For those of the opinion we should wait for a vaccine

There wasn't a significant number of excess deaths until the first week in April but we know it was around before then.
I'm not suggesting it was rampant before then but the young and fit and healthy are very unlucky to die from it so perhaps the deaths were kept low despite infections until it got into care homes at which point it killed people rapidly.

 

I've spoke with so many people who've claimed "i was badly over winter i reckon i had that covid tha knows". I get up at 5 am every morning during the winter when it's pissing down or freezing cold to walk the dog for an hour. I spend all winter with a snotty nose or a bunged up one with a cough and various other symptoms: normal for winter. Sadly it's going to take a real dose of covid to make these people realise how potentialy dangerous this illnes can be.

 

Doesn't it affect different people differently? Again going back to flu it almost killed me, it made you mildly ill. Would it be right for me to tell you you haven't had flu because your symptoms weren't as bad as mine?

I'm not saying these people did have it by the way but just because it didn't kill them or nearly kill them doesn't mean they can't possibly have had it

 

I'm pretty sure the few million people who had seasonal flu/cold over the winter had a seasonal flu/cold. Same as the year before and the year before etc. Statistics disprove any other suggestion. Iv'e never felt excruciating pain in my lungs and struggled to breathe with the flu. Flu is nasty but this was putrid.

 

Flu is so nasty it kills 1000s every year in the UK alone. I'm sure the people who it kills don't think "well this is bad but It could be worse"
The point being in the case of both it's just as bad for the person it kills and just as easily brushed off for those it doesn't really affect.
I thought the issue with Covid was how much more infectious it is?

 

For that to make any sense, the virus would have to have actively avoided large portions of the population.

with the amount of data now available it’s fairly straightforward to track the virus historically.

 

It is - and that’s why we can track its progress.

 

It is evidentially much more infectious and it can kill healthy younger people which influenza rarely does. We have existed alongside the flu for generations. We don't lockdown every winter though and enforce fiscal meltdown do we? A huge difference has clearly been identified.

 

Covid seems to rarely kill younger healthier people. Its likely is killing more in numbers than Flu in this group because of the higher rate of infection, which is why it is a lot worse situation. I wasn't trying to downplay it.
I was merely stating that you downplaying flu was disrespectful to those it kills every year.

 

Wakefield is the idiots idiot.

Latest FT analysis on excess deaths.

 

Not downplayed it so not being disrespectful. I was making reference to the comparison many people like to make between the two and concluding that it is clearly incomparable.

 

2015.
Flu killed 95 under 15s. Covid-19 has killed 2.
It killed 1354 under 65s, covid-19 has killed 4579 under 65s (based on ons stats to middle of may) when you consider how infectious one is compared to the other I'd say that it shows the opposite to what you're saying.
Covid-19 is absolutely deadly to the elderly but very rarely kills younger people. Flu kills people of all ages.

Accepting that flu is deadly is not playing down covid-19

 

Don’t forget that under 2s and children with certain medical conditions get the flu jab too.

 

Try and work out an estimation of those figures if we hadn't had a lockdown or had social distancing measures in place: frightening.
It's also apparent that healthy people from certain ethnic backgrounds are far more likely to die from this than white anglo Saxons which is certainly not the case with the flu. What would your take on this be if we were discussing this now with no restrictions ever being put in place? Even a conservative estimate would be around 200,000 deaths so far in the uk. So many people wouldn't have had a chance of survival as their would not have been enough specialised hospital beds. Think it's important always to bear this in mind when considering covid 19's impact.

 

Go on then, I’ll have a go.

So accepting your wild estimate, we’d have roughly 4 times as many deaths with no lockdown.

So 8 deaths of under 15s, then.

 

Regarding schools, I do understand that teachers are worried about themselves and their wider families, but there’s clearly absolutely no argument for children’s safety to keep them off school based on both the UK and worldwide stats.

I honestly can’t see how anyone thinks the minimal risk to children outweigh the social and developmental benefits, particularly to young children, of being in school.

Teachers are scared for themselves and those they live with - fair enough - but that’s the only legitimate reason for schools not being back.

 

Andrew Wakefield was struck off as a doctor in the UK for faking his research into MMR and autism. He now makes a living going around poorer (mainly Black/Hispanic) communities in the USA advising them against vaccinations. The infant mortality rate in these communities is rising as a result.

This is another of the many issues that the Daily Mail needs to apologise for.