Comparison of deaths from Covid to other reasons

Casdon, rather out of date, pre-Omicron surge? Dr Cameron spoke two days ago.

Casdon

Hetty58 please read - and digest.
fullfact.org/health/dr-hilary-lorraine-kelly-90-percent/

Thank you Casdon. I was googling for that and you found it first.

Baggs

MayBeMaw

When you look at causes of death I believe they are generally because the heart stops.
So should you put “heart failure” ?
Why the heart has stopped is what is important though, isn’t it?
If the organ failure is prompted or aggravated by the body’s reaction to a virus, is the virus the cause or not?

This is interesting. My grandfather died because he'd had emphysema for years (he was a miner). Apparently heart failure was put as the 'cause' of death. Ridiculous.

Eventually the miners' union(s) negotiated a deal by which widows (or offspring) of miners were paid compensation if emphysema is what actually killed their husbands/fathers, usually before their time.

It is an interesting question and an interesting point, MayBeMaw.

If I should contract Covid and die 30 days later I'd be very annoyed indeed if an underlying condition was put down as cause of death.

We do what we can to prevent these diseases, but in the end none of us will live forever.
No, but many people live for years with underlying conditions thanks to pioneering medication, so if they catch Covid and die, that would be the cause, not their condition.

Hetty58 please read - and digest.
fullfact.org/health/dr-hilary-lorraine-kelly-90-percent/

We all have to die eventually - of diseases of old age or very, often cancer.

We do what we can to prevent these diseases, but in the end none of us will live forever.

Covid19 is a new disease, a nasty disease, which has already caused many deaths which would not otherwise have occurred.

Some deaths of young and middle aged people, especially those working in the NHS and other front line services possibly could have been avoided.

We must do everything we possibly can to prevent more avoidable deaths.

I remember reading at the height of deaths the average life lost was 10 years.

That's without factoring in how the virus has weakened survivors or those with long covid.

Seems a good enough reason for a little panic here and there to me

Alegrias1 - please read - and digest:

'Dr Ewen Cameron, of Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, said: "About 80% of patients we've seen over the last few months in general wards and critical care have been unvaccinated.'

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-59699891

I'm sure your Dr daughter would agree that ICU isn't the same as "being in hospital".

A person can still go to hospital even if they are vaccinated. Perpetuating the idea that it's overwhelmingly unvaccinated people who go to hospital plays into the hands of the anti-vaxxers, and allows them to pretend that vaccines don't work, as soon as they hear about vaccinated people being in hospital.

Ask your Dr daughter.

I speak as a fully vaccinated, boosted advocate for whatever preventative measures they tell me I need.

Alegrias1

^It sickens me that the majority of those in hospital with Covid are unvaccinated^

It sickens me that no matter how often people are told otherwise, they think the majority of people in hospital are unvaccinated. Even the sainted Dr Whitty has never said that. But it's a convenient prop for people to blame the Great Unvaxxed for all our troubles.

Dr daughter is currently working on the intensive care unit of a large hospital in the SW. She's just ended 5 x 12hour shifts caring for those with covid, she says number of covid patients isn't escalating but none of them have been vaccinated. On Friday night they nearly lost several very sick patients who were in their 40's. They have a lot of staff off, not seriously ill because they have been vaccinated but if they have covid they can't work and it is putting pressure on those who are fit to work. It is totally beyond me why anyone would not be vaccinated

It is interesting reading GN's replies, I realise last year, the medical profession/Government had no idea how the pandemic was going to pan out, and it could have been whole lot worse, and they did what they thought was right, if a bit late.
What worries me now is, it’s not going to go away, its going to keep mutating and changing. The UK need to adapt and work out how to deal with the extra winter pressures, which we have every year.
I want the government and the news media to stop using the words percentages it tell me nothing. Its scaremongering.

Both my daughters, both double jabbed have recently had Covid, one felt very ill, but other it was like a bad cold, but luckily neither needed hospitalisation, all 4 DGC tested positive, had high temperatures, headache, coughs and runny noses, but only for approx 48 hours. I was in contact with all of them before the positive results, but I didn't get inffected. Touch wood!

