Perhaps it could be due to so many of the most vulnerable having already died because they were stuck in nursing homes to infect other vulnerable seniors?
Europe is drowning in the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic. Infection rates are skyrocketing across the continent. Governments are imposing strict lockdowns. Economies are shutting down again. But there is a glimmer of hope: The virus, while still deadly, appears to be killing fewer people on average.
Recent case and fatality figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that while recorded Covid-19 cases are spiking in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany and other European countries, deaths are not rising at the same rate.
“The fatality rate has declined, in the UK, we can see it going down from around June to a low point in August,” said Jason Oke, a senior statistician at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. “Our current estimate is that the infection fatality rate is going up a little bit, but it hasn’t come up to anywhere near where we were and that’s unlikely to change dramatically unless we see a really surprising increase in the numbers of deaths.”
Oke has been tracking Covid-19 fatality rates along with his colleague Carl Heneghan of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and health economist Daniel Howdon. Their research shows that, at the end of June, the fatality rate was just below 3% in the UK. By August, it had dropped as low as about 0.5%. It now stands at roughly 0.75%.
So, it is now essentially the same as the regular flu. Perhaps herd immunity has something to do with it, and there was no need to lockdown countries, just isolate those who were the most vulnerable. And, again, why are cases going up when everyone is wearing a mask?
In fact, data gathered by researchers from London School of Economics’ long-term care responses to Covid-19 group shows that, on average, 46% of all Covid-19 deaths across 21 countries happened in care homes.
Thanks, Governor Cuomo.
“The Covid-19 virus is very stable, it is not mutating much at all,” said Dr. Julian Tang, clinical virologist and honorary associate professor at the University of Leicester. “The variation in severity of Covid-19 illness is really due to individual host immune responses together with age, sex, ethnicity and certain pre-existing medical conditions,” he added.
Lots of young folks are getting, but, they are not dying. Most are not even getting that sick.
The demographic shift may have contributed to the lower death toll, but experts suspect the fact that healthcare providers are now more experienced in dealing with Covid-19 patients is another factor.
So, all the stuff the Trump admin did is helping. How about that?
BTW, who ever thought that some of the merchandise for the Dodgers winning the World Series would be face masks? Yeah, I ordered them.
