Let's dispel the myth that coronavirus victims were all at death's door

There has been a bit of an unpleasant and inaccurate narrative over recent days that the majority of Covid-19 deaths were people who were ‘at death’s door’ in any case. Some have been making the point that these people died ‘with’, rather than ‘of’, the disease. It’s important to address that.

A bulletin has been put together on this by the team at the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group, but here are some brief thoughts from me. I’ll refer to the recent update from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) (click here to read the full report).

The first thing that jumps out from the medical history section of Table 1 in the report (below) is that 93 per cent of those critically ill with Covid-19 were ‘able to live without assistance in daily activities’ prior to developing the disease. That typically suggests reasonable health in these people.