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gizedcom · 4 years

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Covid-19 was still the third most common cause of death in June

Covid-19 was still the third most common cause of death in England and Wales in June, even though the darkest days of crisis are over.

One in 14 deaths were caused by the coronavirus in June – the same month Number 10 began to relax strict lockdown measures.

The disease was written on 2,525 death certificates, meaning 50,335 confirmed or suspected Covid-19 deaths have been recorded over the course of the pandemic.

But coronavirus deaths in June were significantly lower than they were in May, when the life-threatening infection accounted for a fifth of all fatalities.

And it’s the first time since March that the coronavirus was not the leading cause of death, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) data released today.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s took the lead for the most frequent underlying cause of death in June, accounting for 10 per cent of fatalities.

All leading causes of death have decreased below the five-year average but ONS statisticians did not provide any explanation as to why.

Covid-19 was still the third most common cause of death in England and Wales over June. Dementia and Alzheimer’s took the lead for the most frequent underlying cause of death followed by heart disease. The leading causes of death are shown per 100,000 of the population

Covid-19 deaths have drastically declined in numbers since the peak of the pandemic. Pictured left are trends from March to June in England, and right, in Wales

The ONS reports that over the course of the pandemic – between 1 March and 30 June – Covid-19 has been the cause of 23 per cent of all deaths.

Of the 218,837 deaths that occurred in England and Wales between this period, the virus was written on 50,335 death certificates.

In the majority of instances (92 per cent), it was the primary reason and not just a contributing factor.

The figure is significantly higher than the government’s figure (45,100) because it accounts for people who were suspected to have died of Covid-19, and not just those who had a lab confirmed test.

Covid-19 still accounted for 7.1 per cent of the roughly 35,000 deaths in June – more than that caused by cancerous lung, colon or rectum tumours, or strokes.

Covid-19 deaths continued to be the most common in those aged over 85 years compared with any other age group, and in men compared with women.

Many parts of the lockdown imposed in March were unravelled by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in June as new daily deaths and cases declined.

Schools opened on June 1, the same day up to six people from different households were allowed to meet for the first time in months.

Non-essential retail opened up to shoppers once again on June 15, causing huge queues and crowds in some places, and social distancing was relaxed from two metres to one.

England’s beaches continued to be flooded with Britons throughout June, often in crowds with little social distancing at all.

But for the first time since March, the coronavirus was not the leading cause of death in England and Wales in June.

Dementia and Alzheimer disease came on top, causing 3,715 deaths – 10.2 per cent of the total deaths recorded in June. This was followed by ischaemic heart diseases, for which a breakdown was not provided.

WHAT WERE THE MOST COMMON CAUSES OF DEATH PER 100,000 PEOPLE?Leading causeJun-205-year averageDementia and Alzheimer disease7795.5Ischaemic heart diseases64.694.5COVID-19530Cancerous lung tumour40.852.8Cerebrovascular diseases, including stroke and aneurysms37.450.9Chronic lower respiratory diseases29.346.1Cancerous tumour of rectum/colon/anus22.726.4Symptoms signs and ill-defined conditions20.721.4Flu and pneumonia18.337.4Cancerous tumour stated or presumed to be primary of lymphoid, haematopoietic and related tissue16.420.6

Deaths continued to be the most common in those aged over 85 years compared with any other age group, and in men compared with women

Is Britain’s coronavirus outbreak GROWING?

Britain’s coronavirus outbreak may be growing following a spike in the number of people with symptoms over the past week, data suggests.

King’s College London’s COVID Symptom Tracker app estimates 2,100 people are catching the virus in the community every day — up from 1,400 last week.

The increase is too small to say definitively that the outbreak is growing once again because other, more official estimates put the daily new cases between 1,700 and 3,300 with downward trends.

But the scientists confirmed the epidemic had ‘definitely levelled off’ and claimed cases are only dropping in the Midlands, which contains Leicester – the city still in the UK’s first local lockdown.

KCL experts, working with health tech company ZOE, collected data on symptoms and test results from four million UK citizens between June 28 and July 11. It is one of several surveillance projects tracking the spread of the disease in Britain.

