Billy Bunter
Saturday 11th April 2020 4:10pm [Edited]
The Sussex Coast
4,654 posts
To put these daily death figures into some sort of perspective, rather that the sensationalism that the Government, and the media, would have us believe:
Firstly these figures are people who died with coronavirus and not necessarily of coronavirus and many of them were already in hospital with potentially fatal complications before they picked up the virus.
Secondly, in the last week for which total deaths are so far recorded on the Office for National Statistics website (w/e 27 March) the total deaths were 11,141. This is 1,011 above the five year average for the corresponding week. That equates to 144 per day.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
So, rather than shouting from the rooftops that were over 900 "coronavirus-related deaths" each day, what they should be telling the population, in order to to calm fears (as any responsible government should do), is that there were 144 deaths above the norm. 144 excess deaths per day in a population of 60 million (you do the maths). But, of course, it is not in the government's interests to calm the population at this stage; they want us to panic so that we'll do as they say and they can justify the action they are taking. (And once they have us doing what they say - and once the police wield the power of where we can go and what we can do when we get there - they won't be in any hurry to relinquish that. "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.")
Of course, 144 excess deaths a day is not a good thing. But it is better than pretending it is nearly 1,000. And to put this figure into perspective even further, at the height of the 2015 flu epidemic (ie w/e 9/1/15) there were 16,237 deaths in total that week. That was 3,960 above the five year average for the corresponding week. Which equates to 565 excess deaths a day - far more than we've experienced so far under the current virus.
And, of the 144 excess daily deaths recorded for w/e 27 March 2020, you can be sure that some of those will be of people who have been ill long-term and had their scheduled operations and procedures cancelled to make way for coronavirus patients. This number will only increase as time goes on. So we are trading some deaths for others.
In fact, we had better get used to accepting an increase in the daily and weekly death totals for decades to come. As a result of the government opting to crash the economy (as have France, Italy & Spain but unlike Sweden, where there have been only 887 coronavirus-related deaths in total rather than per day), there will be no funds available for future investment in the NHS (or anything else) and people will be living in poorer and more depressing conditions as a result of job losses and lack of opportunities.
So the question is, while the hope is apparently that we may save some lives from coronavirus from the "lockdown", how many will we in fact lose in the long-term as a knock-on effect? And is it a fair trade? Better ask future generations that one.