I wish the press would provide a little more detail on this – specifically, whether the person who died was a regular smoker or used vape devices.

Maybe they should say no known underlying health conditions, there’s a fair amount of folks with undiagnosed heart issues, some people are thought to be genetically predisposed to have limited ability to deal with sepsis, how fit are these people, underweight, overweight….

Or maybe just accept that there will be outliers.

Or maybe they had sex before marriage, liked a doomed highschooler in an 80s slasher film?

A link or explanation would be useful to give context to whatever you are talking about.

We’ve got rid of all our old shampoo and pre-existing conditioner.

I don’t think sharing details of who died, their medical history and lifestyle choices is a good idea.

Mr Smith died. No known underlying health condition. Was a bit fat though, and smoked when he had a couple of beers. So don’t worry you’ll be fine.

It’s not really helpful to anyone.

I wish the press would provide a little more detail on this – specifically, whether the person who died was a regular smoker or used vape devices.

Is it impossible to imagine that they might been perfectly healthy? The concerns with the virus have been focused on those ‘Most at Risk’ that doesn’t mean that for others there is no risk.

They should stop altogether. Not only does it promote a false sense of security in those who think they’re healthy, but it implies that those who aren’t are more deserving of death and less important than the rest of us.

A link or explanation would be useful to give context to whatever you are talking about.

Have you heard about this coronavirus thing that’s going around in China? Rumour is that it might make it over to Europe and the US.

I think the perception is that the ventilators are there for those who are elderly or have health conditions. The ventilators are there just as much for those healthy middle aged folk who get hit particularly bad by the virus. I had assumed “I’ll be fine, I’m fit and healthy”. When people realise that this is really misjudged they may take a very different view on what they see as what is essential travel, etc…

I wish the press would provide a little more detail on this

Theres this thing about people’s medical history being confidential. The press can only tell you what the families of victims are happy to share or any analysis of trends that emerge across a range of cases.

The ventilators are there just as much for those healthy middle aged folk who get hit particularly bad by the virus.

Unfortunately we’re tending to focus on two stats – the number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths, And while we know that for many an infection may be mild we’re not really talking about the number of people getting very ill – or even what the experience of ill would be like. Just ‘mild’ and ‘dead’.

It’s simple stats. A low percentage of younger, apparently fit and healthy people will require hospitalisation, a percentage of them will need ventilation, a percentage of those ventilated will die.

Across an eventual infected population of millions, that will equate to more than a few younger people dying from this thing.

I’ve stopped watching or reading the news apart from right after the daily briefing.

It’s just regressed, as it always does with big stories to morbid ‘entertainment’, there is no more useful information to be gained, just more Anxiety.

They should stop altogether.

I think they will, once more and more people in similar circumstances fall to this, which is a certainty.

Edit – and what Pjay says too.

one explanation for not mentioning vaping is that as far as I am aware (and please correct me if i’m wrong), there is no proven link between that activity and COVID-19 incidence or severity, just a bunch of opinion. so at this stage its an unrelated statement that would be quite likely to induce a bias in the reader that vaping was somehow a factor in said person’s illness/death. it may or may not have been, but there is no evidence either way that i am aware of.

on that basis i’d personally be a bit more concerned if news outlets decided to mention that people who have sadly died of COVID-19 vaped.

They are just starting to say this now as they want to scare the younger / fit / healthy / it won’t happen to me bunch into compliance.

The reason they didn’t do it before and kept underlining they had health issues is they were balancing the line between making people realise how serious it was without causing widespread panic.

All the info leaked to the press is being planned to nudge everyone in the direction the government wants.

I also think they;ve already made their minds up about when a total lockdown happends, and it is almost irrespective of whether people comply with instructions or not.

It’s just click bait stuff, no one bats an eyelid if they say 99 year old with COPD and one leg dies, whereas if they can post a photo of some young instagram influencer type and say they died a horrible death from CV-19 at the age of 24, everyone clicks on it and starts threads about it on forums…

Like any illness, some outliers will drop dead in their 20s and some 90 year olds will be completely immune.

I wish the press would provide a little more detail on this – specifically, whether the person who died was a regular smoker or used vape devices.

Why exactly?
I mean would that knowledge have an effect on your behaviour/social isolation practises?
My guess would be that, pending a formal Coroner’s report, the only thing that can really be reported as a fact is an individuals age, anything else is unhelpful speculation…

If you want to understand “Risk” rather than focus on a single case it’s worth keeping track of the numbers (IMO):

As of 9am on 25 March 2020, a total of 97,019 people have been tested, of which 87,490 were confirmed negative and 9,529 were confirmed positive. 463 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.