The vast majority of the new cases — 1,843 — are appearing in England, along with 185 per day in Wales and 75 in Scotland. No estimates were made for Northern Ireland.

Data shows the virus is spreading most widely in the North East of England and Yorkshire, which is still experiencing 401 daily cases.

The second worst-hit region is the Midlands, where there are still 363 new daily cases, many of which would have been in Leicester, which has had to roll back its easing of lockdown because of rising infections.

In the North West, 321 people are catching the virus every day. Some extra restrictions came into force in the Lancashire authorities of Blackburn with Darwen and Pendle yesterday because cases are creeping up again.

Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at KCL and lead researcher behind the app, said it was clear ‘the virus is not going away any time soon’ and that his team were monitoring he situation closely.

Deaths from these diseases have decreased below what would be expected when comparing to a five year average, and are lower than levels seen in March.

The ONS did not offer an explanation for why this may be.

It follows data earlier this week that showed the number of people dying of all causes has now been below average for three weeks in England and Wales.

It could be speculated that a large proportion of people who have been recorded as a Covid-19 death have had dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Of the deaths that have involved the coronavirus during the pandemic, nine in ten victims had at least one pre-existing condition.

The most common are dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (a quarter), and heart disease (nine per cent).

Covid-19 deaths have drastically declined in numbers since the peak of the pandemic.

Across the bleak months of March and April, when lockdown was in full force, 26.7 per cent of deaths involved Covid-19, according to the ONS.

On April 8, data shows 1,292 people died of Covid-19, account for 40 per cent of the total 3,204 deaths from any cause.

Things improved in May, the same month the PM first announced changes to the lockdown, including to allow unlimited exercise. Covid-19 accounted for 21.6 per cent of all deaths.

Data from ONS shows the number of confirmed or suspected coronavirus deaths has continued to fall in every region of England over the past 11 weeks, suggesting the outbreak is still be slowing down.

However, it is not clear yet what the effect of the most drastic lifting of lockdown measures – on ‘Super Saturday’, July 4 – will be because it can take weeks for patients to die.

Millions flocked to pubs to celebrate ‘Super Saturday’ last weekend to celebrate the easing of the draconian measures — despite warnings from top scientists that it would cause another spike in cases.

And since, figures have suggested that Britain’s coronavirus outbreak may be getting worse.

Department of Health figures show the average number of new cases jumped six per cent this week in the first week-on-week rise since early May.

Data collected by King’s College London also suggests the outbreak is growing, estimating that 2,100 people are catching the virus in the community every day — up from 1,400 last week.

The increase is too small to say definitively that the outbreak is growing once again because other, more official estimates from Public Health England, put the daily new cases between 1,700 and 3,300 with downward trends.

King’s College London ‘s COVID Symptom Tracker app estimates that 2,100 people are catching the virus in the community every day, up from 1,200 last week. For comparison, daily infections were above 11,000 last month

Matt Hancock launches urgent review into fiasco at Public Health England as it’s revealed anyone who has ever died after testing positive for Covid-19 has been recorded as a ‘coronavirus death’ – even if they were hit by a bus

BySam Blanchard Senior Health Reporter For Mailonline

Health Secretary Matt Hancock today ordered Public Health England to review the way it counts deaths because of a ‘statistical flaw’ that means officials are ‘over-exaggerating’ the daily toll.

PHE counts people as victims if they die of any cause any time after testing positive for Covid-19 – even if they were hit by a bus months after beating the life-threatening infection, top academics revealed last night.

The method is likely why the daily fatality tolls are not dropping quickly in England because survivors never truly recover from the disease as their deaths are blamed on the coronavirus – regardless of their real cause.

One of the leading experts who uncovered the flaw told MailOnline his ‘best guess’ was that more than 1,000 people have had their deaths wrongly recorded as caused by Covid-19.

Dr Yoon Loke, a pharmacologist at the University of East Anglia, warned that it is ‘not a good way of collecting data’, has had a significant impact in the past two months and is happening because PHE ‘chose a quick and easy technique’.

