The below is wrong at several levels. In England and Wales, 65,000 aged 65+ have died with it, plus over 7,400 working age people. Many had prior medical conditions, but we don't hold their lives to be valueless because Britain isn't a fascist state.
About one in ten had no prior conditions. But having a prior condition doesn't mean you are about to die! EG about 10,000 had diabetes. Theresa May has it and was Prime Minister! A study by Glasgow Uni suggested the average victim would have had another ten years - that's a lot.
Also: all that is *with* social distancing. Without it many more would have died as health services were overwhelmed.
To see what happens if you do nothing, look at Manaus, Brazil, where excavators dug huge trenches for bodies dumped in mass graves.
Over 3,000 people who died with it and had a "prior condition" had Asthma. For over 2,000 their "prior condition" was a mental health condition or learning difficulties.
To just write them off as valueless is beyond belief.
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There are good reasons to be much more concerned about the new wave 3, than about wave 2 - a quick thread.
Here's the relationship between the number of cases in England among those aged 60+ and the number of people hospitalised by Covid - the one follows the other with a lag.
...And here is the relationship between Covid hospitalisations and deaths - again, the one follows the other with a lag
My piece below looks at Sweden. Recent days have seen Sweden’s Nordic neighbours Finland and Norway offer emergency medical assistance as Stockholm’s hospitals overflow & the King make an unprecedented criticism of the failed strategy. What went wrong?
Sweden started with massive advantages: more people living alone than anywhere else and a sparse population. But it ended up with death rates 9 and 10 times that of neighbours Finland and Norway
Nor has there been an economic upside for Sweden: in fact they had a bigger hit to their economy than their neighbours, as well as much worse health outcomes.
ONE BOGUS CLAIM IN THE TELEGRAPH AND WHY IT MATTERS – A thread
The Sunday Telegraph reports that “Boris Johnson's decision to impose tougher tiers of restrictions on much of the country this week will cost the economy £900 million a day, according to a leading economic forecaster.”
The forecaster in question is Doug McWIlliams at @Cebr_uk . The Sunday Telegraph reports that: “New analysis estimates the new tiers will result in England's GDP being 13pc smaller, or £900 million a day, compared with Dec last year”.
The Daily Mail published this chart. 2 things about it struck me. First, I’d seen the same data from the ONS, which sadly showed excess deaths in recent weeks – in fact higher than any time in the last 5 years. But this chart purported to show just the opposite. First, the Mail:
And now the ONS data. It is back above the highest levels we have seen in recent years. Given it is a lagging indicator, it may keep rising for a bit yet.
TAKING THE GREAT BARRINGTON DECLARARTION SERIOUSLY – a thread.
1 or 2 MPs have advocated the ideas in the “Great Barrington Declaration”: that we should get back to normal, go for herd immunity, & try to shield the elderly & vulnerable. Rather than dismiss this out of hand I've tried to crunch some numbers on what it would mean in practice.
First, how many people would need to totally isolate as the virus accelerates through the rest of the population?