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COVID 2019 Comorbidity with Diabetes

We need another Birtwhistle!
 
lindisfel said:
We need another Birtwhistle!
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Ah! The Brigadier!

All he did, he says, was to show some leadership skills in an arena where they were so painfully absent.

'You just have to own the risk,' he says, 'and let people understand that you are owning that risk. I realised after half an hour that the problem was to pick up two types of item, ... and take them from A to B. We were doing it on a massive scale and against a background of tremendous human tragedy, and with a general election coming up, but in management terms that's essentially what it was.'

He was paid £194 a day to organise 7,000 or 8,000 people and a budget, he says, of £55m. He did his plan on the back of a fag packet. 'I've often found,' he says, smiling, 'that analytical thought is applicable in any particular area
 
6000 more deaths week before last than typical.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending3april2020

2.Main points

  • The provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 3 April 2020 (Week 14) was 16,387; this represents an increase of 5,246 deaths registered compared with the previous week (Week 13) and 6,082 more than the five-year average.

  • Of the deaths registered in Week 14, 3,475 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, which was 21.2% of all deaths; this compares with 539 (4.8% of all deaths) in Week 13.

  • In London, nearly half (46.6%) of deaths registered in Week 14 involved COVID-19; the West Midlands also had a high proportion of COVID-19 deaths, accounting for 22.1% of deaths registered in this region.

  • Of deaths involving COVID-19 registered up to Week 14, 90.2% (3,716 deaths) occurred in hospital, with the remainder occurring in hospices, care homes and private homes.

  • Please note, where Easter falls in previous years will have an impact on the five-year average used for comparison.
Statistician’s comment
Nick Stripe, head of health analysis and life events at the ONS said:

“The latest comparable data for deaths involving COVID-19 with a date of death up to 3 April, show there were 6,235 deaths in England and Wales. When looking at data for England, this is 15% higher than the NHS numbers as they include all mentions of COVID-19 on the death certificate, including suspected COVID-19, as well as deaths in the community.

“The 16,387 deaths that were registered in England and Wales during the week ending 3 April is the highest weekly total since we started compiling weekly deaths data in 2005.”
 
HSSS said:
“The 16,387 deaths that were registered in England and Wales during the week ending 3 April is the highest weekly total since we started compiling weekly deaths data in 2005.”
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Quite interesting though that if you tot up all deaths up to week 14 for the past 10 years and this year (2010-2020) then these aren't the worst figures we have seen.
Years to date 2015 and 2018 had had more total deaths by week 14 than 2020.



I have a new hobby...
 
Gee, we need just one of them leading the country now and we would be out of this fix.
 
This is a 4 day old NY Times piece on the deaths in NY
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html

The graphs are particularly powerful, considering the number of tragic deaths that the numbers reflect.

The article also highlights some of the difficulties involved in any clear calculation, including

That total for the city includes deaths directly linked to the novel coronavirus as well as those from other causes, like heart attacks and cancer. Even this is only a partial count; we expect this number to rise as more deaths are counted.

These numbers contradict the notion that many people who are dying from the new virus would have died shortly anyway. And they suggest that the current coronavirus death figures understate the real toll of the virus, either because of undercounting of coronavirus deaths, increases in deaths that are normally preventable, or both.

and

The extent of damage from the virus may be greater than we anticipated, and the indirect effects of the virus may be greater than we anticipated,” said Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist and professor at Yale Medical School, who is particularly concerned that patients with cardiac conditions are not seeking care because of the fear of being infected with coronavirus. “Meaning that the overall toll is much greater.”

The overall rise in deaths suggests that the combination of crowded hospitals, an overtaxed ambulance system and a fearful population could have resulted in more deaths among people with heart attacks, strokes or other ailments who might have survived in normal circumstances.

and

The recent numbers are most likely an undercount. Even in normal times, death certificates take time to be processed and collected, and complete death tallies can take weeks to become final. This is especially true for cases involving coronavirus. “Covid deaths all have to be manually coded,” said Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the C.D.C.’s National Center for Health Statistics, adding that death counts from New York City typically lag actual deaths by 10 or 11 days.

