• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Covid/Coronavirus and diabetes - the numbers


I'm not surprised in the slightest but think that some of our more "concerned" members might be.
 

Lots of factors in play.
Fewer people travelling => fewer accidents and deaths
More people taking coughs and colds and flus seriously, in case it is COVID.
There has been a shift in who is dying, including people not seeking medical advice, or not receiving cancer treatment, etc. etc.
Every one a tragedy.
As Urb’ says, some people have been cut down before their time.
The fact that Lockdown has reduced the number of cases and therefore the number of deaths can be interpreted as a testament to its effectiveness (even though less effective than countries with stricter lockdowns).

We also had lower than average deaths through the winter, MUCH higher through COVID and now numbers have dropped again. That can be interpreted as the increase being even bigger, and the recent ‘below average’ as being nothing important.

All of that is interpretation of limited info.
But claiming that COVID isn’t ‘deadly’ is simply not true.
It is deadly to the people it kills, and there are more of them than any humane culture wants.
 
Without doubt some survived last winter due to its mildness that covid then took. Others may not have had many more months anyway in a covidless 2020 perhaps due to age or other conditions. So in a relatively short period those deaths would have occurred anyway.

But it is undeniable that many have been lost that would have had years, sometime many years, more if they had not caught covid or had received medical care they this year didn’t get.

It’s also unsurprising that Lockdown has saved lives by means of accidents etc not occurring or other illnesses not being spread that would otherwise have done.

Perhaps a yearly excess deaths will balance these out numerically better than a weekly or monthly figure will. But these will be statistics and quite up meaningful to people’s personal lives.

For the individuals lost specifically and solely because of covid that otherwise would have lived significantly longer it is very real and deadly. For those who survived because of the safety of lockdown they’ll probably never know even if the stats say it’s true. Eg a middle aged man dies directly from covid and everyone knows he’s gone And would in all likelihood he would have had another 20yrs otherwise. A person who lives because they didn’t become a road traffic accident statistic never knows about it.
 
bulkbiker said:
That'll teach me to try and post something positive about COVID.
Click to expand...
Lol. But it also keeps some of us more “concerned” from going of the deep end by forcing us to consider “the other side” in a rational way. Balance is a good thing.
 
bulkbiker said:
That'll teach me to try and post something positive about COVID.
Click to expand...

Don't worry there's allways the next pandemic and then we will be much more experienced in how to deal with it I believe the Chinese have already got their eyes on a new strain of flu virus G4 EA H1N1 which is worrying them a little.
 
JohnEGreen said:
Don't worry there's allways the next pandemic and then we will be much more experienced in how to deal with it I believe the Chinese have already got their eyes on a new strain of flu virus G4 EA H1N1 which is worrying them a little.
Click to expand...


I read about that John. It seems to me nature has had enough and decided to give man kind a real kicking! Will we learn?1 Sadly I doubt it!
 
bulkbiker said:
That'll teach me to try and post something positive about COVID.
Click to expand...
I had a discussion with a doctor recently who is by no means covid denier but predicted that this would happen. Even the cautious BBC have stated that risk of dying from covid is very similar to risk of dying in an average year... The risk is just squeezed into a shorter timescale. Think for the very elderly the risk does increase however.

To point this out isn't dismissing the immense pain and suffering caused by a loved ones death. Whether that be from covid, natural causes or otherwise.. I don't view anyone's death as just a statistic and each death has a story behind it. In saying that it's perfectly fine to post stats and fully welcome a positive slant on things mate


Note hmy doctor friend also stated if the UK really cared about people and deaths they'd ban smoking and alcohol tomorrow... Kill far more yearly that covid will and does. Its all about the NHS coping and capacity rather then the elimination of the virus.
 

Yes, that was the stated goal from the outset, and in some ways, the effectiveness of the lockdown has undermined that goal.
But then so much new info is coming to light (lack of antibodies, unknown length of immunity, etc. etc.) that the goalposts seem to have changed significantly.

Re your doctor friend's comment about smoking and alcohol... I am afraid that comparison won't hold up.
If any UK govt tried to deny the populace their millennia old, socially and legally approved drugs of choice, then we would see the biggest social and political unrest this country has ever seen. Rioting would be the least of it. No govt is capable of implementing it - witness the US prohibition era.
 
They are only just starting to understand the long term effects of this virus such as multiple serious strokes causing extensive neurological long term damage which they think may be life long for some even in those who have had the virus and recovered and also in some of those cases where the symptoms have been relatively mild.

This happened to an extent after the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918.
 
If the govt could find some way to tax the virus sufferers, like they do alcohol and smoking, then they’d be even less effort to suppress it? There might even be a way for more businesses to get rich on the back of it, like with smoking and alcohol? And lobbying, donations etc? Despite its cost to the NHS? Just a thought.
 
Why are pillar 2 numbers not given and commented upon more?
 
It would have been better if they had presented succinctly their own scientific view, rather than embark on a rather verbose and tedious session of mutual back scratching! D.
 
JohnEGreen said:
Don't worry there's allways the next pandemic and then we will be much more experienced in how to deal with it I believe the Chinese have already got their eyes on a new strain of flu virus G4 EA H1N1 which is worrying them a little.
Click to expand...
If the skeptics are young enough, they may have to deal with something that is not the figment of our imaginations! But I hope not for my grandson's sake.
D.
 
My Hba1C last time I checked was 9.8, so striving to bring it down, but still occasionally get a high level first thing in the morning of about 12.0 blood glucose reading, even though in the middle of the night it is 7.0, and also it can go higher in the early evening if I have not done a lot of exercise, so not sure how well I would cope with covid...unless of course, I have had it mildly, one of the two unusual illnesses I have had since last November
 
The specious argument that the drop was coming from before the lock down is rubbish.
Most of us effectively locked down two weeks before Boris moved?
 
lindisfel said:
The specious argument that the drop was coming from before the lock down is rubbish.
Most of us effectively locked down two weeks before Boris moved?
Click to expand...

I'll respectfully disagree. If peak deaths were 08th April then lockdown can't have been that effective as most would have had to be infected, developed symptoms, been hospitalised and died within 14 days. I find that hard to believe.
Unfortunately we'll never know as the fudging of death certificates that has been allowed will likely skew the numbers forever.
 
I’m confused. Not quite sure what argument you and @lindisfel each are making.

I’ve been working on 3-4 weeks infected to death, maybe a bit more. 1 week incubating, 1 week sick getting worse or better, 1 week during which it gets bad enough to be admitted and a few more days to see which way it’s going from there. People and shops were locking down to some extent in at least the week before official lockdown. The peak being at 8 April suggested to me that the peak of infections occurred approximately early to Mid March - just as people got scared and took it seriously.
 
Initially the uk modellers got R rate badly wrong and they didnt really consider data from elsewhere. They made a very wrong assumption, it wasn't till later they realised the R rate was c. 3 days rather than five or so days.
It was an incorrect assumption that led to 65000 deaths that could have been halved in number.
I do not buy these conspiracy theories on climate change and this new one on covid19.

Its just simply been an enormous uk government **** up.
D.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…