The UK may be in the midst of a momentary wave of the coronavirus, with the number of cases shown exceeding the so-called peak of the first outbreak.
On September 27, another 5,693 people tested positive for the infection, a possible understatement due to the “weekend effect” when the notification rate is artificially low.
Still, this is a backlog of 5,130 cases shown on April 8, the same day the government reported a record 1,073 more people who died from the infection.
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As coronavirus cases rise across much of the UK, deaths remain low, with figures released on September 27 showing that another 17 people die within 28 days of testing positive.
Given that local lockdowns appear to be the ‘new normal’, many no doubt wonder how the backlog of coronavirus cases can now correspond to few deaths.
Analysis of the official figures suggests that the genuine rise of the coronavirus in the UK would possibly have been darker than ministers have claimed.
According to The Guardian, the actual death toll on April 8 was 1,445.
As of April 29, mortality figures announced at Downing Street press conferences only took into account other people who died in hospital as a result of a positive coronavirus test.
Afterwards, deaths in all settings were included in the count, adding those that showed symptoms but were not included in the sample.
Research suggests that at the height of the epidemic, more than 1,000 people died from the coronavirus in the UK every day for 22 consecutive days.
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In addition to many unreported deaths, inadequate testing means that thousands of cases have most likely been missed.
“The tests are much better now,” Professor Michael Tildesley of the University of Warwick told Yahoo UK.
“Six thousand instances shown is very different from the 6,000 instances shown in April.
“We are not the sensible thing to do because we are seeing more cases now. “
Professor James Naismith from the Rosalind Franklin Institute agreed, telling Yahoo UK: “Instances are not comparable, we had between 100,000 and 200,000 instances a day in March, we just had no way to get them. measure.
“We are [now in] a fraction of the cases [in which we were at the beginning of the epidemic].
“We were lucky if we detected one out of every 20 cases before testing.
This was echoed through Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who said on September 24: “We estimated through surveys that more than 100,000 people a day [in April] were contracting the disease, but we did not locate any. only about 6,000 and they tested positive ”.
Anyone with a fever, cough, or leak or odor indicative of coronavirus is encouraged to get tested.
On the occasion of a positive result, NHS trace and test formula workers knock to ask to touch the main points of other people the patient has recently spent time with.
The patient and their contacts are then informed to self-isolate for a period of 14 days, “without leaving home for any reason. “
The NHS test and track app was unveiled in England and Wales on September 24, scanning a user’s local domain for positive instances they might have been through.
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The formula as a whole has received harsh criticism, calling it a “weak and unfair defense” that “creates [a] false sense of security. “
However, around 220,000 individual tests are processed daily, and the government hopes to increase capacity to 500,000 during Halloween.
“We are testing [now] more people in the network than just hospitals or nursing homes,” said Professor Tildesley.
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While deaths appear to be quite low, experts fear that deaths will mount unless transmission of the coronavirus is reduced through local closures and other restrictions.
“There is a delay,” said Professor Tildesley. “Cases pile up before hospitalizations and deaths. “
On September 27, another 266 people in the UK were admitted to hospital with the coronavirus, up from 3,564 on April 1.
Although hospitalizations remain low, there has been an increase in cases among younger age groups, who are much less likely to spread headaches or symptoms, but can spread the infection without problems.
“Other young people can infect elderly parents,” said Professor Tildesley.
The Office for National Statistics revealed on September 28 that “positivity rates [in England] have increased over time among other people under the age of 35 who have had direct and socially remote contact with six other people or more. “
“[An infection] spreads first to other young people because they are outdoors and they are more social,” said Professor Naismith. “Most kids don’t even know they have it. “
Dr Michael, director of the University of Southampton, told Yahoo UK that “a shift from a younger population to a vulnerable population has been” demonstrated in recent weeks in France and Spain.
However, if other vulnerable people do become infected, advances in the remedy can lead to better results.
At the beginning of the epidemic, other people requiring hospitalization obtained supportive care, such as ventilation, as their immune systems worked to naturally fight the coronavirus.
In June, scientists at the University of Oxford found that the cheap steroid dexamethasone reduced the number of deaths in ventilated patients by a third.
A review of seven studies, coordinated through the World Health Organization (WHO), later found that dexamethasone and its steroid companions, hydrocortisone and methylprednisolone reduced the death rate by about a fifth (20%).
On the back of the results, the WHO has published rules to include steroids in the remedy of critically ill patients.
The NHS said it will “take swift action” to ensure that those who can benefit from steroids get them, “adding a weapon to the arsenal in the global fight against COVID-19 [the disease caused by the coronavirus]. “
“We know we have more to treat hospitalized patients,” said Professor Tildesley.
“Hospitalizations could possibly increase, but deaths cannot. Patients who are in poor enough health to go to the hospital may do better. “
Those who were vulnerable enough to become seriously ill with the coronavirus have been warned to possibly have died in the first wave, says Professor Naismith.
“There are new older people,” he says. “People are replenishing the fountain of older people.
“People are [now] six months older, six months more vulnerable, plus others [have been diagnosed with] diabetes [than at the beginning of the epidemic]. “
Any suggestion that herd immunity reduces the death rate is “just a hypothesis,” according to Professor Naismith.
Professor Tildesley agreed, adding, “We are still far from collective immunity. “