[NeilT (OP)]

We seem to be in the top ten for deaths per million population. 
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries [nofollow]
Is there any logic to this? Does our health service benefit us by allowing us to live to a greater age and therefore make people more vulnerable, is our BMI too great or is there some other reason? 

[Bored chemist]

We seem to be in the top ten for deaths per million population. 
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Is there any logic to this? Does our health service benefit us by allowing us to live to a greater age and therefore make people more vulnerable, is our BMI too great or is there some other reason? 

You, may recall our prime minister bragging about walking round a hospital shaking hands with patients.
He seems to have tried to save the economy at the cost of human lives but, in fact, failed on both counts.
He has dithered, U turned, delayed and lied.
And he has blamed the people, the nurses, the care homes and the pubs; everyone, it seems, but himself.

[Petrochemicals]

Because we have an aging population, not the best health due to smoking and obesity, much medical subsidence to extend people's lives, many people have received inoculations or medical treatment to allow them to survive prior health problems. I was watching a doctor on one of the TV quiz shows, they have a code for patients, one is TMB, which is "too many birthdays" , meaning someone is very aged. China's average life expectancies is around 70, the uks is around 80, many of the deaths are in the over 75 group so China was never going to be hard hit by it. Imagine that the flu vaccine was not given in a year of high transmitability, how many would succumb?

[Bored chemist]

... China's average life expectancies is around 70, the uks is around 80, many of the deaths are in the over 75 group so China was never going to be hard hit by it.

Life expectancy in New Zealand is about a year longer than in the UK.

[alancalverd]

Government policy in March-April was to discharge infectious patients from hospital to unprotected nursing homes where they infected staff and killed other patients. We await the first class action for corporate manslaughter.

Government incompetence and cynical corruption led to major contracts for PPE being let to friends of  MPs who had no actual material or experience in its purchase. We await the first public enquiry into corrupt practice, though the precedents of awarding shipping contracts to companies with no ships and signing bent development permits may stand in law.

Government policy to Protect the Economy has led to meaningless and confusing partial restrictions on movement and the public sanctioning of self-testing for blindness by driving to Barnard Castle. I have written to the Secretary of State for Transport (a fellow pilot) asking when we will be allowed to conduct our own annual medicals and competence checks by flying to Glasgow. His reply was not encouraging. But the scenes on London Transport and the Nottingham Christmas Market show how official encouragement of dangerous behavior reached impeachment level in the UK long before the USA.

The official UK government definition of COVID death, whilst certainly underestimating the lifeshortening effect of the virus, is at least selfconsistent and possibly less unscientific than others but it has the effect of increasing apparent lethality if you increase the number and accuracy of tests, and encourage people to get tested.

The ratio of excess deaths to cases remains pretty much as originally found by the careful research at Wuhan (which was almost suppressed by another government that at least had the sense to act on it, even if they wouldn't admit it). Around 4% of those infected, die.

There's nothing special about the lethality of COVID infection in the UK demographic, but the combination of a high population density, a criminally negligent government, seven different but equally incompetent national administrations and some 90 local government districts with overlapping police and health services (i.e. nobody actually in charge of anything),  a work culture involving frequent intercity commuting, the mad scramble to open schools and colleges,  Saving Christmas, and a commitment to free travel in and out of the country with no serious quarantine provision, all adds up to a pathetic failure to prevent infection.

[Bored chemist]

dates.JPG (38.96 kB . 573x448 - viewed 1563 times)may be something to do with this...