Public Health England told ITV News: "The number of flu cases and deaths due to flu-related complications varies each flu season.

"The average number of deaths in England for the last five seasons, 2014/15 to 2018/19, was 17,000 deaths annually.

"This ranged from 1,692 deaths last season, 2018/19, to 28,330 deaths in 2014/15."


Twenty Eight thousands deaths from FLU in 2014/15 flu season..!!!!!

not a panic buy in sight, not a shut down, not a note in the news ...

You're right Sal 35 corona deaths is nothing like the Flu

Public Health England told ITV News: "The number of flu cases and deaths due to flu-related complications varies each flu season.

"The average number of deaths in England for the last five seasons, 2014/15 to 2018/19, was 17,000 deaths annually.

"This ranged from 1,692 deaths last season, 2018/19, to 28,330 deaths in 2014/15."


Twenty Eight thousands deaths from FLU in 2014/15 flu season..!!!!!

not a panic buy in sight, not a shut down, not a note in the news ...

You're right Sal 35 corona deaths is nothing like the Flu

My data was from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief ... -spending/
[iIn scrutinising the outlook for public spending, an important component is spending on social security benefits and tax credits – cash payments that governments make to individuals or families with lower incomes and/or specific needs. In 2016-17, the UK Government spent £217 billion on these payments, equivalent to 28 per cent of total public spending and 11 per cent of national income. The Government has set a ‘welfare cap’ on some of this spending. The OBR has been asked to assess compliance with this cap.
[/i

Where was your competing data from?

My data was from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief ... -spending/
[iIn scrutinising the outlook for public spending, an important component is spending on social security benefits and tax credits – cash payments that governments make to individuals or families with lower incomes and/or specific needs. In 2016-17, the UK Government spent £217 billion on these payments, equivalent to 28 per cent of total public spending and 11 per cent of national income. The Government has set a ‘welfare cap’ on some of this spending. The OBR has been asked to assess compliance with this cap.
[/i

Where was your competing data from?

I hope you are wrong but of course any death is a personal tragedy. I take issue with the last sentence though because it is perfectly possible to abide by the policy of limiting social interaction, hand washing and hygiene without becoming paralysed by the fear by the media making doomsday predictions.

The good news is there is STILL only 1 reported case in Warrington and 6 in Lancashire. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

I hope you are wrong but of course any death is a personal tragedy. I take issue with the last sentence though because it is perfectly possible to abide by the policy of limiting social interaction, hand washing and hygiene without becoming paralysed by the fear by the media making doomsday predictions.

The good news is there is STILL only 1 reported case in Warrington and 6 in Lancashire. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

I'm happy to be wrong... but the death rate currently is calculated by deaths / tested cases known.


As of today (Source: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboar ... 484dd4bb14)
UK Cases Known - 1543
Deaths - 55
Mortality Rate = 55/1543 = 3.5%.

But it is thought that there are up to 10,000 people infected (Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-uk-updates-symptoms-cases-map-deaths-world-travel-latest-a9403726.html)

UK Estimate infections - 10,000
UK Deaths - 55
UK Mortality Rate = 55/10000 = 0.55%.

What is the mortality rate of the new coronavirus?
It is probably about or a bit less than 1%. Much higher figures have been flying about, but the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, is one of those who believes it will prove to be 1% or lower. The World Health Organization’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, talked of 3.4%, but his figure was calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the number of officially confirmed cases. We know there are many more mild cases that do not get to hospital and are not being counted, which would bring the mortality rate significantly down. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... s-covid-19

So we have ...

1. (Global) Asymptomatic people who don't get tested, survive and never get counted.
2. (UK) Small sample size.
3. You cannot use additional mortality over the period to estimate corona deaths yet.

In the early days of the crisis in Wuhan, China, the CFR was more than 4 percent. As the virus spread to other parts of Hubei, the number fell to 2 percent. As it spread through China, the reported CFR dropped further, to 0.2 to 0.4 percent. As testing begins to include more asymptomatic and mild cases, more realistic numbers are starting to surface. New reports from the World Health Organization that estimate the global death rate of COVID-19 to be 3.4 percent, higher than previously believed, is not cause for further panic. This number is subject to the same usual forces that we would normally expect to inaccurately embellish death rate statistics early in an epidemic. . Source:https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html


That's why I believe it will be less than the figure of 3.4% given by the WHO which already is considered by the UK CMO Chris Whitty as hugely over calculated by a factor of over 3x. That is to what I was referring, so yes I do disagree with the WHO expert and so does the UK SMO, so let's hope that's right.

I'm happy to be wrong... but the death rate currently is calculated by deaths / tested cases known.


As of today (Source: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboar ... 484dd4bb14)
UK Cases Known - 1543
Deaths - 55
Mortality Rate = 55/1543 = 3.5%.

But it is thought that there are up to 10,000 people infected (Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-uk-updates-symptoms-cases-map-deaths-world-travel-latest-a9403726.html)

UK Estimate infections - 10,000
UK Deaths - 55
UK Mortality Rate = 55/10000 = 0.55%.

