As long as the NHS isn't overwhelmed, we're not moving too fast

[whenthejoyreturns]

Are people really expecting numbers admitted to hospital not to go up at all as we come out of lock down? I was under the impression we locked down in the first place to prevent there being a shortage of ITU beds. This never happened, there's plenty of room so what's the problem? There's also the nightingale hospitals that never got used. Are we trying to achieve no more people being critically ill with CV whilst everything else - economy, peoples livelihoods, other health services, education is being massively impacted?

it seems so ..

it makes sense cases will slightly peak as people come out and get to some sort of normality.

I think part of the lock down was also to help us get things into place like testing and track and trace.

I totally agree with you.

But I don't think that message was every fully absorbed and there are now a lot of very scared and anxious people who think lockdown is for our own protection.

Also, either more healthy, young people have died than was expected from data of countries with earlier outbreaks or those deaths were very widely publicised. That has made people far more anxious than pre lock down when the message was that the virus was only dangerous for elderly and vulnerable people.

There is a two to three week delay between people getting infected and ending up in hospital. This means that by the time the hospitals are getting full again, another three weeks'-worth of cases have been infected.

Anyone who thinks it won't be as bad next time around is kidding themselves. If you don't believe me, go and have a look at what the medical experts are saying in the reputable newspapers (NOT the tabloids).

If you want to hate Cummings for anything it should be the woeful messaging that has been part of this whole debacle.

Stay home, save lives

You can see how people have got the impression that lockdown actually saves lives

The NHS wasn't overwhelmed because they shipped everyone else out, and basically closed it down. It didn't 'cope' at all really, it just shut. We can't keep it shut forever, so presumably another peak (localised or otherwise), is going to cause issues for hospitals/NHS as a whole.

The NHS doesn’t admit people anywhere near early for covid treatment. This in contrast to countries like Germany, which have kept death rates down partly through early intervention.

By that logic, it’s OK if a large number of us perish from coronavirus at home as long as we’re protecting our fragile NHS.

Oh the messaging has been appalling. No one knows what's allowed today and what isn't.

They've used the daily briefing as a weird party campaign thing, instead of an information giving process.

Now we all know that they just can't be trusted. So they are in real trouble, how do we get back from this?

Cummings - the man who allegedly was all about brilliant messaging and reading the public, has ballsed up completely. That should be a reason for him to resign - he's not any good at his job when the chips are actually down.

The NHS doesn’t admit people anywhere near early for covid treatment. This in contrast to countries like Germany, which have kept death rates down partly through early intervention.

Yep - at the stage of illness (7 - 10 days in, with no improvement in symptoms), NHS 111 was telling people to stay at home unless you have blue lips. In Germany they were coming round to your house in 'Covid-taxis'* to check how you were doing. Anyone not looking good was taken to hospital.

• I know this wasn't everywhere in Germany.

You can see how people have got the impression that lockdown actually saves lives

But it does, doesn't it? Just not in the way people think. Stopping the NHS being overwhelmed means nobody died because they couldn't be given a ventilator or an intensive care bed. So those who died of Covid died despite treatment not from lack of it.

Stopping the NHS being overwhelmed means nobody died because they couldn't be given a ventilator or an intensive care bed. So those who died of Covid died despite treatment not from lack of it.

Not true. Loads died because they were told to stay at home, pushed into signing DNRs, and because COVID positive people were discharged into care homes. Our ICU beds SHOULD have been full.

Well, the point of the R rate being below 1 is that cases continue to decline. If the easing allows it above 1, then cases will rise and rise from there and eventually, we will have the same problem. They would be massively contradicting themselves and the science if they allowed cases to start increasing again.

No, because

1. once you reach a certain point, transmission increases exponentially, and it becomes very difficult to reverse the trend without going back into lockdown

2). We don't have an effective testing, tracking and tracing system yet, so at the moment it's difficult to know whether we have reached the point when the NHS will be overwhelmed.

I was under the impression we locked down in the first place to prevent there being a shortage of ITU beds. This never happened, there's plenty of room so what's the problem?

This isn’t really the case. If we had filled up any more than we did during the last peak the NHS would have been completely overwhelmed by lack of critical supplies and staff shortages caused by staff sickness and self isolation. Beds plus ventilators does not equal an “ICU bed” without the nurses, anaesthetists, other staff, PPE, oxygen and other medicines needed to care for the patient.

And the only reason ICU capacity wasn’t overwhelmed is because almost everything else stopped.

And because about 60k people died freeing up beds or elderly not given them.

Do we trust them to lock down again? Do you trust them to senf an ambulance, to allow you to be taken in and given oxygen.
Covid causes happy hypoxia so people dont themselves realise how bad it is

Make no mistake about the damage done to the NHS (and therefore our services that we all rely on) from this virus. As others have said it only coped because it stopped doing virtually everything else besides Covid. Now there are huge backlogs of work, still a shortage of PPE, and the logistical nightmare of trying to restore services whilst Covid is still very present. If we have another wave I have no idea how the NHS will ever recover.

Just to mention that the poster who said they were told not to call an ambulance unless they had blue lips was a troll.

Blue Lips - what actually happened:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52317781

"Some seriously-ill Covid-19 patients in London may not have been taken to hospital by ambulance because of a system temporarily used to assess people, a BBC investigation suggests.
....
Medical professionals use a scoring system, called 'NEWS2', as one way of identifying patients at risk of deteriorating, a check normally used for sepsis patients.

Under normal circumstances, ambulance teams would blue-light anyone with a score of five or above to hospital.

But on March 18, LAS workers were told to apply the NEWS2 check to suspected Covid patients -
and that many of those with a score up to seven could be "suitable for community care",
even if there were issues with breathing rate, oxygen supply and consciousness.
.....
Over the Easter weekend, the LAS changed its guidance to say suspected coronavirus patients with a wider range of symptoms

and a much lower NEWS2 score of three to five should be taken to A&E for assessment.

An effective lockdown should be intended to bring the numbers right down so track and trace can be used effectively! Instead, we are simply hoping we've done enough, hoping track and trace is working and being glad there are enough beds if it goes back up??? Shambolic. Please note an effective lockdown (e.g. soon enough, hard enough and for sufficient time) is beneficial ib all respects as the point is that the virus is kept under control aftwerwards - this is not what we have, increasing the chance of further lockdoens and further impact on people, services and the economy

The UK as a whole has a weird attitude towards the NHS. It's like the closest thing the UK has to a national religion.

The NHS is supposed to protect people, not the other way round.

"Protect the NHS by dying at home" is a strange way to go about things. I am talking about the fact that people have been discouraged from going to hospital with COVID19 until they are really ill, and the fact that the NHS appears to have stopped a lot of treatment for other things, something which has not happened in most other countries.