Marseille's Covid-19 hospital beds 'close to saturation'

[user1497207191]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54151281

Not looking good is it? We're about 2 weeks behind France.

I wonder if all the covid deniers would like to comment - you know, the ones who were saying the daily rise in infections isn't a problem because hospitalisations and deaths are low. Well, hospitalisations and deaths were low in France too, a couple of weeks ago!

@PennyDreadfuI

Also we had one lockdown, and here we are. You can have as many lockdowns as you like - once restrictions are lifted, cases will go up. Lockdowns don't eradicate viruses and plunging everyone into one every time numbers go up is not sustainable or useful, long-term.

I agree, except if they’re hopeful that the oxford vaccine will work, maybe they think we can hold out till then with lockdowns. I’m hoping that’s what the position is.

@PennyDreadfuI

Also we had one lockdown, and here we are. You can have as many lockdowns as you like - once restrictions are lifted, cases will go up. Lockdowns don't eradicate viruses and plunging everyone into one every time numbers go up is not sustainable or useful, long-term.

We didn't have a proper lockdown. We also had no border restrictions, which made lockdown fairly pointless.

How do people think cancer treatment can operate when hospitals are full of Covid?
And doctors and nurses and other HCP have Covid?

Australia and New Zealand realised the only way to keep treating cancer (and other non Covid) patients was to stop the spread of Covid. They dealt with it. Consequently their cancer patients are receiving treatment as normal.

They use different hospitals is how it works

All the doctors and nurses don't catch it in the same week, you know. A lot have probably had it already so don't fret too much about that. Ideally we'd try to have enough tests for them to check quickly if ill. And ppe to stop them catching it if they haven't had it already

It's not like literally everyone catches it in the same week. No wonder people are panicking if that's what they are imagining.

@SheepandCow but even if we had had a “proper” lockdown and shut the borders, it’s the same issue. Once you lift the restrictions it will start coming back, as they’re finding in Australia.

pennydreadful is making a point that lockdowns cannot defeat the virus they can only suppress it for a while till the lockdown is lifted. She’s right, isn’t she, or am I missing something?

@PremierInn

Have you seen definitive evidence to suggest that having Covid once protects from having it again?

And how do you staff these different hospitals?

@FractionalGains
Because their borders remain shut, it doesn't just come back. They have strict quarantine for essential travel. Bussed to guarded quarantine hotels. Because of their containment efforts, the (by our standards) very small outbreak in Melbourne, caused by a now dealt with quarantine mess up, is being tackled effectively. They took swift action to nip it in the bud. It's working. My family are in South Australia. Life is pretty much normal. Places are open - schools, hospitals, offices, shops, bars, restaurants.

Apart from the fact you cant travel anywhere. My Aunt is in Western Australia and she cant leave to visit her grandchildren in Melbourne at all

Plus we arent AUstralia or New zealand population dentisty works against us.

@DumplingsAndStew

There are always going to be local hospital capacity issues where you have flare ups or high case numbers in specific areas.

We do need to run the NHS ‘hot’ imo and use all available staff and facilities rather than having nurses twiddling their thumbs in some areas while there are not enough elsewhere.

I would put all NHS staff on six month ‘emergency contracts’ that would allow them to be relocated anywhere in the U.K. with 48 hours’ notice.This would allow us to respond to local outbreaks by complementing the capacity that already exists in those areas and staffing Nightingale hospitals if needed.

I would also like to see a ‘flying squad’ made up of NHS staff which could be sent to hotspot areas immediately when needed.

@Ecosse

I would put all NHS staff on six month ‘emergency contracts’ that would allow them to be relocated anywhere in the U.K. with 48 hours’notice.

Well that's one way to secure mass resignation 😂

[quote SheepandCow]@FractionalGains
Because their borders remain shut, it doesn't just come back. They have strict quarantine for essential travel. Bussed to guarded quarantine hotels. Because of their containment efforts, the (by our standards) very small outbreak in Melbourne, caused by a now dealt with quarantine mess up, is being tackled effectively. They took swift action to nip it in the bud. It's working. My family are in South Australia. Life is pretty much normal. Places are open - schools, hospitals, offices, shops, bars, restaurants.[/quote]
My brother is in Australia and I don’t think life is normal in Victoria... they’re still under fairly tight restrictions in Melbourne. They have been for weeks.

I agree you can contain outbreaks with lockdown but the point is it seems to be time limited and you will have to re-implement them when cases inevitably start to rise. The point is repeated lockdowns and closed borders cannot continue forever. They do not erase covid, they contain it for a period, but are you seriously suggesting they’re a long term strategy?

@Quartz2208

Apart from the fact you cant travel anywhere. My Aunt is in Western Australia and she cant leave to visit her grandchildren in Melbourne at all

Plus we arent AUstralia or New zealand population dentisty works against us.

Higher population density is all the more reason to have taken proper action to prevent the spread.

Temporary restricted travel is a price worth paying. Would you rather have that but the economy - schools, hospitals, offices, restaurants, gyms, etc functioning normally, or the situation we have?

Melbourne had a small (tiny, compared to us) outbreak and is taking effective action to contain it. Hence temporary restrictions. You can bet they'll be back to normal long before us.

It won't be forever. There's almost certainly going to be a vaccine. It's really just a matter of how soon mass distribution can be organised. Better and earlier treatment options are being discovered too. We already know more than we did at the start. Who's most at risk, possible treatments, the potential long-term damage of Long Covid. Buying time has proven to be very important.

I still dont think you can necessarily compare.

By most accounts this was around December/January time. Europe would have been a transport hub at this time will all the moving around etc.

Australia and New Zealand have done a great job (as have Iceland and Taiwan) but its not just good leadership other geographical factors came into play. So yes they will be back to normal before us but that is because they have a lot of advantages in this.

Each country now is working with a unique set of circumstances now and has to come up with a plan that works for them. By all means other countries should be looked at to see what does and doesnt work but it has to be realistic.

We are not far off the endemic stage in this country (and probably parts of Europe) so we need to come up with longer term effective strategies to get through this as eradication now is impossible

[quote DumplingsAndStew]@PremierInn

Have you seen definitive evidence to suggest that having Covid once protects from having it again?

And how do you staff these different hospitals?[/quote]
If it can be easily caught twice within a six month period then frankly there is no point to any of this, it's going to be totally endemic. In fact, happily, it's not all that easily transmitted, mainly via superspreader events or with direct contact without ppe with those who are very ill, doesn't have a high death rate unless you are very old, is often asymptomatic, and we have a test we can use to identify it.

Staffing: there's really no point me offering my ideas. How are we going to staff the covid hospitals? I shudder to think what six months emergency planning has come up with as a suggestion. It may well be that they are mainly holding centres with minimal care facilities by nursing assistants, who knows, but there's no excuse for stopping other people's treatments. One serious illness isn't more important than another. We have always accepted limited care based on resources.

A previous poster's point about relocating nhs staff uk wide reminded me of China. If you think of China as Europe and Wuhan as the UK or Italy, it's such a shame we can't operate on an EU wide level to that extent. They achieved their lockdown by sending staff and resources from the entire country to help. Imagine if we had operated on that level when Italy needed help, then next France, then the UK.