Big jump again today to 562 deaths

Can't get much more official than the public health england website

 

I'll tell you now. The PHE downloads actually do not say that at all and your inserted graphics were not direct from PHE either.

 

Taken from the Guardian. The graph was from public health England. States as such on the source.

 

That’s illogical, their testing gives them more information which makes them better prepared.
See also S Korea, the more testing that’s done, the fewer cases and the fewer deaths.

 

But it isn't the same figures as are actually on the PHE annual flu report

 

It's not annual. It's referencing the flu season not the full year.

 

Hope you're staying well Donny Tyke. If it didn't come across in the way I wrote my post then apologies, but that's kind of the point I was trying to make and why German data, for me, is the one to watch. They started, and had the capacity, for broad testing relatively early on. Did they go into lockdown early on too?

I can't find the link, but I think it was a Guardian article via John Hopkins University, who acknowledged this, but there was also a note of caution that they are at an earlier stage of their outbreak than the UK and their deaths are likely to increase. They've had 3 successive days of increase, lower rate than UK, and I think 3 days is still too short a time to be in any way insicative. It's hard to find scientific consensus across nations.

 

Think about it. Thousands upon thousands die throughout the year but only a few dozen in the part named flu season?

Of course that can't be right.

Probably because flu season isnt in October like the paper claims

 

With people still acting like that this lock down isn't being taken seriously enough.

 

It covers 3 months of the flu season. It's generally accepted the flu season runs from October to March but this varies. Here's a other government site stating around 8,000 deaths a year. How many deaths would we have had without 'lockdown'?

 

One note of caution about South Korea and statistics, related to testing and/screening for disease.

A recent Radiology course I went on had a lecture by a Professor of Public Health, Gil Welch, big topic of discussion on cancer screening. S Korea has shown a massive increase in Thyroid Cancer incidence (as a result of mass screening for it) and also claim a 99.7% 5-year survival rate. But that's a statiscal outcome - the more cancer you look for, the more you find. As a nation, their mortality rate from Thyroid Cancer is flat and unchanged for 30 years. Even though their reported incidence of thyroid cancer has increased 15 fold in 15-20 years. A lot of medical journal literature, including some generated with S Korea itself challenging the state publication of statistics.

It's possible that because of their level of Covid19 testing (screening) they are finding more of the negative members of the public, more of the public who are positive for Covid19, but aren't destined to have severe illness or require Intensive Care or sadly die from it. Their mortality rate may look lower because of the statistical skew that mass testing gives.

But your earlier point is fair about more testing allowing better preparation to treat those patients with Covid19 who can respond to the medical therapy available. I genuinely don't know the data on recovery at present, although a Barnsley schoolfriend of mine who's a GP in Bradford, has mentioned that the early data on outcomes of ventilation isn't particularly good.

 

8000 a year yet only fifty odd during flu season.

Flu season by the way is generally January to march.

And 8,000 a year is wrong also considering its 78,000 in 5 years.

 

And I understand that perfectly and I think of you a lot when I'm writing these things. And my friend Paul who used to post on the BBS. And my ex wife's parents. And my friend in Australia who is a psychiatric nurse who has already had to deal with Covid-19 patients with mental health issues who rip off nurses masks and spit on them and cut themselves and don't follow any instructions. And I'm trying my best not to be callous to anyone, while not being able to sleep at night because I can't help someone I've turned my life upside down for, but I know, in my heart of hearts, that we're currently walking blindfold into something that is going to be much worse than what we're trying to protect ourselves from. And I don't know the answer, but I do know that dialogue will find that answer, and we're not having that dialogue because we've let fear rule us.

 

No it's not. It's October to march and can often go into may. Some years we see very low figures yet others much higher than average. There are multiple factors determining these swings. This source is governmental and is clearly referenced as so. The mortality statistics are incomparable between the two at the moment. 500 plus a day as opposed to 20 plus a day......

 

It's from the Guardian. I gave you a link to government website on flu and the papers you can download from it.

 

It's a public health england source which was published in the Guardian: both sources can clearly be seen. Like i've said there are significant fluctuations year by year in flu deaths. We also have a vaccine which is offered free to millions of people. Everyone else is free to purchase the vaccine. No lockdown then deaths from corona would have been catastrophic the world over
With lockdown the death rates are incomparable to influenza in the 1st world.

 

You're arguing a against a point I have not made.

 

I think that was my point (many times), there’s no equivalence of infection rates anywhere because testing and population control is different everywhere.

 

Doesn't the increase in deaths over the last few years break apart the argument that death rates increase in a recession? - unless of course, we were in a recession but the government had been tampering with the figures for it not to be.

 

Speaking of that have a look at what the wonderful road safety charity Brake says.....

http://www.brake.org.uk/media-centre/2001-government-funds-brake-s-road-crash-victim-support

In 2018 on average five people a day died on our roads.