To think these are the stats noone talks about

[TMIincoming]

Just that really. Deaths aren't really any higher than usual and hospital beds are less occupied than usual. Or are people going to say these figures aren't accurate

Yep OP, I totally agree. With all the restrictions we've had in place, we've managed to keep the death toll similar to other years apart from the May spike.

We've increased capacity in hospitals by reducing non urgent treatment. So our hospitals are not over run- at least in most areas.

Thank goodness we have taken measures to control things- with less restrictions the numbers would look very different.

@picklemewalnuts

Yep OP, I totally agree. With all the restrictions we've had in place, we've managed to keep the death toll similar to other years apart from the May spike.

We've increased capacity in hospitals by reducing non urgent treatment. So our hospitals are not over run- at least in most areas.

Thank goodness we have taken measures to control things- with less restrictions the numbers would look very different.

Ha ha

The comments are very one sided, but the vote less so

So you think the financial and other costs of these restrictions are justified and proportionate to the virus threat?

Well, you see, the thing is that you are looking at the death toll right now and thinking, you know, that's not too bad. I hardly now anyone who has had it, let alone m/any that have died and yet look at all these businesses that are going to the wall because their staff and customers are staying home

What none of us are looking at is the death tool had we done nothing - and all of those businesses that are going to the wall because their staff and customers are dead!

So, unless you truly are a genius with an inside track that every scientist world wide has missed, maybe you could apply some critical thinking to those stats and see what you are currently missing!

Ha ha

The comments are very one sided, but the vote less so

Yes, because those who agree with you have nothing to add. Those who disagree are wasting their time trying to have a discussion!

Ha ha indeed!

These threads are so stupid.

Citing an article from the Spectator as 'evidence' - really? that's like asking Hitler for his unbiased views on the Jewish community . Or obtaining balanced news perspectives from Infowars. You lost at the first hurdle, OP.

Does Dommo Cuntings' wife still work as an editor there? I'm sure she's not biased at all....

Conspiracy theorists, Covid deniers and Holocaust deniers - you are all the same. You refuse to accept the real evidence because...well, you just don't want to.

FWIW my trust normally has 79 critical care beds; we are currently running 110ish. We are full.

Occupancy as a percentage doesn’t reflect this.

Re staffing, NHS England have suspended nursing ratios and GPICS medical ratios so level 3 patients can be looked after at 2 patients to 1 nurse instead of 1:1 and similar. (GPICS is the very long document that lays out the usual minimum staffing levels in different critical care areas).

So essentially, we are staffing the extra beds by diluting the available staffing.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/08/nhs-england-suspends-one-to-one-nursing-for-critically-ill-covid-patients

Of course there is regional variation, so people’s experiences will be different.

I am ambivalent about the current restrictions; poverty kills and the ramifications of repeated lockdowns are huge. (Which has implications for health services on a population level with generally worse health and social deprivation and in terms of individual presentations with self inflicted injuries, accidents and delayed presentations).

I saw these in the DM on Saturday morning, just before my shift on a COVID icu. I spent the day caring for two patients instead of one because we are at double our usual capacity. Don’t know where they got their data from.

FWIW for those having the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Spectator substituting for or reinforcing your thinking, every single tabloid headline story I've seen where I know the inside truth has been completely mis-reported. And that is without the additional filter of those 'newspapers' having an agenda regarding COVID management that they want tom skew the stories to advance.

We tripled our ICU capacity in the first wave and still have increased capacity now. Many hospitals had to. So the percentage figures are utterly misleading because we have expanded the number of beds.

Lord help me, I'm joining a MN covid thread -
But this explanation may help those read the graphs of the OP a little more critically
twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1330830796966518785

Fully agree with PP saying stats and manipulation thereof should be taught in schools!

@Cavagirl

Lord help me, I'm joining a MN covid thread - But this explanation may help those read the graphs of the OP a little more critically twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1330830796966518785

Fully agree with PP saying stats and manipulation thereof should be taught in schools!

Thanks @Cavagirl, I was about to post that link too.

The thing is, statistics can often be made to say a wide range of things if you know how to manipulate them. This is a prime example.

