A little bit of good news

[cromwell]

Re Covid.
According to the I paper this morning the proprtion of patients dying in hospital now is much lower than it was in the spring.
The number of patients in wards and ICU's is now as high as it was in March but the death rate is much lower.
This is partly due to the patients being younger and having a better chance than elderly people, but also the treatment is better now, the doctors are better equipped, there is more PPE, hospitals are more covid secure and care homes better shielded.
So there may be trouble ahead (according to one medic the next three weeks will be crucial), but at last some reasons for a bit more confidence.

Which after all the gloom and doom we've had from the news is all welcome news.

[Workingman]

I think the paper might have got the numbers wrong.

The current figures (6th Oct) for NHS hospitals are:
Patients admitted - Daily 496 - Total 144,347
Patients in hospital - 2,833
Patients on ventilation - 393
Deaths, seven day average - 53

Apart from the totals they are very similar to mid June but are way, way lower than the peak.

They are bloody good news, but..... all the metrics are slowly rising so there is no room for the government, NHS or us, the people, to become complacent.

The demographics of the pandemic have changed markedly from how they were at the beginning and though it is not the nicest of facts to take in a lot of the most vulnerable perished in the first two months. It is also the case that treatments, methods of care and the drugs used are now much better and more advanced than when Covid first hit.

[Workingman]

Let us all hope we didn't jump the gun.

Today's numbers are 17,540 new cases (up 3,378) and 77 new deaths
Patients admitted - Daily 609 - Total 145,484
Patients in hospital - 3,412
Patients on ventilation - 442
Deaths, seven day average - 61

And there is trouble brewing. When the North was shut down the number of cases in Bradford was 53.4 cases per 100,000 people. In some places it was slightly higher and lower in others.

Today cases are much higher than in the North when it was closed down in the following London boroughs:
Kensington and Chelsea: 71.7
Richmond upon Thames: 103.5
Barking and Dagenham: 59.7
Redbridge: 103.9
Barnet 79.3
Harrow 82.8
Hillingdon: 70.4
Hounslow: 79.2
Ealing: 93.6
Kingston upon Thames: 68.2
Waltham Forest: 71.8
Newham: 70.2
Lambeth: 71.2
Wandsworth: 65.8
Hammersmith and Fulham: 72.4
Brent: 74.9
Westminster: 67
Islington: 74.2
Hackney and City of London: 92.5
Haringey: 84.1

Yet no local lockdowns there. I wonder why?

[Suff]

It doesn't look good does it?

Mind you they can be glad they aren't in Scotland who are closing pubs and restaurants until the16th.

The key thing here is that if we had been able to test effectively in April, we would have seen much higher numbers then, which would have corresponded to the much higher critical numbers in hospital.

Being rather blunt (and some would say callous), the virus got the low hanging fruit back in the spring. Those left appear to be less susceptible than ones who died in the spring. I say appear to be, because that is how it looks. It could be totally wrong, but we are not seeing thousands dying. I understand we have found drugs which do help, treatment regimes which support and allow recovery, understand much better how it all works and have much more resources to fight the virus. But still, over 14,000 cases in a single day is not trivial. Perhaps we will see the outcome of that in 3 weeks, perhaps not.

London is a difficult case. It is not just the people who live there but the people who travel there and work there. The calculation is difficult and the impact is very high to the economy and the country. We also don't see a split between hospital admissions in London and the North. It could be that London has much lower instances of hospital admissions. Not that this should count in terms of stopping the virus spreading.

We are full circle to "seen to be" as opposed to "being".