ICU Figures

Sweet.Science

When i looked this morning there was 5 . 5 in a population of 5 million

This is even after a significant increase in numbers in the last 3 weeks.

First it was that we would see the affects of these increases after 7-10 days, then 2-3 weeks. Now its a month

If in 2 weeks time the figures in ICU haven't increased significantly can we all agree this virus has weakened and get on with our lives?

Zaph

It hasn't weakened, it's simply that most of the people contracting it now are younger and healthier, and are therefore more able to fight the infection than an elderly person would be.

lee_baby_simms

Zaph wrote: »

It hasn't weakened, it's simply that most of the people contracting it now are younger and healthier

So its exclusively young people and not the at risk that are now getting it in Spain, France, UK, Ireland, New York, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden?

Oranage2

Sweet.Science wrote: »

When i looked this morning there was 5 . 5 in a population of 5 million

This is even after a significant increase in numbers in the last 3 weeks.

First it was that we would see the affects of these increases after 7-10 days, then 2-3 weeks. Now its a month

If in 2 weeks time the figures in ICU haven't increased significantly can we all agree this virus has weakened and get on with our lives?

Just agree to it a don't bother listening to all those egg heads studying it?

Sconsey

lee_baby_simms wrote: »

So its exclusively young people and not the at risk that are now getting it in Spain, France, UK, Ireland, New York, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden?

You can read the recent infection stats as well as anyone else, what do they say?

The illness is nowhere near as bad as was predicted back in Jan. The models and the experts were predicting doomsday more or less. I remember people talking about deaths in ireland and mentioning figures like 30000 - 100000 dead.

I think we can all see by now that thats not the case. The illness is mainly dangerous to the nursing home community and elderly people in poor health.

Some people will try to act like lockdown prevented all of those deaths. It didn't. Countries that didn't lockdown at all didn't have body bags piling up in the streets. Perhaps we'd have a few more deaths without lockdown. But we would have been better balanced in lots of other areas.

Our over reaction looks outrageous in hindsight.

We could let this illness rip through the population and death rate will be extremely low.

froog

It shouldn't be too hard to compare current ICU rate versus expected ICU rate of that age group from back in april/may.

gozunda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The illness is nowhere near as bad as was predicted back in Jan. The models and the experts were predicting doomsday more or less. I remember people talking about deaths in ireland and mentioning figures like 30000 - 100000 dead.

I think we can all see by now that thats not the case. The illness is mainly dangerous to the nursing home community and elderly people in poor health.

Some people will try to act like lockdown prevented all of those deaths. It didn't. Countries that didn't lockdown at all didn't have body bags piling up in the streets. Perhaps we'd have a few more deaths without lockdown. But we would have been better balanced in lots of other areas.

Our over reaction looks outrageous in hindsight.

We could let this illness rip through the population and death rate will be extremely low.

Really? Well I don't know about bodybags but in Brazil it was reported that they were running out of coffins - there was no comprehensive lockdown.


Glad you're not directing operations anywhere tbh ...

On 20 June, Brazil became only the second country to pass one million cases and that number has continued to rise steadily. Experts say it is likely much higher due to a lack of testing....

But despite the rise in cases there was still no national lockdown. States and cities adopted their own measures, but these were met by protests and data later showed that compliance lessened as time went on....

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53429430

wally1990

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The illness is nowhere near as bad as was predicted back in Jan. The models and the experts were predicting doomsday more or less. I remember people talking about deaths in ireland and mentioning figures like 30000 - 100000 dead.

I think we can all see by now that thats not the case. The illness is mainly dangerous to the nursing home community and elderly people in poor health.

Some people will try to act like lockdown prevented all of those deaths. It didn't. Countries that didn't lockdown at all didn't have body bags piling up in the streets. Perhaps we'd have a few more deaths without lockdown. But we would have been better balanced in lots of other areas.

Our over reaction looks outrageous in hindsight.

We could let this illness rip through the population and death rate will be extremely low.

