The latest statistics from the CMI show that were it not for COVID – 2020 would have been the year of “staying alive”
The CMI judge that we have now surpassed 100,000 excess deaths in the pandemic. Their quote explains why other approaches passed that sad milestone sooner.
We are biased, but we consider the CMI approach to be the gold standard.
Link to full report: https://t.co/lMTwTyFib8 pic.twitter.com/ZBalWu6gvc
— COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (@COVID19actuary) February 16, 2021
You may remember that at the start of the pandemic, when many Covid-19 related deaths were not being recorded (as such), “excess deaths” were running ahead of Covid deaths and now it’s the other way round, that’s because we had a remarkably healthy year in 2020 – Covid aside.
This is surprising as you’d have thought that the strain on the NHS would have led to more patients without Covid dying sooner.
What we’ll have to wait for is whether the long-term impact of Covid will feed through in an upswing of deaths in 2021 and 2022 from conditions under-treated in 2020. But right now these numbers seem to show that not only did our health service cope with the pandemic, but it ddn’t stint on its non-Covid duties, despite the record 10m that Reform claim could be on hospital waiting lists later this year.
Let’s deal in facts and not speculation.
The facts of infections , admissions and deaths today.
Regionally, all areas continue to fall in a relatively consistent manner, in the range -20% to -33%.
Given the very steady pattern we are now seeing, we plan to move these updates to twice weekly, future updates being on Tuesday and Friday.
4/4 pic.twitter.com/xTVAo7bdFB
— COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (@COVID19actuary) February 16, 2021
The lockdown is clearly working, the public’s behaviour is relieving the NHS and the NHS is relieving the public. This is a good news story which will be supplemented by the positive impacts of the vaccines. Are these already being experienced in lower infections and hospital admissions?
Our Tuesday update on NHS England’s admissions and deaths continues to see both maintaining their sustained downward trajectory.
Admissions are currently falling at around 25% per week, and are now well below the first wave peak. We’ll look at the regional picture later.
1/4 pic.twitter.com/3B7S2haJeU
— COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (@COVID19actuary) February 16, 2021
And the R rate is steady too with a prospect of becoming redundant as the impact of vaccination kicks in, requiring an R (1.1)
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-conversation=”none”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Our estimate of 'R' remains at around 0.75, based on recent admissions.<br><br>We expect the fall in older age admissions due to vaccinations will soon break this assumed link with overall community infections, at which point we will discontinue reporting this estimate.<br><br>2/4 <a href=”https://t.co/nQiTgFv7hb”>pic.twitter.com/nQiTgFv7hb</a></p>— COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group (@COVID19actuary) <a href=”https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1361731543903989764?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 16, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
What this adds up to is a “weathering of the storm” for which we jointly and severally should be feeling proud of ourselves .
Of course the news stories continue to focus on illegal partying and occasional fines for anti-social behavior, of course radical think tanks talk of the breakdown of the NHS, but the evidence is that this is the NHS’s finest hour and it is the general public who have helped bring admissions and infections to a point where the NHS may see light ahead.
