If you work in a COVID HOSPITAL WARD - how busy are you?

[1person100names]

I was just wondering really how busy COVID wards are in hospitals at the moment?

Where do you work?

I wonder whether hospitals in certain regions, e.g Greater Manchester are busier than others?

I also wonder whether you have noticed any changes with cases since March - i.e have symptoms been consistent, has the survival rate improved? Are you using any treatment now that you have noticed has made a big difference?

I read this today www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-dangerous-is-covid-a-swedish-doctor-s-perspective. A Swedish doctor talks about his experience on a Covid ward and says he hasn't seen a covid patient for a month. Cases just suddenly dropped even though there is no real social distancing. He thinks that Stockholm has probably reached herd immunity despite having a relatively low rate of positive antibody tests.

This is in the Spectator which is biased and it is only anecdotal. However, we did seem to see a similar drop off in London a couple of months ago and we haven't seen the huge rise in cases you might have expected when pubs etc. reopened. Clearly social contact is still much lower than it was in March and the vulnerable may still effectively be shielding but I'm still hoping there is already a level of immunity in the UK which would slow further spread.

There have never been high case numbers where I am even though it's a large city and there hasn't been a death in my county or surrounding counties since 10 July.

Chessie678 there does seem to be evidence that cases drop off once 20% have antibodies , but no one knew this would happen in March .

The government presumably built the nightingale hospitals based on what happened in Italy and New York. They obviously wanted to avoid the worst case scenario of patients dying in corridors and car parks, quite rightly imo. Thank goodness they weren't really needed though.

You can't possibly know that you haven't had coronavirus though- you and your family could have contracted it and been asymptomatic. It's a bit far to say it's been 'overhyped' when nearly 50,000 people have died, with a nationwide lockdown. If we hadn't locked down it obviously would have been many, many more.

Sorry that was in response to @Alex50

Yes but nearly half were from care homes, if better provisions had been made for care homes we would’ve had half the deaths, then the way the numbers were reported, take another 5,000 off.

I work in a large London hospital in a non medical role. The last Covid patient was discharged from our ICU this week.

It should be no great surprise that very few are in ICU at the moment. That's because national case numbers are very low (because we locked down), the transmission rate is fairly low because we continue to have some social distancing and because the most vulnerable have been shielding until very recently and are likely continuing to be very cautious.

There may be some seasonality but the explosion of cases in the Southern US suggests that exponential growth is perfectly possible in the Summer if you don't have social distancing.

There have been some increased numbers since lockdown eased, but so far this has been fairly localised and might even be levelling off. The big test will be can we go back to socialising indoors and open schools again once the weather gets cooler? Or will this set of exponential growth again? Nobody really knows for sure but caution seems sensible; a second national lockdown or big increase in deaths/long-term illness would be a massive failure at this point.

Rotherham Hospital is no longer taking any new covid admissions, and any new are sent to the Sheffield Hallamshire which has a long standing infectious disease ward.

@HeresMe that’s interesting do you have a link?

Oh I’ve found the link, it’s because they have so coronvirus patients being admitted

www.google.com/amp/s/www.thestar.co.uk/health/coronavirus/rotherham-coronavirus-patients-be-treated-sheffield-2938960%3famp

Few patients I meant to say

@PJ6M

blue lips were never part of the decision making. Perhaps it depends on your area

Or perhaps the people on this forum who were saying that are simply liars?

I know someone who died overnight after calling 111. Being asked if his lips were blue and being refused an ambulance in that basis.

A close friend works in a hospital in Greater Manchester. The Covid ward is now empty.

@Alex50 but if we hadn't locked down we would have had 500,000 deaths. Equally an earlier lockdown could have halved our death toll. I don't know how many extra deaths you are comfortable with but my point is that the virus wasn't 'overhyped'.

Here is a positive article on this subject matter!

Coronavirus death rate continues to fall – despite more positive tests

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/21/despite-positive-tests-coronavirus-death-rate-continues-fall/?WT.mc_id=tmgliveapp_androidshare_AvzY3DK8wHjx

Not sure if you can read that?

@LordOftheRingz

So we have flattened the curve and protected the NHS, the ventilators are unused the nightingale hospitals are decommissioned, but we are still all being told what to do because the goal posts are not now what we were sold.

yep

[quote Mogtheforgetfulmum]@Alex50 but if we hadn't locked down we would have had 500,000 deaths. Equally an earlier lockdown could have halved our death toll. I don't know how many extra deaths you are comfortable with but my point is that the virus wasn't 'overhyped'.[/quote]
there is no way we would have had 500,000 deaths. The modelling used for that prediction was deeply flawed.

LOL @ being outraged at ‘the mainstream media’ whilst linking RT news

RT is basically soviet Fox News - hardly unbiased ffs!

@PatriciaPerch Wed 12-Aug-20 14:30:54
My nephew is a Junior Dr on a covid ward, he seemed to think it's not that people aren't ending up in ICU because it is less dangerous/more weak, it's that the infection rate is low because of social distancing measures, people working from etc has had a positive impact but if those measures are all lifted the infection rate becomes exponential again, more people will ended up on covid wards and in icu.

Not sure how that fits with the numerous posts on here that huge numbers are maliciously and selfishly refusing to wear masks or social distance and the few that do wear masks wear them below their noses and then think they don't have to socially distance at all because they have a magic mask on.

@Mogtheforgetfulmum

but if we hadn't locked down we would have had 500,000 deaths. Equally an earlier lockdown could have halved our death toll. I don't know how many extra deaths you are comfortable with but my point is that the virus wasn't 'overhyped'.
I can understand people believing that if they haven't critically read anything. That 'prediction' was based on a discredited model that also assumed no increased care taken at all. No PPE, no handwashing, no social distancing - it was also done by the discredited Neil Ferguson, who after predicting all this broke all the rules by meeting up with his married lover - which is only relevant in that it shows his total disbelief in his own model.