ICU full of young people

[Sleeplessinsaltend]

I keep hearing from people on here that ICU is full of young people, if we unlock then the wards will be full of 30/40 year olds. Looking at this it seems not to be the case.

‘All this talk of 'scare mongering' is just hmm. The people chucking the word around aren't engaging with the topic at hand.’

‘The topic at hand’ is that ICUs are full if ‘young’ people.
When people post absolutely inconsistent bollocks about imaginary ICU admissions of people in their 20s and 30s then THAT is scaremongering.
And your snotty, patronising post doesn’t make it less so

‘I believe you’

Have you READ the inconsistencies in the posts? How can people be so gullible?

Glad you spotted it, OliveTree - sometimes things linked early in a thread can get a bit lost !

I hope non medical people understand that anyone can end up in ITU at any age due to a wide variety of problems, not just Covid like the press want you to think!!!

This is at the core of why we must not let NHS be overwhelmed. Right now you can't be admitted to ICUs without considerable risk of covid, as none are 'clean'. So complex surgery is paused, and those who have RTAs or other accidents, or who contract sepsis, or who have stroke or aneurysm, may well not survive.

But we can't know whether an anonymous poster on the internet did or didn't have anecdotal knowledge of a handful of admissions? What is the point of going on about it?

We could however have a useful discussion about general principles.

And I did start by posting actual stats from the CMO which some people chose to disbelieve too.

Don't think I'm the one with the agenda. There was ONE inconsistency in my post. (re occupations. I misspoke about the occupation of 1 out of 8 people). Your point about numbers of children currently in school isn't the gotcha you think it is. Lots of people currently unwell in hospital caught Covid before Christmas. You do know people can be on ventilators for weeks? It's like you don't understand that there is a delay from exposure to symptoms to illness to severe illness to recovery? And you do know that people are still catching Covid now - in hospitals, schools and workplaces? There have been dozens of bubbles burst even with smaller numbers in schools. Special schools open to almost all. Nurseries open to all. Just smaller numbers than in the month before Christmas.

I don't care if you don't believe me, but what's your desperate desire to not believe me about?

I think the problem is, without knowing how many people are infected in the first place, we don't know the % of young people that end up seriously ill. We know it is a very small percentage of a huge pool of people. When people say "ICUs are full of young people" it makes people worry as it seems like younger people are suddenly more at risk when they aren't.

That's all very true.

The lack of logic by some posters is quite astonishing though (on many threads) :

"We've vaccinated the most vulnerable so we should just open up society again..."

Ok, but whilst people under 70 (or 65 or 60 or whatever) haven't been vaccinated, with no mitigations in place, younger people (under 70, or 65, or, yes, 30-50) will be MORE likely to be severely ill than when we had lockdown or SD measures in place.

Not all of them, not most of them. The same percentage as before. But a percentage of a bigger number if no measures are in place.

It's basic maths/logic.

But random, last year in the summer the hospitals were not full of younger people. There are masses of working age people going to work every day. The ONS statistics say that the virus is circulating most among the young, but they make up the minority of hospital admissions. By young I mean the under 50’s. Yes when we open up the virus will circulated more among healthy unvaccinated populations, but the chances are the vast vast majority of these people will not need hospitalisation. I started this thread to counter the narrative on these boards that hospitals and ICU are full of 20/30/40 somethings when they really are not.

‘I don't care if you don't believe me, but what's your desperate desire to not believe me about?’

Because you’ve posted a load of made up, scaremongering bollocks. With more than the one inconsistency that you refer to. Some people are frightened. Some people are terrified of Covid. People like you exacerbate fear by making stuff up. Take some responsibility for what you post. And stop digging.

I'm not saying they were full of very young people last summer or will be this summer.
But we opened up society with a much much lower rate than we have now, with no variants around, and with many measures still in place.

The concern is all about assuming that over 70s being vaccinated is enough to allow all the rest of us to get on as normal. That's all.