Was it though?

The memory of army trucks of 1000 a day dead in Italy was a sign of how bad it can be

I'm for one glad so we lock down early enough

I look at the figure of 5 mentioned by OP as a measure of success

lee_baby_simms

Sconsey wrote: »

You can read the recent infection stats as well as anyone else, what do they say?

Well can we take Spain as an example?

The IFR of coronavirus (COVID-19) in Spain as of May 22, 2020 for the over 70s was 19.3%

Now if we look at detected infections in Spain from 10 May to 20 August for the same age group we get the following.

14,531 infected were over 70 years of age and sadly 501 died.

That then gives us an IFR 3.4%

So old people are still getting this virus but the IFR has reduced to 1/5 of what it was in March/April.

Zaph

Zaph wrote: »

It hasn't weakened, it's simply that most of the people contracting it now are younger and healthier, and are therefore more able to fight the infection than an elderly person would be.

First person to get infected in Ireland was a farmer in Cork in his early 40s with no known underlying health conditions.

He presented in a Cork hospital in February with symptoms and was dead a few weeks later. It was several months later before it was discovered he had covid 19. How was it a relatively young healthy man was the first known person to get it and died also. Many people in his age group category are not even having symptoms now. Only 3 cases out of 80 had symptoms in the meat factory in Kildare. Health professionals are not going to tell us its weakening but it does seem odd the first person to get it in Ireland died and was relatively young and healthy by all accounts.

tobefrank321

During the lockdown, the young were locked away while many of the elderly weren't properly protected, eg in nursing homes where the virus spread rapidly.
Now its the other way around, the young are out and about while the elderly are better protected.

tobefrank321

Deleted User wrote: »

First person to get infected in Ireland was a farmer in Cork in his early 40s with no known underlying health conditions.

He presented in a Cork hospital in February with symptoms and was dead a few weeks later. It was several months later before it was discovered he had covid 19. How was it a relatively young healthy man was the first known person to get it and died also. Many people in his age group category are not even having symptoms now. Only 3 cases out of 80 had symptoms in the meat factory in Kildare. Health professionals are not going to tell us its weakening but it does seem odd the first person to get it in Ireland died and was relatively young and healthy by all accounts.

Every photo I have seen in newspapers of a covid 19 survivor or deceased who "had no known underlying health conditions" but ended up in ICU, tended to be massively overweight.

Many people go around without ever visiting a doctor yet may have significant underlying conditions. Many underlying conditions are well hidden and only show up when you get infected with something else.

lee_baby_simms

tobefrank321 wrote: »

During the lockdown, the young were locked away while many of the elderly weren't properly protected, eg in nursing homes where the virus spread rapidly.
Now its the other way around, the young are out and about while the elderly are better protected.

That doesn't quite explain it to me.

Sticking with the example of Spain, the IFR for 60-70 year old demographic during the first wave up to May was 5%.

Since May the IFR for the exact same age group is 0.4%. 10,021 infections. Thats a tenfold decrease outside of typical care home age demographic.

NIMAN

I wonder some day will someone be brave enough to do a good analysis and documentary of the entire CV19 story, and see if the total lockdown/deaths/schools/crashed economies etc were totally justified.

And publish real death figures and hospital usage due to CV19, as we know many of the hospital staff were working with few patients.

OK I know these were not high in part to the lockdown, but since we stopped the economy to save the old, how come we killed so many of them needlessly?

treade1

A realistic synopsis of where we currently stand from an Oxford Professor
https://youtu.be/nHqz-Wk3hus

tobefrank321

lee_baby_simms wrote: »

That doesn't quite explain it to me.

Sticking with the example of Spain, the IFR for 60-70 year old demographic during the first wave up to May was 5%.

Since May the IFR for the exact same age group is 0.4%. 10,021 infections. Thats a tenfold decrease outside of typical care home age demographic.

I don't have exact answers, but to speculate, back in the spring it hit nursing homes badly as there were inadequate protections and it wiped out the very sick and vulnerable.

