Quote Originally Posted by Mike T View Post
I agree that if someone dies under a bus 3 months after a positive test it is nonsense to call it a Covid death - but equally it is nonsense to say it is not a Covid death when someone dies due to Covid pneumonia 29 days after a positive test. And those excess deaths - it is generally agreed that many will be due to Covid - and even a delay in diagnosis/treatment of cancer resulting in death is indirectly due to Covid. As to the 250,000, we are according to some a quarter of the way there and it has only just started. I do not want this figure to be reached just because I predicted it! Only a vaccine will solve this. The sooner the better, obviously.
So if you agree that if someone dies under a bus 3 months after a positive test it is nonsense to call it a Covid death, why do you think these figures should continue to be published?

It is true that some people who die of Covid do so more than 28 days after contracting the virus but it is a small minority - 12% according to analysis done by PHE. So as I said the other day if the daily reported figure is say 9, the true figure might be 10. The old method could well say 100 and this discrepancy would get much larger over time. Also don't forget there will be a small number of people reported as having died of Covid within 28 days who died of something else, so still a possibility of over count.

As for the excess deaths over and above the reported Covid figures, I do not think the general agreement is that this is due to Covid. Both Sage and The Universities of Sheffield and Loughborough have said it was down to the non-treatment of other conditions due to lack of access. You may put that down to Covid, I put it down to a choice that was made. Even now, these services are still not back to the levels they should be despite most hospitals not having a single case of Covid in them.