Coronavirus

Quoted from mariner91

You realise that an underlying condition can be something as innocuous as asthma right? Having an underlying condition doesn’t mean someone is already at death’s door.

Of course I realise that and any other medical condition. My point is that every death that mentions covid on the death certificate is blasted around the press/tv as a covid death. We are not told how many people who unfortunately passed away also already suffer asthma, copd, heart disease, cancer etc. The figures are manipulate to provide a headline.

As I post other queries on official figures and had replies their is no answer to my very fair original question which was 'How many people have died from covid with nothing else on thei death certificate'.

Quoted from DB

Of course I realise that and any other medical condition. My point is that every death that mentions covid on the death certificate is blasted around the press/tv as a covid death. We are not told how many people who unfortunately passed away also already suffer asthma, copd, heart disease, cancer etc. The figures are manipulate to provide a headline.

As I post other queries on official figures and had replies their is no answer to my very fair original question which was 'How many people have died from covid with nothing else on thei death certificate'.

It's a pretty irrelevant question though. A condition such as asthma or diabetes if well controlled is not life threatening very often, the patient would likely live for many more years and not die because of those conditions. Even heart disease, people can live with heart disease or heart failure for years and years if it's spotted early and treated properly. Covid affects people with these problems far worse than people who don't have them for various reasons and that's why a very large percentage of people have these co-morbidities. But just because somebody has a co-morbidity doesn't make it a "lesser" death. It's still a death where Covid likely played an important role in cutting that patient's life shorter than it would have been otherwise. Or do they not matter because they had a co-morbidity?

I had to go to Ipswich (20 miles ) yesterday for another covid  test having spent time in hospital last week.

The A14 was as busy as a normal day.

They can't have all be going for a test.

So the ambulance man who said to me last week if I don't have covid when I go into hospital I will when I come out was wrong.

Glad to hear you’re well Pete.

Quoted from mariner91

Glad to hear you’re well Pete.

Thanks mate.

Quoted from DB

Of course I realise that and any other medical condition. My point is that every death that mentions covid on the death certificate is blasted around the press/tv as a covid death. We are not told how many people who unfortunately passed away also already suffer asthma, copd, heart disease, cancer etc. The figures are manipulate to provide a headline.

As I post other queries on official figures and had replies their is no answer to my very fair original question which was 'How many people have died from covid with nothing else on thei death certificate'.

The key number is excess deaths. Don't start worrying about what the death certificate does or doesn't say. The excess deaths for the year are an easy comparison with earlier (and later) years and, when you consider that the weather was pretty mild last year and there wasn't much of a flu epidemic due to the distancing, hand-washing, masking and so forth, the numbers show high levels. We'll understand a lot more about it in a year or two but it is likely that our numbers of deaths will remain bad in comparison to those of many of our peers.

Quoted from mariner91

It's a pretty irrelevant question though. A condition such as asthma or diabetes if well controlled is not life threatening very often, the patient would likely live for many more years and not die because of those conditions. Even heart disease, people can live with heart disease or heart failure for years and years if it's spotted early and treated properly. Covid affects people with these problems far worse than people who don't have them for various reasons and that's why a very large percentage of people have these co-morbidities. But just because somebody has a co-morbidity doesn't make it a "lesser" death. It's still a death where Covid likely played an important role in cutting that patient's life shorter than it would have been otherwise. Or do they not matter because they had a co-morbidity?

The figure banded about on other posts about covid deaths is 100,000( and it's 100,000 too many). All I was looking for was some kind of break down, which of course there isn't.

In answer to your question ' Or do they not matter because they had a co-morbidity?' every death matters regardless of cause.

The article below explains two of the myths in circulation quite well after comments such as:

"The best thing is to view any official figures with a healthy dose of scepticism."


‘Covid is no worse than flu'


On Tuesday, the government announced that 100,000 Covid-19 deaths had occurred in the UK. Yet some people are still disputing the numbers. I have been an NHS acute hospital doctor for 32 years and have been working on Covid wards for many months. I have sadly seen hundreds of people with the condition and certified many deaths.  

So let me clear up some of the most common myths and misunderstandings I have heard since the pandemic has grown.


1. People are dying with Covid, not from Covid

This is a wilful misunderstanding of how doctors certify cause of death (and were doing so well before anyone had even heard of Covid-19).

The certificate must be completed by a doctor who was responsible for the care of the person during their final illness to “the best of your knowledge and belief”. It is based on the course of the person’s clinical picture, investigations, treatment, and their previous medical history. For deaths in hospital, certificates are also discussed with a doctor who is an independent medical examiner of deaths. Cremation papers are also scrutinised for accuracy.


Death certification is a solemn and serious professional duty and there would be serious professional or criminal consequences for falsifying certificates. We are also very aware that bereaved families read them and may be affected by what they see.  

There is no financial incentive or push from any regulator to inflate the number of Covid-19 deaths, nor play them down, no credible motive and no evidence that this is happening. The idea that 300,000 registered medical practitioners in the UK are all colluding to cover up such a plot, along with coroners and medical examiners, is risible.

In 90 per cent of cases for which Covid-19 is recorded on a certificate, it features as an “underlying cause of death”. The straw man that we routinely write it on certificates for people who died of something different is demonstrably false and made clear in both Office for National Statistics figures and in independent explainer and fact checker articles from Sarah Scobie of the Nuffield Trust and Venagh Raleigh of the King’s Fund.



2. Reporting deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test could be death from anything

This is the government’s preferred method of reporting the numbers since the summer of 2020. However, the politically independent ONS data is based on what doctors write on death certificates (whenever or whether a Covid-19 test has been performed) and this methodology has not changed. Doctors don’t take any account of the 28-day rule when certifying.

Plenty of people who develop Covid-19 are sick enough to stay in hospital for weeks before death. A recent analysis of more than 40,000 UK Covid discharges by Leicester University showed that over a five month follow up period, around 30 per cent of people are readmitted and nine per cent die, often with complications of long Covid. They were 3.5 times more likely to be readmitted during that period and seven times more likely to die than patients discharged with non-Covid diagnoses.

If anything, the government’s preferred method of counting under-estimates the real death toll. A recent Guardian analysis suggested that this underestimate was about 20 per cent.

Guardian analysis 😂

Quoted from Humbercod

Guardian analysis 😂

I know-it’s absolutely ridiculous isn’t it! The cheek of it. Dispelling internet nonsense with the first hand experience of a veteran Doctor! Where do they get off?