Easy to say from a position of “safety”.
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OK, I admit I just don’t get that.
I’m sure statisticians have worked out what an individual’s chances are of dying in a road accident - of cancer - of falling off a roof - of typhoid - of snake bite - whatever cause you want to identify. And they will all be different.
So even at ground level, your statement makes very little sense to me.
On top of that, the risk will vary with the individual. If there’s a history of cancer in the family their chances of dying of that will be higher than average. If they work as a roofer they have a higher chance of falling off a roof than folks who never ever go up on a roof. And if they’re a care worker with high exposure to covid19, they have a higher chance of catching it and potentially dying of it than for instance I do, since I work from home and don’t come into contact with many people at all.
As sweeping statements go, I think yours is a bit too sweeping.
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I don’t get that sweeping statement either. Yes there are average annual death rates, usually by age, which in my age bracket is around 1.5%. However my potential mortality risk from Covid is more like 15%+ because of underlying conditions, and my risk of actually catching it is largely dependant on my behaviour right now so I’m aiming to reduce that risk to 0%. How is that the same?
And my mortality risk from Covid would be far more than 15% if I was left on a trolley in the car park because all the beds were full and I didn’t make the cut on triage…
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I enjoy several high risk activities; I ride a powerful motorcycle, I sail singlehanded offshore and I spend time trekking in the Alps. Given my age and my history of asthma I feel that COVID-19 poses a much greater threat to my life than any of those activities. I’m also not particularly happy to be lectured to by someone who has obviously experienced a mild form of the virus and wants life to return to normal ASAP. If reeks a bit of, I’m alright Jack!
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It’s pretty easy to understand & it’s not my sweeping statement but that of eminent Cambridge University statistician Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter. I suggest you go & read his excellent article that Paul found How much ‘normal’ risk does Covid represent? | by David Spiegelhalter | WintonCentre | Medium
The extent of immunity after infection with COVID-19 is uncertain. I certainly won’t assume I am immune when I return to work but will be donning appropriate PPE.
I did read it, and I also read the statement contained in it which says
“So, roughly speaking, we might say that getting COVID-19 is like packing a year’s worth of risk into a week or two. Which is why it’s important to spread out the infections to avoid the NHS being overwhelmed.”
Which is the point you don’t seem to get.
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If you are a motorcyclist your assessment of risk is clearly flawed anyway 
I’m not lecturing anyone just highlighting that the individual’s risk of death from COVID-19 is being seriously overestimated by people who are reading media reports rather than looking at the statistics. It helps keep people compliant with lockdown but at the expense of an awful lot of needless anxiety.
Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush…
And so the sarcasm, rather than balanced discussion, returns.
That’s exactly the point I do get & have been banging on about. I don’t know why you imagine that I think any different.
The individual’s risk of death from COVID-19 is low & no more than their chances of dying in the next year which doesn’t normally bother us eg I’m 66 & have on average a 1% chance of dying in the next year which doesn’t disturb my sleep at all so why should my 1% chance of dying of COVID-19 worry me?
That’s all on an individual level. On a societal level it would be a disaster to have everyone fall sick with COVID-19 within a couple of months. The NHS would be swamped & there would be panic in the streets. Slowing down the rate of spread of the infection by the lockdown measures & social distancing etc does nothing for the chances of the individual who does develop the disease but does a great deal for society. Having 120,000 people die in the next month would be awful. If social distancing, hand washing etc slow the rate of spread so an extra 10,000 people die each month over the next 12 months would be manageable by society however the same number of people die.
Wrong - there is a distinct group would would die without hospital support but pull through with it - swamp the NHS and that group will die pushing up overall mortality considerably.
OK, there were 5252 cases reported today - the average has been about 5000/day for a week or so - good that it is not going up but not so good that it is not going down.
Real new cases - maybe 10x that, see arguments and posts passim.
50k/day = 18.25 million for the next year.
0.9% IFR = 164k deaths (range from Spiegelhalter 73,000 to 255,000), note the comparison with 'flu - 3x to 10x (roughly) higher.
Bad but, OK, even with no overlap only increases the chance of dying by 24% (just for the record I’d like to keep my chance of dying exactly where it is or less).
But it takes hard work to keep the new case rate where it is, we have to take the economic cost into account for 12-18 months until effective vaccination is possible (assuming that it ever is).
OR
Let it rip through society, 100% infected (67 million), swamped NHS means morality 5-10%, potential for 3-6 million fatalities in a short period of time and many taking weeks to recover, on going hit on GDP because with that sort of impact it will take ages to bounce back.
Covid does not give you a nice, easy, answer does it?
I believe it’s your point of view that’s flawed.
Did I missed something, have they got Covid19 under control?
Probably what Johnson thought. And he’s only 55, is it?
And now he’s obliged to thank persons of foreign persuasions for saving his life so that he can carry on with getting Brexit done.
Sorry Mark.
I genuinely am.
I just can’t resist it sometimes.
And I worry that I have a gene in common with Boris.
But at least I only come out with inappropriate crap on forums, not in my day job where I manage to stay polite and respectful no matter what.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Forgive?
Past attempts at a coronavirus vaccine have certainly been problematic…
“Scientists first attempted to develop coronavirus vaccines after China’s 2002 SARS-CoV outbreak. Teams of US & foreign scientists vaccinated animals with the four most promising vaccines. At first, the experiment seemed successful as all the animals developed a robust antibody response to coronavirus. However, when the scientists exposed the vaccinated animals to the wild virus, the results were horrifying. Vaccinated animals suffered hyper-immune responses including inflammation throughout their bodies, especially in their lungs.”
Yes, it crossed my mind that “immunity” to SARS-Cov-2 could be a double edged sword and 2nd infections might be more likely to kill than the initial one.
Gaia might turn out to have teeth after all.
Just to expand on this the phenomenon is ADE or Antibody Dependant Enhancement and might a) make natural 2nd infection very dangerous and/or b) mean even if vaccines mean you mount an antibody response it might (as per Helen’s quote) make things worse.
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Of course I do, Anna, & thank you for saying so.
My OP merely asked a question & the title can be interpreted differently which may account for some of the somewhat heated replies! I am perfectly aware of the physical characteristics of viruses so being lectured on the meaning of “exponential” by someone who does not even have the nuts to use a real name (is this permitted?) & the caustic comments that followed does wear thin. You don’t spend 25 years working in the medical equipment supply industry without getting some inkling of the issues faced by healthcare providers!
My post merely posed the question that the governments, UK in particular, knew more about the future moral & economic effect of the virus on the population that was being published & speculated on a possible conspiracy theory, the idea being to promote discussion, not to cause anger.
We are getting so much information now, far more than we had when I first posted, & it often contradicts on a daily basis. Mix in a little “cleverly” worded news reports, worse case fatality figures & the current death toll which could consist of a mix of those who might have died of another cause but may have just contracted the virus & those that the virus was a major cause.
I fully get that medical facilities can get overwhelmed. This is not a new phenomenon & there are plenty of companies who make mobile hospitals. I have not seen any of these being deployed yet or even mentioned. Maybe that will follow.
I was also criticised for including the economic effect that the lockdown might have. Today that is being discussed by people with far more information than I had. Again lots of speculation going on with a predicted knock on effect lasting possibly 300 years.
So please treat my post for what it was - a question - rather than a statement.
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You might be interested in this Mark…
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I just scrolled up,to the top of this thread to read the OP. Is there an easy way to do that? I only read the first dozen or so posts but I thought they answered you question, even though didn’t seem to be taking the replies on board. Your latest post is quite different. I’m confused.