As the Guardian has reported:
The Office for National Statistics has just published its latest weekly death figures. Here are are the main points.
- There were 21,997 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 24 April. That is 11,539 more than the average for this time of year, but a decrease of 354 on the previous week.
- Some 37.4% of deaths in that week involved coronavirus (in that it was mentioned on the death certificate).
-
The number of deaths in care homes (from all causes) was 7,911, up 595 on the previous week. That was almost as high as the of deaths in hospitals, which was 8,243, down 1,191 on the previous week.
Maybe, then, excess deaths have plateaued for the time being. This was what I expected. But there is no sign of a fall as yet. In that case, we can expect 1,700 death a day for a while as yet. Or more than two jumbo jets a day.
That is not a definition of success.
And it is a sure sign that the UK (or rather, England) remains an outlier on this issue, largely because unlike Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it does not have an integrated care system.
Nor is it a sign that suggests that people will willingly come out of lockdown any time soon.
This crisis is ongoing and the disastrous management that the government has made of it will continue to be at the forefront of public attention, and rightly so.
If other countries - and more geographically isolatable locations, like the UK, in particular - managed this better than the UK did then the questions rightly remain.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
The belated self imposed quarantine and shutdown of schools, businesses and pubs has obviously worked.
This indicates to me, a 4-6 week period frim infection to death.
————
The government has used this crises to further their main purposes – Hard Brexit and US takeover of the NHS and continued neoconnery.
The talks with the EU are deliberately being flown into the ground and a hard brexshit in June. The trade deal with US is advanced. The NHS is full of US and foreign government linked advisers and secret committees.
Even the ONS has succumbed! It is employing a US conglomerate to do the community testing, and a bunch of sales and marketing canvassing type setup – yeehaa here come the cowboys! Their chops slavering – the decades of planning the heist of the UK peoples welfare and safety nets and protections at full fruition.
Who cares if they have Joint Enterprise in conspiracy to first degree murder as long as they fill their boots and get their share of the pie?
Certainly not Starmer – who is busy ‘geddhing his parddy back’ to the compliant NuLabInc model.
Richard
Linking to one of your previous postings on ‘something has gone wrong in the NHS in England’, in which you challenged (quite rightly) an article written in the Guardian regarding that we should not rush to a judgement on counting the number of deaths by Professor Sir David Spieglhalter – University of Cambridge:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/05/01/something-has-gone-very-wrong-in-the-nhs-in-england/
I have checked the article in the Guardian that Professor Speilghalter. At the end of the article it states that he is, and I quote ‘David Spiegelhalter is a statistician and professor of the public understanding of risk.’
However, what he failed to mention which I think should have been included is that he is a member of SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies). Wouldn’t you agree that it would have been better for all concerned if he had mentioned that?
Of course
But then he would have had to admit that what the article really said was that he did not wish to public to mark his own work as yet
It was deeply disingenuous not to disclose the link, in my opinion and my trust in him has been shattered, and my earlier instinctive feeling has been justified
I took a look at the ONS figures. As of 24 April there were at least 40,000 deaths, direct & indirect due to the virus. This is very easy to calculate (diff total deaths from 5 year run rate).
The run-rate 24 April was 11,000 deaths/week – which makes more than 60,000 dead now.
Putting this into perspective, there were 67,000 civilian deaths in the UK in World War 2 – over 5 years of conflict. By the end of this week, the virus death toll will have passed the 67,000 figure. Johnson, the death-clown has in a couple of weeks through incompetance, inertia, stupidity etc etc – the list is long, killed more Uk civilians than Hitler. The meeja still think this oaf is doing a “good job” ditto the deluded population. In fairness, and measured in deaths, Boris Johnson has “achieved” more British deaths in peacetime than Adolf Hitler was able to “achieve” in war. The only question left to answer is – why does the population think the oaf has done a good job? Arte they in favour of more dead people?
Mike, I think your righteous anger got the better of you. The UK’s response to the coronavirus may have been slow and inadequate, and we are almost certainly heading for the worst coronavirus death statistics in Europe (indeed, perhaps worst anywhere but the US, god help them) but by any measure Boris Johnson has not ” “achieved” more British deaths in peacetime than Adolf Hitler was able to “achieve” in war”.
You swiftly elided from “67,000 civilian deaths” in the Second World War to “more British deaths in peacetime than Adolf Hitler was able to achieve in war”. Three points. It wasn’t just Hitler: many British civilians also died in other parts of the world. Second, the coronavirus does not distinguish between civilians and solders: total British casualties in the Second World War were over 450,000 (compared to perhaps 20 million in the USSR). Third, wartime parallels are ridiculously overblown. This is a public health disaster, not a world war. Tempting as it is for the British to compare any large event to the Second World War, can we please knock it off. It ended 75 years ago!
If you must reach for a historical parallel, try Spanish flu, which killed perhaps 250,000 in the UK (when the population was about a third smaller than it is now – about 40 million). You might hope we could do a bit better, with another 100 years of scientific and medical research.
The most damning comparison is what other countries have done this year – and the answer is much better than us.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan†rattles Matt Hancock
Dr Rosena Allin-Khanâ€ï€²Verified accountï‚™ @DrRosena
Full question and answer here.
The testing strategy has been non-existent and now the figures are being manipulated. We need transparency — not political soundbites.
https://twitter.com/DrRosena/status/1257645036092694529
Here is the plateau you are talking about predicted a month ago right at the beginning of the crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/uk-will-be-europes-worst-hit-by-coronavirus-study-predicts
But we have not gone down at all…..
So that forecast was wroing
On integration as a reason for differing COV19 death rates across the UK.
First I dont think there is a significant difference and if there was I dont think it would necessarily be attributable to small differences in the levels of integrated care.
From what I see integration is an aspiration rather than a reality and the NAO in a series of very good reports over the years has identified its a very vague and meaningless slogan.
In fact there are very good structural reasons why integration is extremely difficult and little evidence that outcomes are better in Wales or Scotland.
Whats your evidence?
Data