Deaths from Covid

[DonaldJTrump]

I've been pondering this for a while - why is the UK death rate so much higher than other countries

Is our Health Service really that much worse than other European countries
'
Are we reporting differently to others?

[cojak]

You would need to look at the sociological aspects of this as much as (if not more than) the NHS.

The gig economy and the eroding of worker benefits like sick-pay, renting/living with parents rather than living in your own home and other things will have an impact on this.

I would show a similar graph how many workers (per 100,000 or similar) there are without sick-pay in each country and overlay it with that one and see what both look like.

[OwlHoot]

:: I would show a similar graph how many workers (per 100,000 or similar) there are without sick-pay in each country and overlay it with that one and see what both look like.

I would also compare a graph of urban population density by country, in which I think the UK comes out practically the highest.

[d000hg]

The graph didn't have us at the top a few days ago. You have to remember Covid seems to follow certain patterns which are running at different times in different nations.

Before our current, really bad, developments with new variants, etc, UK was slowly improving relative to other European nations. We then started seeing a very sharp increase as the new variant is hugely more transmissible.
Other nations have yet to see this newest 'bump' but it's expected. Often we've seen one nation jump ahead in whatever metric, only for others to catch up weeks or months later.

However you roll it, UK has always been among the hardest hit along with Italy and a few smaller nations. Our lockdowns have been less strict than our EU neighbours such as France and Spain, and the English psyche seems quite resistant to doing what its told - we are far less compliant than some other nations.
You also have to consider issues such as population density.

Many will lay the headline numbers at the feet of Boris and say "it's all down to bad governance" but I think that's far too simple. It can be a factor but not the only one.

[cojak]

Yep, I'm working closely with an English manager living in France. I asked him about how the French are reacting to the stricter lockdown they have over there, considering the French are touchy buggers about Liberté and all that.

He said that they are grumbling but putting up with it because most of them are massive hypochondriacs and are terrified of catching it.

(A French person talks about their 'pharmacy', whereas we just have a shelf with out-of-date aspirin and cough syrup on it.)

[Gibbon]

I think ( a loose term granted) that we are inflating it by counting anyone who has tested positive within the last twenty eight days. Doesn't mean that was a cause of death, especially in care homes. Now days if you have been in a care home for > 2 years you were admitted too early. My wife has had to count CoVid deaths even when the person was on end of life anyway. Trouble is most people die of pneumonia secondary to another condition. How do you tease out CoVid from pneumonia.

[d000hg]

But other metrics such as excess deaths don't suggest our definitions are overly lax. Doubtless some people are mis-labelled but my gut feeling is it's closer to a rounding error than anything substantiative.
Equally, some people are doubtless dying of COVID and not being counted.

[xoggoth]

Not what it says here:

• COVID-19 deaths per capita by country | Statista

Unless your figure, by "Weekly average", applies to a spike in the past few weeks? Doesn't say over what period.

[Scoobos]

I would also compare a graph of urban population density by country, in which I think the UK comes out practically the highest.

Hate to say it, but look at Japan. More populated, bigger average age, bigger air travel hub in Tokyo than London , similar lockdown style, but simply implemented decisively, quickly and authoritatively.

I strongly believe the difference is indecisive leadership and very very poor decisions. All the experts in containing epidemics say it isn't necessarily what action you take, more than the speed and decisiveness that you take the action with.

We've mishandled this worse than anyone - at least America and Brazil were open about not giving a damn.

The only country (I think) that has a worse death per million rate is Italy and they were hit first with no real warning. (xogotth posted same time, there are a couple, but I think the point is still relevant)

I worked, during the initial pandemic on a core Covid project with Public health services and I was apalled when it became obvious that the current leadership had no confidence or faith in them, and simply wanted to call them "unable" or "failures" and then go to the Private sector on the premise that it would do better.

It's done far, far worse than NHS Digital, or PHE, PHS or PHW would have done. Far worse.

There's another poster on here I remember reading at the time, that I think was on a similar gig to me - and they also said that NHS Digital were not even approached.

For me, it's all been about politicising everything and trying to make a statement that we could not rely on the Public Sector and simply had to use multinational private companies. (local private companies were also massively ignored, with PPE production, Offers of test and trace assistance etc, in favor of Serco et al.)

[Scoobos]

But other metrics such as excess deaths don't suggest our definitions are overly lax. Doubtless some people are mis-labelled but my gut feeling is it's closer to a rounding error than anything substantiative.
Equally, some people are doubtless dying of COVID and not being counted.

Yep the 28 days thing had me furiously ranting when it was implemented , as from what I was seeing at the time, it was missing a good 20-30% of people.

But , just having a positive test is not good either, if the patient dies of an existing issue.

That said, its pretty obvious that the NHS was overwhelmed right from the beginning , as soon as it cannot do its usual treatment courses and put patients on pathways - this makes me tend to trust excess deaths as being "due to Covid" - because all the spill over of lack of access for other critical care functions. If you died of a cardiac arrest because 999 or 111 wouldn't answer the phone in time, or there was no function, then its Covid related. (definately happened in March this) .

I dont think we will ever truly know, but seeing people and politicians playing numbers games , genuinelly upsets me in a way I thought I'd never feel about the UK.

How we've not had a vote of no confidence raised and an emergency QUALIFIED committee put in, is beyond me. I mean - SERCO? The Nightingales? all the corruption , right out there in the open.

I mean, I get that we may have needed a period of being able to agree GVT contracts without barriers of scrutiny in the first few weeks of lockdown 1 - but still, today? Nah.... never. We knew in March we needed PPE, Test and Trace, Isolate, Vaccine / Treatment rollout plans and Border controls.

Arguably, we've not got even 2 out of the 5 there. Calling the army in to help with logisitics was the very first thing we should have done - they are doing brilliantly, with vaccine rollout. Legends.