. Do I want a very low risk of injury/death or to exercise less or not at all and increase my risks of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, dementia etc?
Originally Posted by: Hippydave
As you say, it's all about risk at the end of the day. The Telegraph has an article about it today:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/13/analysis-danger-coronavirus-compares-risks-everyday-life/
Some bits from it:
"While the overall death rate of those in hospital is hovering at around 1.3 per cent, or about one in 77, it falls dramatically to 0.66 per cent, or one in 152, when mild and asymptomatic cases are included.
The same lowering of risk holds true for all age ranges, and means that the chance of dying for children contracting coronavirus is miniscule, approximately 0.0069 per cent for 10 to 29 year olds – one in 14,492.
For the under-10s, there is even less risk – around 0.0016 per cent, or one in 62,500. Those in their 20s have a one in 1,666 chance of death, while for 30-somethings it is one in 1,190. For people in their 40s it is approximately one in 625, in their 50s one in 169 and in their 60s nearly one in 50. Over-70s have a roughly one in 23 risk of death."
...
The avoidable mortality rate in Britain, which includes accidents, unintentional injuries and some preventable diseases, is currently 228 people per 100,000, or 0.2 per cent.
But the risk from coronavirus for the general population does not rise above that until people hit their 50s – so for anyone under that age the disease is less risky than the general underlying chance of death from preventable causes.
...
In Britain each year, 280 people in 100,000 die of cancer, and there are an estimated 40,000 deaths per year linked to outdoor air pollution, with dirty air linked to lung cancer, stroke, heart disease, Alzheimer's and fatal asthma.
The risk from depression is also high, particularly for young people. The leading cause of death for 20 to 34-year-olds in the UK is suicide and injury or poisoning of undetermined intent for all years observed, accounting for 27.1 per cent of male deaths and 16.7 per cent of female deaths for this age group.
Of course, this only covers deaths and not the after effects of Covid which, I make no apology in saying, also occur with flu and other illnesses. More research is needed into the prevalance and severity of such effects, but based on the lack of reported effects from countries which have had millions of cases of Covid - it's still going to be a tiny amount. (The alternative is that 20, 40% of people are suffering but nobody's reporting it - an unlikely scenario, IMO).
I think one thing everyone can agree on though is we need more testing, more antibody testing and a massive amount of research in to why the disease impacts people as it does, what the best current treatments are and to develop new ones to at least mitigate the worst affects and reduce the death toll. We also need to continue to work on possible vaccines, albeit acknowledging the last bit may not ever be a success.
Definitely! The Telegraph has updated its front page and now says that the NHS and care staff will be prioritised for the antibody tests. Hopefully the rollout will continue much as the main testing has, with other key workers following behind.