I agree but how would you know your fellow oldies had been equally careful given most infections seem to be happening through generations mixing inside houses?
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I donât understand the fixation with older people when statistics show that around 92% of deaths at all ages have at least one underlying health condition. Sure, older people are more likely to have underlying health conditions so will of course form the greater proportion of deaths but that is no reason to punish all of us oldies. As has been said before everyone is different and it is time the government brought some nuance into the measures they impose. One size does not fit all.
And Chris B, please donât call us elderly; we may be older people but weâre not all ancient or decrepid.
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Apologies. Wasnât implying you were. âElderlyâ as a term only relates to age. Not ability
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Quite. Iâd like to reclaim the term âelderly.â âElderly Prideâ! âElderly is Beautifulâ! And whatâs wrong with being âancient and decrepitâ? It means people give you a seat on the train.
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I appreciate that Chris but in my experience as a trustee of Age UK Lewisham & Southwark for many years I can tell you that older people, me included, donât like being called elderly.
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Noted, thank you
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Yes I too got Chicken Pox as an adult aged 23-I felt utterly rotten for about 3 weeks and was caked in Calomine lotion to calm the itchy scabs.
grim
Is it just the higher likelihood of having âunderlying health conditionsâ that makes older people more at risk? Or is it also that weâre just gradually wearing out?
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You could well be right Robin; these damn restrictions are certainly wearing me out.
Itâs not just an academic question. Does my age make me âvulnerableâ, even though, so far as I know, Iâve got no relevant âunderlying conditionâ? If so, shall I need to âshieldâ myself if TomAngelâs âjust protect the vulnerableââ scenario becomes reality? I hope not.
Age is a risk factor, even after taking known underlying conditions into account. In the world you mention I think you get to make your own assessment of the risk and decide what you do.
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Shielding oneself sounds fine and dandy but itâs bloody annoying to do so only to see so many others partying like itâs the last days of Sodom and Gomorrah!
People in care homes and the disabled were all too often out of sight, out of mind during the last peak. If we rely on the official daily figures we can have no real idea of how many are dying, because the goalposts for counting deaths keep moving.
What really worries me is @TomAngelâs remark that: âCovid kills an easily identifiable group of people, whom can be protected if they so choose, or can be made to if they lack capacity.â Or can be made to?
I read this as âmade to if they lack capacityâ [to chose]. Care in the community but with padlocks?
No doubt @TomAngel was thinking about for example people with dementia or severe learning disabilities, who need to be positively supported in order to protect themselves. âMade toâ sounds rather dismissive and unkind, as does @Beigeâs reference to padlocks.
Some interesting stats to show the disproportionate response to Covid. And just a little heads up: pro lockdown people do not have the monopoly on concern for others. Maybe they just need to grow up and accept that risk is part of life.
So, what are the chances of dying from covid19?
The CDCâs new estimate, for the first time, is broken down by age groups. Here is what the CDC calls its âcurrent best estimateâ of chances of dying from the virus if you get infected:
1 out of 34,000 for ages 0 to 19
1 out of 5,000 for ages 20 to 49
1 out of 200 for ages 50 to 69
1 out of 20 for ages 70 and up.
Hereâs another way to look at the same numbers. If you get infected, your chances of surviving are as follows:
Age Group Probability of Survival
0-19:
99.997%
20-49: 99.98%
50-69: 99.5%
70+: 94.6%
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There was an interesting programme on R4 today about âLong Covidâ where people who have had COVID ( not necessarily hospitalised) suffer many months of impaired health. This has to be factored in that COVID is very nasty.
But what I would like to see from the Government is acknowledgement that lockdown/quasi lockdown is also a lamentable calamity - because it is. People will die from not getting non-medical care, suicide, economic depression, domestic violence. Seriously there is a butchers bill from not doing lockdown, but also from doing lockdown. Both should be modelled?
I hope that the government and advisors is modelling that. Lockdown is a little bit like cutting off an arm. Sometimes it is the right thing to do (gas-gangrene), but it is still lamentable
You need consistency of message (Sweden), not chopping and changing measures, where there is little evidence of benefit.
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You took that literally?!
Thanks for the ad-hominem. It helps your argument.
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For what itâs worth youâre not mad â being concerned about the impact of another lockdown, and continued emergency measures is completely reasonable. But the rest of the world is not as mad as you think either.
As well as avoiding deaths from Covid-19, a large part of the justification for retightening restrictions is to prevent the NHS from being overloaded. As laid out in the scientific briefing last Monday, further measures are being introduced to avoid a plausible worst-case scenario of tens of thousands of new cases per day by mid-October. If there is an associated large rise in hospitalisations, then the government not only has to worry about an increased Covid death-rate, but also knock-on effects to other patients who need to be treated in hospital.
Obviously the projections can be debated, and the impacts of further restrictions (in terms of economics and public health) have to be considered too, but this explains why the government feel that a tightening of restrictions is necessary. Perhaps they are being over simplistic, but it is hardly surprising that the government chooses to avoid the very alarming impact that is being forecast by their scientific advisers, even if it risks a serious but uncertain impact down the line.
Where did you get your numbers for the 1968 flu. I am certainly not an expert but the estimates for deaths for that whole pandemic seem to be along the lines of 1 million worldwide (which of course Covid-19 has just passed) and 30,000 in the UK (which we have already exceeded). I donât think it can be argued that the 1968 flu was more deadly than Covid-19.
Itâs important to remember also that the impact of the 1968 flu was not mitigated by lockdowns, social distancing or enforced isolation. The death toll from Covid-19 in August was low, but part of the reason it was so low is because cases were low, in part thanks to the measures that have been taken.
The big problem we are facing now is that a further nationwide lockdown is bound to be disastrous for all the reasons you state. Yet we are unable to adequately protect the more vulnerable people in our society, or effectively flatten the curve without such harmful blanket restrictions. This is because of the well-publicised failures of the Track and Trace system and the lack of sufficient numbers of tests. If we cannot test across the whole country, and we cannot rely on individuals to self-isolate when told to, we cannot continue to open up society without allowing the virus to develop in an uncontrolled way.
I hope the new contact tracing app is effective, but the number one priority for the government is ensuring we have a competent testing regime. We canât go back to normal without being able to control the spread of the virus.
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