1000+ in ventilator beds already & school return with no household isolation

[RumblyMumbly]

Number of people in ventilator beds 1,014 on 31/08/21

It has been a steady / manageable rise since restrictions lifted in mid May when there were 125 patients in ventilator beds & while obviously awful for the people affected and their families this means the NHS has coped while there has been a lot of Covid cases

Does anyone else feel we may be at the tipping point? Schools in England mostly return this week for Autumn term.

If we compare with last years school return there were only 71 ventilator beds occupied on 31/08/20. Yes, we now have 64% of the total population double vaccinated which puts us in a far better situation than last year when the population had no protection. However, we had household isolations this time last year for positive cases, this year other household members of a positive case will be attending school and workplaces alongside everyone else and generally people will begin meeting indoors much more over the next few months.

Purpose of my post - nervousness about what will happen next...I don't want schools to close at all, children have already had 2 years of disrupted education. But to give my own personal experience - obviously other peoples differ - secondary remote learning can work if absolutely necessary (full schedule of lessons / homework) but primary remote learning (1hr lesson per day) did not work AT ALL & the vast majority of primary aged children are not ready to become independent learners while parents are in an impossible situation as they can't work and moonlight as a teacher.

I hope SAGE / the Government are watching the figures very closely and if we need a circuit breaker in October to keep the NHS manageable they act fast.

@herecomesthsun I'm massively in favour of more expenditure of our money on health, social care and education I just don't have much faith in the way this current Government will spend it!

[quote RumblyMumbly]@herecomesthsun I'm massively in favour of more expenditure of our money on health, social care and education I just don't have much faith in the way this current Government will spend it![/quote]
Same here. I dont mind paying a bit more, but I do mind our money being spent on dodgy contracts with companies run by MPs or their family members.

@Cornettoninja

I’d add contact isolation for household contacts and possibly school (back to bubbles?) and work contacts too *@RumblyMumbly*. Problem with that is that the higher infection rates are the more people are caught up in it. It’s is an effective way of bringing down case numbers without restricting larger groups of people though.

No bloody bubble again please ! Household contacts should definitely have to isolate. Medical-grade masks in all indoors public places including secondary schools should be mandatory. Social distancing in shops, public transport and WFH culture at least 1/2/ or 2/3 of the working week.

But not bloody bubbles restricting children' freedom without sound evidence base FFS.

[quote RumblyMumbly]@herecomesthsun I'm massively in favour of more expenditure of our money on health, social care and education I just don't have much faith in the way this current Government will spend it![/quote]
Yes, I agree about the contracts and the need for it to be directed and managed well (hence "broadly" in support)

Let's hope they also manage to budget better than they have with HS2

The government initially estimated that HS2 would cost £37.5bn.The latest estimate from HS2 Ltd – the non-departmental public body responsible for building the line – found that the cost of HS2 is likely to be between £72.1bn and £78.4bn

Quick update 14/09/21 still 1060 in ventilator beds so the figure is holding so far. How that will pan out with back to school I'm not sure? Currently over 50 children at DC secondary have Covid - I guess it just depends on how far it passes into families/ communities. Hopefully the booster jabs will protect the most vulnerable & keep most out of hospital.

According to google (and I know that’s not the most reliable way to get info) there are 1,910 in the uk.
Are you worried about less than one person per hospital being on a ventilator?

How that will pan out with back to school I'm not sure?

Cases are down almost 20% on the week. Aren't they?

@Winebefore5

According to google (and I know that’s not the most reliable way to get info) there are 1,910 in the uk. Are you worried about less than one person per hospital being on a ventilator?

@Winebefore5 the most reliable way is to look at the data here:

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

I believe we were in the tier system at the start of December 2020 & at that point there were 1,351 Covid patients on ventilators (but the figure was rapidly rising). On the 4th of January the Gov called a national lockdown when there were 2,560 Covid patients on ventilators. So it doesn't actually take that many ICU beds to be filled for the NHS to become overwhelmed.
Maybe you thought the NHS has more ICU capacity than it has?

The number of patients in beds with mechanical ventilation hit nigh on 4k in early January.

@RumblyMumbly
Correct me if I’m wrong, but your link doesn’t actually state how many hospitals there are in the uk either?
I believe there are over 5k standard icu beds within the uk, this is before we take into account the “nightingale hospitals” erected costing millions of pounds…most of which went unused.

There is also a worryingly high number of patients admitted to hospital for non-covid issues (because yes, more than covid exists) and contracting covid whilst in hospital - clearly the nhs have not learnt from previous outbreaks within hospitals.

On the 24/Jan there were 4077 patients on MV beds.

@FourTeaFallOut

How that will pan out with back to school I'm not sure?

Cases are down almost 20% on the week. Aren't they?

@FourTeaFallOut in a way it doesn't actually matter how many cases there are in total the figure we need to be watching is how many people are getting ill and need hospital attention & most importantly how many people with Covid are seriously ill & need ventilators (and how fast that number is growing).

