Hospitalisations and Intensive Care Figures are rising.

[Nellodee]

People keep saying that although cases are rising, hospitalisations remain low. I don't believe this is true. We need to stop pretending that we can do nothing and everything will turn out fine. Oh, and I'm not being a doom monger, I am sounding the fire alarm. I fucking can't wait to be wrong.

This is from the Guardian:

The daily total for Covid patients being admitted to hospital in England has now passed 150. On 13 September, the most recent day for which a figure is available, it was 153. The previous day it was 143. Only a week ago the numbers were in double figures. The total has not been as high as 150 since early July.

The total number of coronavirus patients in hospital in England has now reached 866. That is the figure for 15 September, up from 782 the previous day. It has not been as high as this since late July.

The number of hospital patients in England receiving mechanical ventilation has now passed 100 again. Today’s figure is 101. It has not been this high since late July.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

Ok, open it all up and let it rip through society then.

It’s not about children/parents/oaps, it’s about a virus

I never said I wanted that. I want some basic bloody thought to be put into how things for young kids could open up safely instead of a blanket No.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

Ok, open it all up and let it rip through society then.

It’s not about children/parents/oaps, it’s about a virus

Tbh the further along we are in this pandemic the more it seems like the only option. The places with the hardest lockdowns in Europe are seeing the strongest resurgences, while rates in more relaxed countries remain lower. Lockdown stretches out the curve but when a virus is endemic (as coronavirus now is) the area underneath remains the same.

What is the other option? A vaccine I guess but waiting for that's taking a massive gamble. We know now how much damage is being caused by our measures, surely at some point we have to reassess.

But why blame older people. It’s the government guidelines for what they are worth.

I never blamed older people, it's not their fault and I didnt say it was.

The average age of COVID victim is greater than the UK life expectancy.

Schools open. With no SD - against scientific advice. With large class sizes - against scientific advice.

Kids catch viruses and have fevers (a symptom of covid) the testing system falls over. People stop following rules (because they can't).

Where will we be in 2 weeks, 4 weeks?.

Agree entirely with *Nellodee"

All the data on kids not transmitting in schools was schools with small class sizes and social distancing. Not the situation we've got.

Social distancing in school would reduce other viral load and reduce stress on the testing system.

What we need I think is money for schools for extra teachers and to use community buildings to SD. All my DD's school needs for this to happen is money - they did it in June/July (whole school back, no illness at all in 4 weeks in DD's class - now lots of kids off after a week).

Even if not all schools can do this, some can, they should be given money to do so.

Since it won't make money for private Tory donors, I am under no illusion the government will actually do this.

Also, re:ventilators I think the new medical consensus is that they're very much last resort and CPAP is better? Does that count as ventilation or not?

Not sure what the answer is but I think id be continuing to prioritise outside activities and takeaways over indoors eating and sports.

I think I will go crazy if they close gyms again. Exerxise Is my most favoured passtime. It was not too bad over the summer because I did cycling and running. But we cannot do the same thing over again.

@LangClegsInSpace

I share your concern OP and yes, it's like being back in February.

What I find most frustrating is the number of people who still think the only weapon in our arsenal is lockdown - so either we employ lockdown measures or we let the virus sweep through.

The central strategy has to be testing, contact tracing and isolation.

Right now, none of those things are working properly and that's incredibly alarming with cases, and now hospitalisations rising. It's like we've learned nothing.

See for example @TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince and @user1471588124 posts on this page:

Ok, open it all up and let it rip through society then.

What is the other option?

The other option is a robust testing, isolation and contact tracing strategy, so we can pinpoint exactly where the virus is and contain it.

Lockdown is for when we've fucked that up and lost control. The extra time we buy through lockdown is supposed to be used to build up the public health systems to enable us to do these things, not just sit there twiddling our thumbs and expecting it all to have miraculously gone away / become harmless when we start lifting restrictions.

This isn't some new-fangled idea, WHO have been telling us this since the beginning -

Find, test, isolate and care for every case, trace and quarantine every contact.

I feel like I've been writing pretty much the same post since March but all anyone seems to want to talk about is lockdown v. letting it sweep through.

The future lives of many children have been destroyed by our response to save the lives of the elderly. The most disadvantaged children have seen the gap between them and the richest widen massively and they will never be able to claw this difference back, not to mention the children killed by overwhelmed parents and treatment delays.

Like I said, it may turn out that that was the proportionate response to the virus. But I hate the idea if pretending children haven't suffered massively for the sake of adults. And "probably" temporary isn't good enough when kids have already lost 6 months of education and socialising.

Nope, sorry, User, I can't agree with you on this. I agree it hasn't been great for all children. However, it won't last. Death and severe long-term illness will. And before someone chimes in with the predictable "what about other illnesses - don't you care about them too?" Yes, I do. I have one of them. But COVID has the potential to to damage so many in our society in so many ways.

No one is suggesting COVID be allowed to ‘rip through’ society. Clearly measures like social distancing and masks should continue and there are some settings like nightclubs and concerts which cannot restart.

However, COVID is not an indiscriminate virus. It is very clear which individuals are at risk of serious illness or death- based on pre-existing conditions and age (I believe the average age of a COVID victim is actually above the UK’s current life expectancy).

The focus needs to be on protecting these individuals. It makes little sense to ‘protect’ 18 year olds from getting a cough (if any symptoms at all).

