JamesM

Here is the death rate.

Shard

Well the cases are still fairly high. Deaths down to 277 today, after being in the 300s for a while. At that rate it's about 100,000 deaths per year, so it does seem an odd time to relax all restrictions (so called Plan B) in England. Flu (& pneumonia) seem to account for 30,000 deaths per year (UK) and that seems to be a level at which the government could justify "living with it". Perhaps there projections for later in the year suggest that, who knows. They are too busy worrying about who is having a piece of birthday cake or holding a glass of wine in 2020.

BristolUK

Yes down to 277 in today's Guardian Bar. With almost 90,000 cases.
Obviously there's a delay and the 277 are not from the 90k, but it's still a guide. Perhaps you could say 277 future deaths from today's 90,000. Or one for every 324 cases.

Just looking for some old bars. May last year 2829 cases, 9 deaths. One in every 314.

I can't find any others - I'm sure I posted 3 or 4 but it is a nice illustration of the lopsided nature of "like a cold" Omicron in that there's a similar relationship when comparing the number of new cases of previous variants with those about to die and the numbers of Omicron new cases and those dying.

Every 300 or so new cases seem to result in one death. In terms of Death, getting Omicron seems to be just as bad as other variants.

BristolUK

I heard CBC News last night reporting more covid deaths in Ontario for January than any other month.

Mordko

Triple vaxxed have very low chances of having to be hospitalized and even less of ending up in ICUs. A fourth dose of the vaccine reduces probability of severe illness by another factor of 2.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/...cid=mm7104e3_x
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ab-adults.html

At this point we are having lockdowns and other restrictions purely to protect the unvaxxed and reduce the excessive burden on ICUs.

Shard

Lockdowns, what lockdowns ?!

BristolUK

Measures.
In hindsight we made a huge mistake calling it lockdown. Or, rather, it was okay when it really was a lockdown right at the beginning - out for exercise, groceries, medical/pharmacy only, for example

Governments all over had phases, stages, levels or whatever they were calling the variations but unfortunately 'lockdown' seems to have stuck even if it meant everything open but proof of vax required or everything open but contact details needed. Any kind of measure and it stayed as lockdown phase/stage 3 etc

Along the way, we (NB) had specific area lockdowns while most of the rest of province was fully open.

Danny B

I have a good feeling regarding the future of COVID.
Provided no one escapes North Korea and brings a heavily mutated variant with them, I think this pandemic will officially end in 2022 and we can get back to a new normal.

Seems like Denmark is one of the 1st countries to scrap all the restrictions, I'm sure many more will follow suit in the coming weeks / months.

Roll on Summer of '22

Shard

Measures is a good word. Lockdown does have a bit of a menacing ring.

Shard

A bit frustrating, but then there are those medically unable to be vaccinated, and those that are poorly informed. In addition, protecting the unvaxed benefits everyone as they are less likely to become incubators for a new strain.

printer

This argument will run and run but who wants to face up to the fact that at no time will we ever see 100% vaccination rate in any province. Therefore we will always have unvaccinated regardless of whether its personal choice or medically unable. In the meantime England has removed pretty much ALL restrictions and has never made any move towards vaccinating kids under 12 alongside an extremely limited vax passport scheme and as yet no mandated vaccination for NHS staff. Yet in BC we have one of the best vax rates, we are getting kids 5 and up vaccinated and it seems that if you are not vaccinated you are unable to partake in many things and possibly have no job. But of course we are all following the same science right? Are we to assume that in England for example there is no issue with delayed health care because i bet my right arm that the NHS is under pressure as much now as in any winter season. Whatever your stance on vaccination it doesn't appear that every country agrees with the division that has been created over here, in fact in today's "woke" society i am surprised we are allowed to call the unvaccinated names and make suggestions that they should stay home, lose their jobs or not get the healthcare they may need, good god we are chastised for making jokes about people, we can't make things gender specific in case we offend, we are forever being told that we should be kind and cyber bullying is not on yet here we are still chastising the unvaccinated.
Talking about scientific data it has been discussed before that wearing an N95 mask is the best protection you can get and some groups have even suggested that these should be mandated. Of course this is perhaps going a bit far BUT when you turn up at our local hospital the first thing they do is make you remove whatever mask you are wearing and put on a medical surgical type mask, there are no buts. A guy recently complained as he was wearing a far better mask (N95) yet they refused to allow him in with it on, he had to change it for one of theirs. On the other hand when you go out in general its a free for all including those ridiculous small face shields that don't do anything yet they are perfectly acceptable inside stores and malls.

BristolUK

Just looking at Worldometer. Total deaths in the UK 155,613. In close to two years. An average 213 deaths per day. About half this period, no vaccine available. So there were "measures" to curtail spread instead.

A couple of posts above, daily deaths "down" to 277. Today's Guardian stats bar updates daily deaths to 296.

Daily deaths appear to be at least as high currently as at any time when there were more severe variants and no vaccine. Indeed New Scientist magazine reports that on the 18th Jan 2022, the daily total of covid deaths was the most since February 2021.

Someone needs to explain why it's acceptable to have more people dying daily than was previously the case.

Shard

It is surprising that there is so little focus on the high death numbers. At the start of the pandemic, Chris Witty made a commend that deaths peaking at 20,000 would be a "good result" and everyone was appalled that it could be that many. Now it's running about 2000 deaths per week and the media and government could not seem to care less. In a sense we have been habituated to these kind of numbers. It's probably the media more than the government that is at fault here.

BristolUK

I think that's going to draw the same answers I've given previously - it depends on your media source. But you're obviously aware of this issue and you likely have more media access than government access.

I recall past discussions - post vaccines - where the topic was all about increasing case numbers but that deaths were not rising in the same way. The world and his wife were able to look at the figures quoted in the media and draw that simple and logical conclusion.

The same media has the same categories of figures from the same sources. Why can't a similarly logical and simple conclusion be made?

That fact I mentioned - the UK deaths figure was higher on Jan 18th than any day since Feb 2021. That was actually reported on Sky News apparently. It didn't even need calculating. A quick google shows standard UK media outlets, Mail, Mirror, Metro, BBC, Guardian etc all covered it.

Perhaps people just aren't paying attention.

Shard

My criticism of the media is that they are not making much of a case. They report the statistics and may highlight noteworthy comparisons, but they don't emphasise the numbers of deaths in any meaningful way. They pin the government down on what would be a acceptable level of deaths or criticize the current high levels. It's all very passive, as this is the pandemic, and that there's not much we can do about it, and by the way France and Germany are just as bad, and how possibly can we compare ourselves the Japanese? The media doesn't even break down who is dying and why? In the first few months, the first year even, a reactive "hope for the best approach" might have been adequate, but at this stage they ought to be mounting a more vigorous campaign of accountability. People aren't paying attention because it's the same dry abstract statistics day after day, no real narrative or drama.