Difficult to know what would have happened, and how much faster the spread, if they’d taken a different approach.

Everybody’s trying their best and having to make it up as they go along.

Absolutely agree - the government is doing its best

Quote: Sal Paradise "Hancock has gone up in my estimation - he has handled this really well. Whatever the government do it will not be right for all people. In Italy and Spain they have locked everything down doesn't seem to have slowed the infections/deaths any? We still have to be able to function the country simply cannot come to grinding halt surely? '" God it's irritating when people think they know everything based on zero evidence or expertise. It's Brexit summed up but this is probably even more serious. Your comments about Italy are, of course, factually incorrect - Italy is turning the corner and the rates are slowing. I know you're smart enough not to believe this is some sort of switch you can flick and expect results with no time lag. https://kalingatv.com/world/italy-coron ... med-cases/

Quote: Sal Paradise "Hancock has gone up in my estimation - he has handled this really well. Whatever the government do it will not be right for all people. In Italy and Spain they have locked everything down doesn't seem to have slowed the infections/deaths any? We still have to be able to function the country simply cannot come to grinding halt surely? '" God it's irritating when people think they know everything based on zero evidence or expertise. It's Brexit summed up but this is probably even more serious. Your comments about Italy are, of course, factually incorrect - Italy is turning the corner and the rates are slowing. I know you're smart enough not to believe this is some sort of switch you can flick and expect results with no time lag. https://kalingatv.com/world/italy-coron ... med-cases/

Other than in the countries where they have comprehensive testing (S Korea, China etc) the data on caseload is likely to be inaccurate because it completely depends on the country's testing criteria.

If they are only testing a certain sub population - those who end up in hospital or who have recently travelled back from an infected region (which is now basically everywhere) then once it becomes widespread, the official figures on cases will not be an accurate measure of the underlying caseload in the population.

But if the mortality rate from the disease (whatever it is) stays constant over time, you can use the number of deaths announced per day as a way to infer what is happening with the underlying caseload. If the average time from showing symptoms till death is 14 to 17 days, then the number of patients that die today tells you something about what the underlying caseload was 14 to 17 days ago.

The mortality rate may not stay totally constant over time - once the case load reaches a level where the health service is over capacity the mortality rate will rise and when it falls below that level it should fall down again. But it may be reasonable to assume these as one-off shifts at certain points, rather than the mortality rate varying a lot over time.

So to track the effectiveness of distancing measures brought in, look at what happens to daily deaths in about 2 to 3 weeks after they were brought in. What you hope to see is some change - if not a fall in absolute terms, at least a levelling off of the rate of growth, which suggests you've got it under control.

As we are still in the early stages this might be a 'noisy' indicator in that from day to day the numbers might bounce around a lot and also there will be some patients who became sick in the early stages and who have been in ICU for a long time and ultimately die several weeks later, so for a few weeks there will still be some deaths from the 'pre-measures' point, coming up in the daily death rates.

I think we should expect to see some very sharp rises in the daily death rates in the next couple of weeks, which will be alarming, but if the growth rate starts to fall after that, even if the deaths keep rising, that will suggest that the measures are starting to work, and should hopefully level off, and then start falling.

How many of these unfortunate deaths would have occurred anyway if they had got a particular strain of the flu? I agree we will see some escalation in the numbers over the next week.

Probably a lot - but thats the whole point of the risk here. These are people who are vulnerable.

I think there will be some "displacement" in the death count of people who would have died of other causes (eg terminal illnesses) but who die sooner because of complications from coronavirus and they will be in the coronavirus tallies. If this is true then we may see some offsetting fall in the numbers of people recorded as dying of other causes, during this pandemic.

But there will also likely be a rise in death rate to other things than coronavirus, because the health service is fully occupied, so things that may have been treatable otherwise will not be.

To get a true estimate of the impact of coronavirus you'd need to look at the aggregate death rate (broken down by age) for all causes, and see how much it varies in 2020/21 from the normal trend.

We are following the American model of minimum testing therefore our death rate will be higher. The reasons are obvious the more tests will increase the number with the virus but the death rate will not change.
We are currently nor testing those in the NHS who have to self isolate and are now no longer providing full protection wear in some trusts. I would say therefore that Raab is not doing such a good job and the years of under funding are now catching up with them but sadly also increases the chance of unnecessary deaths.

Not at all - there is a difference between infection and death and surely there is a trade off. Do we spread the infection amongst the general population who let's face will for the most part get a mild reaction and build up some immunity whilst isolating the vulnerable or lock down the whole country which will provide a temporary reprieve but build up no immunity?

Like you I am not a virologist so we have to follow the guidance - the question is - is it the lockdown that is slowing number or the natural lifespan/build up of immunity that is slowing the numbers down?

It's the lockdown. HTH.

You must be right - well in your own head

At last a sensible post