BORIS TESTS POSITIVE

[startalovetrain]

So BoJo has COVID-19!

People never got ventilators unless they were pretty likely to survive

The nhs isn't overwhelmed yet. It will be, yes, but the people dying now are not dying because of lack of medical care or facilities. They are dying because it's a really nasty,novel virus that seems particularly deadly to the old and those with certain health conditions.

The dying because of lack of ventilators and medical care comes over the next few weeks/months

However I have read at least 2 cases where ambulances came and then went away and the person died and where they took 9 hours and the person died at home.

So I think the biggest issue is 911 seems to get you nowhere and should we be driving loved ones to A&E at a local hospital with corona patients as the only way to get them taken seriously and gt them there within 15 minutes rather than hours and hours and are we intervening early enough in cases where younger people at least might survive?

There’s a lot of scaremongering going on. I don’t believe everything I read, nobody should.

Ventilation is really traumatic and has never been used for anyone who is obviously not going to benefit from it. In normal times 50% of ventilated patients die.

Again, there have always been stories in the papers where ambulances have not come and people died. It's an underfunded service, sometimes mistakes are made categorising cases, sometimes people don't phone back when their symptoms worsen etc.
Soon, it will be the case that people who previously would have been taken to hospital will not be, but it's always been that eg people in nursing homes are sometimes left there rather than taken to hospital.

Xenia, if we wanted good public services, we wouldn't keep voting in Tory governments.

The survival rate of those currently going onto ventilators is going to be in excess of 50% . When you have enough ventilators you put on those with a 50/50 chance, when there is a shortage you only put on those with a 60/40 chance, then (if you are not Boris) when the shortage is more acute a 70/30 chance. I dont know exactly what chance of survival you need to have to be put on one currently but anyone who thinks there are enough ventilators for it still to be 50/50 is deluded.

There may be a long term benefit to this as less resource intensive ways to support breathing are used more often and the NHS learns what works well and when.

Piglet I would rather halve NHS provision and halve my taxes but no partly ever gives me that choice sadly. One thing I can be very sure of - rely on yourself not the state and you tend to do better in life.

Yes, RunningAway, protect the NHS is a very weird thing - many of us do not use it much s we do not get ill, plenty don't want it, although I do support a minimal NHS service and welfare state so to destroy the lives of so many peoplel to ensure our usual 500,0009 who die per year does not go up more than 20,000 seems the wrong prior to me particularly as about half those on ventilators will die anyway and many we save this year who are sick old and weak are likely to die next year of something else anyway. I believe we are spending about 500,000 per cornavirus patient.

@alreadytaken My worry is that other methods are already used with patients not ill enough to be on ventilators. What this is really about is - we don't have enough ventilators, so we will use other methods when these patients would normally be put on a ventilator. It is better than nothing, but it is not good. And other methods currently have a higher survival rate because these patients are not as ill.

@xenia You are wrong. I am in the shielded group. I am not likely to die next year. I am likely to live for another 30 years.

People are not getting ventilators now in London unless you can be pretty sure they will survive, some will die who stood a chance if ventilated.

Could you share your source for this? I mean, it seems very likely to be the case, but just wondered if there is specific information out there.

Xenia

Please do share the details of how you and your family have achieved immunity to illness or injury. Have you achieved immortality too? Or you just have certainty that things will be quick and painless?

Inkpaper, I may just the luckiest person in England. I have seen my GP once in 15 years. I have never smoked or taken drugs. I am not obese. I don't eat junk food. I don't drink. I try to get out in sunshine in the summer for 20 mins a day with no sun cream (vit D). I drink tap water. I get a lot of sleep so I suppose it is not rocket science. Also now I am in my 50s I don't have small children around from whom to catch germs any more and I work for myself from home -0 the student children joked that in August I never went further than a mile from hom so I suppose since i gave up the public speaking bit of my work I have been doing this self isolating stuff virtually so have caught 1 cold (from my son in Jan 2019) only in 2 years.

The family seem lucky with health too. I do use an NHS dentist for regular check ups. I don't have any NHS regular medical tests out of choice.

@Xenia you're delusional to think all that means you'll never need the NHS!

Xenia you're a long time banging that drum now. Years and years people have being trying to explain that other people also exist, with different circumstances that are quite different to yours.
Do you think this is the year you'll expand the old grey cells and get it?