I take full responsibility, thank you. And shall be sure to pass on your best wishes to my friends and friends of colleagues.

My GP friend is hoping to be back at work as soon as he can but is nowhere ready yet.

I couldn't find data for all of the UK, but here is some up to date data about hospitalisations and outcomes by age in North London. London has a slightly younger demographic than the rest of the UK, but not drastically so. We can see that whilst hospitalisations are far greater in the older categories, there are a substantial number of people in ICU who are under 60 and also a large number who may be over 60 but still of working age.

The difference between males and females is stark, isn't it?

Very much so. It makes you wonder why, as they go down through the age groups, they don't prioritise men over women.

Are men more likely to be overweight than women? I mean significantly overweight not just a chubby

I didn’t mean “a chubby” I meant a bit chubby

Thanks for that Nellodee. A clear picture that in a city of millions there are 46 people in the age group I have been talking about in ICU. For everyone affected by covid so severely it’s an awful illness . But it’s not the situation posters on these boards would have us believe.

Wow yes the difference between men and women needing ICU vare is very apparent on that chart. That is a useful chart as well. Would be good to have that kind of info for the the UK

@RandomGrammarPun

I take full responsibility, thank you. And shall be sure to pass on your best wishes to my friends and friends of colleagues.

My GP friend is hoping to be back at work as soon as he can but is nowhere ready yet.

You should contact the media. They love a sad faced random person who makes stuff up. Much more interesting than actual facts Sign up the poster who’s sister says there are an extra two paed ICU units opened up full of kids with Covid. And the ward sisters sister

I think it comes down to a difference in definition of young. I think of the dividing line as being "people who still have to work". I'm not personally worried (female, slightly overweight, 40s) but I am quite worried for colleagues who are in their 50s and 60s. I think that if we let cases soar before the over 50s have had their jabs, we'll be in trouble. I do think once we get that group vaccinated, we're definitely good to start relaxing a lot more (variants aside, but I don't think you can lock down, with all the accompanying definite negative effects, on the basis of something that is only a possibility).

You might think over 50 is old, or you might think it's young. I think this is where the disagreement comes in.

@Nellodee I agree with you.

@RandomGrammarPun

The difference between males and females is stark, isn't it?

I read something a while back that some of the variance between men and women is due to the type of work - so bus drivers, security guards etc being very high risk jobs. Women more likely to have a part time office job that is wfh.

This in addition to the types of pre-existing conditions.

If they were to prioritise men they would have to investigate, imo, prioritising for ethnicity and even perhaps socio-economic status. So they will just stick with age ranges in order not to open a big debate.

If we go through the age groups quickly, we are doing really well and should accept the slight imperfections in the system. The more granular we make the system, the more we will slow it down.

@Delatron @buttheywereonlysatilites my medical record shows bmi 40+ as a current condition that I have. I’ve not had any letters or advice to shield. I actually spoke to a gp last week (about an unrelated matter) and
I mentioned (in passing) that I’ve probably still got a long wait for a vaccine and the gp confirmed this.

@Sleeplessinsaltend

Thanks for that Nellodee. A clear picture that in a city of millions there are 46 people in the age group I have been talking about in ICU. For everyone affected by covid so severely it’s an awful illness . But it’s not the situation posters on these boards would have us believe.

But that is the data for only 1901 hospital admissions, of which 219 were admitted to icu. Of those, 48 were under 50, which is about 22% or just over 1 in 5, very similar to the national figures. At the peak last month there were over 800 hospital admissions per day in London or almost 6000 per week, so data on 1901 admissions is only the equivalent of less than 2 and half days of admissions at the peak of admissions.

Coffee so when the over 50’s are vaccinated then hospital admissions will fall through the floor, and we won’t see hospitals overwhelmed with people under 50. As I keep repeating the whole reason I started this thread was to counter a narrative on these boards that hospitals and ICU are full of younger people so we can not risk unlocking as hospitals will not be able to cope.