Weston General Hospital A&E closed due to high number of Covid cases

[Sweetnhappy1]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-52796589#

A hospital in Somerset has stopped accepting new patients due to a high number of coronavirus cases.

Apparently 40% of asymptomatic staff there tested postive.

It reminds me of when we had the peak here in London. Hope you guys are ok

Thank you for caring. The last few weeks have been awful with so many day trippers on the beach, in the shops etc. and now this.
But apparently it's fine to have a day at the beach because Boris said so.

To be honest it's a very small hospital and they have struggled to staff basic facilities like A&E and maternity for years. Prior to Covid the A&E department has been closed overnight meaning patients have to go to either Taunton or Bristol. I don't think it would take much to overwhelm it to be honest!

That's true, but 40% of staff is not insignificant. The West Country is really only being hit now, weeks behind London.

Weston closes more times than a hooker drops her draws

It closes at 10pm every night

I live in Bridgwater and I’d me more worried if mustrove or south mead closed.

This would not be news in normal circumstances

@ACautionaryTale, that's good to hear (sort of!). I hope the other hospitals stay ok. 40% staff testing positive sounds like a lot though...

Really? They are asymptomatoc.

I can’t get worried about people who have no symptoms.

It’s deaths we need to worry about.

And that % is very very low

Yes they are asymptomatic but they are still spreading it. We're looking at NHS services starting to return to normal over the next few weeks but this hugely increases the chances of catching Covid in hospital.

I caught it from a hospital - at bmi 52 I should be dead according to Mumsnet scientists.

We need to accept this is endemic and learn to live with it

I'm glad you survived it! I have friends and colleagues (NHS staff) who were not so lucky.

And I have friends who dies from cancer and a stroke I the last few weeks

Life is not just about corona virus or not

I hope your friends RIP.

I posted this thread in the Coronavirus section of Mumsnet, I assume that it's ok to talk about Coronavirus here???

I can’t get worried about people who have no symptoms.

The people with COVID who have no symptoms are the main reason we have the lockdown.
If only people with symptoms were spreading it, we could tell only people with symptoms to stay home.
The fact that we don't know who has it (because they are only testing people with symptoms!) means that we don't know who needs to stay home. So we all do.

I genuinely baffled by people that still don't get this.

Where are you getting the 40% figure from ? Have they tested all staff at the hospital ?

Where did you get that 40% figure from? That would mean hundreds of staff.

www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/weston-hospital-closed-coronavirus-cummings-4164063
The 40% is mentioned here but it's in lots of places.

There are no covid patients in ITU at nearby Bristol’s Southmead Hospital.

At Weston it's probably patients in for other things and then have contracted Covid.
With no insult to the hard-working staff whatsoever, norovirus sweeps this hospital in the winter so maybe covid is doing the same now. It's still a huge concern when the government seems so desperate to open everything up.

If there was truly a giant outbreak in weston, we would expect to see disaster at Southmead, the BRI and Bristol proper, generally.

But we aren't. Bristol hasn't been hard hit at all. Antibody tests need to be done as soon as possible.

It looks like the 40% asymptomatic HCPs testing positive has come from an 'un-named NHS worker leaking a message reportedly sent to NHS staff'.

The worker also said "VE Day parties made it rise in London, I reckon" and blames the rise in Weston on tourists.

I'm not sure if 40% of asymptomatic staff testing positive, lines up with the reporting of only 55 new cases testing positive in the whole of N. Somerset last week?

My NHS trust is only testing staff with symptoms but others may be different.

www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/weston-hospital-closed-coronavirus-cummings-4164063

Pics, I tend to disagree as they are not particularly close and because Bristol had higher numbers of cases previously that now seem to be dropping whereas NS are rising.
I agree that testing is needed.

Asymptomatic positive COVID-19 staff might be ok from a personal point of view however they can still spread it.
A local care home has lost over a third of its residents in the last month (so far) due to a couple of staff testing positive yet showing no symptoms.
Regular testing must be carried out on all care staff.

I'd suggest that there has been some contamination in the testing if 40% of asymptomatic staff have been tested positive, as it simply makes no sense in the context of the numbers of cases either in the area or elsewhere in the country, and also would suggest a much higher proportion of cases being asymptomatic than has been estimated by any mainstream scientist.

The Chief Exec of the trust has clarified the 40% was taken out of context. It was 40% of 10% of staff tested who were the most high risk working on the COVID infectious wards.

Are any asymptomatic groups of people (e.g. hospital staff) being tested routinely? Or are we all waiting for symptoms before we test?

(I mean on a wider scale nationally, not just at this hospital! )