Ventilation for the virus is not the same as ventilation of the critically ill from other diseases (in terms of survival chances and how people might benefit, not the actual ventilation itself). I know quite a few doctors who would not opt for treatment in certain circumstances but not for this. So since I dont know runningaway IRL I'm wondering if they are real. If they are are then the husband might change his mind later when he sees covid patients, he's wrong about the initial survival rate ( I think that was in the Lancet).

As for sources - the only one that is public is this www.ft.com/content/3a27f8f0-e0e7-4e5d-8760-b08669baee71

The NHS was once the envy of the world. It has been starved of funds for years but it and the affection the public have for it are why we can mobilise an army of volunteers and treat more people with less resources than other health systems. It is excellent value for money.

Of course if you care nothing for anyone without at least a couple of million, are selfish and greedy and need your ego propped up by buying things then you'd rather have a different system. I've paid a good chunk of tax over my lifetime too and not needed to get much back. I usually vote to pay more tax because I can afford it.

I'm concerned about the economics of this too - Boris should have locked down sooner until antibody testing was available and we'll all pay for his delay. We'll need to get people back in work gradually when the NHS is better equipped.

Xenia I hope it lasts for you, I really do, but sadly it may not. I know several people around 50 who seemed super healthy and led exemplary lifestyles and then were struck down as if from nowhere with cancer or cardiac arrest. I don't point this out because I think it is likely to happen to you, but just to show that anyone of us may need the nhs at any time. One drunk driver we have the bad luck to encounter could put us in high dependency care for a year.

Also important to note that without measures to protect the nhs during this outbreak the question wasn't so much whether fatalities might rise a bit about 20,000, it was whether they could be kept under 500,000. Either way many who do succumb will be dying decades early even if they do have underlying conditions. Many people who have conditions which make them especially vulnerable are not 'sick' or 'weak'. Some will not have any underlying conditions. There would also of course be so many excess deaths from other causes if the virus was unmitigated, this is happening even now but to a lesser extent.

The thing that strikes me whenever I ehar interviews with doctors treating this is that they keep saying how amazed they are at the ability this virus has to put fit 30 year olds in ICU.

Yes, RunningAway, protect the NHS is a very weird thing - many of us do not use it much s we do not get ill, plenty don't want it, although I do support a minimal NHS service and welfare state so to destroy the lives of so many peoplel to ensure our usual 500,0009 who die per year does not go up more than 20,000 seems the wrong prior to me particularly as about half those on ventilators will die anyway and many we save this year who are sick old and weak are likely to die next year of something else anyway. I believe we are spending about 500,000 per cornavirus patient

You really don't get it.

If we did NOTHING and carried on, how many would die?

And not just those on the people who would have died soon anyway, how many other people would have died?

Not just from Covid -19

From not getting to hospital for cardiac arrest, stroke, car accidents, general flu.

You do understand why we are doing this - and what doing nothing would look like?

Also now I am in my 50s

You're very naive to think that your past "luck" means you won't need a subtantial amount of provision as you age.

I mean I was very similar to you (apart from the weird attitude!) and I broke my ankle in my own home.....just something for you to ponder on. There's a reason they're called accidents.

My family does not get much in return for the eye-watering amounts of tax we pay

You wouldn’t have any income to pay tax on without the NHS. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

My family does not get much in return for the eye-watering amounts of tax we pay. (6 figures last FY and DS currently on a 37 week waiting list to see a specialist in an area (SEN) where the LA's have gamed the system so a private diagnosis is not good enough

You get a functioning society that takes care of people less fortunate than yourself - who educate society, run the shops, clean the streets, make things for you etc

That is such a stupid self centred comment - I can't believe that you can't see how the NHS helps society - of which we are all part of.

Of course if you care nothing for anyone without at least a couple of million...you'd rather have a different system

I agree with your point but wanted to add that very few people, multi millionaires included, could actually cover the cost of long term intensive health care. The way it escalates is staggering. Insurance policies are limited in scope and private healthcare facilities in the country don't really cover a lot of emergency and intensive care situations. I have talked to several people who felt they were well off, secure, healthy...would rather have some taxes back and lose the safety net. Probe further about the real risks and possibilities for them and their families and all have realised they actually could not cope.

Correction...in this country not the country!

Piglet I would rather halve NHS provision and halve my taxes but no partly ever gives me that choice sadly. One thing I can be very sure of - rely on yourself not the state and you tend to do better in life

Well - you're fucked then if you ever have to depend on other people in society to produce food, run the power system, provide communications.

Unless you do that all yourself.

Oh - and if you need people to buy things off you or to use whatever services you need to get an income, then you'd better hope they are healthy as well.

We are all interconnected. No person is an island. Remember that.