Why are we in lockdown when no one is dying?

[SplunkPostGres]

I don’t understand why we’ve got local lockdown again. Cases are high but deaths are still low. Seems like a lot of cases are asymptomatic? So why are the lockdowns and restrictions needed?

[quote Ecosse]@CountessFrog

It’s not about pawns in a game. NHS staff are our front like of defence against this virus. In wartime, you need your soldiers on the battlefield- not hundreds of miles away sitting idle.

Our NHS should be re-christened as the ‘home guard’ for the duration of the pandemic and staff issued with pin badges illustrating this. It needs to be emphasised to doctors and nurses that they have a civic duty to the country and to the public to work where they’re most needed.

We cannot have a situation where 50 nurses are twiddling their thumbs in Plymouth who could be staffing a Nightingale in Liverpool.

We need to flex and push NHS capacity to the limit, and that requires resources (including staff) to be where they’re needed at any one time.[/quote]
NHS staff also have a wide variety of opinions on what to do next. Restrictions vs no restrictions. Trying to contain this virus vs letting it run rampant through the population etc etc.

I can't say that my personal opinions are usually representative of the whole of the NHS in general but on this point by @Ecosse I feel I can safely say that if the government tried anything like this, myself and many many of my NHS colleagues would just quit.

The first wave was bad enough, lots of colleagues have PTSD. Moving across the country? You can f-right off.

Civic duty? What about the civic duty of the rest of the population? More than 620 health care professionals are thought to have lost their lives in the UK during the first wave. No thank you, I'd quit if that happened, I've done enough.

FML move and get deployed around the country when people are whinging and whining about wearing masks, washing hands, not being able to go to the bloody pub after 10pm

I’m NHS and so is my husband. He’s an ITU consultant.

People thinking NHS staff would even be willing at this point to be redeployed around the country are utterly deluded.

Fur ihre sichersheit

@CountessFrog

Would it not make more sense to redeploy the patients to where there is excess capacity?

It’s an interesting idea, but as no area ran significantly out of capacity last time, I don’t think there would be a requirement to launch what would actually be a logistical nightmare.

[quote TazMac]@CountessFrog

Would it not make more sense to redeploy the patients to where there is excess capacity?[/quote]
This already happens regularly for ICU patients since ICUs have limited capacity - patients often transferred to ICUs with space/specialist resources.
When they reopen the Nightingales, transfers will increase.

There’s nobody to staff the nightingales, not in significant enough numbers.

And yes, ICU patients are regularly transferred on a small scale, DH has regularly accompanied them in ambulances, but managing this on a national level, with the co-ordination and transport issues required - would surely be quite onerous.

@CountessFrog

There’s nobody to staff the nightingales, not in significant enough numbers.

And yes, ICU patients are regularly transferred on a small scale, DH has regularly accompanied them in ambulances, but managing this on a national level, with the co-ordination and transport issues required - would surely be quite onerous.

Yep, no-one to staff the Nightingales - very true. No government planning for training extra staff in ICU. But they will still need to open them, unless they ration ICU treatment this winter (which I have already heard has started in one local hospital).

And already we have the stories from a poster’s parrot’s taxi driver’s third cousin that treatment is being rationed and patients turned away. Bingo!

@Ecosse

And already we have the stories from a poster’s parrot’s taxi driver’s third cousin that treatment is being rationed and patients turned away. Bingo!

No from a close relative in the NHS working with ICU doctors and patients. What is your reliable source that this isn't happening?

And I never said turned away. I said rationed, which in the cases I do absolutely know are true, older patients (in their 60s) have been told to consider DNR and been told they are not suitable for ICU. This is not general patients, but specifically Covid-19 patients, probably due to poor outcomes and the likelihood of prolonged admissions, which this particular hospital cannot afford at this early stage of the second wave of the pandemic.

@Disconnect

No patient who would benefit from ICU treatment is being denied access to it and this has not happened at any point.

Not every patient will benefit from ICU treatment- it may make some people’s condition worse. That is not the same as rationing at all and it is totally disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

@CountessFrog

It’s an interesting idea, but as no area ran significantly out of capacity last time, I don’t think there would be a requirement to launch what would actually be a logistical nightmare.

Last time was in spring. Capacity in the NHS is usually much lower in winter due to winter illnesses in flu. Hopefully all the Covid measures will reduce the prevalence of flu and avoid that this year though.

Our NHS should be re-christened as the ‘home guard’ for the duration of the pandemic and staff issued with pin badges illustrating this. It needs to be emphasised to doctors and nurses that they have a civic duty to the country and to the public to work where they’re most needed

Easily said by an armchair general, perhaps they could be paid £500 per day? if they are so vital - its what the Govt pays contractors to draw up new procedures for refitted frigates.

Aside, you are suggesting unilaterally changing their T&C's and this cannot be done without negotiation, it would also guarantee mass resignations and no one would want to be a medic in the future.

We cannot have a situation where 50 nurses are twiddling their thumbs in Plymouth who could be staffing a Nightingale in Liverpool

Shouldn't patients whose treatment are being delayed in CV hotspots, be encouraged to get treated in Plymouth, if they can get there?

Shouldn't patients whose treatment are being delayed in CV hotspots, be encouraged to get treated in Plymouth, if they can get there?

If they can drive there directly (no stopping for petrol/toilet) or we can send groups on chartered Covid buses.

We don’t want individuals travelling from a high infection area to a low infection area on public transport.

Given the backlogs there are now for NHS treatment, it seems highly unlikely that there are going to be 50 nurses twiddling their thumbs anywhere in the country.

@TazMac

Shouldn't patients whose treatment are being delayed in CV hotspots, be encouraged to get treated in Plymouth, if they can get there?

If they can drive there directly (no stopping for petrol/toilet) or we can send groups on chartered Covid buses.

We don’t want individuals travelling from a high infection area to a low infection area on public transport.

i was commenting on the PP who wanted to treat NHS workers like the Army, who have signed up knowing they may have to serve anywhere in the world. Patients are tested for CV before having any procedure on the NHS, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue, especially as most of the UK can have staycations across the UK.

How perfectly ironic to see somebody suggest that C-19 patients should travel en masse to Devon, when only months ago, people on these boards from the southwest were screaming hysterically about people travelling there on holiday.

Only on MN.