COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[Churchlawtonblue]

So heres another thought, I asked healdplace what he thought were acceptable levels of deaths due to Covid, he declined to answer, which many of us would no doubt do given the question. It is however a horrible question that the politicians are unfortunately having to make. Deaths vs the economy. So far we have recorded 42000 Covid deaths. And about 65000 excess deaths this year, so roughly 23000 deaths not directly due to covid but because of it. We might get a second surge in deaths of the low hundreds a day.

However, roughly 180000 people every year die of cancer in the UK, but when there is a risk of 100000 to 200000 dieing of this new covid disease we have chosen to close the economy down just to delay its inevitable spread. After Heart disease Cancer is the biggest killer in the UK, surveys have shown that most people in the UK think Cancer should be the number one health priority. Yet we spend £2.1bn less than the European average on Cancer treatment, as a country we clearly have no problem spending less and letting more people die with this disease. And what we spend Cancer is a drop in the ccean to the money we are spending dealing with Covid not forgetting the much bigger long term effect it will have on the UK economy.

Lets also not forget the human casulties in deaths that have beeen deemed acceptable by those in power in dealing with Covid. The 23000 people that presumably have been moved aside in the system and died due to lack of care because of the priority placed on Covid including many Cancer patients.

Therefore should we not be asking ourselves whether or not we have the balance of lives vs economic cost right in dealing with this pandemic, when we clearly dont seem to place such an emphasis on other ongoing health crisis? We are pretty certain that this virus will eventually die out naturally as we develop immunity to it, Cancer and Heart disease wont.

Again im just putting this out there for debate and asking the question thats all?

 

[BlueHammer85]

So heres another thought, I asked healdplace what he thought were acceptable levels of deaths due to Covid, he declined to answer, which many of us would no doubt do given the question. It is however a horrible question that the politicians are unfortunately having to make. Deaths vs the economy. So far we have recorded 42000 Covid deaths. And about 65000 excess deaths this year, so roughly 23000 deaths not directly due to covid but because of it. We might get a second surge in deaths of the low hundreds a day.

However, roughly 180000 people every year die of cancer in the UK, but when there is a risk of 100000 to 200000 dieing of this new covid disease we have chosen to close the economy down just to delay its inevitable spread. After Heart disease Cancer is the biggest killer in the UK, surveys have shown that most people in the UK think Cancer should be the number one health priority. Yet we spend £2.1bn less than the European average on Cancer treatment, as a country we clearly have no problem spending less and letting more people die with this disease. And what we spend Cancer is a drop in the ccean to the money we are spending dealing with Covid not forgetting the much bigger long term effect it will have on the UK economy.

Lets also not forget the human casulties in deaths that have beeen deemed acceptable by those in power in dealing with Covid. The 23000 people that presumably have been moved aside in the system and died due to lack of care because of the priority placed on Covid including many Cancer patients.

Therefore should we not be asking ourselves whether or not we have the balance of lives vs economic cost right in dealing with this pandemic, when we clearly dont seem to place such an emphasis on other ongoing health crisis? We are pretty certain that this virus will die out naturally as we develop immunity to it, Cancer and Heart diesease wont.

Again im just putting this out there for debate and asking the question?

The NHS and hospitals can cope with regular flu, heart diseases and Cancers etc.

the NHS and hospitals could collapse if we just ‘go back to normal’ and allow this virus to infect hundreds of thousands of people, it’s not the death toll that you need to be concerned about - it’s the hospital admission rate.

 

[cleavers]

it’s not the death toll that you need to be concerned about - it’s the hospital admission rate.

And the rise in ventilators, which WILL end up in deaths, even if not all of them.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

The NHS and hospitals can cope with regular flu, heart diseases and Cancers etc.

the NHS and hospitals could collapse if we just ‘go back to normal’ and allow this virus to infect hundreds of thousands of people, it’s not the death toll that you need to be concerned about - it’s the hospital admission rate.

Thats the argument isnt it, the hospitals wont cope so we are spending this money so the hospitals can cope with a slower demand.

I wonder what percentage of those that die of heart disease and cancer do so in Hospital?

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

And the rise in ventilators, which WILL end up in deaths, even if not all of them.

But we as a country seem to be ok with spending a fraction of this money and letting people die of cancer every year?

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

The NHS and hospitals can cope with regular flu, heart diseases and Cancers etc.

the NHS and hospitals could collapse if we just ‘go back to normal’ and allow this virus to infect hundreds of thousands of people, it’s not the death toll that you need to be concerned about - it’s the hospital admission rate.

Do you think they would not cope much better and avoid thousands of deaths each year if a tenth of the money now being spent on covid (£210Bn in total) was spent on cancer? Our cancer death rate isnt great compared to many other countries. I believe we spend between £7Bn and £9Bn a year on cancer in the NHS.

 

[Marvin]

So heres another thought, I asked healdplace what he thought were acceptable levels of deaths due to Covid, he declined to answer, which many of us would no doubt do given the question. It is however a horrible question that the politicians are unfortunately having to make. Deaths vs the economy. So far we have recorded 42000 Covid deaths. And about 65000 excess deaths this year, so roughly 23000 deaths not directly due to covid but because of it. We might get a second surge in deaths of the low hundreds a day.

