And so it starts to unravel

What matters most is that a common method of calculating is agreed. I understood that the method used in England is to log all those testing positive and then log any of them who subsequently die, no matter how long afterwards or from what.
I also wonder whether our tests give false positives - when you think of the wide range of poss symptoms that wouldn’t be surprising.

I think this is why Germany's death rate from Covid19 appears so low. They are more organised where reason for death is concerned.

The article that I read said that, for example, if you had Covid-19 in April and recovered but were knocked down by a bus and killed in July, you would still be recorded as a Covid-19 death.
As for number of infected, I think we will never know the true number. DD1 had it as did her partner and all his family (6 people) The grandmother died and is the only one recorded. The others, who all recovered without hospital care, weren't recorded as they weren't able to be tested at that time.

I agree Avalon. My mother was riddled with cancer, but the prime cause of death was listed as respiratory. No doctor had seen her for weeks before her death.

Cancer is very rarely listed on a death certificate as the patient usually dies of something else due to their weakness from having cancer before the cancer carries them off. Statistics can be very misleading. The quote incidentally about lies, damned lies and statistics originated from Benjamin Disraeli.

maddyone

I agree with Maizie, I think the excess deaths is one of the best way to measure the effects of Covid19. Otherwise it’s too confusing, with descriptions such as died with Covid19, or died from Covid19. I thought in the early days, please correct if I’m wrong, but I thought only people who actually tested positive for Covid19 were included in the figures, whereas people who died of Covid19 but hadn’t been tested didn’t have CV on their death certificate. It’s really quite confusing and I normally don’t feel so confused about things.

From what I remember, you're correct. Care home and home deaths weren't included in the NHS figures. Many of those people hadn't been tested and I guess we'll never know what exactly killed them.

It seems that this current attempt to reduce the numbers is clutching at straws. There are probably just as many deaths recorded as "Covid" as those which weren't.

My son died after being given the wrong drugs by the hospital who would have been on a manslaughter police charge except he lived for 2 weeks afterwards so the main cause of death was given as his underlying condition. The coroner gave a narrative verdict however which listed the hospital errors. It is all very complicated.

A very old saying, which I believe still holds true: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics".

Throwing this one into the mix
“How many of the doctors that signed the death certificates have actually even met the patients ?”

I agree with Maizie, I think the excess deaths is one of the best way to measure the effects of Covid19. Otherwise it’s too confusing, with descriptions such as died with Covid19, or died from Covid19. I thought in the early days, please correct if I’m wrong, but I thought only people who actually tested positive for Covid19 were included in the figures, whereas people who died of Covid19 but hadn’t been tested didn’t have CV on their death certificate. It’s really quite confusing and I normally don’t feel so confused about things.

X posts, Far North

But I wonder how large that group would be.

I'm glad you said 'measure the effect' of covid, pantglas.

I don't for one minute think that every one of those 60,000+ deaths is actually one caused by covid directly. There must be a significant number of deaths among them of people who weren't able to get treatment for other life threatening conditions because the NHS was overstretched by dealing with covid cases.

Some would claim that excess deaths will include a lot of people who ought to have had treatment for other illnesses and conditions, but didn't get it.

MaisieD is right in that excess deaths is one of the best ways to measure the effect of COVID.

Here in Spain, the figure of 28,000+ deaths is seen as incorrect accounting, as the excess deaths by the Spanish equivalent of ONS shows a figure of 48,000.

Given their population of 45million their rate is higher per million than UK and today’s infections have shot up to 1400 which is double UK.

Their lockdown was stricter than ours, was lifted and now some areas are re-introducing them.

tidyskatemum

If you look at the statistics for the number of new cases daily against the number of deaths announced there is obviously something wrong eg today officially In the UK 687 new cases and 114 deaths, France 836 cases but only 14 deaths, Brazil over 7000 new cases and 175 deaths. According to such figures COVID-19 is about 10 times more virulent in the UK than anywhere else.

It could be because there's more testing in France.

I'm not sure if this is on or off topic but I've been monitoring excess deaths (i.e deaths in excess of the 5 year average) published weekly by the Office for National Statistics, and until a couple of weeks ago they were always well in excess of the 5 year average. They are running at about 60,000 for the whole of the UK since the start of the year. Whether or not they are 'with' covid or 'from' covid they are still excess deaths.

I'm not sure how they can be accounted for by any other cause.

If you look at the statistics for the number of new cases daily against the number of deaths announced there is obviously something wrong eg today officially In the UK 687 new cases and 114 deaths, France 836 cases but only 14 deaths, Brazil over 7000 new cases and 175 deaths. According to such figures COVID-19 is about 10 times more virulent in the UK than anywhere else.

Support Johnson all you like, you won’t be able to wish away our excess death rates

Well it’s about 1700 - given the period of time in which we have counted the deaths, the limited availability of testing during that time, and the fall in road traffic, I doubt such deaths ( if any) would make zilch difference.

At the moment, the excess death rates are the best information. They are extremely high. As for people dying in RTAs who had a positive test, do you realise how few people actually die in RTAs in a whole year?

Covid19 kills people in all sorts of ways as I understand it. It causes blood clots, kidney failure, heart problems, lung problems, and probably other conditions, and all of these complications can cause death through the CV route. But to my mind Covid19 should be listed as a primary or contributory factor if the person died with Covid19. Or because of Covid19.

Callistemon

People have died from a pulmonary embolism but it has been subsequently found that this virus can cause that.

Pulmonary embolism is one of the main causes of death in Covid-19 patients.

BlueBelle

Growstuff it’s like this if I had CV in February but died of cancer in May it should not have been counted as a CV death but it was and we have no idea in how many cases
Well it could be good news jennifereccles but it’s also dreadful news for the government that have cocked up more than enough, without this added on
They couldn’t get any figures right on the ‘world beating’ test and they have been proved to be wrong on nearly everything they have done from March onwards so it’s dreadful news for them but what a lot of us were saying right from day one

Are you absolutely sure it was?

I know somebody who died a couple of weeks ago from cancer, who almost certainly had Covid-19 in March. She wasn't tested. I haven't actually seen her death certificate, but her relatives say she died from cancer. Her last few weeks were extremely uncomfortable because she was suffering the after effects of Covid 19.

The new way of counting doesn't explain the excess death rate anyway nor does it have anything to do with cases.

It certainly does sound confusing. It shouldn’t be a CV death if three months later a person died of cancer. Although almost all illnesses, including cancer, can be made worse, or even lethal, by contracting CV. Oh dear, I think my brain hurts.

You have to have a clean line of cut off for statistics or else you could massage absolutely anything
You could say if the person hadn’t had cancer they may not have caught CV as their immunity would be better so they cannot be all these maybe s and what ifs there has to be a clean clear cutoff line