With more recent infections, its hitting the healthy elderly in the community.

Once you properly protect nursing homes, the IFR is going to go down dramatically and that seems to be the case in most countries.

GooglePlus

We're testing more now, so picking up cases we didn't earlier in the year.

So you can't really compare hospital admissions yet, as we may not even be in February yet in terms of looking back at case numbers.

We had way more cases than recorded earlier in the year.

ectoraige

We are learning much more about how to treat and manage patients, helping reduce the number who end up in ICU. In the early days nobody knew which antivirals might help and which would do more damage. Ventilation strategies were untested and the nature of the pathologies involved unstudied.

The time gained by lockdown measures have been really important, we are still scratching the surface on this thing but the fact that ICU numbers are low is because we've been given the breathing space to get a handle on things.

There are people alive now who would have been dead had they caught COVID-19 a few months earlier.

lee_baby_simms

tobefrank321 wrote: »

I don't have exact answers, but to speculate, back in the spring it hit nursing homes badly as there were inadequate protections and it wiped out the very sick and vulnerable.

With more recent infections, its hitting the healthy elderly in the community.

Once you properly protect nursing homes, the IFR is going to go down dramatically and that seems to be the case in most countries.

Yeah I can't argue with that but then we surely have to ask the question, how dangerous is this virus right now, outside of a care home setting?

Are current measures really justified against all the collateral, indirect covid deaths that are only going to build over the next few years?

tobefrank321

lee_baby_simms wrote: »

Yeah I can't argue with that but then we surely have to ask the question, how dangerous is this virus right now, outside of a care home setting?

Are current measures really justified against all the collateral, indirect covid deaths that are only going to build over the next few years?

I'm not discounting the milder strain argument though.

Most people who ended up in ICU back in the spring weren't elderly.

I agree its strange how numbers in ICU have come down massively. When we had far lower infections back in March a lot of them ended up in hospital or ICU.

They need to start up cancer screening right away if they haven't already. There's definitely no justification now for not resuming.

The whole cv19 thing is a mystery, how it was lethal in the spring and now not as lethal.

tobefrank321

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Every photo I have seen in newspapers of a covid 19 survivor or deceased who "had no known underlying health conditions" but ended up in ICU, tended to be massively overweight.

Many people go around without ever visiting a doctor yet may have significant underlying conditions. Many underlying conditions are well hidden and only show up when you get infected with something else.

Still seems odd first known case also died of it aged 42 and hundreds now that age don't even know they are sick until tested. This guy was a working man, not an infirm person in a nursing home where disease and infection are commonplace due to their vulnerabilities.

lee_baby_simms

tobefrank321 wrote: »

The whole cv19 thing is a mystery, how it was lethal in the spring and now not as lethal.

There certainly seems to be a seasonality to it alright, if that is the case then it will get worse over the winter but with a much smaller at risk population to infect sadly.

ectoraige

ectoraige wrote: »

We are learning much more about how to treat and manage patients, helping reduce the number who end up in ICU. In the early days nobody knew which antivirals might help and which would do more damage. Ventilation strategies were untested and the nature of the pathologies involved unstudied.

The time gained by lockdown measures have been really important, we are still scratching the surface on this thing but the fact that ICU numbers are low is because we've been given the breathing space to get a handle on things.

There are people alive now who would have been dead had they caught COVID-19 a few months earlier.

That last sentence is a serious understatement. If we had same lockdown as UK in terms of deaths add another 3000 souls to our death toll.

tobefrank321

Deleted User wrote: »

Still seems odd first known case also died of it aged 42 and hundreds now that age don't even know they are sick until tested.

Fair point. Something does appear to be happening, milder strain maybe. You'd definitely expect more in ICU these days.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

That last sentence is a serious understatement. If we had same lockdown as UK in terms of deaths add another 3000 souls to our death toll.

Blatant speculation in both posts.
UK went into lockdown a week after us... 3000 extra deaths in a week?

