Sad, bordering on tragic - Stranded sailors

steve yates said:
Doesn't bear analysis JD. Given that 12k died between ages of 80-89, and that almost 5k died over the age of 90. Add the two together and at least 40% of them were way beyond the average life span.
Click to expand...
Sure. I don't think they come round and shoot you on your eighty-third-and-a-halfth birthday. Nonetheless, life expectancy of those older than eighty is not long and life expectancy over 90 even less so. As I recall, the Queen sends out 14,000 100th birthday carsd every year and around 500 105th birthday cards.
 
steve yates said:
I understand that, its this daft assumption that 90% of them would have died naturally WITHIN 12 months anyway. Its nonsense.
Click to expand...
Who assumes that? It may well be true, but we haven't evidence one way or the other yet. By the time a full year has gone past we'll start to know. It's without doubt the case that the terminally ill and the very old (80+) are coming off far worse than other groups.
 
The ave lifespan in the uk is around 73, there are just over 2 million pensioners in the 70-74 age bracket. By the logic espoused by this 90% theory, there shouldn't be that many in the over 75's age bracket.
Yet between 75 and 100 there are over 3.5 million. When some statistician tellsus that 90% of over 30,000 fatalities from a new disease would somehow have died anyway within 12 months, and we believe that fig. We have to ask ourself, what happened to my powers of reason?
 
JumbleDuck said:
Who assumes that? It may well be true, but we haven't evidence one way or the other yet. By the time a full year has gone past we'll start to know. It's without doubt the case that the terminally ill and the very old (80+) are coming off far worse than other groups.
Click to expand...
Quite a lot of people do, including one poster above. I have seen this touted all over social media, as some kind of justification for it all being overhyped.

And yes, of course the terminally ill and the elderly come off worst, that's to be expected. My argument is not against that, but against the statement being made that they would have died anyway, within 12 months. No one knows how many, if any were terminal.
Incurable is a totally different medical term to Terminal.
 
Last edited:
Quandary said:
I recall a discussion with our financial adviser about the high cost of annuities etc. and why the terms were less favourable as you got old, his explanation was that the industry views folk who made it in to their seventies as lower risk of death than younger, the term was 'mortality drag'? The theory seemed to be that if you survived that long you tended to be part of the healthier segment of the population. Of course you would still expect to go by your mid eighties.
Click to expand...

Thanks mate ! I feel better for that. ?
 
"We have never had it so good" . According to Super Mac . That was in the early 60's and probably still applies now.

I can remember when pneumonia and flu were often called the old persons friend. Many grandparents of my pals were either bed bound or struggling to move about. My uncle had TB and was hospitalised for 2 years. No new hips, scooters or knees then.

During my lifetime TB, polio, diphtheria and probably many more have been solved. I'm sure that our quality of life at a later stage is probably better than it has ever been. We could probably do even better .



I
 
steve yates said:
The ave lifespan in the uk is around 73, there are just over 2 million pensioners in the 70-74 age bracket. By the logic espoused by this 90% theory, there shouldn't be that many in the over 75's age bracket.
Click to expand...

I think you may have misunderstood. Even in the oldest and most age groups, the COVID-19 mortality rate is only 10% or so. It's the difference between "most of those who have died with COVID -19 would have died soon anyway" (possibly true) and "most of those who would have died soon anyway have died with COVID-19" (not true).

There really is no doubt that by far the worse affected are the terminally ill and the very old.
 
steve yates said:
My argument is not against that, but against the statement being made that they would have died anyway, within 12 months. No one knows how many, if any were terminal.
Incurable is a totally different medical term to Terminal.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen anyone say that incurable conditions per se increase risk, although there is no doubt that some do. We will find out in due course how many excess deaths (I believe that the NHS likes to study years of life lost) there were this spring. A lot of people are dying in care homes, where the median stay from admission to death is around 460 days.

Anyone who says this a hoax or doesn't matter is a fool, a troll or both.
 
The other problem is that deaths at home are not being recorded as being a result of Covid-19 even when its likely that a fair proportion of them are. Who is dying at home ? Well its the people who are not in care homes, and seeing that they are likely to be younger than the car home profile then the official stats might just have a skew to them compared with what is actually going on out there. The NHS workers and carers are not old either in a lot of cases, but still dying.

I'm also wary of this phrase "Underlying health problems"......I mean who the hell hasn't got something or other that renders them a somewhat higher risk ?
 
Saw an interesting chart the other day from a small scale Italian study. It indicated that roughly:

c25% of fatalities had one underlying condition*
c25% had two conditions
and
c50% had three.

Only 1% had no apparent underlying medical condition.

* Active Cancer, Pulmonary disease, Renal Failure, Diabetes, Heart disease etc.

.
 
JumbleDuck said:
There really is no doubt that by far the worse affected are the terminally ill and the very old.
Click to expand...

I am not disagreeing with that statement at all, in any way. I am disagreeing with this one

Stemar said:
Yes, most of those who have died were likely to die in the next year anyway
Click to expand...

And while he did not quote the stat that "90% of covid fatalities would have died within 12 months anyway" I did assume he was referencing it.

(I am quoting that line, because its the one that concerns me, and I have heard similar several times on social media, but it is out of context just in case anyone reads this and has missed the rest, Stemar was not agreeing with the poster that it was all a big con)
 
Alfie168 said:
The other problem is that deaths at home are not being recorded as being a result of Covid-19 even when its likely that a fair proportion of them are. Who is dying at home ? Well its the people who are not in care homes, and seeing that they are likely to be younger than the car home profile then the official stats might just have a skew to them compared with what is actually going on out there.
Click to expand...
I suspect that deaths of younger people dying unexpectedly at home will have been more rigorously investigated than those of old people in care homes. Shouldn't be, probably isn't now, but I think that's how it was. People don't say "Good heavens, a 37-year old train driver has just fallen over and died at home - well , these things happen" in the same way as they say "Oh, look, an 83 year old retired train driver died in his care home - well, these things happen".

This is another of the things we'll only know with time, when the demographic profile of all deaths can be compared with avaerage years. Basically we know that there are excess deaths but we don't know which ones they are - and never will, except statistically.
 
steve yates said:
And while he did not quote the stat that "90% of covid fatalities would have died within 12 months anyway" I did assume he was referencing it.
Click to expand...
I see what you mean. That statement may be true, but it's certainly not something which can be said with any certainty or weight of evidence and it may well turn out to be false.
 
Hey guys, it's a lovely day, why don't we all agree that CV is frequently nasty, sometimes fatal and a right royal pain in the arse, thank the Good Lord above that it isn't as vicious as ebola and the like.

It's a bit early for a virtual pint, so have a virtual coffee or tea on me ☕☕
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top