Steerage
89p827 comments posted · 2 followers · following 0
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Nick Hoile: Beware of ... · 0 replies · +1 points
That isn't a reduction. It is an elimination.
If those factors eliminated flu they would have done the same with Covid.
They didn't.
Instead of believing those less than credible and certainly inadequate reasons, the health authorities need to invest heavily in research to know how we were spared flu this winter and the consequent welcome failure of the health service to be overwhelmed from Covid.
My non-expert opinion tells me Covid drove out the flu virus, got in front of it, or combined with it.
The 50,000 excess deaths we get in a bad flu winter became/will become instead 150,000 Covid/flu deaths from March 2020 to March 2021.
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Gimson, Gimson, Gimson... · 1 reply · +1 points
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Gimson, Gimson, Gimson... · 3 replies · +1 points
This needs unbiased investigation as to why. Are people who are dying, suffering from both or is Covid driving out flu?
We had 50,000 excess deaths in 2018, the last bad flu winter.
We are now heading for 125,000 excess deaths, in the 12 months from March 2020. So this pandemic is over twice as bad as a bad flu year in terms of mortality.
Do you remember 2018?
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - As the Treasury digs i... · 1 reply · +1 points
Lockdowns can suppress the rate of infection, and protect our hospitals from being overwhelmed, thus spreading out the ultimate casualties.
The vaccines however can break the virus cycle perhaps by the summer.
The Blitz analogy is daft. The 100,000 civilian deaths were all violent, affected all age groups and went from zero in 1939. The Blitz also wrought colossal physical destruction on the UK which took decades to mend.
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - As the Treasury digs i... · 3 replies · +1 points
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - As the Treasury digs i... · 0 replies · +1 points
The later, high, Covid spread came mostly from family gatherings and parties and our density. It was inevitable as the virus will come back once restrictions are lifted, as happened in all EU countries. We could have gone for Zero Covid but without a vaccine at that point we would have been doomed to a permanent lockdown - appreciated by the non-economically active 55% (75% in Scotland) and thus electorally popular.
Now with the vaccines we can all expect a normal summer.
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - 100,000 dead · 0 replies · +1 points
Without its absence, the NHS would have been overwhelmed.
Perhaps many who died from Covid these months would have been taken out by flu or had both viruses. Who knows?
In a bad flu year like 2018 there were 50,000 excess deaths in England. I don't remember any great concerns expressed then. Do you?
Now excess deaths are around 100,000 so we are experiencing a flu year twice as bad as 2018 and it will be higher by March. But nothing like 1918 especially as young people were then the worst hit.
Comparing the numbers to the 100,000 civilian casualties from German bombing in the war is silly given there were none in the 1930s.
However the destruction in our cities can be likened to the economic impact of the pandemic and the likely 10% loss in jobs and wealth.
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Neil O'Brien: Five les... · 0 replies · +1 points
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - Richard Ekins: How to ... · 0 replies · +1 points
3 years ago @ http://www.conservativ... - May - beached not only... · 1 reply · +1 points