Covid deaths, outdoor swimming and care homes
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The official number of deaths attributed to Covid 19 around the world in the whole of 2020 is 1.88 million. The global toll this year surpassed this figure on 11th of June. We look at how things are worse worldwide, despite vaccines and lock downs.
Does the UK have the worst bathing sites in Europe? That’s certainly a claim made by a number of newspapers. We show why this is not the case.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been in the news again with comments regarding care homes during the pandemic. Just how good was the government’s ‘ring of protection’ around care homes during the first wave - and the second? We speak to Steven Johnson about his book ‘Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer.’
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts |
| 0:04.6 | Hello and welcome to more or less your indefatigable guide to the incoming numerical news bombardment. |
| 0:13.4 | This week, does the UK really have the worst open water bathing quality in Europe? |
| 0:20.0 | Just how good was the government's ring of protection around care homes during the |
| 0:25.0 | first wave and the second, a couple of nighthards for statistical spadework and a short history of long life. |
| 0:33.0 | But first, when will deaths from Covid in 2021 exceed deaths from Covid in 2020? |
| 0:46.2 | It might seem like the answer would be thankfully never because we have better treatments, more experience, |
| 0:53.1 | and above all many millions of vaccine doses administered around the world every day. Surely 2021 couldn't be worse than 2020. |
| 1:03.1 | And in the UK, there's still hope that might be true. Last year, using the definition of deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test, |
| 1:13.1 | there were over 73,000 deaths from Covid in the UK from March to December. |
| 1:20.1 | This year, there have been 55,000 so far, almost all of them in January and February. |
| 1:28.1 | So we got very close to 2020's total in just the first few weeks. |
| 1:33.1 | But a strict lockdown pushed deaths very low and vaccination should now be protecting the most vulnerable people. |
| 1:40.1 | We now have a decent chance that UK Covid deaths in 2021 will never reach the total of deaths in 2020. |
| 1:49.1 | And in the early months of 2021, things were looking up across the world too. |
| 1:55.1 | Parts of Europe and North America were coming out of a second wave, and many countries seemed to have things under control. |
| 2:01.1 | Here's Bramhar Mukaji, professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Michigan, talking about cases in India around Valentine's Day, mid February. |
| 2:13.1 | Everybody was feeling very positive with the news of the vaccines and the colours steadily going down. |
| 2:19.1 | Many states were recording cases and deaths in single digits. |
| 2:23.1 | And I was seeing all of these images of Valentine's Departies in India feeding through my social media. |
| 2:30.1 | But as we reported in our weekly podcast by mid April, things were not going so well, particularly in South America. |
| 2:38.1 | Here's Luis Carrea, associate professor at the University of Medicine and Public Health in Biaia, in Brazil. |
... |
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