Yes, percentages. We are not ignoring the work/dedication/danger that has been shown by all those involved in keeping this disease at bay. In the UK, the worst case, obsolete figures show a percentage of 0.0624% (which includes deaths of people who died with the virus and not necessarily of the virus - a very important point). As we get to learn more about it and the treatment improves (and assuming it does not mutate to form a more virulent version), this percentage death rate will drop further. The point I have been trying to make is that we are not likely to see a 50 million worldwide death rate (some people estimated at 100 million) as we did in the two years after 1918 (and remember that the world population was considerably smaller then - between 1.6 and 2.0 billion) so percentage death rate of 3.13% to 2.5%. The black death in England is estimated to have wiped out between 40-60% of the population. Compare those percentages with the 0.0624% death rate spoken of here for Coronavirus. And here I will leave the subject.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53964322 The new law's in place in England so they go to wales instead, these irresponsible lot don't give a toss
VE Day - Second wave! Beaches - Second wave! BLM demos - Second wave! Beaches again - Second wave! Pubs - Second wave! Now Raves - Second wave! To be followed by Schools - Second wave! Students - Second wave! Halloween - Second wave! Bonfire night - Second wave! Christmas shopping - Second wave! If there's (to all intents and purposes) nobody in hospital, what does it matter?
Thought I'd share this interesting article published recently in Business Insider and also the link the the actual BMJ article upon which it's based. Both contain this chart which was designed to consider the multiple interactive variables that actually impact risk rather than oversimplifying by having rigid "rules" like physically distancing six feet. https://www.businessinsider.com/6-foot-distancing-rule-is-outdated-oxford-mit-new-system-2020-8 https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/370/bmj.m3223.full.pdf
This is an interesting read for those who like to dig into “how it works” theory https://elemental.medium.com/a-supe...teresting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63
A friend sent me this from another forum, "Growing concern about Lockdown from doctors in Belgium by Dr Malcolm Kendrick" I found it by googling. Those of you who know more about this stuff please advise, is this accurte and believable?
I got curious about total number of deaths attributed to "the flu" compared to how many deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to COVID this year. This article was written in 2018 but was one of the clearer ones that turned up when I did a google search looking for a basic comparison. https://www.statnews.com/2018/09/26/cdc-us-flu-deaths-winter/ I know there's debate about the accuracy of the attribution of deaths to COVID with some arguing that the numbers are high. I have no doubt that the data are "messy". I'm sure they are with the flu, also. However, even with that in mind, COVID has clearly claimed many more lives this year in the United States than the flu even during its deadliest season with the exception the Spanish Flu back in 1918. And with the Spanish Flu I didn't find information about how many U.S. deaths there were for one year or season, only a total. As of today--September, 22, 2020, the number of deaths in the United States attributed to COVID stands at 199, 890. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu I also wanted to get an idea about how flu and COVID deaths compare to Spanish Flu deaths. A Wikipedia article about the Spanish Flu pandemic (noted as lasting from Feb 1918 to April 2020) provided estimates that the total number of American deaths attributed to that flu was 500,000--850,000.
I also did a little bit of research for UK (well England and Wales) deaths, both graphs below are from data sourced from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS): Spot the similarities, there were rather a lot of deaths in the 1990's but no panic or lockdowns. Notice that influenza and pneumonia has been killing more people for the last 5 months than Covid-19 by some margin, and Covid-19 deaths were only more for about 2 months...
Raw numbers are immaterial as the population is increasing, The only valid number that should be used in decision making is the percentages. Even a fifth grader knows that a total number of cases graph can only rise, flatline but never ever show a downward trend.
In terms of the UK, if my maths are correct: 2020 - approx 22,000 peak deaths with a population of approx 67 million = 0.032% 1999 - approx 20,000 peak deaths with a population of approx 58 million = 0.034%
I'm definately not saying it's a hoax, just attemping to add some perspective, and that you don't have to go back very far in recent history when the death rate has been at almost similar levels. Isn't that what the government are doing? - They said from the outset they they would base their decisions and actions on the science, but a lot of their decisions and actions so far seem to be contradictory to me, with not much solid science to support
I finally sat my butt down and read this article in its entirety, @DCS222. Thank you for sharing it. I found it very interesting and quite compelling. Have you seen any followup articles addressing this theory? I've been taking Vitamin D at the advice of my orthopedic surgeon. I'm nearly out but after reading this I'm going to stock up! Can't hurt.......
I definitely agree with that the government (ours in the U.S. anyway) is not basing decisions and actions on science. There is currently even what I would consider a politicized anti-science bias--which is not new to our current administration I might add. As one example, in the last few days the CDC published but then quickly retracted their information and advice related to airborne / aerosol transmission of COVID. They retracted information on their website that WAS clearly backed by science. Regarding death rate comparisons (some have referenced the Bubonic Plague and the Spanish Flu), I would think and hope that we'd have advanced enough through scientific progress that death rates comparable to those pandemics would be deemed unacceptable based on modern day knowledge of hygiene, transmission, and mitigation.
The information in my earlier post indicated 80,000 flu deaths in 2017 when the U.S. population was 325 million. The same source indicates that the U.S. population in 2020 is 331 million. It doesn't seem that population difference is enough to account for 80,000 flu deaths compared to 197,000 COVID deaths so far this year. That's well over double and we have three and a half months left in 2020. I agree with you, ODA, that for number of total cases a graph can only rise or flatline and not go down--unless people start rising from the dead. But the raw number total number of cases (or deaths in the case of the point I've been making today) is informative for answering particular questions. Just as percentages are useful for answering particular types of questions. There is no one type of stat that works to answer every question. Stats can be misused or misrepresented....but it's the people and not the actual stats that lie.
I don't think any politicians on any side should be proud of themselves at the moment. Opposition parties are just trying to score political points, and attack the current government whilst offering no sensible assistance or constructive cross examination of policies regarding the current situation. They are just playing party politics with little or no regard to people's suffering either physical or financial. They should all be ashamed of themselves
