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18,516 deaths were registered in the week ending April 10 in England and Wales, which contrasts with the most recent five-year average of 10,520 for the same week of the year, but is fewer than the number of deaths in a single week in January 2000, when there was a very bad flu.
However the real number of deaths in the week ending April 10 this week may be a lot higher.
According to the Office of National Statistics, there were 184,960 deaths in the UK this year between January 1 and April 10th, meaning fewer deaths than at the same point in 2018 (187,720).
However the real number of deaths in the week ending April 10 this week may be a lot higher.
According to the Office of National Statistics, there were 184,960 deaths in the UK this year between January 1 and April 10th, meaning fewer deaths than at the same point in 2018 (187,720).
2018 saw a very high number of deaths because of a bad flu and nobody noticed, but they were spread out week by week rather than coming in a rush as this month. Because of a mild winter and fewer deaths from flu and other respiratory illnesses than usual, the number of deaths in the UK and Europe this year had been below average for the time of year until late March, when the Coronavirus deaths mounted up.
However, the real number of excess deaths this year up to April 21, eleven days later, may be more than double that figure, according to the Financial Times, which yesterday estimated that including deaths outside hospitals the number of excess deaths in the UK this year until April 21 was not the official 16,952 but somewhere in the region of 41,102.
From a BBC report the day before yesterday:
'Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, of the University of Cambridge, said the NHS England figures suggested we were past the peak and in a "steadily" albeit slowly improving position.
Prof Carl Heneghan, from the University of Oxford, said he agreed, saying London, which saw rapid increases earlier than the rest of country, peaked even earlier, suggesting the steps taken before full lockdown had an impact.
But he added: "Judging from the experience in Italy, this could be a lengthy process."'
In other words deaths peaked because of steps taken before the full lockdown. The lockdown was imposed to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed and patients dying on the floor. In fact there are very large numbers of empty beds. Presumably the lockdown is no longer necessary.
I am aware that we have no vaccine and unlike many people I know it is perfectly likely that we may ever have one. I know too that a second wave of the virus is likely, because herd immunity has not been reached.
The British Chief Medical Officer who wanted to achieve herd immunity told journalists on 13 March:
The British Chief Medical Officer who wanted to achieve herd immunity told journalists on 13 March:
“We want to… not suppress it so we get the second peak and also allow enough of us who are going to get mild illness to become immune to this to help with the sort of whole population response, which would protect everybody.”Instead England may face a second peak in the winter, exactly what back in mid March the British government was so keen to avoid.
Headline in the FT today:
ReplyDeleteJapan *not* imposing lockdown for fear of second wave.
This may all prove to be true in retrospect. However, the government had to act in the present moment and is a political slave to science (however contradictory) and the press.
ReplyDeleteThe only solution to this, for future eventualities, is for those governing us to have the confidence to knock the overweening press (who have come to believe they are some kind of legislators) back into their box and to to assert an encompassing humanistic vision over the technocrats and scientists who should be their servants rather than their masters.
I am aware that we have no vaccine and unlike many people I know it is perfectly likely that we may ever have one.
ReplyDeleteI agree. A vaccine is no more than a possibility. Maybe no more than a pious hope. Anyone planning policy on the assumption we're definitely going to have a vaccine is a fool and a knave.
And the worse the long-term economic damage turns out to be the less likely we are to be able to deal with any future outbreak. If the economy goes down the gurgler the health system goes with it.
It seems clear that moderate short-term lockdowns imposed earlier would have avoided the whole disaster. Decisive action early enough might have avoided the need for any actual lockdowns. And the West had ample warning.
Australia and New Zealand have largely avoided the disaster. But Australia and New Zealand have competent reasonably honest governments (oddly enough one of them very "right-wing" and one very "left-wing"). Countries without competent honest governments (such as the U.S.) have suffered disaster.
The real problem is that lockdowns cannot be a long-term answer.
Australia and New Zealand were protected by their remoteness and their profound suspicion of China.
ReplyDelete