Deaths is definitely what we should be looking at rather than cases. Cases have too many variables around them and after all, deaths is what we're really trying to prevent. Spain has gone from a seven day rolling average of two deaths a day for quite a while back up to eight. Not a massive amount but once there's any rise you can be sure it will continue until some restrictions are brought back in. Our death rate has pretty much levelled out over the last few weeks at 60-70 per day but until it starts dropping again there's no way to lift anymore restrictions and we'll possibly have to make other sacrifices if we want schools to go back but what would you be willing to lose? I find it incredible that you're still not allowed to watch nonleague football outside and socially distanced but they can open their clubhouses and invite people inside to watch sports on TV.
I held the same thought about deaths being the true measure for a while. It might still be the case when looking at each individual country to gauge how bad the pandemic is in each place. However, comparisons between countries using deaths is futile. We (in the UK) count every death of someone who once had coronavirus as down to the virus. For example, someone could have tested positive for coronavirus in March, recovered in April, got hit by a bus yesterday and it goes down as coronavirus. It's a flaw in the system that they are trying to fix. In countries with lower deaths, they will only count deaths of people without underlying health conditions who died in a hospital whilst having coronavirus. It's a **** show.
There really is no perfect way to measure deaths but as long as we're consistent we should be able to see a general pattern. We now only count people that have had a positive covid test within the last few weeks. At one point there was an error whereby some that had tested positive months ago were showing up in the statistics but that has been corrected now. There are also plenty of cases where we know patients have Covid because it can be distinctive on scans but if a PCR test never returns with a positive result it won't be added to the stats. The patient obviously has an infection because they have Pneumonia but it's not uncommon to be unable to find the source whether that's Covid, Staph, Strep, Influenza etc and these will just go down as unspecified pneumonia. Excess death or excess respiratory deaths is of course the best measure but it takes a little longer to see a pattern there.
I did a local job moving three first year doctors from Northampton to Leicester on Saturday. All female, all very early twenties, three different addresses in Northampton going to one address in Leicester. They wanted to pay by bank transfer as they didn’t want to handle cash with Covid I said that’s fine. Got to the first address, she wasn’t quite ready, explained she’d had a late night working on A&E I had my mask on, her exact words were, oh I forgot to bring one home with me, never mind you have one. Got to the second address, she had no mask, said to me don’t worry about your mask, I’ve had Covid I’m fine. Third address she’d got her belongings out on the front lawn so I didn’t need to enter the house, she had also tested positive several weeks ago. We can knock the government for decisions but three people on the front line, two of whom just didn’t care and really should know better. Both the two who tested positive said they had a very mild 72 hour cold but knew it was different as they had a complete loss of taste.
Queensland has now closed it's borders with NSW and the ACT, about time, too. We have no problem with people from SA, NT or WA coming in but now they have to come via the NT. That's going the long way round! It seems that NSW still do not learn from the errors made by Victoria. They still allow mass gatherings and sports events with large crowds. Now they are barred from coming over our borders and their Premier can't understand why! We had no new cases of the virus for a month until the borders were opened then we had a sudden rush. OK, not a lot, but more than we were prepared to accept. Our Premier is not my favourite politician but I have to say she is making a stand on this issue and I support her.
The factory is a mile from me, two of the ladies who work there cancelled their hair appointments last week saying they felt unwell. They make the sandwiches for BA and M&S
Co-op and Asda are also customers apparently. They’re waiting for 400 tests to come back and expect around 100 more to also be positive. They’re still running at normal capacity, they’re a huge user of foreign agency workers. Sent a load home on Furlough then brought agency workers in to cover. Makes a joke of supposedly isolating and track and trace, why they’ve been permitted to stay open is bewildering