From: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

I think the perception is that the ventilators are there for those who are elderly or have health conditions

unfortunately in italy this doesn’t appear to be the case in some articles (not sure on their validility, but then any news maybe twisted to suit) . There are suggestions that the ventilators are for the younger and more healthy as they have a chance of recovery, the elderly and poor health are being kept comfortable until they pass.

There are people in all age groups in all parts of the country who are ignoring gov requests – it won’t happen to me, we’ve lived through worse; complete idiots.
I would suggest reporting of the basic facts only, no reference to pre-existing/underlying medical conditions, no comments from family; possibly a daily tabular summary of deaths by age group to be published in all media.
I remember the tv ads commissioned by gov when HIV-AIDS was front and centre.
Perhaps it’s time for a blunt instrument to the head approach – adverts showing a simulated death with voice over explanation.
Gov to use mobile network operators to get it onto everyone’s mobile.
Won’t happen but I think it should.

There are people in all age groups in all parts of the country who are ignoring gov requests – it won’t happen to me, we’ve lived through worse; complete idiots.

As to be expected, every European country which has ordered a lock down has had to keep upping the ante with fines / police patrols etc to enforce it. There are always a % who are selfish and / or stupid.

I think the perception is that the ventilators are there for those who are elderly or have health conditions.

The elderly are not going to get a ventilator if we end up in a similar situation to Italy (which is likely in the next few weeks). Thousands of people aren’t going to cause a strain on ITU beds because they simply won’t be admitted. They’re just going to silently add to the death toll. It’s awful.

I mean would that knowledge have an effect on your behaviour/social isolation practises?

Theres two dialogues going on in the same space. The government is trying to manage public health- trying to shape the outbreak to fit its readiness to respond and in doing so its trying to particularly protect the most at risk because those people are the people who will most load the system.

The case of a young, healthy person succumbing to the disease is individually tragic but its not the risk the government is trying to guard against – the health service is not going to be overloaded with otherwise health 20-somethings.

But the other dialogue is ‘what is the risk to me?’ and reporting of otherwise healthy victims even though statistically irrelevant but never the less important in understanding that this isn’t just a problem for other people.

A good example of this would be the fuss about Bacon a few years back and then a more recent report saying bacon is absolutely fine – they were both interpretations of the same data. At a population level processed meats have an effect on health that places a burden on society. At an individual level that risk is negligible nothing about your life that you can measure  is likely to change whether you eat bacon or don’t. So for ‘you’ its a negligible risk but for ‘everyone’ its a problem.

David Spiegelhalter (Cambridge statistician and fantastic communicator) notes that C19 effectively compresses your (pre-existing/if C19 didn’t exist) risk of dying in the next 12 months into a two week period. At population level this almost perfectly takes into account both age and existing health conditions. So even folks in their 20s without known conditions have a bit of risk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_bias_(psychology)

and Information Acquisition Bias

Epdemiology is the study of risk factors for disease. Give it time. Numbers of deaths for previous SARS Corona viruses are small, so there were few conclusions. Generally, better lungs will put you in a better place. A history of COPD and serious asthma mean avoid all possible contact. There may be immunological factors that lead to an ongoing inflammatory immune response when the virus is cleared. Lots of people who do Real Biology(TM) (I do hard sums) are looking for this.

Previous epidemic
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/1/19-0952_article
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(13)70204-4/fulltext
(should be open source)

Have you heard about this coronavirus thing that’s going around in China? Rumour is that it might make it over to Europe and the US.

Yes, it’s a large subject, you seem to be talking about a particular incident, it which case it is pertinent to include more information about what you are talking about. This will help with communication with others.

I mean would that knowledge have an effect on your behaviour/social isolation practises?

Possibly if someone is on the verge of giving up it might help provide the nudge to make it happen.

I’d also like to know because while I’d love to completely self-isolate, I can’t. So more granular detail on the likelihood of being severely affected would be helpful.

On Sunday the NHS suggested an 18-year-old had died from coronavirus but it has since emerged they tested positive for the disease but died from an unrelated condition.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/what-nhs-trust-data-tells-us-about-spread-coronavirus-uk

Could also partly explain the gender gap. Most men would have not seen a doctor or hospital between infancy and the mid forties prostate exam.
Women would have had a lot more contact over that time.
More chance of conditions being discovered.

The immune compromised so called super fit, the run and go to the gym every day type idiots with no underlying health conditions.
With he ran eight mega iron man marathons in a row as an epitaph.

After nearly two weeks working from home and having Mrs asbrooks and two teenage daughters at home, it will be my mental health that will get one way or another.

oh goodie…another coronavirus thread!

oh goodie…another coronavirus thread!

I think the mods are so sick of it they’ve buggered off and left us.

oh goodie…another coronavirus thread!

It’s almost as though they’ve found a host to multiply in.

and the mid forties prostate exam.

I must have slept through mine.