Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf Best
According to the latest news there are one million cases in the country as we speak.
You have to ask the question will the vaccine rollout be quick enough to be effective, or will herd immunity be first past the post?
Grim thought isn't it
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Probably/hopefully that won't happen - it would be indicative of a complete collapse of the vaccination programme.
I came across a fairly clear breakdown of the wider health impacts of the virus some weeks back. It's from the US, so I haven't included the hospitalisation figures, but the rest reads as follows.
For every 1 who dies:
18 of those will have permanent heart damage for the rest of their lives
10 will have permanent lung damage
3 will have strokes
2 will have neurological damage that leads to chronic weakness and loss of coordination
2 will have neurological damage that leads to loss of cognitive function
UK deaths to date are just under 77000, so this means that the corresponding figures should be:
1,386,000 people with permanent heart damage, in addition to those who would have suffered this before the pandemic
770,000 more with permanent lung damage
231,000 more stroke victims
154,000 more people with neurological damage that leads to chronic weakness and loss of coordination
Hopefully this will help those who argue that the herd immunity approach is the one to pursue, on the basis that the death rate of "only" 1-2%, to understand what the costs of failing to restrict the spread of the virus really are.
I also saw from the NHS's own reports HERE that in England alone - i.e. not including figures for Scotland, Wales or NI - the total number of hospitalisations just with Covid (i.e. not any of the other reasons people might end up in hospital) had risen in the ten days between December 17th and December 27th from 1873 to 2572.
Another report, linked from the same page, showed that on December 2nd, in England the number of NHS staff absent due to Covid sickness or self-isolation was 32280.