🦠🦠45,533 new cases so generally lower than last week. May we be levelling off? Approach with caution as Monday cases processed later in the week (to see impact from schools opening)
⚰️⚰️⚰️ 1243 (28 day cut off). Looking at deaths by date of death there is an inexorable rise
The ONS/ Stats authority have reported 89,243 deaths from Covid (death certificates)
Remember this runs low because 1/ they report by date of registration not by date of death 2/ there were three bank holidays in the period from last full report 18/12/20
Expect more next week
So if we add the known deaths by date of death from 2/1/21 to 10/1/21, the most conservative measure possible we already have
⚰️💔⚰️ 95,589 deaths even without counting deaths yesterday and today (not showing in the data yet).
This despite the fact that it takes 2 weeks to get almost all deaths.
You can see that if you look at deaths by date of death for 6th and 7th Jan they are already recording 799 deaths each day, despite likely being incomplete.
I think we are in the 800+ deaths a day territory.
It is hard to see (once all deaths are reported) how we are not at around 100k COVID deaths by the end of this week.
The other worry is hospitals being at saturation point meaning care is rationed and people die who might otherwise have lives.
I beg you to stay safe.
It is hard to see (once all deaths are reported) how we are not at around 100k COVID deaths by the end of this week.
The other worry is hospitals being at saturation point meaning care is rationed and people die who might otherwise have lives.
I beg you to stay safe.
🏥 Inpatients. It is possible the RATE of admission might be dropping slightly but still in VERY large numbers putting great strain on hospital resources. 4240 on 7/1/20.
🛌 likely c36,572 looking at most recent report from each nation.
Unsustainably high. Care rationing
This is absolutely terrible for the medics who have to make decisions about who will get ICU care, who can get HDU care and who will get oxygen when supplies run low.
Terrible for families too who are likely to be thinking - just another month and they would have a vaccination
Ventilator beds, too are now markedly over the numbers in use at the height of the Spring surge with likely 3,483 in use.
This, despite the far higher use of CPAP rather than ventilation
Really. Be as careful as you can. As strict as you can, for your sake and for the medics
The worst of it is that the bulk of the post Christmas and Ney year deaths are still to happen. Remember the 82k cases by swab date on 29/12 and 75k on 4/1/21?
I feel such a terrible sorrow.
A little bit of good news
VACCINATIONS:
2,843,815 (1st & 2nd dose combined) as of this evening
GOD!
BBC News Midlands
1 in 3 deaths in Birmingham were due to Covid.
Oh. And as for Heneghan saying we should apply a 28 cut off date for Covid deaths in case they might count someone who had tested +ve & then knocked over by a bus
165 RTA deaths in the year in Birmingham
In the Midlands as a whole in 2020 1 in 8 deaths were due to Covid, outstripping cancer deaths.
It looks, from @LawrenceGilder ‘s summary as if 60 day deaths (+ve Covid test and Covid on the death certificate) are nearly 9% more than 28 day deaths at least when prevalence is high.
Keir Starmer won't bring voters back to Labour with just a list of Tory failures
It doesn’t help that Starmer is trying to unify a party that has no agreed explanation for those defeats and is uncertain how it should be speaking to the voters it has lost. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
“There is consensus that change is needed, but not on what needs changing.”
Very good.
His Monday speech
“There were some personal notes and one bland, off-the-shelf nugget of emotional uplift. (“A dark winter will give way to a brighter spring.”) But mostly it sounded as if it had been composed on a spreadsheet. “
I’m going to try and talk about something I find quite difficult and personal.
For quite a long time I started dreading phone calls. And emails. And texts. I shan’t go into why but I know it stems from a profound sense of not being heard or understood in a heartfelt way.
Exacerbated, of course, by Brexit and the management of Covid at Government level.
No accident I took to Twitter. One place where I have a sense of often profound listening, curiosity, seeking after truth, warmth, humour, generous sharing of knowledge from experts.
I am so grateful for that engagement. It has been, literally, a life saver.
But a few days ago I was woken by the phone ringing and answered it instinctively.
It was a dear friend I have hardly spoken to during lockdown.
This is what an 'overwhelmed NHS' looks like. We must not look away | Coronavirus | The Guardian
The final stage, which London is now approaching, is where patient care is not just compromised but cannot be delivered. This won’t be dramatic and public – theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
you won’t see patients refused entry to hospital or bodies on the street. It will take the form of doctors being forced to make impossible decisions about which patient can best benefit from a single spare ICU bed when many need one,
“or how long to wait for a very sick patient to improve before having the conversation with the family about withdrawing care.”
Medical anti-heroes and Covid-19 - plausible yet wrong. What can we learn? - Jackie Cassell
A much needed very close look (with rebuttals) look at Claire Craig by @jackiecassell complete with a tidy table of claims and what’s wrong with them.
On 12th December she put up a nicely constructed video in which she calmly explains the truth in the calm and detached consultant tones I never quite acquired.
“It’s all very simple really, and there’s been a terrible error by (nearly) everyone. Her authoritative demeanour is shared by Andrew Wakefield of MMR fame, and Prof Carl Heneghan.”
One of the things that I really don’t understand is that confident demeanour.