If we are only a few hundred patients away from April 12th hospital peak

[MissMarpletheMurderer]

When we'd been in full lockdown for 20 days, what are the numbers going to be like in January when the Trafford center is full, streets are heaving and households have been mixing?

I always wonder where these heaving streets are? We was tier four just before Christmas. So unless you wanted to get 2000 people into poundland boots, superdrug and m&s - these huge masses have no where to go in the SE. I'm not seeing it.

Plus if we all went into tier 1 tomorrow about 50% of shops have shut in my city centre high street so there is not much open to mass too anymore.

I cant see myself or my kids needing anything from the shops for what is in effect another lockdown. I don't need anything even shoes anymore.

@EmmanuelleMakro

I’m amazed at MNs willingness to totally sacrifice children and young people. Same here! For a site where most people presumably have children is amazing that they and their education seem to be so undervalued. Ok so as a teacher I am probably biased in favour of education -hence wanting schools open and functioning without ridiculous impediments,

I wouldn’t worry, it’s the latest in a long line of things to get thrown under the bus, after the entire hospitality industry and everyone employed by it, in the quest to “save lives”.

We aren’t going to see any improvement until we have gained herd immunity through vaccination. And at the rate we are currently vaccinating that is a long long way off. We need to speed up big time.

@pennylane83

sorry but health trumps education

Will that still be your viewpoint a few years down the line when there is a shortage of newly qualified medical professionals coming through the system because children didn't get the grades to go to med school given the vast amount of schooling they have missed (and will never catch up on) or that the doctor attending to you in your later years under normal circumstances would never have been offered a place to study medicine but given that no exams have taken place during covid times.....thats if there even is a health care system anymore given that businesses are closing down and working parents will be forced out of the workplace if school closures continue to happen so ultimately less taxes are being paid into the health system etc.... Its all fine and well saying health trumps education in the short term but you really need to consider the longterm impacts of that decision as well.

This isn’t going to happen. The children I teach who are planning on becoming doctors are pretty much unaffected educationally by this. They are the ones sat at home in all their spare time studying, teaching themselves from the internet, making sure they don’t miss anything. They’ll still be gettting their level 9s at GCSE and their A*s at A level. Even in a year where grade boundaries weren’t lowered, they’d be doing well.

Far more of a worry are the children on the borderline of a pass, the ones who struggle a bit anyway, the ones who don’t engage with home learning, who don’t have family support or who are stuck at home where there is abuse.

@Indecisive12

The numbers in the south east are far worse than the north west. The south east is in pretty much a full lockdown with the current exception of schools. The north west currently has measures in place and numbers seem stable.

We're not mate.

Our local garden centre's got a sale on. It's been rammed every day.

@SexTrainGlue

I think they will have to use the nightingales, because it's going to be better than trollies in corridors.

Staffing a tent on site is somewhat easier than staffing a nightingale (as specialists more within reach) but both will be challenging as staff cannot be in two places at once and each intensive bed needs nursing

The Excel one is just an empty room again now. It only ever had a handful of patients in it for the cameras.

@Motorina

Last time around, anything non-urgent was cancelled, and the plan was to redeploy the staff who normally do that care to the Nightingales. Along with vets, students, retired staff, airline hostesses... There was general good-will and a willingness to do what it took.

This time, the pressure is on to carry on with as much routine care as possible, reducing the staff available for redeployment. That will change - is already changing - in response to pressures, but it takes time for that to work through. Staff are already exhausted and many of us are already ill.

There's also much less good will and willingness to be redeployed. Certainly my view would be that I would resist redeployment to a Nightingale unless:

1. I was vaccinated first (so that's a month's lag)
2. Schools and anything other than truly essential shops closed to minimise spread as much as possible. During the November lockdown, a local antique/junk shop stuck a couple of bikes outside and declared itself essential - I'm blowed if I will be redeployed anywhere else in the country when people are happily shopping for tastefully not-matching china.
3. The costs I will incur (extra travel, childcare...) are covered in full.

I think in April we could have staffed the Nightingales, if we'd had to. Now? It's a different ball game.

We DID need to staff the Nightingales in April that's why so many people died at home or in care homes.

I volunteered to be part of the vaccination scheme nearly a month ago. I have heard nothing yet.
The big problem is that the government give the job to the back room staff within the NHS who are so full of cogs they move incredibly slowly. If they had appointed a clinical team to coordinate we would be all ready to go syringes at the ready.
I have 30yrs of experience dealing with the NHS system. Everything is done in committee with no one prepared to make decisions. At one point we could access minutes of these perpetual meetings, no decisions were ever made.
The age old saying “to get things done give it to a busy person” is what we need. The suit’s have a history of coming up with a million and one reasons why not instead of solving problems. Problem solving is what frontline staff do best and at high speed.