I guess if you are used to riding the covid hobby horse and still trying to pull that panic cord, then that's all you care about.

Time to move on, something most of us have done but some are clearly struggling with. I am afraid indulging people with irrational fears about a virus which is really no longer a threat is not good for those people. To be blunt this is not good for your wellbeing to be obsessed with covid anymore.

As you’ve chosen to highlight this statistic, could you also explain why you conveniently chose to ignore the one which showed deaths from degenerative diseases such as Alzheimers and Dementia are at 1,200 per week, compared to 350 for Covid?

Some might suggest it makes your post a little unbalanced.

I highlighted it because it was wrong. Is correcting wrong figures a problem and unbalanced?

In a country of 60 million then 350 (approx) deaths a week out of 14,000 total deaths, all causes, a week - largely drawn from people over 80 years old - is a very diiferent proposition to the situation when 10,000 a week were dying from COVID-19 from a much wider age range. I certainly don't want to minimise the situation, it remains a dangerous respiratory virus, which has killed 220,000 citizens, with a known capacity to evolve rapidly, but the point I was responding to is that the impact on pensions is not now significant in terms of demography or pension liabilities. Lets put it this way, if we wanted now to improve average longevity we should be focus on dementia related conditions rather than COVID-19: While we could probably get the death rate down with restrictions that many would regard as draconian, that potential reduction is unlikely to be massive.

I don't t disagree with anything there. Although you make might look at an average over several months to compare. After all there was still 900-1100 deaths by COVID per week just 10 weeks ago.

I guess it is about re-allocating health care resources, but some of the changes seem careless. Why would you stop symptomatic testing for example in sensitive care facilities, like listed below, for an airborne respiratory virus, testing which could help prevent outbreaks?

The manner in which some members frequently pick out certain points to seemingly suit an agenda when other information from the same post still supports the general point is an example of being unbalanced (at best), yes.

That said, whilst I take a broad view in reading all the posts, where this consistently happens it allows me to put sufficient weight against some members' contributions to get closer to the true balance.

Weekly data:

England cases 2,335 (3,902 last Monday) - down 23% week on week
England deaths up 10.9% week on week
Patients admitted in England 770 (886 on the 27th)
Patients in hospital in England 7,005 (7,963 on the 22nd)
Patients in ventilation beds 165 (192 on the 29th)

In the week starting 26th March BA.5 accounted for 0.7% of cases, BQ.1 3.5%, BA2.75 3.5% BA.2 1.4%, CH.1.1 11.1%, XBB.1.5 44.4% and others 35.4%.

It was reported that the healthcare data would have disappeared by now, but it is still there...

Weekly data:

England cases 2,009 (2,422 last Monday) - down 36% week on week
England deaths up 10.9% week on week
Patients admitted in England 719 (770 on the 3rd)
Patients in hospital in England 6,428 (7,005 on the 5th)
Patients in ventilation beds 135 (165 on the 5th)

In the week starting 2nd April BA.5 accounted for 0% of cases, BQ.1 4%, BA2.75 1.3% BA.2 1.4%, CH.1.1 4%, XBB.1.5 53.7% and others 34.9%.

3 years late to the party - finally succumbed to c*vid. And annoyingly we know the source - Airlink flight from Skukuza to CPT last week - booked 10 months ago, front row seats, last minute plane change bumped to the back row of an E-135, sat behind a woman with an awful hacking cough, nowhere to escape to :mad:.

Daughter had a mild cough for 24 hours, I have some minor snivels, faint line on the old test chart, wife who is asthmatic has had a nasty wheezy chest for 5 days and a thick dark test line - suspect she would have suffered quite badly had she caught this back in the early days.

At least we now know it wasnt a hoax :D

You deserve a medal for avoiding it for so long. I hope you all are fully recovered soon and can enjoy some of the fine wines there :)

Weekly data:

England cases 1,901 (2,130 last Monday) - down 10.8% week on week
England deaths down 1.2% week on week
Patients admitted in England 659 (719 on the 10th)
Patients in hospital in England 5,590 (6,428 on the 12th)
Patients in ventilation beds 118 (135 on the 12th)

In the week starting 9th April BA.5 accounted for 0% of cases, BQ.1 5%, BA2.75 5% BA.2 0%, CH.1.1 5%, XBB.1.5 45% and others 40%. Some rounding going on in these figures now!

The number of PCR tests being done has dropped below 50,000 per week. That is where it was in March 2020 and compares with a peak of nearly 4 million at the end of 2021.

Weekly data:

England cases 1,630 (2,036 last Monday) - down 12.5% week on week
England deaths down 5.2% week on week
Patients admitted in England 525 (659 on the 17th)
Patients in hospital in England 4,809 (5,590 on the 19th)
Patients in ventilation beds 101 (118 on the 19th)

In the week starting 9th April BA.5 accounted for 0% of cases, BQ.1 5%, BA2.75 5% BA.2 0%, CH.1.1 5%, XBB.1.5 45% and others 40% (not updated).

I have tested positive today for my third time. I was in Gibraltar and suspect I know the source. Anyway, sorry if you were on BA491 yesterday - hopefully I was not infectious then! As usual for me the symptoms are very mild. I used my last NHS test, so any future infections will be missed. I threw out my last day 8 test too with the empty box. Now to notify my client. Thankfully I think it is their fault this time :)