Germany has 146000 cases of Covid-19 and 4706 deaths. The UK has 124000 cases and 16509 deaths. What are we doing wrong, do they just write you off if you have a pre existing condition or are over 60? That reason I ask is following a report on the BBC site of a woman of 82 from an ethnic community who died, 1 day after being admitted to hospital. Her family said they were told by the hospital that they could do nothing for her although she phoned them on the day of admission and sounded strong. There are no witnesses to treatment as no visitors are allowed. They obviously have a better health system than the UK as they have
increased spending over the past 20 years and greater testing facilities. However the difference in statistics is vast. This will probably upset a few people but it has to be asked.
Written by
2-10-0
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
The ability to reply to this post has been turned off.
I listened to your prime Minister it is Easy when you live 1000s of miles from anyone else. We are a very small Island that is packed to the gunnels with people. Probably more people travel on the Tube than live in NZ !!
Kia Ora Prada, yes I agree that it is more difficult to achieve in the UK what we have done in new Zealand but letting in hundreds of potentially infected cases at the border will totally undermine the efforts of social distancing, shielding etc, as you will continue to import new cases and outbreaks.
Population density and the cost of housing in the UK were my main reasons for migrating 25 years ago.
I have wondered this myself as well as how Italy has suffered so much too, I do think it has to be a multitude of things, the demographics, the social structure of a country as well as the health care system.
In addition to that we have no idea if there is any consistency between the countries to know if they are all following the same rules for how deaths are reported and how they determine if a death was solely covid 19 or a contributing factor.
Typically people that go on ventilators only have a 50% chance of recovery and there have been reports they do more harm than good.
We have lost a close family friend to COVID-19, he did have some pre existing conditions, but he was no means at deaths door, he was not on a ventilator but did have a pcap mask giving him oxygen. He had good days and bad days, somedays he was able to have a good conversation so I wouldn't read to much into something sinister in someone sounding strong one day and dying the next.
I think the true extent won't come out until next year, but I do understand that the Italian death rate is 20% higher than last year, so the data provided is not particularly in context.
Here in the USA every death is now being reported as a COVID 19 death-nothing being reported as anything else! The daily death toll in the USA prior COVID was 7500 people per day. Part of the reason for classifying all deaths as COVID is that the hospitals get government funding for each death reported as COVID and they say the hospitals don’t have time or staff to delve into the actual cause of death.
In Italy the one factor that seems to be not being reported are the number of Chinese Nationals that left the garment industry in Milan to go back to China to celebrate the Lunar New Year in late January then came back in February.
I also suspect many wealthy Chinese who were aware of the disease and its consequences fled their Country to Europe and other parts of the world. Geographically Wuhan is a suburb south and west of Shanghai. Here in the States the cities that are hotspots are are largely located in the NE - NYC the major hub from Europe where the Chinese flew into via European hubs after the ban on direct flights from China. We even had mega yachts coming in from Europe loaded with wealthy Chinese Nationals entering the ports of NYC and Miami. What a mess!
... and Thailand - similar population size to the UK - records (roughly speaking) 3,000 cases and 50 deaths. I could hazard a guess at some of the explanations between these two countries that I know well, see below, but it's going to take a lot of (essential analysis by the WHO) to get verifiable explanations in the 'washing-up' phase when this global round of infections has subsided.
Possible explanations for Thailand's reportedly much better performance:
* Under-recording of cases in Thailand - testing has deliberately been limited to those with Covid-type symptoms attending private or public hospitals. Minister of Health claims that the money has been better spent on tracking contacts from all cases and isolating. [I can personally verify that such tracking is taking place here - the Covid detection team called me when following up a lead;.it was a wrong number call, but showed that investigations are happening]
* Wearing of masks. Was quickly taken up by a lot of Thais and is since early this month ubiquitous. The WHO's early advice that masks are non-essential was outrageous - clearly designed to make sure masks only got to health workers, but could have been put across in a much more adult way so that the populace made their own equivalents.
* Thais don't always follow authorities' rules but in this instance they were largely terrified of the virus and have listened on physical distancing and mask wearing to a greater extent than in developed countries
* Closing of borders. Got off to a bad start in Thailand with a lot of Chinese let in for Chinese New Year celebrations. Luckily most of China except Wuhan (where they could not get out!) turned out to be low risk (I reckon). By late March Thailand had pretty much locked down all external borders and restricted internal travel (in both cases not perfectly, but relatively much tighter than the UK).
* Climate - high heat and humidity. Could finally be shown to be a significant factor. Many SE Asian nations also record much lower impact than Europe. Singapore has recently had a blow-out, but it's due to the virus getting into highly concentrated immigrant worker hostels, which don't feature so large in Thailand
* Treatments - the health minister referred recently to the use of two drugs for treatment (not sure how pervasively) - the chloroquine drug that Trump has been banging on about and the Japanese retrovirus drug ('Famiclovir' ?)
*Much lower population density. Probably a very significant factor. In my rural area in a province 60% the size of Yorkshire and one-quarter the population we had 8 recorded cases, all of whom have now recovered. Bankok has half the incidence of the entire country.
*Children here are inoculated with BCG for tuberculosis. Some believe this may have had a protective effect.
Many expats here believe the death numbers have been manipulated by the military dictatorship/democracy that they despise. Yes there will be some more deaths in the community but the conspiracy theorists can' t explain how the junta has persuaded the entire medical profession of Thailand (tens of thousands of intelligent educated doctors and nurses) to lie about death outcomes in hospital and no-one observes bodies piling up in mortuaries or even overflows of patients in hospitals. Not one of the many thousand expats living throughout the nation who appear on websites to parade their (understandable from a socio-political perspective) prejudices has given an example from their community of such an unrecorded death.
