Coronavirus Discussion So.... The Coronavirus / COVID-19

Another 563 people have died in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus - bringing the total number of deaths to 2,352.

The deaths happened in the 24 hours before 5pm on Tuesday, the Department of Health said.

It is the largest increase so far.

Scotland reported another 16 deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total to 76.

In Wales, 29 more people have died, with the country's total now at 98.

England's deputy chief medical officer, Dr Jenny Harries, said on Monday she was anticipating the number of deaths to "get worse over the next week, possibly two" before they decline due to people adhering to the lockdown and social distancing measures.

The Department of Health said 29,474 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 9am on Tuesday, 4,324 more than the 24 hours before.

The family of 13-year-old Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, in a statement issued through GoFundMe, said: "We are heartbroken as a family due to the devastation caused by the coronavirus as it becomes too real for us as a family and community.

"Ismail was a loving son, brother, nephew to our family and a friend to many people who knew him. His smile was heart-warming and he was always gentle and kind."

They went on: "As a family, we have decided not to release Ismail's picture at this juncture as we are concerned where it may end up and how this will impact us upon seeing it.

"We as a family are still trying to come to terms with the sudden death of Ismail.

"He leaves behind six siblings who are completely devastated and this has been made more difficult not being able to be with Ismail while he was in the hospital."

Jon said:

Be interesting to see what the Coroner says on this one. The young girl last week they all said died of Coronavirus actually didn't in the end

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Yes. People are dying of Corona. But people are also dying with Corona. It's not the same thing. There was something yesterday about a 108 year old woman who had survived 2 world wars and spanish flu but died of Corona. She was 108 for flip's sake, any number of things were about to carry her off.

The World Health Organisation has said that more than 95% of people who have died after testing positive for coronavirus in Europe have been over 60-years-old.

This really does not fill you with confidence does it? https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...-die-may-have-ventilators-taken-away-11967204

If we have, then we could find there are fewer than the 20,000 deaths that are being suggested. I think the big problem is not having had the right amount of testing so don't know how many people will start to show signs thus week.

Jon said:

yeah i think that Antibody test is going to show LOADS of people have had this since dec/Jan - Not reported it and that will totally skew the numbers!

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Pretty certain my Mum and I have had it for the past week (both on the mend now, I hope, thankfully), but until the antibody test is available we won't know. Two days of intermittent high temperatures, two days of full body aches and headaches, no sense of taste or smell, and, er...an interesting bum. No cough. Not pleasant, but not that bad in the grand scheme of things. If it has been Covid-19, we've been incredibly lucky.

For us both to have had 'it' at once, it has to date from that last run we did to Tesco together on the 14th. I think we're approaching the plateau as I maintain that most of the community transmission would have happened the weekend of the 14th/15th, and the following weekend when the weather was nice and all the parks and pubs were still open...what *is* slightly scary is that it would have emerged *very* close to the end of the 14 day isolation period.

EdibleDormouse said:

Pretty certain my Mum and I have had it for the past week (both on the mend now, I hope, thankfully), but until the antibody test is available we won't know. Two days of intermittent high temperatures, two days of full body aches and headaches, no sense of taste or smell, and, er...an interesting bum. No cough. Not pleasant, but not that bad in the grand scheme of things. If it has been Covid-19, we've been incredibly lucky.

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With the bum side of it, it's just as well you lost your sense of smell, believe me! Unfortunately we didn't

Topaz said:

With the bum side of it, it's just as well you lost your sense of smell, believe me! Unfortunately we didn't

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Trust me, I have been MASSIVELY grateful not to be able to smell the bum produce.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we've hit a plateau yet. I reckon we will hit the peak in a couple of weeks. The big challenge is what we do in a month or two when we ease off restrictions. How do we stop it flaring up again? While I'm sure the real infection rate is far higher than the official figures, I also think many who think they have had the Rona have had flu. I used to think I'd had flu until about 5 years ago when myself and my wife got it properly. We were shocked how bad it was. We literally could not get out of bed for several days other than the loo. And we felt like we were dying. Took us over 2 weeks to get over it. Nothing has ever felt worse for either of us.

The constant Corona propaganda from the govt and BBC is really starting to jar now.

For the winter 2017/2018 22,000 people died from normal seasonal flu, pretty much in line with the average.

Meanwhile Sweden still refuses to lockdown and have no more cases or deaths than we do.

homie said:

The constant Corona propaganda from the govt and BBC is really starting to jar now.

For the winter 2017/2018 22,000 people died from normal seasonal flu, pretty much in line with the average.

Meanwhile Sweden still refuses to lockdown and have no more cases or deaths than we do.

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How is that even possible? Surely that has to be a lie.

homie said:

The constant Corona propaganda from the govt and BBC is really starting to jar now.

For the winter 2017/2018 22,000 people died from normal seasonal flu, pretty much in line with the average.

Meanwhile Sweden still refuses to lockdown and have no more cases or deaths than we do.

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Do you think we shouldn't have gone into lockdown? I still think lockdown was the safest route given the huge number of unknowns. But I'm seeing a lot of people who are slowly turning against the lockdown. The number of deaths "just isn't very high" apparently.

I'm not sure coronovirus should be compared to flu in this way. Flu deaths vary wildly from a high of high of 28,330 in 2014/15 to a low of 1,692 in 2018/19 with an average of 17,000 (https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-compare-influenza/). Flu transmission also drops off during warm weather which coronovirus doesn't appear to. It seems to slow it, but not to the same extent as flu. I could be wrong, but I don't think coronovirus has had a chance to disperse among the population as much as flu would have done over the course of winter. It's not had time to spread in the same way. If the lockdown wasn't in place, it would spread more evenly through the population. We won't know that until the antibody tests come out.

No doubt the death rate will be less than what it is now, but even so, we're seeing ~600 people die per day, maybe more over the coming days (it's almost 700 today). If you allow the virus to keep spreading, the number that die per day will keep going up as you get more cases per day, ventilators start running out, doctors/nurses falling ill etc. Even if you assume 600 deaths per day as a conservative estimate, that's already 18,000 in two months, and we don't know how long it will take for a large number of us to get immunity so that the numbers start coming down. This also assumes it doesn't mutate sufficiently to reinfect people and reduce the effectiveness of vaccines (like flu). Yes, some that die have underlying conditions, but that may include those with cancers or other conditions that are on therapies who may have pulled through in the end had the virus not hit.

I think nearer the end of all this, we may well see less than 20,000 deaths. People will become complacent because they feel that number is quite low and we may see another peak again with people forgetting that that low number might have been due to the lockdown and not because the deathrate of the virus itself is low. It's all just a guessing game at this point.

Sweden have a different mentality to us. If the government say it is a good idea to stay indoors, work from home etc, people have such trust in them that they just do it. So, although they aren't in official lockdown, people have just accepted that it is the right thing to do. Whereas here, the government have to make it official, or people just don't listen!!