paddyfool

Tuesday's offficial figure: 119 I'm kicking myself as I almost put 100 but then revised it down since covid death definitions were changing. Wednesday: 80

Tuesday 90

Monday 15

22nd of August

This suddenly got a lot closer at the top. The gap between 1st and 7th place dropped from 10 points to 4. Those of us languishing more than 20 points behind the leaders are very much still out of the running, of course.

The Quim Reaper is reaped. Quite why he thought a duel with a combine harvester was a good idea remains a mystery. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, however - they say that blood is a good fertiliser. All hail The Red Death! The Red Death King! The Red King Death! The King Red Death! King The Red Death!

I don't want it to happen, especially not in the next few months, but RBG

Guessing your personal life expectancy is a very uncertain game. My Dad died of cancer at 61, his Dad of cancer at 60, and my Mum's Dad of heart disease at 67, so in some ways I'd be doing well to get to 68, if you look at recent men in my family... but two out of three of them smoked, which shaves off an average of ten years, and then there's medical advances etc since they died. Also, my Mum's still knocking around at 78 (even though she doesn't know what's going on, courtesy of Alzheimer's), both grandmothers made it to their 80s, and my various uncles and aunts are mostly still going strong. Meanwhile, I'm in steady employment but no longer working nights, married, in good health, not smoking, not drinking too much and also pretty fond of exercise and the outdoors. If I don't mess up on a climb and fall off a cliff, I may have to reckon on a ripe old age.

Sunday 20

Saturday 60

Friday 60

I'd argue in favour of there being a small dip in life expectancy, just not a huge drop. Excess total mortality will likely run to a few million by the end of the year, both from direct COVID mortality and indirect mortality such as disruption to usual healthcare services and economic consequences. It only takes a million or so of those excess deaths to be below the global average life expectancy of 73 for there to be a bit of a dip, and I think a million excess deaths in under-73s is a low end estimate. I would agree that the impact of COVID doesn't make that much difference to population growth, however, since a few million excess deaths doesn't count for much when global population is growing at 80 million per year. Furthermore, most deaths will be among people beyond child bearing age, and there may be a bit of a post-lockdown baby boom.

My own family history is not promising in old age. Most likely, I might expect to either pop my clogs in my 60s or get Alzheimers in my 70s, looking at my parents and grandfathers, although my grandmothers and most of my uncles and aunts have done a bit better than this. And, of course, with life expectancy generally trending upwards slowly over time, we might hope for better outcomes than our parents in any event, with a bit of luck and good self-care.

Thursday 70

Thank you for taking over the running of this GUN, btw Wednesday 80

Tuesday 110

Monday 25

Sunday 25 (if released)

Saturday 90

Today's total was 66 Friday prediction: 70

Thursday 90

1) A lot of people in the UK will have had undiagnosed COVID. 0.5% of the UK population have been tested for COVID vs 8.7% of the US population. Spain and Italy have had similarly low testing rates to the UK and similarly high case mortality rates. 2) I'm not sure if the US had the same frequency of outbreaks in care homes, where death rates were inevitably very high. 3) The USA is a lot more happy to ventilate patients unlikely to ever make it off the ventilator than the UK. This tends to only postpone mortality a little, however, and also engender more morbidity. (People with any degree of disability always come off the ventilator a lot less physically able than they came on) 4) The overall US case mortality so far is 4% (139,000 deaths out of 3,546,000 cases). I'm not sure that week is entirely representative. What will really be informative will be how much life expectancy dipped in 2020 in different countries. Which we'll find out around 2022 or so.

Bermudez again please

Wednesday: 120 In terms of newsworthiness, it's becoming more and more bat bites man, rather than man bites bat. Welcome to the new normal.

Tuesday 150