" The WHO's early advice that masks are non-essential was outrageous - clearly designed to make sure masks only got to health workers "
What so they could treat all the People who were not Wearing Masks ?? Sorry doesn't make sense to me.
Lets face it Everyone Got Some Parts of it Wrong. They are dealing with something never seen before. Everyone was expecting FLU not Corona Virus
If the Media are so concerned about lack of PPE, WHY did they not Flag it UP in 2019 telling everyone we will be getting a New Virus from China WHY because they didn't know either !!
No - not because they wanted to treat people - nothing so conspiracy-based as that. In fact for partly laudable reasons of wanting to ensure kit was reserved for healthcare workers.
However it seemed such an obvious one-dimensional approach when a more balanced recommendation was to steer the general populace away from the surgical masks and towards the simpler cloth masks. While the N95 masks are essential to wearers who need to stop the virus being spread to them it seems to be increasingly apparent that less sophisticated masks offer some protection against wearers spreading the virus to others. That is why the Asian culture of wearing masks exists. They wear them to stop spreading germs when they are ill, not to protect themselves from germs spread by others.
No witnesses to treatment? What other than the multitude of staff, cleaners and support staff that work in the hospital? This is not a conspiracy cover up and alarmist statements don't help people's nerves and easily get spread quoting them as fact.
Apart from the fact that this is a third person article you saw from probably a very upset family and very scant details, the lady in question is from the very highest risk areas.
As for the death rate compared to other countries there are so many variables it's impossible to give a definitive answer, it is certainly nothing to do with the abilities of the NHS. It is more likely related to the demographic of each country. If you look at Italy for example they have a much higher aged population and smoking there is still common place.
The UK may have a higher ethnic community than Germany, which accounts for a far higher mortality rate. A friend of mine who works at Papworth says that of the 52 patients in ITU 42 are from ethnic groups. (don't quote me on these figures as it was a few days ago I was talking about them and my mind is a bit hazy, but not too far out.
this is why people should avoid the media (written and spoken)
they say we ignored advise of the WHO. The same WHO who praised china for its fast action and who said it’s (spreading of covid) nothing to worry about!
that WHO?
we should listen to the WHO who are clearly in the pocket of china and who’s leader is a communist and a man who covers up other pandemics (cholera!)
The guardian are a joke and should be avoided. much like all media (left and right leaning)
do your own independent research. don’t follow stories from reporters who have an agenda.
I don't think this article is quite right. The Government was listening to the scientists. But the scientists were saying different things. The scientists advising the Government were going for this herd immunity idea, hence no universal lockdown. Then the Imperial College swung into action and the Government realised that following the herd immunity idea would lead to the NHS falling over. At that point lockdown began.
My son, who is a G.P., says that we should be careful about comparing countries because they test and report deaths differently. He says that rumour has it that Germany are registering a number of deaths as pneumonia or heart failure rather than Coronavirus.
eg despite a patient maybe being 90 and (sadly) about the pass away, they may have caught covid and their inevitable death will go down as died ‘with’ - and a number added to the total. but covid would have played no part in their actual passing.
Germany (as i understand don’t do this) plus the average age of germans catching it is much lower - so natural chance of being ok is higher.
There also population density and many other factors to take into account.
basically. comparing countries is akin to apples ands pears.
I very much agree with those who have said it's very difficult to compare countries. One factor may be relevant though. Angela Merkel is a scientist and can presumably engage with her advisers on their own terms. Taiwan has also done really well. Their Vice President is an epidemiologist. It must be hard for Boris not having a scientific background, especially when the scientists are taking different positions when faced with this novel virus.
I think it helps when your Chancellor is a highly regarded scientist in her own right. The difference between our nations is that Germany started testing hundreds of thousands right from the off.
One of statistics that hss not been made public is that: world wide each year over 1 billion people have seasonal flu: 640000 die from the condition: the daily stats on Covid 19 don't tell the full story. More than 91% of deaths are over 70 with underlying medical conditions. Many of these would have passed within a short period anyway. I personally know of two people who were at deaths door before they went into hospital. They were diagnosed as dying of Covid 19. In the UK 1500 die each day under normal circumstances. I'm not saying that Covid 19 is not a killer and that it is not highly transmttable desease. But the reporting is far more frightening than the actual situation. The reason for this is so as people stick to the rules and there is nothing wrong with that. However a little more honesty would be helpful. As an aside, about 90% of men over the age of 70 unknowingly have prostate cancer at the time of death. It could be said that 90% men die of prostate cancer, but they don't. The cancer just happens to be present it has nothing to do with their demise.
That is an awful case. I can’t comment on prevention of deaths but in my opinion, the use of masks in countries like Austria, South Korea and the Czech Republic have shown that the rate infection is drastically reduced and therefore the number of cases and subsequent deaths from the virus. The key is that everybody wears them so everybody protects each other. If this could be introduced so that mask wearing was compulsory outside the home, then not only coronavirus would be less threatening ,but other airborne diseases/illnesses would be less problematic too!
Couldn't agree more in that masks offer protection, hence that's why health services are using them and they also offer protection to other people if an infected person wears one.
You only have to look at the countries who have endorsed their use and they are doing much better than countries that don't.
Exactly! Plus the countries that also have widespread testing, follow-up and tracking in order to keep the infection under control are doing far better than us in the UK!
Hi guys, just a reminder that threads of this nature will need to be turned off or taken down if they become too off-topic, or we receive a high level of reports. We need to make sure the community doesn't become overrun, and it's not the place for these discussions. Thanks all.
The ability to reply to this post has been turned off.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Experience when having a stent fitted 
Worried after outpatient scan at hospital
What do the various troponin measures mean?