The only difference between now and April is we don't have 235 clusters in nursing homes.

With our testing and tracing, thankfully we won't have 235 clusters in nursing homes again.

So the death rate will remain very low.

tobefrank321

GooglePlus wrote: »

We're testing more now, so picking up cases we didn't earlier in the year.

So you can't really compare hospital admissions yet, as we may not even be in February yet in terms of looking back at case numbers.

We had way more cases than recorded earlier in the year.

I remember back at the peak some days there might be 200 cases and 6 of those end up in ICU. On days when there were 500 cases, 10 could end up in ICU. I know there's a lag between cases and ICU admissions although back then there was also a huge lag in reporting of cases - eg German Lab results.

Now a days we have on average 150 cases a day and maybe 1 a day going into ICU.

So either its becoming milder, its hitting those with no serious underlying conditions, and who are much younger, or else back in April we were missing vast numbers of cases and in reality thousands of people were being infected daily with a small number ending up in ICU.

tobefrank321

Deleted User wrote: »

Blatant speculation in both posts.
UK went into lockdown a week after us... 3000 extra deaths in a week?

The only difference between now and April is we don't have 235 clusters in nursing homes.

With our testing and tracing, thankfully we won't have 235 clusters in nursing homes again.

So the death rate will remain very low.

We can't really compare ourselves to the UK. They have something like 3 times our population density and maybe 40% more over 65s. Not apples and oranges.

But agreed about nursing homes. Once we put in proper measures that removed a large source of deaths.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Blatant speculation in both posts.
UK went into lockdown a week after us... 3000 extra deaths in a week?

The only difference between now and April is we don't have 235 clusters in nursing homes.

With our testing and tracing, thankfully we won't have 235 clusters in nursing homes again.

So the death rate will remain very low.

Seculative by you :pac: :pac:. Was circulating in London in large numbers in January February and they were one of the last countries to lockdown in europe. London a bigger European hub than dublin. They should have locked down before or when Italy locked down. Academic at this point. Its about the future. RIP to all who died at that time. It was a very scary time.

Scuid Mhór

Deleted User wrote: »

Our over reaction looks outrageous in hindsight.

That's because our reaction was successful. You have a pretty short memory if you can't remember how bad things were looking in Italy and in Spain just before we registered our first official case. That could have very easily been us - and it could have very easily been worse for us as well had we not acted when we did.

gozunda

NIMAN wrote: »

I wonder some day will someone be brave enough to do a good analysis and documentary of the entire CV19 story, and see if the total lockdown/deaths/schools/crashed economies etc were totally justified.

And publish real death figures and hospital usage due to CV19, as we know many of the hospital staff were working with few patients.

OK I know these were not high in part to the lockdown, but since we stopped the economy to save the old, how come we killed so many of them needlessly?

Simple answer - We didnt. Restictions were put in place to stop health services and medical resources been overrun and to protect healthcare staff on the fronline of Hospitals etc. AND most importantly to reduce the rate of infection.

True that older people and those of all ages with underlying conditions are all at high risk from dying of Covid19.

And true people in care homes were doubly at risk in that they could not isolate from others or care home staff.

However it remains everyone is at risk of contracting it - and with Covid19 - there are no guarantees that it will either bypass you or only have a mild impact.

What we now know is that the disease is highly contagious, appears to have long term impacts on many survivors regardless of age.

We now have rising numbers of infected and we haven't even hit flu season. We've a long way to go yet imo.

schmoo2k

Deleted User wrote: »

Still seems odd first known case also died of it aged 42 and hundreds now that age don't even know they are sick until tested. This guy was a working man, not an infirm person in a nursing home where disease and infection are commonplace due to their vulnerabilities.

That is not odd at all - the first identified case was always going to be someone very sick - otherwise they wouldn't have gone to hospital. IOW good chance there was plenty of other folks with it, simply carrying on.

schmoo2k

schmoo2k wrote: »

That is not odd at all - the first identified case was always going to be someone very sick - otherwise they wouldn't have gone to hospital. IOW good chance there was plenty of other folks with it, simply carrying on.