However, roughly 180000 people every year die of cancer in the UK, but when there is a risk of 100000 to 200000 dieing of this new covid disease we have chosen to close the economy down just to delay its inevitable spread. After Heart disease Cancer is the biggest killer in the UK, surveys have shown that most people in the UK think Cancer should be the number one health priority. Yet we spend £2.1bn less than the European average on Cancer treatment, as a country we clearly have no problem spending less and letting more people die with this disease. And what we spend Cancer is a drop in the ccean to the money we are spending dealing with Covid not forgetting the much bigger long term effect it will have on the UK economy.

Lets also not forget the human casulties in deaths that have beeen deemed acceptable by those in power in dealing with Covid. The 23000 people that presumably have been moved aside in the system and died due to lack of care because of the priority placed on Covid including many Cancer patients.

Therefore should we not be asking ourselves whether or not we have the balance of lives vs economic cost right in dealing with this pandemic, when we clearly dont seem to place such an emphasis on other ongoing health crisis? We are pretty certain that this virus will eventually die out naturally as we develop immunity to it, Cancer and Heart disease wont.

Again im just putting this out there for debate and asking the question thats all?

If there was no vaccine at all then a herd immunity strategy with lockdowns used only to flatten the curve to save the hospitals would be the omly way to go, and that was the initial strategy.

There are some people who think that the population has some level of acquired immunity and that the number of people who are susceptible to a serious illness is limited and that the epidemics drop off when we hit those totals but do you want to play that experiment now when all we have to do is sit tight and wait 2-3 months.

Vaccines wont wipe out the virus immediately but they will enable us to bring it under control.

Some of the headline surge in numbers we're seeing at the moment are probably soft infections in that it seems that thousands of the UK numbers are students who are highly unlikely to experience serious illness.

I wonder what will happen when we get into the academic term. Will the spike die as quickly as it came or is it going to spread like wildfire through campuses? My suspicion is that it will die away because why should UK colleges be any different to other countries? US has colleges. We've probably only found out about the infections because there's testing.

 

[cleavers]

Some of the headline surge in numbers we're seeing at the moment are probably soft infections in that it seems that thousands of the UK numbers are students who are highly unlikely to experience serious illness.

Ventilator patients have doubled in a week, that's not a media headline, but it's a significant issue.

 

[lancs blue]

Thats the argument isnt it, the hospitals wont cope so we are spending this money so the hospitals can cope with a slower demand.

I wonder what percentage of those that die of heart disease and cancer do so in Hospital?

The ONS data suggests that generally around 25-30% of all deaths occur outside of hospital/hospice/care home, that seems to be a constant whether pre-covid or otherwise.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

So heres another thought, I asked healdplace what he thought were acceptable levels of deaths due to Covid, he declined to answer, which many of us would no doubt do given the question. It is however a horrible question that the politicians are unfortunately having to make. Deaths vs the economy. So far we have recorded 42000 Covid deaths. And about 65000 excess deaths this year, so roughly 23000 deaths not directly due to covid but because of it. We might get a second surge in deaths of the low hundreds a day.

However, roughly 180000 people every year die of cancer in the UK, but when there is a risk of 100000 to 200000 dieing of this new covid disease we have chosen to close the economy down just to delay its inevitable spread. After Heart disease Cancer is the biggest killer in the UK, surveys have shown that most people in the UK think Cancer should be the number one health priority. Yet we spend £2.1bn less than the European average on Cancer treatment, as a country we clearly have no problem spending less and letting more people die with this disease. And what we spend Cancer is a drop in the ccean to the money we are spending dealing with Covid not forgetting the much bigger long term effect it will have on the UK economy.

Lets also not forget the human casulties in deaths that have beeen deemed acceptable by those in power in dealing with Covid. The 23000 people that presumably have been moved aside in the system and died due to lack of care because of the priority placed on Covid including many Cancer patients.

Therefore should we not be asking ourselves whether or not we have the balance of lives vs economic cost right in dealing with this pandemic, when we clearly dont seem to place such an emphasis on other ongoing health crisis? We are pretty certain that this virus will eventually die out naturally as we develop immunity to it, Cancer and Heart disease wont.

Again im just putting this out there for debate and asking the question thats all?

If you think the economy is “closed down”
then why don’t you take your share of responsibility for stimulating your local economy? A lot of people, for example, have used the extra time they have had to look at improving the or properties and builders I know have work lined up for months ahead. Likewise car sales have bounced back, partly due to the money people have saved by not travelling to work.

Also, it’s much more complicated than saying it’s the economy versus the virus. The Government have had a careful balancing act and the Country has been making progress in recent months with GDP recovering half the deficit from the March / April nosedive. People need to keep supporting local businesses

Turning to cancer care. Yes we should be putting in the investment to be world leaders and I’m not talking track and trace world leadership shambles. The figures you quoted are invested every year and not for a once in a century pandemic. There is also investment in genomics where solutions may be found in the medium to longer term. Prioritising health care science was long overdue and if there is good to come out of this crisis then research and innovation might progress to tackle other conditions too.

Part of the learning needs to be maintaining the accessibility of the range of healthcare services as I have written about before on this thread. Some NHS Trusts with more than one sizeable hospital could probably have designated a Covid admissions site for one of their sites, leaving them In a better position to sustain the range of services and bounce back when the virus was under better control. That’s easy to say now though when there was a real danger of the NHS being swamped in the early days.