By Gabriel Princewill-
UK COVID-19 deaths must all be analysed in the context of the underlying issues in order to understand the true impact of the coronavirus in Britain.
News yesterday that the Uk reported the highest Sunday increase of deaths since May 3 where 358 deaths were recorded, needs proper background to put this into accurate perspective. Revelation by the Daily Mail last weekend that 95% of COVID-19 patients who have died had serious illnesses calls for detailed information about the level of seriousness of those illnesses in order to properly establish the role played by COVID-19 in those deaths. In the absence of such detailed information, we are potentially left with a shambolic situation in which the coronavirus may be taking more blame for deaths that should mainly be attributed to other causes.
Any possibility that the presence of certain serious illnesses in patients predisposes them to higher chances of contracting and/or dying from COVID-19, must be fully explored. It would be an affront to the intelligence of the nation to attribute those deaths to the deadly virus without due attention to the serious illnesses in question, and an exploration of the nature of those illnesses and their characteristics. The same principle is integral to an efficient analysis of patients with multiple underlying illnesses at work. This appears to be a major shortcoming in the reporting of news from the USA as well, which must put its astronomically high deaths in the full context of the underlying issues that is and have crippled the lives of its hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 victims.
On Sunday, it was revealed that there had been the highest number of coronavirus associated deaths recorded this Sunday. The substance of such news will always be questionable unless it si put in the context of full information about the range of underlying issues involved in those excess deaths. It also requires a historical assessment of the normal rise in weekend deaths pre- COVID-19. This is useful in enabling an objective assessment of how we should respond to news of high deaths associated with COVID-19.
Vigilance is paramount in these perilous times, where virus is claiming lives. With even a high percentage of deaths linked COVID-19 rooted in underlying issues, the outstanding 5% of those who have died without underlying issues is a high enough number of lives demanding caution. Notwithstanding, a proportionate response to the effect of the pandemic hinges on an informative outlook on the coronavirus. It is unacceptable for so called experts to recklessly or inadvertently mislead the British public.
Insight
Statistics linking the underlying issues with the rise in deaths will always provide greater insight into the seriousness of the virus. A rise in death on its own does not give an accurate picture of the impact of the coronavirus on the British public without an analysis of the factors that led to the associated rise.
The Uk lockdown, designed to bring the spread of the virus under control, ends on December 3. The curfew on pubs is to be relaxed, but most of the country will remain under high tiers. British households will be allowed to mix during the Christmas, in plans expected to be traded with a high tier grading system for the British public in January. All this on the premise it would aid the control of the virus. Yet, provision for such stringent measures could be patently flawed, if the many deaths purported to be the object of these series of restrictions, are predominantly caused by other factors, contrary to what we have been led to believe. More alarming would be how it eluded the notice of the British government officials. even with their very busy schedule.
Statistics revealing the ratio of those with underlying issues to the deaths, and the range of specific factors which may have acted as a catalyst to their deaths is necessary for a balanced understanding of the contributory factors to the eventual deaths, which can also be evaluated in the context of the infection rate during those periods. Reporting the rise in deaths during a given period must be measured against the rise in comparable periods in the past and other factors at work to best understand how the virus is truly spreading.
Comparison between the number of people with underlying issues catching or dying from the virus during one period of time compared with another, tells us how fast the coronavirus is spreading in that period among patients with commorbidities. The difference between the figure covering one period and another, subtracted from the overall figure gives of us the rate of change in the virus spread among those with no underlying issues.