Of course it is they were 42 and died. Nobody has died in his age category in about 4 months despite thousands of cases in that time. CMO said it did not arrive before February.

schmoo2k

Deleted User wrote: »

Of course it is they were 42 and died. Nobody has died in his age category in about 4 months despite thousands of cases in that time. CMO said it did not arrive before February.

Back in Feb / March lots died in that category (and in recent times our treatment has greatly improved).

Good chance a few vulnerable / elderly folks also died from it at the same time, but probably just chalked off as natural death... But a young healthy person getting very ill will require extra examination.

rahmalec

The answer is pretty simple. It’s a combination of all the following:

- more young people getting it

- better treatments

- the main thing though is back in March and early April we were missing most cases. I recon back at the end of March when the lockdown was imposed we could have had 10000 being infected a day. In Italy and Spain they likely have had a few million cases.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-getting-less-angry-shouldnt-22563045.amp&ved=2ahUKEwjBoMaY87brAhXBnVwKHco0BH0QFjAFegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw33u-t_wcL5lPDDhceVVvDw&ampcf=1

Covid 19 less angry now says icu doctor birmingham

ShineOn7

Deleted User wrote: »

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-getting-less-angry-shouldnt-22563045.amp&ved=2ahUKEwjBoMaY87brAhXBnVwKHco0BH0QFjAFegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw33u-t_wcL5lPDDhceVVvDw&ampcf=1

Covid 19 less angry now says icu doctor birmingham

This stands out

Dr Daniels said he believed the coronavirus and its associated disease, Covid-19 could be weakening.

He said: "There is a degree of suggestion and some evidence the virus might just be getting a little bit less angry.

"That would be the natural behaviour of viruses. Coronaviruses that now cause the common cold were probably quite good at causing death several thousand years ago.
"But they’re not any longer and this is the natural behaviour of viruses.
"It confers no evolutionary advantage to a virus to kill its host and it confers every evolutionary advantage to sit in the host, not make them very ill but make them walk around infecting lots of other people."

He said intensive care outcomes had improved from a 50:50 chance of dying if a patient was put on a ventilator to a mortality rate of 20 per cent in some cases.

That was not down to the drug discoveries like Dexamethasone and Remdesivir, he said, but better management of cases.
He said: "What’s caused that improvement? Is it all the drugs – definitely not. The drugs have a little bit of an effect, not such a marked effect.

"Is it because we have got better learning about how to manage the condition in general? Yes absolutely.
"The tabloid press love wonder magic bullets and drugs but we have just got better at decision making. We’ve learned better who needs ventilating at what time and when they need to be put prone and so forth."

gozunda

Think this answers some of the changes we've have seen with infection rates and those currently being infected

https://www.irishpost.com/news/only-a-matter-of-time-before-covid-19-spreads-to-vulnerable-groups-in-ireland-says-dr-ronan-glynn-191521

What Username Guidelines

ShineOn7 wrote: »

This stands out

What's interesting there is that there are less people going to ICU and a better outcome for those that do go to ICU. Like a doubling benefit.

The thing I don't get is, and maybe it's not for this thread, but when can this be declared over? Everyone has become so obsessed with multiple daily updates (testing numbers, cases, deaths, hospital numbers), myself included.. If we don't see significant spikes then at what point is it declared 'safe'? We don't publish daily cancer deaths (I know, not contagious) or Flu Deaths (I know, worse than flu) but if we did and gave them the same attention, we wouldn't leave the house. It's unlikely to ever be zero, and public health/politicians seem to react without considering under-testing in March vs catching more cases now.

It seems like we've wound the place up into a really tight knot that's gonna be difficult to unravel.

ShineOn7

What Username Guidelines wrote: »

when can this be declared over?

