The sick man of Europe again with 30,000 plus dead

THERE is still no clarity on the issue of how deadly coronavirus actually is. We know that it is worse for those over 70 with significant underlying health issues. We know it is worse for males. It is worse for members of the black and minority ethnic communities. We know that it barely affects those under 18.
But we have no clear idea why. We can make educated guesses and the educated specialists do, but hesitantly of course.
The disadvantaged old respond badly to the symptomatic progress of the virus.
Smoking, alcohol abuse and diabetes is more common among men of all ages.
The ethnic minorities are often proportionately greater numerically in the nursing and caring professions and live in close-knit communities.
The very young are fit, healthy and have immune systems untouched by the ravage of modern living.
But currently that is about it.

And we also cannot yet get a real handle on what the 'kill rate' is. Horrid phrase I know but it is an essential feature of all known viruses and diseases and it does not deserve dressing up.
The most recent study went from 2.36 per million for China to 124.16 for Italy. Neither will be correct and by how much in error is a long way from being known. And nationas vary wildly in size, density, population.
First you have to know how many have died. 30,000 plus in the UK.
Then how many have been infected – unknown so far but tested and proven about 180,000 plus in the UK.
Those figures would suggest 10% - in the graph I refer to we are 7.10% per million.
But we actually have no idea at all how many have been infected with coronavirus because so many have not been tested. Those who had no symptoms, those with mild symptoms and even those in care homes and the like, who were quite ill but recovered, may not in fact have had the virus. But it is probably a decent bet that, for every one tested and confirmed there will be five more untested, untreated and unconfirmed. Which would mean not 10% but 2%. That is double a serious influenza epidemic, even with a vaccine applied to many millions.
The problem is that influenza has become a less valuable yardstick it seems since we started vaccinating all the most vulnerable. In fact tin the 2018/2019 season that was about 11 million people. Even so about 10,000 deaths were recorded.
That is 10,000 out of a population of 60plus million. Well below 1% thanks to the vaccine. They would still mostly be older people. The same ones who are most at risk from coronavirus.

One curiosity in all this is a government statistic which so far has not been explained. We test a lot of people but only a fraction prove positive. But we claim to test only if symptoms are being displayed.
As of 9am on 3 May 945,299 people had been tested, of whom 190,584 tested positive.
It means that over 700,000 tests were negative. Curious do you not think?
It does tell us that nearly 200,000 people have definitely been infected. But what about the other 700,000. Why were they tested? And why are the tests now being carried out at units across the UK being rolled out so urgently? If so many are negative have we got the wrong parameters to qualify for atest?

I have a theory – that the vast majority of tests are (quite properly) carried out on front line health staff and that happily most remain virus free despite the PPE crisis. It would be nice if the government were to explain this – or maybe try a bit harder to ffind out what really is the total number infected.

If you want to see how close an eye we keep on the influenza disease this impressive report is the latest of an annual series: https://tinyurl.com/y3rd9fsm

A list of diseases and rate of death is here and below:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fatality_rates