. More than those who die as a result of Covid, sure, but enough to justify the theatre?

That's the $64,000 question!

Who knows? A lot of public health scientists are frightened by Covid, and presumably there is a reason for that.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Who knows? A lot of public health scientists are frightened by Covid, and presumably there is a reason for that.

Perhaps they might tell us with some well-written, peer-reviewed papers, then? There seems to be a view in the public health community that "secret squirreling" is the way to go, and it's really not. If someone won't tell me why they hold their view, then I don't believe them, frankly, particularly given that the motivation for public health experts is generally rather puritanical (and often hypocritical) based on the ones I know personally.

 

[Yew]

I'd like to see some figures on this and see how they compare with other "post-viral syndrome" situations, which are fairly common with other viruses.

Indeed, it does seem to only be discussed in a vacuum, as if it's the only virus ever to cause such symptoms. Similar with the heart issues (myocarditis?), it's a fairly common side effect from most bacterial and viral infections.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Oct 2020 ==

The nature of the illness makes it particularly difficult to logically assess risk. It doesn't just kill nannas in care homes, but it also doesn't kill many young people. But there is growing evidence that "long Covid" does affect younger people and, whilst it doesn't kill them, it does give them nasty chronic illness.

Have any of these people had lung examinations before?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Have any of these people had lung examinations before?

Some of them will, as it's routinely done when diagnosing things like asthma.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Perhaps they might tell us with some well-written, peer-reviewed papers, then? There seems to be a view in the public health community that "secret squirreling" is the way to go, and it's really not. If someone won't tell me why they hold their view, then I don't believe them, frankly, particularly given that the motivation for public health experts is generally rather puritanical (and often hypocritical) based on the ones I know personally.

To be fair to the scientific community, this is a virus that has only got 9 months data behind it (max) and probably a lot less in most cases. They, therefore, have little information on which to be base papers that will be seized upon by people who are a) desperate to know what the truth might be and b) be of a particular opinion and will therefore seek to use any findings to support or dismiss depending on their already-held view. Think that explains a reticence to make too many claims or statements, rather than simply hoarding info. Long Covid appears to be "a thing" but how much of a thing..... well, the science is struggling to catch up. In that light, public health experts will tend to err on the side of caution.

It does seem that you have younger people who were seemingly healthy prior to Covid (so unlikely to have had lung examinations because why would you?) that now have lung damage or other effects that do impact on their health.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair to the scientific community

I wasn't, to be fair, referring to the scientific community, but to Public Health civil servants, who have "secret squirreled" throughout. I know one, and it's quite deliberate, they prefer to keep people in the dark and get cross when they don't do as they are told in their perfectly puritanical (and hypocritical[1]) world. I've had a fairly big falling out with him as a result, to be honest.

[1] i.e. they get cross when you don't do what they say, but then they do it themselves, e.g. relating to consumption of alcohol.

 

[DustyBin]

Indeed, it does seem to only be discussed in a vacuum, as if it's the only virus ever to cause such symptoms. Similar with the heart issues (myocarditis?), it's a fairly common side effect from most bacterial and viral infections.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Oct 2020 ==



Have any of these people had lung examinations before?

As a young person who almost freakishly developed pneumonia following a random chest/throat infection I caught whilst on holiday, I can confirm that it takes a while to recover fully. I’m very fit but it was a couple of months at least until I felt fully recovered and could train as normal. The point I’m making is that Covid-19 isn’t unique in having the potential to cause ‘long’ symptoms, but as we’ve seen with outlying younger victims, anything that makes it sound scary/dangerous will be seized upon....

 

[43066]

It's a bit older, but one study suggests that Covid is "as dangerous as Ebola".

This is plainly nonsense as a far higher % (100% of Ebola victims) are required to attend hospital. Good grief when Ebola breaks out there are men in space suits parachuted in to contain it. Comparing it to Covid is facile in the extreme.

The nature of the illness makes it particularly difficult to logically assess risk. It doesn't just kill nannas in care homes, but it also doesn't kill many young people. But there is growing evidence that "long Covid" does affect younger people and, whilst it doesn't kill them, it does give them nasty chronic illness.

I can’t believe people are still persisting with this kind of scaremongering.

It *mostly* kills unhealthy OAPs and (far fewer) younger people with severe underlying conditions. The average age of a death “with Covid” is in the low 80s, and many of the victims will be severely ill and only have a limited lifespan left.

For those healthy and under 45 you’re statistically more at risk from a car crash. A few younger healthy people have died, but what people seem to forget is that these are statistical outliers (just as some young people die of flu and other conditions).

Long covid is less well understood, but it’s clear that this also only occurs in a small minority of cases.

It is not on the same level as Ebola. What a load of tosh that article is. Ebola will pretty much guarantee you a trip to hospital, with only a 10%-50% survival rate. There is no such thing as asymptomatic Ebola. There is no such thing as mild Ebola. The WHO insist that everyone with Ebola goes to a medical facility.

Edit: That article is also from the end of April, before mass testing revealed the true number of infections.

Indeed. Utterly nonsensical scaremongering of this type has terrified many gullible people in this country, and made it politically difficult for the government to do the sensible thing and pivot to an approach with is more proportionate to the threat facing most of us.

 

[Howardh]

On average, there are around 30-40 deaths per week, in GB. due to road traffic accidents. many more with life-changing injury.

Reported Road Casualties Great Britain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

2019​

1,870 deaths​

27,820 serious injury​

Those ars shocking numbers, but we carry on driving as - arguably - the benefits outweigh the risks. Keeps us moving, keeps the economy moving. But by Covid logic, protect the NHS and all that, shouldn't vehicle traffic be put under lockdown until a safe way to travel is discovered??

I've never yest seen anyone on TV in front of those graphs show that 150,000 have died, had a serious or had a slight injury from traffic accidents in the last 12 months, yet they continually show us how many have Covid, even with zero symptoms and aren't in the slightest bit poorly.