MayBeMaw

When you look at causes of death I believe they are generally because the heart stops.
So should you put “heart failure” ?
Why the heart has stopped is what is important though, isn’t it?
If the organ failure is prompted or aggravated by the body’s reaction to a virus, is the virus the cause or not?

This is interesting. My grandfather died because he'd had emphysema for years (he was a miner). Apparently heart failure was put as the 'cause' of death. Ridiculous.

Eventually the miners' union(s) negotiated a deal by which widows (or offspring) of miners were paid compensation if emphysema is what actually killed their husbands/fathers, usually before their time.

It sickens me that the majority of those in hospital with Covid are unvaccinated

It sickens me that no matter how often people are told otherwise, they think the majority of people in hospital are unvaccinated. Even the sainted Dr Whitty has never said that. But it's a convenient prop for people to blame the Great Unvaxxed for all our troubles.

It sickens me that the majority of those in hospital with Covid are unvaccinated, taking up beds needed by people with other illnesses, who have been vaccinated. Where is their sense of responsibility?( if it is their choice, of course. I don’t mean those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons).

Do you remember how it used to be said that more man died with prostate cancer than of it
That didn’t mean it wasn’t significant and I know of several men whose prostate cancer spread to their bones or liver- so you have to think what caused their death?
I still think you don’t die of a virus but with it being a significant factor - hastening the ultimate lung collapse and heart failure because of inadequate oxygen reaching the vital organs. That is to say the patient might have died at some point but not necessarily then
Anyway I just wanted to add this in connection with staffing issues
A 28-year-old nurse from Newcastle, who is set to spend Christmas alone after testing positive for the virus, said: “We’ve been covering other specialities for months now and taking on a lot of their patients. The staffing has got acutely worse in the last few weeks. All of the wards are short-staffed at all times, some have had to shut beds

Maybemaw I would say if the heart stops because of CoviD but that you were already suffering from something that could or would have caused your death anyway then it’s not really a CoviD death I think that why death certificates often have more than one cause on them
However I think the statistics get skewed because that is so variable and they are a yes or no stat
Someone has terminal cancer and dies with/of CoviD no one knows if they would have died that month without covid or lived another twenty years with a terminal disease so there can’t really be any accurate records
It’s a minefield really

Franbern you say Figures and statistics can be used to calm or to frighten people. The 29% rise in hospital admissions in London sounds quite horrific. The actual number is just of three hundred people spread over all the Greater London Boroughs in a city of close to ten million people
And how many hospital beds might that represent? And what if those 300 need Intensive Care beds, or even a fraction of them are firefighters, nurses, doctors or care workers? Add in the London % of the 90,000 new cases who are having to stay home from work and self isolate - and they may well be front line workers, and the potential for chaos is obvious.
Bare statistics tell us very little, try looking behind them.

When you look at causes of death I believe they are generally because the heart stops.
So should you put “heart failure” ?
Why the heart has stopped is what is important though, isn’t it?
If the organ failure is prompted or aggravated by the body’s reaction to a virus, is the virus the cause or not?

Think that the figure is 0.2% death rate of people dying WITH covid (not necessarily OF covid).

The new variant has re-started the panic that was apparent in the earlier days of this pandemic. Yet so much information is coming in to show that most of those triple vaccinated are likely only to have comparatively minor symptoms if /when they catch this.

Figures and statistics can be used to calm or to frighten people. The 29% rise in hospital admissions in London sounds quite horrific. The actual number is just of three hundred people spread over all the Greater London Boroughs in a city of close to ten million people.

At the start of the pandemic prior to vaccine development the virus was unknown. It could have been devastating throughout the world if it had a high mortality rate like Ebola virus which initially had a 75-90% death rate of those infected.
It has been horrendous for all who have lost love ones but thankfully there are vaccines available and more is known on treatment.
But just consider if it had been like Ebola. The government's of the world had to act swiftly whilst scientists worked out a strategy. In hindsight some decisions may have been wrong but faced with a global pandemic of an unknown virus I think we have been spared a complete world nightmare.