What is the mortality rate of the new coronavirus?
It is probably about or a bit less than 1%. Much higher figures have been flying about, but the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, is one of those who believes it will prove to be 1% or lower. The World Health Organization’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, talked of 3.4%, but his figure was calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the number of officially confirmed cases. We know there are many more mild cases that do not get to hospital and are not being counted, which would bring the mortality rate significantly down. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... s-covid-19

So we have ...

1. (Global) Asymptomatic people who don't get tested, survive and never get counted.
2. (UK) Small sample size.
3. You cannot use additional mortality over the period to estimate corona deaths yet.

In the early days of the crisis in Wuhan, China, the CFR was more than 4 percent. As the virus spread to other parts of Hubei, the number fell to 2 percent. As it spread through China, the reported CFR dropped further, to 0.2 to 0.4 percent. As testing begins to include more asymptomatic and mild cases, more realistic numbers are starting to surface. New reports from the World Health Organization that estimate the global death rate of COVID-19 to be 3.4 percent, higher than previously believed, is not cause for further panic. This number is subject to the same usual forces that we would normally expect to inaccurately embellish death rate statistics early in an epidemic. . Source:https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html


That's why I believe it will be less than the figure of 3.4% given by the WHO which already is considered by the UK CMO Chris Whitty as hugely over calculated by a factor of over 3x. That is to what I was referring, so yes I do disagree with the WHO expert and so does the UK SMO, so let's hope that's right.

Yet paradoxically today's UK new cases was well down on the last four days. (I am not saying that will continue just an observation)
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboar ... 484dd4bb14

Yet paradoxically today's UK new cases was well down on the last four days. (I am not saying that will continue just an observation)
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboar ... 484dd4bb14

They've stopped testing though, haven't they, so the new cases number will slow down, while the death numbers will rise more dramatically?

What's interesting now is how the population will react to Boris's request to voluntarily go into lockdown. I'm not convinced people will be too keen to inflict economic hardship on themselves in order to protect the health of people they don't know.

They've stopped testing though, haven't they, so the new cases number will slow down, while the death numbers will rise more dramatically?

What's interesting now is how the population will react to Boris's request to voluntarily go into lockdown. I'm not convinced people will be too keen to inflict economic hardship on themselves in order to protect the health of people they don't know.

The true mortality rate is unknown and the estimates will bounce around at this early stage but as more data comes in, we will have a more accurate picture.

To estimate it properly you need to factor in the time delay between testing positive and dying (grim topic I know), because many new cases test positive between the time someone tests positive and dies. You should divide the number of people who die on a particular day with the number of cases at the point they were likely to be infected. This study which came out a few days ago uses a 14-day delay and estimates a mortality rate of 5.6% in China and 15.2% outside China. The difference is likely to be explained by the Chinese doing more testing so its a more representative sample.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lani ... 73-3099(20)30195-X/fulltext

This study of patients tested on the Diamond Princess cruise ship (where people were tested regardless of whether they showed symptoms) found 17.9% of those testing positive to be asymptomatic (ie they did not develop symptoms or at least hadn't at the time of the study).

https://www.eurosurveillance.org/conten ... 10.2000180

So if you assume 18% of people who contract covid are asymptomatic, 82% have symptoms and amongst those with symptoms the mortality rate is 5%, then the overall mortality rate for everyone who contracts it would be 4.1%.

In practice it will be lower than that, because the unknown parameter is how many people in the regions in China where this test took place were symptomatic but didn't get tested. China was pretty rigorous at testing people with symptoms so this might not be a big proportion, but the bigger that proportion was, the more the overall mortality rate falls below 4.1%.

The true mortality rate is unknown and the estimates will bounce around at this early stage but as more data comes in, we will have a more accurate picture.

To estimate it properly you need to factor in the time delay between testing positive and dying (grim topic I know), because many new cases test positive between the time someone tests positive and dies. You should divide the number of people who die on a particular day with the number of cases at the point they were likely to be infected. This study which came out a few days ago uses a 14-day delay and estimates a mortality rate of 5.6% in China and 15.2% outside China. The difference is likely to be explained by the Chinese doing more testing so its a more representative sample.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lani ... 73-3099(20)30195-X/fulltext

This study of patients tested on the Diamond Princess cruise ship (where people were tested regardless of whether they showed symptoms) found 17.9% of those testing positive to be asymptomatic (ie they did not develop symptoms or at least hadn't at the time of the study).

https://www.eurosurveillance.org/conten ... 10.2000180

So if you assume 18% of people who contract covid are asymptomatic, 82% have symptoms and amongst those with symptoms the mortality rate is 5%, then the overall mortality rate for everyone who contracts it would be 4.1%.

In practice it will be lower than that, because the unknown parameter is how many people in the regions in China where this test took place were symptomatic but didn't get tested. China was pretty rigorous at testing people with symptoms so this might not be a big proportion, but the bigger that proportion was, the more the overall mortality rate falls below 4.1%.