And the daily death tolls may not hit zero ‘for months to come’ because of a long tail of elderly people who beat Covid-19 but will die of other causes, Dr Loke added. He uncovered the flaw alongside Oxford University’s Professor Carl Heneghan.

He said: ‘By this PHE definition, no one with Covid in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness.’

Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed in a press conference today that the Health Secretary has ordered PHE to review the way it is counting people’s deaths.

The call for a review comes after a string of mistakes at PHE, including stopping testing and tracing at the peak of Britain’s outbreak. Tory MP David Davis this month told this website the organisation had ‘made a complete mess’ of Covid-19 testing.

Dr Loke’s analysis shows that ‘all settings’ deaths (red bar) remain very high in England even as hospital deaths (blue bar) – which the Office for National Statistics says should make up two thirds of the total – have plummeted

A Department of Health spokesperson said today: ‘The Health Secretary has asked Public Health England to conduct an urgent review into the reporting of deaths statistics, aimed at providing greater clarity on the number of fatalities related to Covid-19 as we move past the peak of the virus.’

The way PHE counts victims on a daily basis works by it combing through records of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in the past to see if they have died. If they have, their death is automatically added to the coronavirus count.

It means that if, for example, somebody tested positive in April but recovered and was then hit by a bus in July, they would still be counted as a Covid-19 victim.

Dr Loke pointed out that unless PHE changes its system, all 292,000 people who have tested positive so far will be added to the Covid-19 death toll when they eventually die.

The Department of Health, which uses PHE’s data for its daily announcements, has so far counted 45,119 fatalities with 66 announced yesterday.

The ‘statistical flaw’ should not drastically affect the total number of deaths but means the ongoing death tolls appear worse than the reality. The Office for National Statistics – which is not affected by the counting method – has confirmed at least 50,698 people have died in England and Wales up to July 3.

Public Health England admitted it is counting the deaths of anyone who tests positive for Covid-19, regardless of how long afterwards they died.

The number of deaths being announced each day is higher than the reality, scientists say, because not all of them actually died of Covid-19 – some tested positive weeks or months ago and died of other causes but are still included in the list

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has called for an urgent review into the way deaths are being counted by Public Health England

Dr Loke explained: ‘It seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not.

‘PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the Covid test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community.

‘Anyone who has tested Covid positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE Covid death figures… even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.’

The pharmacologist, who published his findings in a blog post last night, said the bizarre way of recording deaths is why there are such wide variations in daily figures.

On Monday July 6, for example, 16 deaths were recorded, while 152 were announced the next day on Tuesday the 7th.

FOR WHAT ELSE HAS PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND COME UNDER FIRE?

Public Health England has been in the firing line for a number of dubious decisions taken during the coronavirus pandemic.

STOPPING TEST & TRACE

When the first cases of coronavirus appeared in the UK, Government policy was to test everyone who had symptoms after returning from abroad and to trace people they had come into contact with.

However, on March 12, testing and contact tracing stopped completely. PHE no longer had the capacity to test the amount of people who were coming into the country infected with the virus after trips to Italy and France in half-term.

The decision has since been branded disastrous and a contributing factor to the UK’s devastating outbreak.

‘THEY WERE OVER-CONTROLLING’

Conservative MP David Davis told MailOnline this month that Public Health England had been over-controlling and made a mess of coronavirus testing.

The Tory MP said: ‘They made a complete mess of the testing arrangements; they were over-centralised, over-controlling and massively reduced our ability to test.’

He warned the decision – criticised heavily by top scientists at the time – then ‘handicapped’ later decisions and was ‘precisely the wrong thing to do’.

‘Before the winter crisis, the government has to reorganise this, whether that’s abolition or taking some of the powers away from them and giving them to someone else,’ he added.

OVERLOOKING LOCAL AUTHORITIES

Public Health England kept too much power over testing and contact tracing and should have delegated it to local authorities, one expert said.

Professor John Ashton, a former public health director, said Britain should have followed the example of Cuba where local teams went from house to house screening people for coronavirus.

