Hi Toucana
toucana » May 23rd, 2020, 5:52 pm wrote:The simple answer is that deaths in UK from COVID-19 have stabilised recently precisely *because* of the dramatic lockdown measures enacted in the UK since 23rd March 2020.
Yes, agreed, and so similar measures would work great for preventing the untimely deaths of seasonal flu victims too, don't you think?
However, I assume that seasonal flu will not be given the same level of seriousness as covid-19.
The covid-19 lockdowns are not therefore apparently so much about stopping deaths, but rather, as you go on to mention - about preventing the health services from becoming overwhelmed.
There seems to be a lack of clarity at times as to what the lockdowns are really about in this respect - are they about stopping deaths, or about staggering inevitable deaths... because those are two very different things from where I am standing.
COVID-19 is significantly more infectious than seasonal flu and it it also more likely to result in hospitilisations, with around 69 hospitalisations per 100,000 people for seasonal flu as opposed to 162 hospitalisations per 100,000 for adults aged 65 or over according to CDC figures
Yes, and I would add in "COVID-19 is significantly more infectious than seasonal flu and
SO it also more likely to result in a higher number of hospitilisations..."
The death rate from seasonal flu is generally estimated to be around 0.1% (USA estimates) whereas the case fatality rate for COVID-19 cases in US are said to be nearly 6% which is sixty times higher.
We've covered this before on this thread. The 0.1% flu fatality figure includes assumed undetected cases, whilst the 6% covid-19 fatality figure does not include assumed undetected cases. There's little use comparing them in that respect. If we go with a moderate estimate, the comparison is more like 0.1% influenza to 2% covid-19. That's at present.
When you factor in stealth and contagiousness, then if seasonal influenza had the same stealth and contagiousness as covid-19, perhaps we would be seeing the same kind of fatality rate?
As you stated, the 2% fatality figure could still be a lot lower:
If a second spike in COVID-19 infection rates occurs in the autumn (as many epidemiologists fear) then that will happen in tandem with seasonal flu infections. They are not alternatives, they will happen together, and our primary NHS medical care services will once again be under catastrophic stress and at the point of collapse, just as they were a couple of weeks ago.
Considering, as mentioned previously on this thread, that 70% of covid-19 deaths are due to previously existing health complications, after 2 years and 3 waves of virus do you think the situation will remain as severe as at first, or less?
Again, a virus that only really kills people over the age of 60 or already declining, and only a third of those victims over 60 seeming to have no existing complications before dying.... it seems that such a situation is not so much like SARS as it is like seasonal flu.
To be
rationally fearful of the virus, then, if you are under 60 years old, you need to be as sick as, say, a diabetic. And over 60 years old, well you first have to catch the virus, and then if you are healthy, you have at maximum a 0.7% chance of dying once you've contracted it (if you take the moderate 2% fatality figure, and apply that to 33% of cases of 'seemingly healthy' over 60 year olds).
So basically, if you are:
* Under 60 years with non-diabetic-level of sickness = not really at risk from covid-19.
* Over 60 years old and no diabetic level health complications = 0.7% risk of death.
This is the apparent empirical situation that demands lockdown measures.