UK Government confirms Covid-19 harmless to VAST MAJORITY of people

Just a little reminder that today Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer, confirms Covid-19 harmless to the vast majority of people:

"...A significant proportion of people will not get this virus at all at any point in this epidemic which is going to go on for a long period of time. Of those who do, some of them will get the virus without even knowing it. They will have the virus with no symptoms at all, asymptomatic and we know that happens. Of those who get the symptoms, the great majority probably 80% will have a mild or moderate disease, might be bad enough for them to go to bed for a fews day but not bad enough for them to have to go to the doctor. An unfortunate minority will have to go as far as hospital but the majority of those will just need oxygen and will then leave hospital. And then a minority of those will end up having to go to severe end critical care and some of those sadly will die, but that's a minority, it's 1% or possibly even less than 1% overall. Even in the highest risk group which is significantly less than 20%, the great majority of people, even the very highest risk groups, if they catch this virus, will not die..."

When we see 'Daily cases of Covid-19' stats, these mean how many people have tested positive. It doesn’t mean deaths. As more people are getting tested it makes sense that these numbers are increasing.

The less than 1% who die tend to be very old and frail, in general, with multiple comorbidities. Many of the reported deaths were from Care home settings at the beginning of the Pandemic but it is unclear whether they were allowed to die with a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) Order in place or from other reasons such as a lack of medical care. GPs are still not allowed to visit the Care homes to treat their patients as a matter of policy.

Sadly the daily death stats we are presented with don't define whether the less than 1% of deaths occurred directly or indirectly from Covid-19. If we removed those that were already very sick who died indirectly then the death stats we'd be left with are the direct deaths and would be even lower still.