[tomtom]

Well - the govt have a chance to (for once) get ahead of things (relatively - for them) today. If they are going for it, T4 everywhere - from / on Boxing Day. I expect what they’ll do is halfway - with some areas will go into 4 and some to 3.

The deaths curve is pretty closely mirroring the cases with a two week lag... as per. 

[petejh]

One thing confusing me about the pandemic is the current total weekly death rate. It’s slightly above average at the moment consistently around 12,000 and less than the Jan  feb 2018 which was consistently between 12,000 - 15,000. Does this mean the measures are working?

The stats for excess deaths are pretty clear: https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-latest.html

[danm]

Comparing the total death rates between now and last year is pointless because for a start, deaths from flu will likely be well down on last year, because lockdowns and social distancing will help control both virii and thus suppress flu deaths as well as hopefully stop Covid spiralling out of control. Pollution is well down too, and given it's link to cardiovascular death, asthma etc... plus not commuting to work probably reduces quite a few as well.

My understanding, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the "excess deaths" figure basically removes the noise from deaths not from Covid to give an idea of how many people it has killed (arguments about how this is actually decided notwithstanding).

[Oldmanmatt]

Comparing the total death rates between now and last year is pointless because for a start, deaths from flu will likely be well down on last year, because lockdowns and social distancing will help control both virii and thus suppress flu deaths as well as hopefully stop Covid spiralling out of control. Pollution is well down too, and given it's link to cardiovascular death, asthma etc... plus not commuting to work probably reduces quite a few as well.

My understanding, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the "excess deaths" figure basically removes the noise from deaths not from Covid to give an idea of how many people it has killed (arguments about how this is actually decided notwithstanding).

Yes. There is also some merit in the oft touted “some of the Covid deaths would have happened anyway” arguments. For sure, some of those who would likely have been in the winter figures, left early.
But, it is entirely disingenuous to compare figures for this year to any other in living memory. Very little about social interaction, behaviour, movement or even typical exercise or leisure activity; will be comparable to a “normal” year and that will have all sorts of odd sequelae not least in how, when and at what rate, people die.

[abarro81]

Yeah, presumably the interesting metric is "what would be happening if we just smashed on as normal"... but it would be a high risk strategy to try to find out! Failing that, it would be interesting to see analysis by cause of death to see where the declines are to cancel out the covid deaths

[A.Greenhorne]

What are the predictions for January and February for weekly deaths? I’d imagine somewhere between 20-30,000 per week?

[Oldmanmatt]

Yeah, presumably the interesting metric is "what would be happening if we just smashed on as normal"... but it would be a high risk strategy to try to find out! Failing that, it would be interesting to see analysis by cause of death to see where the declines are to cancel out the covid deaths

That second point really intrigues me.

Just with regard to Flu, without anything else considered, the types of precautions and societal changes that have shown marked effect in Covid transmission, would/should (surely) also have similar effects on Flu transmission and cases (and therefore deaths)m added to which there is a fairly effective vaccine. Flu deaths must be well down.

Perhaps that’s the obvious one though, there must be marked fluctuations in accidental deaths? Way more “domestic” far fewer (random selection) Rugby/Equestrian/Boxing et al.
Fewer bar fights? More domestic, less stranger/street/bar/club/road rage murders?

A few PHD’s will grow from this Pandemic and we stand to learn a great deal about society.

And, what a bunch of dicks we are.

[galpinos]

Just with regard to Flu, without anything else considered, the types of precautions and societal changes that have shown marked effect in Covid transmission, would/should (surely) also have similar effects on Flu transmission and cases (and therefore deaths)m added to which there is a fairly effective vaccine. Flu deaths must be well down.

We won't see the effect on flu till next year. Flu deaths normally rack up in the Jan-Mar period so the pandemic hit post the 2020 flu season. We'll see what happens in 2021

[TobyD]

I haven't been following all of this thread so apologies if mentioned before.
A remarkable statistic I saw the other day was than more than 1 in 4 people who've died of COVID have had a dementia diagnosis.
It's not an argument against shutting things down, (I know it affects all kinds of subgroups, and everyone has long term risk of issues) but it's a high cost to save a particular part of the population.

[teestub]

Isn’t that just a correlation with Covid mainly killing old people? Assume you’d see a similar proportion for ‘flu.

[dunnyg]

If you have loads of oldies filling up all the hospital beds, then the knock on effect to the rest of the populations healthcare will be large.
Think about it like that and it isnt that you are saving oldies, but that making sure there is capacity to sort you out if you have an accident or get diagnosed with something horrible.
 Interesting stat, but hard to work out how meaningful it is without knowing dementia occurences in the oldies in
general and the proportion of people dying by age etc. etc.. (what tstub is sezzin)

[A.Greenhorne]

I haven't been following all of this thread so apologies if mentioned before.
A remarkable statistic I saw the other day was than more than 1 in 4 people who've died of COVID have had a dementia diagnosis.
It's not an argument against shutting things down, (I know it affects all kinds of subgroups, and everyone has long term risk of issues) but it's a high cost to save a particular part of the population.