He said: ‘The local public health level has been neglected. I think we’ve missed an opportunity because we should have made more use of primary care, local government and volunteers…

‘Instead what we did was a very top-down, London-centric approach.’

The Department of Health has blamed low numbers on Sundays and Mondays on a ‘weekend effect’ which means paperwork doesn’t get completed.

But academics are increasingly confused about why there are such wild variations, and why the number of deaths seems to remain so high.

And it appears to be simply that anyone who dies after being added to a register of people who have tested positive is classified as a victim.

It is currently impossible to know how many of the deaths announced by the Department of Health were not actually caused directly by Covid-19.

Dr Yoon Loke said the error has emerged because Public Health England chose a ‘quick and easy technique’

Dr Loke told MailOnline: ‘This is a very serious issue for public confidence.

‘When you go onto social media you will see hundreds of posts from rightly anxious people who are petrified at the seemingly relentless, unyielding daily death toll in England. The public are scared.

‘The public are asking questions about why England is doing so badly, when actually the truth is that the healthcare professionals in NHS are doing a great job in ensuring thousands of Covid survivors. The statistics here are misleading the public.

‘Because of this major flaw in the statistics, and the fact that tens of thousands of older people are being monitored, there is going to be a very very long tail of daily deaths.

‘The death toll will go down exceedingly slowly. It’s certainly not going to get to zero for months to come yet, because older people who have recovered from Covid will unfortunately still succumb to other illnesses.’

Professor Carl Heneghan and Dr Jason Oke, Oxford University researchers who published Dr Loke’s work on their website, said that officials also seem to be spreading out historical deaths and just adding them on to ones that are happening now.

The pair pointed out the death counts from NHS England, which are accurate around three days after the date in question, are too low to match counts from PHE.

According to the Office for National Statistics, hospital fatalities now make up around 60 per cent of all deaths that happen on any given day.

On June 30, NHS England recorded 27 fatalities. If this was 60 per cent of all deaths that happened on that day the total number would be 45.

But the Department of Health, using PHE’s data, announced 115 more deaths on that day.

Dr Loke now suggests these massively inflated numbers are because PHE is counting people who died outside of hospital but didn’t die of coronavirus at all.

He wrote: ‘PHE data confirm that more than 125,000 patients have been admitted to NHS hospitals for Covid, the majority being successfully treated and discharged.

‘There are now less than 1,900 patients in hospital. So, roughly 80,000 recovered patients in the community will continue being monitored by PHE for the daily death statistics.

‘More and more people (who are mainly in the older age group) are being discharged to the community, but they clearly may die of other illnesses.’

Dr Loke said it would be a ‘reasonable approach’ to set a three-week limit on blaming someone’s death on coronavirus unless they were in hospital.

Public Health England told MailOnline that the World Health Organization has not defined a time limit for counting a death as caused by Covid-19, and said it ‘continues to keep this under review’.

It admitted that a coronavirus death is a death that happens to anyone who has previously tested positive, regardless of how long ago the test happened.

It said the ‘vast majority’ of Covid-19 deaths are correctly identified.

Dr Loke added: ‘This statistical flaw arose because PHE chose a quick and easy technique.

‘Their statistical method is reasonably accurate at the beginning of the pandemic, when there were not yet many people in the community who had survived Covid.

‘However, PHE did not – and have not yet – realised that glaring inaccuracies arise when tens of thousands of frail older people are discharged from hospital, and these Covid survivors unfortunately die from other, non-Covid related causes.

‘Like most things that are a quick fix, the monitoring system eventually churns out gibberish, and needs a thorough overhaul so that a lasting solution is implemented.’

Dr Susan Hopkins, Public Health England’s incident director, said: ‘Although it may seem straightforward, there is no WHO agreed method of counting deaths from Covid-19.

‘In England, we count all those that have died who had a positive Covid-19 test at any point, to ensure our data is as complete as possible.

‘We must remember that this is a new and emerging infection and there is increasing evidence of long term health problems for some of those affected. Whilst this knowledge is growing, now is the right time to review how deaths are calculated.’

