Another day, another thread

The Tele has a story leading on from yesterday's admission that the death figures are being understated. In effect, it's adding more lag to the already lagged figures.

They said the official death toll reported yesterday would have been for deaths the day before.  They have a lag of approx a day due to verification and family being informed.  I suppose it’s the same as confirmed cases having a lag of three days due to the time it takes for test results to come back.

Had wondered about this before because Wolverhampton reported 18 deaths in one day late last week but has seen fewer before or since (40 in total now). While there will be day to day variation this looked a little extreme and did wonder if there had been some kind of clear-out of deaths over several days which were waiting to be officially cleared.

Wolverhampton Express and Star reports that some of yesterday's deaths actually happened 2 weeks ago (not sure if this info has already been reported). Not sure why some of these were so long, i have seen before a lag between death and reporting of several days due to test results coming back but 13 days seems a bit much. Maybe just getting some personal details, or notifying hard to find relatives etc.

'All of the latest coronavirus deaths in England were confirmed between 5pm on Friday and 5pm on Saturday, but some of the patients included in the figures died as long ago as March 16.'

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/health/coronavirus-covid19/2020/03/29/coronavirus-black-country-birmingham-and-staffordshire-death-toll-reaches-142/

On the CFR (or death toll) - I can understand a delay whilst cause of death is confirmed, but I don't see why there is any requirement that relatives need to be notified first - all they state are the numbers, not the names of the victims.

I think the Guardian reported inconsistencies between the national and regional totals. Not sure if they managed to resolve. 

Chair of BMA confirms on Sky news that doctors on the front line still don't have the equipment that they need.

I assume the Government will confirm today that ts on its way. 

Also, lets see if we hit 10K tests today.

Yeah, i agree! i think that excuse has been used before though and at the time was queried for the reasons you state.

We need to be hitting 10,000 daily therefore 70,000 minimum this week. If the target is reached only on one day it will lead to suspicions the data was massaged.  

Out of the 190 new deaths announced in England yesterday 70 were in London.

Regional breakdowns below

1. London - 70


2. West Midlands - 33


3. South East 31


4. Yorkshire and The Humber - 16


5. North West - 12 


6. East of England - 11


7. South West - 9


8. North East - 7


9. East Midlands - 1
   
   

I am not sure how widespread testing would be of any benefit at this stage, especially with everyone locked down. You test every suspect case when you are trying to contain the epidemic, as South Korea did - when you have mass community spread because you failed to control your borders in the first place, what is the benefit of mass testing? In that case, testing should be concentrated on those hospitalised and essential workers - the real scandal in the UK has been the slow start to routine testing of NHS staff.

The test which needs to be conducted on a mass scale, is the antibody test to see who has had the virus.

Just talking to my Danish colleagues this morning - the Danish Government is going for containment and keeping borders closed - if you don't go for herd immunity, the only other solution is to track, contain, quarantine and closed borders to keep it out. Every country which has successfully contained the virus, is going for border lockdown. Just why our authorities cannot see the logic of that, I don't know.

Are Care home deaths being recorded? We have several round here and there always seems to be an Ambulance parked outside

Lots of the media reporting this morning that Jack Grealish crashed his car drunk at 08:00 yesterday morning and then left the scene. He had apparently been at a party. The pictures show him looking a complete state and wearing 1 slipper.

My view:

During a time of national crisis, I really hope they throw the book at him. I am sick to death of this premier league players thinking the rules don't apply to them. You even hear people defending him saying he is young. He isn't that young.

The irony is only the day he was telling everyone to stay at home, save the NHS and Save Lives

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/03/30/jack-grealish-police-investigation-launched-aston-villa-captain/

Knowing the local situation here I would really struggle to find people to test to boost the figures! 

Not worth testing those at home with mild symptoms and not enough people in the hospitals with symptoms to hit the targets . Local councils have small infection control teams are doing some testing in care and nursing homes but the numbers are low again there are not enough people to test to hit those targets .

The French have openly stated that they are not testing and including care home deaths in their corona virus statistics, so the same could apply here.

I wonder who actually reports the figures.  I would think possibly the coroners office, rather than the hospitals and are they perhaps only reported when the death is registered?  That would explain why hospital figures don’t tally with those published daily.  This isn’t something they’ve said.  Just my thoughts!

Explains why the French numbers are so low 

But as someone who wants the lockdown to end ASAP, I don't mind if HMG is doing its best to suppress 

Just received the following email from my daughter:

"I’m very happy to be a psychiatrist and not on the frontline of all of this, but also feel guilty that so many of my colleagues are suffering. Three British doctors have died and more than fifty in Italy. There are going to be high rates of PTSD in doctors and nurses who survive the pandemic because they will have witnessed more horror and deaths than at any time in their careers and will not be able to say that they did the best they could to save people, because they will not be able to do their jobs to their usual standards. An Italian nurse has committed suicide. ITU staff in the UK are already having to make difficult decisions about who to treat, only ventilating those “fairly certain to survive”. The rates of secondary deaths are going to be astronomical because nobody will get the hospital treatment they need for non-COVID diseases such as cancers, cardiovascular diseases, etc. We will only know these numbers after the fact. These are dark days."

In a pandemic, medical staff have to "play God" and decide who merits treatment - there are no hard and fast rules, but those over 80 go to the back of the queue when there is competition for medical resources. That is why it is so important that vulnerable groups isolate themselves. My mother is still alive at 92 and my sisters are over 70 - one of my sisters has moved in with my mother and relies on her own sons to deliver food to the doorstep - that is the only responsible way to proceed, even though it means she does not see her own husband, except when he comes to wave through the window when he delivers supplies (for understandable reasons, he did not want to be couped up indefinitely with his mother-in-law :-)).

Coronavirus: Scientist who predicted 5,700 deaths now says final toll will be much higher

The scientist who projected last week that Britain would suffer 5,700 deaths from coronavirus has said new data suggests that it was a significant underestimate and Britain is in a very “dangerous state”.

Tom Pike, from Imperial College, had calculated the likely total death rate by assuming that the outbreak in Britain would follow a similar trajectory to that seen in Wuhan, China.

His paper predicted that at its highest, Britain would have 260 deaths a day. That number was reached over the weekend.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-scientist-who-predicted-5-700-deaths-now-says-final-toll-will-be-much-higher-k07xpgcvp

The government have said this morning on Sky News that we are right at the top of league table in regards to testing.

She also stated we are planning to get to 25,000 tests a day in the next three weeks.

Why are they lying.

Well, durrr...

It was clear from places like China, Italy and Spain that you still see death rates soar for at least a fortnight after lockdown, as infections work their way through the system. In our case, it's likely to be at least 3 weeks after lockdown as we've crap at giving up-to-date death totals.