Dementia vs Covid starring Sylvester Stallone and Joe Biden, director Michael Bay produced by Klaus Schwab and supported by WHO

[Oldmanmatt]

Did anybody hear a noise?

I think the damn sewers are blocked again.

[A.Greenhorne]

Danm sewers?

Anyway I see lots of England is going into tier 4. Matt Hancock looked quite stressed while talking about it, quite tired. Those guys are really under pressure from all sides at the moment.

[abarro81]

That's the look of "We've fucked up. Again. And we're still fucking up, so we know we'll have to do another one of these in a few days. But we're too incompetent to stop fucking up and actually get ahead of something. Oh fuck, what idiot gave me this job instead of giving it to someone better."

[A.Greenhorne]

What would be a better plan, maybe shield the vulnerable and everyone else get on with it? Or full lockdown until we’re 70% immunised

[abarro81]

What would be a better plan, maybe shield the vulnerable and everyone else get on with it?

We've talked about this enough before - use the search function if you want to see views on this one.

More generally:
- Not fucking up test and trace might have been useful
- Not threatening legal action against schools that want to move online in the runup to Christmas and where the parents are on-board with that
- Not sending the students back to uni apart from where necessary for significant lab work (or similar) would likely have been sensible. Fund the unis to charge 1/2 price for the course if this is an issue - much cheaper than the furlough costs from increased restrictions due to increased case numbers. This was proper dumbfuckery - higher cases, the students weren't happy, everybody loses. Apart from large property companies 
- Don't tell people to make plans to see people at Christmas when this is clearly a dumb idea. With that horse having bolted, don't move to T4 on the 26th, do it on the 24th.
- Introduce your fluctuating restrictions earlier, when cases are lower, so that the restricted periods can be shorter and TTI can work more effectively

There's a 5 minute starter... Obviously we can't be sure what the impact of any of those measures would have been, but this gov seems spectacularly capable of fucking things up.

[mrjonathanr]

I haven't been following all of this thread so apologies if mentioned before.
A remarkable statistic I saw the other day was than more than 1 in 4 people who've died of COVID have had a dementia diagnosis.
It's not an argument against shutting things down, (I know it affects all kinds of subgroups, and everyone has long term risk of issues) but it's a high cost to save a particular part of the population.

I don’t think it follows that the preponderance of deaths being pensioners in these highly unusual circumstances would remain the same if people were behaving very differently.

[tomtom]

Danm sewers?

Anyway I see lots of England is going into tier 4. Matt Hancock looked quite stressed while talking about it, quite tired. Those guys are really under pressure from all sides at the moment.

Eh? The only sympathy I’ve had for anyone in govt was for Boris when he was in intensive care. Most of the mess has been created by their flawed decisions and scandalously managed ‘solutions’. From TTI to PPE procurement. Trip to Barnard castle anyone?

They’ve refused any scrutiny or enquiry (enquiries are there to help us learn from mistakes not to punish) and keep on offering us meaningless moonshot promises week on week.

There really are too many examples to list!

So no - I have no sympathy for Hancock If he’s looking haggard.

If you voted for them. Reap what you sow.

[A.Greenhorne]

Ah cheers, yeah can’t face reading the thread and didn’t know if anyone had come up with a good plan

[A.Greenhorne]

Danm sewers?

Anyway I see lots of England is going into tier 4. Matt Hancock looked quite stressed while talking about it, quite tired. Those guys are really under pressure from all sides at the moment.

Eh? The only sympathy I’ve had for anyone in govt was for Boris when he was in intensive care. Most of the mess has been created by their flawed decisions and scandalously managed ‘solutions’. From TTI to PPE procurement. Trip to Barnard castle anyone?

They’ve refused any scrutiny or enquiry (enquiries are there to help us learn from mistakes not to punish) and keep on offering us meaningless moonshot promises week on week.

There really are too many examples to list!

So no - I have no sympathy for Hancock If he’s looking haggard.

If you voted for them. Reap what you sow.

Easy tiger I didn’t vote

[mrjonathanr]

Pretty unimpressed with his barefaced lie that they had only just found a way of properly controlling the virus with the Tiers only to be sabotaged by a new variant.

It’s the tiers’ failure to control it which has teed up the current crisis.

[T_B]

Bristol down into Tier 2 on Saturday and back into Tier 3 Boxing Day sums it up really.

What planning is going into the vaccine roll out? Or are they just winging it and hoping for the best?

[Oldmanmatt]

My sister had her first dose today.
She’s vulnerable, shielding, NHS staff.
She says they’re starting/doing the NHS staff, frontline and admin.

[ali k]

- Not fucking up test and trace might have been useful
...this gov seems spectacularly capable of fucking things up.

Decent quick round up of all the failings from Led By Donkeys here: