It is happening right now.

The daily count over the past 2 weeks in Italy is
28, 41, 49, 36, 133, 97, 168, 196, 189, 250, 175, 368, 349, 345, 475

Spain:
1, 1, 5, 2, 7, 13, 6, 19, 31, 47, 63, 98, 48, 191, 105

France:
0, 3, 2, 7, 3, 11, 3, 15, 13, 18, 12, 36, 21, 27, 89

UK:
0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 10, 14, 20, 16, 33

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... try/italy/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... try/spain/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ry/france/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

When the number of cases requiring critical care reaches a point where the health service is overwhelmed, the mortality rate jumps up because people who otherwise could have survived given the right treatment end up dying too.

The number of cases requiring critical care will be directly proportional to the total number of cases in the population. The faster that grows the faster we reach the tipping point which has overwhelmed Italy.

Once at that point, as the caseload in the population rises the death rate is going to keep spiralling upwards as more and more people need care and can't get it because the ICUs are overfull to capacity.

Exponential growth starts slowly when your baseline numbers are low but as they grow it gets out of control rapidly.

The government is trying to slow the growth to delay or hopefully stop us reaching a point where the health service is overwhelmed but there is little slack in the system and our path is only a couple of weeks behind Italy unless we take serious measures to stop. People carrying on as normal out in pubs and gyms is just going to push us to the Italy path sooner.

I wonder at what point the penny will drop for people who are still trying to make comparisons to being 'just a bad flu season'.

Every country in Western Europe is being forced into these extreme measures. In the UK its Boris Johnson's Brexit government doing it - the same people who hate the BBC, the establishment, experts. They laugh in the face of everyone who warns that Brexit is going to be a disaster and carry on anyway. But they are spooked enough by this to be slamming through emergency measures that they know will be unpopular.

A large chunk of the measures in the emergency powers they are introducing to Parliament next week are basically about facilitating the rapid disposal of bodies because they are worried the funerals and burial system is not going to be able to cope with the surge in demand over the next few months.

They never did this with swine flu, or the other bad flu seasons, because they weren't fearing death counts in the hundreds of thousands and the NHS collapsing. That is a very high risk now unless extreme steps are taken which is why they are acting like a wartime government.

It is happening right now.

The daily count over the past 2 weeks in Italy is
28, 41, 49, 36, 133, 97, 168, 196, 189, 250, 175, 368, 349, 345, 475

Spain:
1, 1, 5, 2, 7, 13, 6, 19, 31, 47, 63, 98, 48, 191, 105

France:
0, 3, 2, 7, 3, 11, 3, 15, 13, 18, 12, 36, 21, 27, 89

UK:
0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 10, 14, 20, 16, 33

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... try/italy/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... try/spain/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ry/france/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

When the number of cases requiring critical care reaches a point where the health service is overwhelmed, the mortality rate jumps up because people who otherwise could have survived given the right treatment end up dying too.

The number of cases requiring critical care will be directly proportional to the total number of cases in the population. The faster that grows the faster we reach the tipping point which has overwhelmed Italy.

Once at that point, as the caseload in the population rises the death rate is going to keep spiralling upwards as more and more people need care and can't get it because the ICUs are overfull to capacity.

Exponential growth starts slowly when your baseline numbers are low but as they grow it gets out of control rapidly.

The government is trying to slow the growth to delay or hopefully stop us reaching a point where the health service is overwhelmed but there is little slack in the system and our path is only a couple of weeks behind Italy unless we take serious measures to stop. People carrying on as normal out in pubs and gyms is just going to push us to the Italy path sooner.

I wonder at what point the penny will drop for people who are still trying to make comparisons to being 'just a bad flu season'.

Every country in Western Europe is being forced into these extreme measures. In the UK its Boris Johnson's Brexit government doing it - the same people who hate the BBC, the establishment, experts. They laugh in the face of everyone who warns that Brexit is going to be a disaster and carry on anyway. But they are spooked enough by this to be slamming through emergency measures that they know will be unpopular.

A large chunk of the measures in the emergency powers they are introducing to Parliament next week are basically about facilitating the rapid disposal of bodies because they are worried the funerals and burial system is not going to be able to cope with the surge in demand over the next few months.

They never did this with swine flu, or the other bad flu seasons, because they weren't fearing death counts in the hundreds of thousands and the NHS collapsing. That is a very high risk now unless extreme steps are taken which is why they are acting like a wartime government.

So now we have entered the speed bumps that I highlighted above. The infection rate and number of critical care patients will continue to rise for a while, then begin to drop. But something like 60% of the population will need to catch the virus to gain immunity, so after a fall I think you will see the government relaxing the social distancing to increase the infection rate again. If they judge it perfectly, each peak will result in enough critical care beds being available for those that need it. I haven't the faintest idea as to how many of these bumps we will see but surly this is all going to go on for much longer than 12 weeks.

So now we have entered the speed bumps that I highlighted above. The infection rate and number of critical care patients will continue to rise for a while, then begin to drop. But something like 60% of the population will need to catch the virus to gain immunity, so after a fall I think you will see the government relaxing the social distancing to increase the infection rate again. If they judge it perfectly, each peak will result in enough critical care beds being available for those that need it. I haven't the faintest idea as to how many of these bumps we will see but surly this is all going to go on for much longer than 12 weeks.

Here is a good article from the BBC this morning. Essentially it raises the point that Dita has made by asking how many of the deaths from Coronavirus would have occurred in any case (in the older population). Its a short jump from there to saying the economic effects have to be balanced against these 'excess deaths'. That's a difficult moral dilemma.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Here is a good article from the BBC this morning. Essentially it raises the point that Dita has made by asking how many of the deaths from Coronavirus would have occurred in any case (in the older population). Its a short jump from there to saying the economic effects have to be balanced against these 'excess deaths'. That's a difficult moral dilemma.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

That contains the cases breakdown across the age groups, the big numbers in the 60+ groups .

I keep my eye on this site, my money is on the fastest finisher, the Yanks.



[urlhttps://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url

That contains the cases breakdown across the age groups, the big numbers in the 60+ groups .

I keep my eye on this site, my money is on the fastest finisher, the Yanks.



[urlhttps://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/[/url