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mikemortgage · 6 years

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Testing Apple’s new Screen Time parental controls: First came tears, then frustration.

“Don’t set the time limit. I can be reasonable!” pleads 9-year-old Tazio, looking up from his iPad.

It’s not always fun owning an iPad that a parent can remotely shut off. Also not easy: Trying to parent via new digital “Screen Time” controls.

Coming soon to an iPad or iPhone near you, Apple’s iOS 12 adds menus, buttons and bar charts to help monitor and control what kids (and adults) do with their devices. It’s a good thing that Apple, along with Amazon and Google, now acknowledge tech can be disruptive, if not addictive.

But anyone looking for help from this software may be in for a surprise. It might make parenting more difficult. One example: Apple’s bad default settings give kids access to NC-17 movies, explicit books and the entire web — even when it knows their exact age.

We have reached ‘peak screen’ — now revolution is in the air as tech giants work to give our eyes a break

‘The only electricity we use is one lamp’: Apple execs, Facebook billionaires embrace tech diets for devices, services they helped create

Digital Life: Cutting back on a constant smartphone habit

A focus on the family is overdue. As of 2017, 42 per cent of American kids ages 0 to 8 have their own tablets — and 78 per cent have access to one somewhere in the home, according to the nonprofit Common Sense Media. Most of these are iPads, often hand-me-downs, offered with trepidation to kids who zone out like zombies or melt down when they’re taken away. Apple has previously offered some parental restrictions, but they were incomplete.

Is there a kid-proof tablet? For the last few weeks, I’ve been conducting an experiment with Tazio, the 9-year-old son of my editor. He wanted his first tablet — and his mother was wary. So I set up the family with two devices: One is a US$330 iPad running a pre-release version of iOS 12 with Screen Time (available widely in the coming weeks). The other is one of the iPad’s few competitors in the family market, the US$200 Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Edition tablet running Amazon’s version of Android.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, but I review all technology with the same critical eye.

Playing technical adviser to navigate this real family challenge, I was surprised how difficult Apple’s parental software was to use. Even discounting for beta-software bugs Apple will hopefully squash, Screen Time is one of Apple’s weakest software launches in years. Apple treats parents like IT administrators for their kids, saddled with a zillion choices to make and knobs to adjust.

Amazon’s Fire Kids Edition was designed as a product for kids, and is more like a day care where someone else has picked the books and games, put deadbolts on all the doors and painted the walls electric blue. It’s a safer place to leave kids than Appleland, but the kids may get bored – and be jealous of the fun friends are having elsewhere.

I don’t mean to discourage parents from using these tools. But I recommend going in understanding how the software works, and how much it will require of you.

_ _ _

How Apple Screen Time works – and doesn’t

Our experiment began in tears.

Tazio, my pint-size reviewer, was setting up his iPad when his younger brother happened by. He wanted an iPad, too, but we only had one. An epic meltdown ensued.

Why couldn’t we share? Blame Apple, little buddy: It designed iOS 12 to work with only one account per device (outside of schools) and Tazio was already using it.

A child account is at the heart of how Screen Time works. Parents create one through their own Apple ID settings, assigning the kid his own email address and password that’s associated with a guardian. It gives parents the power to approve downloads and control functions. (The video above walks through the setup basics.)

Here’s the next head scratcher: Even though Apple knows the child’s age, the default settings are not child-appropriate. They don’t restrict explicit content, add privacy protections such as limiting sharing location data or spare kids annoying system questions. Yes, parents can remotely change these settings and approve media purchases, but defaults matter.

Parents can decide what apps are available, what chunk of the day the iPad is off limits, and how many minutes different categories of apps (such as games) can be used. They get a bar-chart readout of the child’s device use during the current day and the previous week.

Managing settings on your own device is a once-every-few months thing. Managing Screen Time for kids is much more work because parenting requires frequent negotiation. Aside from a first-time setup window that covers some Screen Time features, controls can be buried behind half a dozen clicks in settings menus where few venture. Even I couldn’t figure out how to set a daily time limit for a specific app without asking Apple for instructions.