"But it won't last". No, but if you're at university and asked to lose a third of your course, or if it's your GCSE or A-level year, it doesn't matter that it won't last. It's taking away something that you can't get back. Lockdown is obviously a last ditch attempt to control something out of control and not replicable.

And in London, though cases are rising, they are certainly not rising exponentially yet, presumably because the infection rate was pretty high in March/April, so there are lots of currently immune people blocking transmission. Even if they don't stay immune for more than a few montsh, a percentage of immune people will slow down transmission on a rolling basis.

But we have chosen one over the other. We've chosen (rightly or wrongly) that the needs of the elderly are more important than the needs of children

No we haven't. Covid isn't only affecting the elderly.

Out of the thousands who were admitted to hospital with it or who had it "mildly" but are now left with cardiac problems, or lung problems, or need rehab what are the ages?

How is it beneficial to children if their parents end up effectively disabled as a result of catching Covid, or if they are hospitalised leaving no one to look after the children? How beneficial is it if their school closes because too many teachers are off sick or if there are food shortages because of high rates of sickness within the workforce?

And though the death of people in care homes from COVID is very sad, so have been the last few months of life of many care home residents who haven't died of COVID but have deteriorated physically and mentally because of lock down and being unable to see their families and take part in their normal activities. I know of several deaths in this category too.

It makes little sense to ‘protect’ 18 year olds from getting a cough (if any symptoms at all).

So 18 year olds never come into contact with anyone else then?

@EDSGFC

The number of young people (anyone actually) who suffer a post-viral disorder- (‘long covid’) does not exist is absolutely tiny.

I don't think we really have statistics on whether long-term effects/chronic fatigue etc are significantly more common than other post viral conditions. I'm sure we all already know several sufferers of ME who didn't get it after COVID but after flu or other viral illnesses. They might turn out to be but we don't know. It could simply be that because so many people were infected by the virus in a few weeks that it seems as if the rate is higher, when in fact the cases are just clustered together.

The focus needs to be on protecting these individuals. It makes little sense to ‘protect’ 18 year olds from getting a cough (if any symptoms at all).

The focus needs to be on testing, contact tracing and isolation. Chase the fucker down.

It's not a question of 'protecting' 18 year olds from getting a cough, it's a question of preventing them from wandering around infecting others.

Otherwise, The Vulnerable™ will have to stay shielded until it has ripped through, surely?

[quote Ecosse]@EDSGFC

The number of young people (anyone actually) who suffer a post-viral disorder- (‘long covid’) does not exist is absolutely tiny.[/quote]
Really? Only studies would say that post Covid complications including cardiac and respiratory complications, POTS, organ damage do exist.

I've literally just had a telephone consultation with a cardiologist in a London hospital who explained that because of the number of post Covid patients they are seeing they've had to change my follow up appointments to six monthly rather than any more frequent.

@LangClegsInSpace

The focus needs to be on protecting these individuals. It makes little sense to ‘protect’ 18 year olds from getting a cough (if any symptoms at all).

The focus needs to be on testing, contact tracing and isolation. Chase the fucker down.

It's not a question of 'protecting' 18 year olds from getting a cough, it's a question of preventing them from wandering around infecting others.

Otherwise, The Vulnerable™ will have to stay shielded until it has ripped through, surely?

I completely agree with this, but I think the government has royally messed this up.

But we have chosen one over the other. We've chosen (rightly or wrongly) that the needs of the elderly are more important than the needs of children

The needs of the few vulnerable to something that can be controlled if other people modify their behaviour are more important. So far, it's only COVID that it's being applied to, because that's what's here right now.

The kids who are vulnerable to cars will be along next - we'll actually get SUV's banned, we'll get 15-20mph speed limits anywhere there might be children, we'll get journeys less than 3 miles by car banned. As those things protect the vulnerable, and it's only a small change to the lives of everyone else, they can manage it right?

Then it will be those vulnerable to poverty - we'll get the state pension means tested, we'll get the triple lock removed, so the country can afford to lift more out of poverty.

It will happen, the country is behind this communal responsibility!

I completely agree with this, but I think the government has royally messed this up.

They have but we can still come back from it. We can work back from community transmission, to clusters, to sporadic outbreaks and then keep the infection rate at a low level until we get a vaccine. If we know where the virus is we can contain it instead of containing people so much.

It's still our best bet despite how many fuckups there have been and even if we need further lockdowns in the short term.

The best thing the government could do now is hand it all over to local authorities to run.

Andy Burnham's talking a lot of sense on this:

twitter.com/bbc5live/status/1304306647536488448

@LangClegsInSpace

I agree in regards to contact tracing- countries like South Korea have managed to get outbreaks under control using this method without needing lockdowns.

It doesn’t seem like we’re going to have a contact tracing system here anytime soon that is either effective or able to cope with demand, though.

In the absence of that, there are going to be cases until we have a vaccine and vulnerable people are going to be at risk.

I appreciate they are at less risk if we keep everything closed and everyone in their homes indefinitely, but that is not a sustainable long-term strategy and it simply pushes the can down the road.

The only way to keep vulnerable people safe until we have a vaccine and ensure we still have an economy left is to protect them (with wages funded by the state) as well as retaining measures like masks and some venue closures to keep transmission reasonable low (without needing unsustainable measures).

It doesn’t seem like we’re going to have a contact tracing system here anytime soon that is either effective or able to cope with demand, though.

Why not? Why aren't we all demanding it?