Beds are vacant because the NHS is doing bugger all for people without covid. Critical care beds are often occupied by patients who've had elective surgery, or routine operations etc - many hospitals have stopped doing that so the beds are free for covid patients. They're also often occupied by people who don't actually need "critical care" but border line patients are often put into ICU from normal wards just because the bed and the staff are free - if the ICU was full, they'd stay on the normal wards and put pressure on the ward staff with more frequent tests/monitoring etc. It's a matter of priority who gets the ICU bed. In normal times, if they're already full, then operations are cancelled and more patients stay on "normal" wards.

People are dying from suicide

Well yes, sadly that is always the case, but the rate of suicide deaths have not increased during the pandemic/lock down as predicted.

Beds are vacant because the NHS is doing bugger all for people without covid.

That is also something with huge regional variation.

We have currently 13% of critical care beds occupied with covid patients. The rest are all post op elective, or non covid emergency admissions (neurosurgery, trauma, medical etc).

On the other hand I visited another trust recently in a current covid hot spot (essentially their first wave) and they were at 3 times their normal bed capacity and almost all the patients had covid. Elective surgery was on hold, and theatre / anaesthetic teams redeployed to icu.

Need to look really really carefully at the sourced these people use. Look at the small print underneath. It's not "ONS", it's a manipulationof ONS data by "Statistics Guy." This thread explains it:

twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1330830796966518785?s=19

Don't believe the Mail, folks...

That chart on excess deaths is wrong. The guy who made it used ONS data, but 'adjusted' for population growth saying it was up 6.86% year on year. Population growth is about a tenth of that. Also they cut off the latest week of data which showed a significant uptick in excess deaths.
So the chart is misleading and irresponsible. Whoever put it together was trying to pretend things are less serious than they are.
See this thread to compare to the actual ONS chart.

twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1330830796966518785?s=19

@TMIincoming so you’re saying this trend would continue without restrictions? Where’s your evidence of that please.

@LaMadrilena

Need to look really really carefully at the sourced these people use. Look at the small print underneath. It's not "ONS", it's a manipulationof ONS data by "Statistics Guy." This thread explains it:

twitter.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1330830796966518785?s=19

Don't believe the Mail, folks...

I was just coming onto post this.

Source data may be ONS but Covid denier Statistic Guy has helpful made a few tweaks 🙄

doesn't trust a govt who cried wolf.
THIS.

The government and the media love to cry wolf ALL THE TIME. I haven't been able to trust anything ANY government says since Tony Bliar cried wolf about weapons of mass destruction; and with this plandemic pandemic, I shall be trusting government and the media LESS THAN EVER.

This is the correct chart for excess deaths. And, as I and others have pointed out, the reason critical beds are showing as less full is that there are a lot more of them than there were a few months ago. So neither chart is telling you what you think.

OP - given that many very vulnerable, elderly people got covid and died earlier in the year, perhaps we should actually expect to see a reduced number of deaths now. (perhaps if there was no covid, some of these deaths would have been spread out over the rest of the year instead)

If we remove precautions to limit the spread of covid - eg stop healthcare workers isolating due to positive contact or reduce cleaning of equipment/rooms, stop lockdown, I think deaths will go up, healthcare workers will get sick, operations delayed due to patient and staff sickness. What’s to stop a Wuhan situation? I believe in Belgium had a very stressed health system with the 2nd wave before they locked down. Once the health system collapses, I think there will be fewer options to deal with covid and non-covid conditions as well as the economy. Lockdown certainly has many bad effects - it’s just that for many of them there is the option of further investment and improvement in the coming months and years.

@prh47bridge

This is the correct chart for excess deaths. And, as I and others have pointed out, the reason critical beds are showing as less full is that there are a lot more of them than there were a few months ago. So neither chart is telling you what you think.

See. That chart doesn't scare me in the slightest. A small number of extra excess deaths and the whole country is being chucked into a financial shitstorm.and mental health shitstorm that will last for years.

What happens when the next new virusbcomes along? Will a flu season like 17/18 elicit the same lockdlwm response in the future?

Op - do u think the Wuhan situation was scary? Maybe you don’t think that will happen here?