We also found loopholes. If you’re watching a video on Netflix and then press the home button to make it appear as a picture-in-picture, the minutes won’t count against your Screen Time limit. Junior could watch all day long.

Time limits are rigid, and especially annoying for kids when they’re almost at the end of a game or movie. Tazio came to treat his limits like an allowance, guarding them carefully and using them as a negotiating tactic with mom.

Apple does let kids request time extensions, which pop up as a notification on parents’ devices. If you’re thinking those requests might get annoying quick, you’re right.

– – –

The Amazon Alternative

Where Apple left Tazio’s mom to make lots of choices, Amazon pre-decided many for her — for better and worse.

The biggest difference is that Fire Kids Edition tablets come with a year’s worth of Amazon’s FreeTime Unlimited service, which includes access to 15,000 apps and games, videos, books, and educational content from sources including PBS Kids, Nickelodeon and Disney. (After a year, they charge US$3 per month for Prime members.) Based on the kids’ age and gender, Amazon shows the kids content it thinks they might be interested in. Tazio got a lot of Star Wars.

Amazon says it has vetted all that content, had most ads removed, as well as removed appeals for in-app purchase upgrades (none of which Apple did). While kids can peruse all that content, there’s no app or bookstore in the kids mode. Parents can buy and manually add in other apps, movies and books purchased from Amazon via their own accounts.

Amazon’s tablet can also be shared by parents and multiple siblings, each of whom get their own age-tailored experience by swapping logins. (Younger brother crisis averted.)

Also unlike Apple, Amazon by default puts additional restrictions in place for all apps that run in its Kids Edition tablets. They can’t send location data to third parties. Talking assistant Alexa is turned off.

With the Fire, parents access a dashboard view of their child’s account through a web link that, like Apple’s Screen Time, includes data about what he’s doing on his device that day and over the previous week, as well as the ability to set time restrictions for types of activity. An app would have been superior to its website, but it did offer an awesome button missing from Apple: “Pause devices” now.

Amazon’s software also allows parents to incentivize behavior. We set Tazio’s Fire tablet to allow him to play games only after he had completed a half-hour of reading. It worked. He even woke up early to burn through his reading so he could get to his game time.

The problem with all this: Tazio could sort of tell he was getting the “Truman Show” treatment from the Fire. He wanted to be able to send messages, but Amazon doesn’t have a built-in app for that. Tazio also wanted to play Fortnite, but Amazon doesn’t offer the popular game in its app store. I don’t blame him for wanting to do the same things his friends do on their tablets.

And Amazon has its loopholes, too. Tazio discovered he could still talk to Alexa by switching to his mom’s login screen even though he didn’t know her passcode. (Amazon says it’s going to issue a software update that requires a PIN before a child can exit FreeTime mode, preventing them from accessing Alexa.) Perhaps the lesson is tech companies can’t get much past 9-year-olds.

– – –

Tazio’s family decided that the Amazon Fire tablet was the right fit for his first tablet. It was less powerful than the iPad, but also less frustrating for mom.

The decision was rooted in how much extra work Apple’s Screen Time created. Even with my assistance, mom spent hours inside settings, attempting to adjust their rigid controls to what was actually happening at home. Instead of being an electronic babysitter, the iPad became a new project.

Apple’s approach assumes kids are all different, so it leaves all the decisions to parents. They’re not wrong: No two 9-year-olds are alike. But so are adult users of laptops and phones, and Apple’s designers have been successful at making tech simpler by making choices that suit most of us.

Apple plans to offer training in stores for parents, as well as detailed instructions on its parents website.

What’s most important with any screen is for parents to “not just hand it over without discussion, parameters and expectations,” Christine Elgersma of Common Sense Media told me. A parenting editor for the nonprofit, she’s also been testing iOS 12 with Screen Time. “When I hand over the iPad to my daughter, I still ask her ‘what are you going to do with it?'” she says. She also has rules in place about when a time extension might be acceptable.

Being involved in kids’ digital lives is work. If tech companies are going to make software to help, they need to make sure they’re not just creating more work.

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