But even if the current count is perfect, roughly 9,780 people have died of all causes over the past month in New York City, about 5,000 more than is typical.

The numbers for the last two weeks of the period are even more stark: nearly 7,000 dead, more than three times as many deaths as would normally be expected this time of year.

I am uncomfortable with any direct comparisons with 'last year' or even 'the average numbers of deaths over the last 5 years'.
This winter was mild in the UK (don't know what it was like in NY?) but annual variations make quite a difference to the death toll. If we there were fewer deaths due to a mild winter and spring, then that makes the comparison more shaky (or more horrific).

Some sources are going back as far as the Swine flu of 2009 and one of the graphs shows 2001 when there was a peak about half the size of the current COVID-19 peak, which make interesting (but not conclusive) comparisons.
 
Yep. Earlier in the year 2020 was below average. Speculation as to why? The mild winter mentioned by @Brunneria ? graph from bbc news website today.
 

I would guess that 1 of those years was the year when the wrong flu vaccine was issued ?

But it is quite pronounced in your data that 2020 is the only year with an increase of 5000ish between wks 13 and 14.

We will have to start calling you Stato.
 
I remember having pneumonia when I was 2. My mum told me I turned myself onto my tummy to sleep yet I was normally a back sleeper.

As an obese adult that isn't an easy option now but I have learned that the next best thing is to sleep in a sitting position on the sofa. It astounds me that doctors didn't use this method already.
 
Winnie53 said:
What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago
April 14, 2020 at 9:50 am Updated April 14, 2020 at 5:36 pm

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation...the-front-lines-wish-theyd-known-a-month-ago/
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Well just coming on from that @Winnie53
And pretty sure similar happened here in some form.. The new York times on just why it all went so wrong, is a worthy read.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/...p-response.html#click=https://t.co/HtBk5UHai9

Stay well
Stay safe
 
Winnie53 said:
What doctors on the front lines wish they’d known a month ago
April 14, 2020 at 9:50 am Updated April 14, 2020 at 5:36 pm

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation...the-front-lines-wish-theyd-known-a-month-ago/
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Brilliant article Winnie.

Thank you so much for posting.
The very idea of intubation had me gagging at the very thought.

The option, while we still can to buy a pulse oximeters seems a worth while investment for those already with some respiratory issues.

I have a cheap old fitness tracker, that includes a reader for my spO2... Been using it once or twice a day to check up on mine.
Might follow my own advice and seek a proper meter on ye old Amazon.
 

I can only say when I have asthma attacks the sleeping on my back is hard .

The sitting up in bed or in a chair offered the most relief.
But I have never been comfortable laying on my front, but that therapy was used in Italy and as now seen across the globe, to be a most
useful one to limit the difficulties and postpone if possible more radical measures.

Thanks for the input.. nice to see the personal endorsements of effective methods to deal with this, in whatever form it comes to us as individuals , self isolating, heavy cold, flu like or hospitalisation.

Stay well
Stay safe.
 
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A great follow up post, @Bill_St

Have to admit I missed the comments section.
Thank you for the reminder.

Old school saves the day . Who'd a thunk it

Had a friend get covid.
COPD, coped at home, once DX and medications arrived.

The old school bowl of boiling water, vicks and a drop of tea tree oil, one towel and steam daily
He's is now back on the road to better health

Lucky.. For sure, it won't and hasn't been that way for far too many. Rip.

But either way

We won't go quietly, the herd survives,
The herd remembers.
 
bulkbiker said:
Ah the famous "experts" ... peddlers of unsubstantiated guesswork once again..

Cynic ...moi? !
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Maybe, I guess we will find out one way way or another.

I'm no expert in epidemiology @bulkbiker , but I'm thinking a year to 18 months for a vaccine, so that's the length of time that the most vulnerable members of the community need to be protected for (if they don't pass away in the meantime) , and then it needs to be rolled out with a vaccination program soooooo?
 
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