I don't think there'll be one magical day we'll wake up and say "it's over"

It'll be more a case of "the chances of getting it now are minuscule"

speckle

ShineOn7 wrote: »

I don't think there'll be one magical day we'll wake up and say "it's over"

It'll be more a case of "the chances of getting it now are minuscule"

But one day we will wake up and realize the worst is 'over' day is behind us like we did with TB.

speckle

Deleted User wrote: »

First person to get infected in Ireland was a farmer in Cork in his early 40s with no known underlying health conditions.

He presented in a Cork hospital in February with symptoms and was dead a few weeks later. It was several months later before it was discovered he had covid 19. How was it a relatively young healthy man was the first known person to get it and died also. Many people in his age group category are not even having symptoms now. Only 3 cases out of 80 had symptoms in the meat factory in Kildare. Health professionals are not going to tell us its weakening but it does seem odd the first person to get it in Ireland died and was relatively young and healthy by all accounts.

Is that the first community case you are talking about in CUH or the retrospective lookback?

speckle

speckle wrote: »

Is that the first community case you are talking about in CUH or the retrospective lookback?

Both i think. It was community transmission as he had not travelled abroad and it was only maybe in June they realised he had it. He died i think in early march. He was from Cork.

I tell a lie he was 43 not 42

Here is article:

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0614/1147301-coronavirus-ireland/

schmoo2k

schmoo2k wrote: »

Back in Feb / March lots died in that category (and in recent times our treatment has greatly improved).

Good chance a few vulnerable / elderly folks also died from it at the same time, but probably just chalked off as natural death... But a young healthy person getting very ill will require extra examination.

I would'nt say lots. 13 out 4000 odd positive tests.

speckle

http://imj.ie/the-presentation-diagnosis-of-the-first-known-community-transmitted-case-of-sars-cov-2-in-the-republic-of-ireland/

yes we must be on the same page

ShineOn7

So we are now about 6 months into this and by all accounts treatments or methods have improved

If this trend can exponentially grow then I think we'll be in a very good position in another 6 months

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

The illness is nowhere near as bad as was predicted back in Jan. The models and the experts were predicting doomsday more or less. I remember people talking about deaths in ireland and mentioning figures like 30000 - 100000 dead.

I think we can all see by now that thats not the case. The illness is mainly dangerous to the nursing home community and elderly people in poor health.

Some people will try to act like lockdown prevented all of those deaths. It didn't. Countries that didn't lockdown at all didn't have body bags piling up in the streets. Perhaps we'd have a few more deaths without lockdown. But we would have been better balanced in lots of other areas.

Our over reaction looks outrageous in hindsight.

We could let this illness rip through the population and death rate will be extremely low.

The reaction was not outrageous. Covid-19 had (and still has) the potential to collapse the health service.

There was a palpable fear that it could collapse the HSE in March. I was working 80 hour weeks writing guidelines/ covering for staff absenses due to close contact/confirmed case. I had 4 colleagues who ended up in ICU due to COVID-19. One of them was under the age of 35.

The lockdown was the right thing to do at the time. Take the US for example. Roughly 550 deaths/100k vs Ireland 350 deaths/100k.

The lockdown was the right thing to do and anybody who can't see that needs to have a look again at the facts.

ShineOn7

Deleted User wrote: »

I had 4 colleagues who ended up in ICU due to COVID-19. One of them was under the age of 35.

Jesus @ that last bit in particular, especially if they had no underlying symptoms

Hope they all made it

ICU numbers down to 4 as of 8pm 25/08.

It was at 4 end of July and it was early March since this low.

ShineOn7

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Jesus @ that last bit in particular, especially if they had no underlying symptoms

Hope they all made it

3 of the 4 had relatively short ICU stays, less than a week. One was in ICU for six weeks. Probably won't ever be able to work again. Person was below the age of 50.

FintanMcluskey

Deleted User wrote: »

The reaction was not outrageous. Covid-19 had (and still has) the potential to collapse the health service.

Nothing only rubbish to back this up, without referencing a rather unique part of northern Italy, nothing like Ireland anyway whatsoever