Coping With Covid

[bobins]

One of the main reasons Germany has kept their mortality rate low is that they have the facilities to do mass scale testing and isolation and they also have a higher number of acute hospital beds.

[Paul-R]

Don't forget that all countries are only comparing the recoded deaths in hospitals from Covid-19. I suppose that if they have more deaths in the community than other countries for some reason that would then not show up in the hospital statistics. I think I've seen somewhere that China may have low figures partly for this reason. On the other hand maybe they genuinely have low figures!

[Hell Razor5543]

China reported 108 new cases today. They have 82,160 reported cases, and 3,341 deaths.

Remember, Asia got hit hard with SARS and MERS, so maybe they have learnt that (for Coronavirus strains) they have to react fast. Europe and the Americas did not have major SARS/MERS outbreaks, so we did not have that experience (but we SHOULD have learnt from Asia's outbreaks). China and Japan also have had a LOT of smog to deal with, which means that a lot of the Asian population are used to wearing face masks, which may have reduced the infection rate. Again, Europe and the Americas (because we have comparatively cleaner air) tend not to wear face masks to the same degree.

[white exec]

Reports today that several EU countries have around 50% of deaths occuring 'in the community', which means in the care sector, and at home. Source: Guardian

[bobins]

Getting true figures for deaths in the community is a little unreliable - but still fairly accurate. It's not always possible for a doctor to accurately diagnose C-19 as the cause of death, though to be fair the diagnosis would almost always be accurate. There would also, inevitably, be a delay in those figures making it through the system.

[Hell Razor5543]

It should be fairly simple for hospitals to report their figures for closed cases. Either they recovered, or they died. Active cases will not (yet) have an outcome. It is likely that the National Statistics Office is either not reporting the information, or have been told not to pass it on.

I accept that, in the general population, it will be difficult to get accurate figures. However, it also seems that stats for care homes are not being recorded.

[mickthemaverick]

Surely care homes have to report their deaths to the appropriate health authority?

[Hell Razor5543]

Surely care homes have to report their deaths to the appropriate health authority?

Maybe they are, and the authorities are either not passing them on, or they are not being listened to.

[bobins]

Surely care homes have to report their deaths to the appropriate health authority?

Yes, but a death in a care home does not mean a death by C-19, and it also takes time for the details on the death certificate to get back to the ONS.

[white exec]

In the UK, all deaths must be reported. Local registrars pass this to ONS on a regular basis. ONS will have those figures.
The problem comes in GPs reliably diagnosing and recording deaths (outside hospitals) as Covid-19, (a) because other underlying conditions might play a large part, and (b) posthumous testing for Covid-19 has not been routinely done in care homes and in homes - where, in hospital, it is reported to be the norm.
Testing, is, again, the key to understanding how this is rolling out.

[Hell Razor5543]

I will accept that GPs, without testing, cannot clearly state if COVID 19 was a primary case of death (and this could be true of any person outside of the hospital system). However, hospitals ARE testing any patient who has symptoms of COVID 19 and (if they test positive) are passing the figures on (as we have total, active and deceased case figures being shown on that website). What we are NOT being told is how many people who have tested positive are SURVIVING COVID 19. It MUST be possible to work this out as hospitals should know how many COVID 19 patients have been discharged from care (CitroJim is one such patient; yes, he was admitted for other reasons, but he contracted COVID 19 and, thankfully, survived it).

[Stickyfinger]

I do not think Jim was tested, symptomatic diagnosis post discharge I think.

[Stickyfinger]

Well, still in lockdown with my (98+3days) old mother and all is going very well, great friends on our hill who are helping with everything I ask of them.

So to pass the time one of them thought I needed this lot to give me something other than a Xantia to cut up and set fire too.. !

Also, life got a little dull so

Keep safe and separated folks !

[myglaren]

Surely care homes have to report their deaths to the appropriate health authority?

13 died in one local care home.
Beeb.

[Gibbo2286]

I think there's a difficulty about the deaths numbers in that many of those frail people would have died of their underlying ailments anyway with or without the added covid-19 help.