Coronavirus

[suttonred]

you have to think about inside the classroom too though.

for primary, I think you'd have to do half the class on alternate days so that desks could be separated.

even then it's rubbish.

if digital distancing is needed when schools open, obviously.

There is a letter going out from the DFE today about digital learning platforms. Ironic really seeing they were all the rage 10/12 years ago and were a bit of a fad for most schools and they ditched them.

[Mister Lorenzo]

What we also don't know yet or whether we will ever find out is how many deaths can be directly attributed to CV19. It might be that some of them would have died anyway regardless of whether they had the disease or not and just because they tested positive doesn't mean that's what actually killed them.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

It is difficult, though. If you have underlying health issues and die having tested positive what’s put on the death certificate.

My dad was sent home after being diagnosed with stomach cancer and no treatment was proposed. He actually died of a heart attack getting out of bed one morning - blessed relief.

That is what put on his death certificate although the reason for his heart attack was being weakened by stomach cancer.

[pauld]

What we also don't know yet or whether we will ever find out is how many deaths can be directly attributed to CV19. It might be that some of them would have died anyway regardless of whether they had the disease or not and just because they tested positive doesn't mean that's what actually killed them.

Everyone "dies anyway" eventually. Chris Whitty stated last week that excess deaths is the best method of calculating deaths attributable to Covid. On that basis, the FT have calculated our true death toll is 43,500 as of yesterday

https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1254433529238294528

[RobertT]

and the reason they take that approach is precisely because you are looking to measure the impact on society of an outbreak.  People dying at home because they skipped Cancer treatment for example - Covid-19 may not be directly at fault, but without the virus being spread, the patient would have gone for their treatment.  That's the type of assumption they need to make to understand how best to react when we get these types of healthcare crises.

[pauld]

and the reason they take that approach is precisely because you are looking to measure the impact on society of an outbreak.  People dying at home because they skipped Cancer treatment for example - Covid-19 may not be directly at fault, but without the virus being spread, the patient would have gone for their treatment.  That's the type of assumption they need to make to understand how best to react when we get these types of healthcare crises.

Quite so, which is why Ian Vallance also rightly said overall excess deaths is the key figure to look at.

[RobertT]

And before anyone cries foul on the data, I am sure I read that this is precisely how people calculate the impact of Flu each year, specifically because you don;t die of the Flu, it's what you get when you have ti that kills you, usually Pneumonia.

[suttonred]

It would be interesting to see the flu figures. It's entirely possible that the deaths are people that had flu, and this at the same time. The people with covid who show no symptoms, might not have had flu, and therefore are ok.

[BrightonRed]

I also agree that excess deaths is the key measure. As you'd expect it'll never be an exact science but you should be able to get a good feel for the true impact of COVID-19.

The ONS publishes a dataset of weekly registered deaths for England & Wales. It's quite a bit behind (currently up to 10/04/20) but usefully has a comparison against the average for the corresponding week over the previous 5 years. For example you can see that in the week ending 03/04/20 there were 6,082 more deaths than the average of the past 5 years. For the week ending 10/04/20 there were 7,996.

Page: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

Data: https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=%2fpeoplepopulationandcommunity%2fbirthsdeathsandmarriages%2fdeaths%2fdatasets%2fweeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales%2f2020/publishedweek152020corrected.xlsx

[horlock07]

Interesting Panorama last night, the conclusions of which bizarrely are not being reported on the BBC this morning, or in any papers except for, strangely, The Mail.

[Ardiles]

Interesting Panorama last night, the conclusions of which bizarrely are not being reported on the BBC this morning, or in any papers except for, strangely, The Mail.

It's just extraordinary.  The findings were damning, just like the Sunday Times piece last week.  And within 12 hrs, it's like it never happened.  But at least Johnson is back & 'feeling ebullient'.  We can all talk about that for several days, can't we?

[Arriba]

Plenty of Tory sycophants sharing posts last night slating the panorama programme. Guess their loyalty to their party means they can ignore the evidence.

I'm getting pretty fucked off now to be honest. Working every day in a busy environment, as are my Mrs and daughter in elderly nursing homes, putting ourselves at risk and then reading/seeing the utter shit from morons being paid 80% of their wage to sit at home. I'm sickened by the behaviour and the attitudes some have. People are taking the piss and getting away with it and I expect the virus to have a second wave unless this is stamped out quickly. Traffic levels have soared in the last week. Some people are more concerned with others moaning about those who are flouting the government guidelines than those who are flouting them . Wtf!

Rant over. Have a nice day all

[Pax Romana]

and the reason they take that approach is precisely because you are looking to measure the impact on society of an outbreak.  People dying at home because they skipped Cancer treatment for example - Covid-19 may not be directly at fault, but without the virus being spread, the patient would have gone for their treatment.  That's the type of assumption they need to make to understand how best to react when we get these types of healthcare crises.

At least one report on the Ebola crisis explored the possibility that the 'successful' stemming of Ebola actually cost more lives than it saved through the diversion of finite healthcare resources in third world countries.  One contributor to that report was Chris Whitty.

[horlock07]

It's just extraordinary.  The findings were damning, just like the Sunday Times piece last week.  And within 12 hrs, it's like it never happened.  But at least Johnson is back & 'feeling ebullient'.  We can all talk about that for several days, can't we?

As the BBC seem to have tried to bury it (very little trailing before it was on and then little follow up on their news outlets), here's a link for anyone who missed it

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000hr3y/panorama-has-the-government-failed-the-nhs

[horlock07]

At least one report on the Ebola crisis explored the possibility that the 'successful' stemming of Ebola actually cost more lives than it saved through the diversion of finite healthcare resources in third world countries.  One contributor to that report was Chris Whitty.

Up here they seem to be publishing much that hospital are open and thus people should present for other issues although it does seem to be doing some very strange things with regards to mental health beds and provision.

I note that policy seems to have also changed insofar as elderly displaying symptoms are not being admitted from care homes or home.