According to the Covid dashboard the number in hospital has increased by 169 (2.5%) in the week preceding 11th Sept.
14/09/21 there were 8,340 Covid patients in hospital
01/09/21 there were 7,665 Covid patients in hospital
14/08/21 there were 5,980 Covid patients in hospital

that is far fewer Covid patients than when they called the national lockdown on 04/01/21 when there were 30,775 Covid patients in hospital

@FourTeaFallOut

On the 24/Jan there were 4077 patients on MV beds.

Yes and how long did it take to come out of that lockdown hell - schools weren't reopened until March due to that.

Now, play fair. You were the one sucking air between your teeth at children returning to school. And, for all the reasons you stated in the subsequent post, it's not really relevant to the prevalence of serious disease.

Given that children returning to school is only meaningful in respect to case numbers - a 20% drop in case numbers despite their return is good news worth pointing out.

Yes and how long did it take to come out of that lockdown hell - schools weren't reopened until March due to that.

That's not relevant when talking about the upper limit of capacity in the NHS. I never said it was pretty, just demonstrating the capacity is far higher than you are stating.

@FourTeaFallOut I think it would be really helpful if we knew what the Gov benchmark is for reintroducing contingency measures.

Actually I've just had a look and the methodology for Covid alert is available but I can't see what we current level England is (Level 3 or possibly 4 - does anyone know?)
Level 5 (lockdown) is enacted if the health service capacity will be overwhelmed within 3 weeks

level 1: COVID-19 is not known to be present in the UK
level 2: COVID-19 is present in UK, but the number of cases and transmission is low
level 3: a COVID-19 epidemic is in general circulation
level 4: a COVID-19 epidemic is in general circulation; transmission is high and pressure on healthcare services is widespread and substantial or rising
level 5: as level 4 and there is a material risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed

Escalating from level 2 to level 3

UK weekly case rate more than 50 per 100,000 population?
national R reliably estimated to be ≥1?
doubling time of confirmed new infections less than 7 days?

Escalating from Level 3-4
Escalating from level 3 to level 4
Indicators
Is the UK weekly case rate more than 250 per 100,000 population?
Is the national R reliably estimated to be R>1?
Is the doubling time of confirmed new infections less than 7 days?
Are there more than 30,000 estimated new infections in the UK per day?
Are COVID-19 related hospital admissions increasing at ≥25% over the same 7-day period?
Is COVID-19 related hospital occupancy increasing at ≥25% over the same 7-day period?
Are COVID-19 related high dependency units (HDU)/intensive care units (ICU) admissions increasing at ≥25% over the same 7-day period?
Is COVID-19 related HDU / ICU occupancy increasing at ≥25% over the same 7-day period?
Are new daily COVID-19 related deaths increasing at ≥25% over the same 7-day period?

Alert Level 5
here is a single holding indicator, with level 5 only recommended if that indicator is met:

Has the JBC, in consultation with NHS senior leadership and CMOs, estimated that forecasted healthcare demand will outmatch forecasted capacity across the UK, regions or devolved administrations within the next 21 days?

That's a lot of words, none of which seem relevant to my particular posts.

Sorry last post was more me trying to work out where we are in terms of Covid alert and how high and fast hospitalisations would need to be growing before they take measures.

It was interesting what Sir Patrick Vallance said yesterday that we are at 'pivot point':

When you make a move, you have to go earlier than you think you want to, you have to go harder than you think you want to and you have to make sure you have got the right geographical coverage

So, if this goes in the wrong direction and cases go up, followed by hospitalisations, it’s important that the measures are put in place early enough and they are significant enough

Yeah, I agree that all of that makes good sense. But we can't just jump because we lose our nerve. If 100k/daily case headlines is anything to go by is that we need to move on something more concrete than forecasting. Sometimes this virus doesn't move as we would expect. Who would have put money on cases being down this week compared to last week given the return to school and lack of isolating for household members? Not me, that's for sure.

@FourTeaFallOut I have been pleasantly surprised at each stage of the unlocking so far. The scientists and medics have always said winter will be worse because hospitals were already under most strain and being indoors will lead to greater Covid transmission. I believe them on that, we just don't know the degree of it yet. Hoping for a pleasant surprise on too. Starting the booster programme now is definitely the right time.

The Government held their nerve too long in Feb 2020 and Autumn 2020 which did lead to longer harder lockdowns to come out of, as Vallance said yesterday you can’t wait until it’s late because you’ve got to do more , a few softer measures earlier would be far preferable to hitting crisis point again.

And once again thank goodness for the scientists who have found a way to help us through this,save so many lives and allow us to begin to live our lives more normally again.

We did leave it too late on both those occasions. And we don't want to wait until it is too late again. But too late isn't the place it was with an unvaccinated population.

Nor will it be down just to covid. We need to cross our fingers and hope for a good match between the flu virus and the vaccine and a mild winter. Without that the capacity for treating serious covid cases will be severely reduced.

@Onandoff

Where I work every single intubated patient is a vaccine refuser.

EVERY SINGLE ONE.

We can’t justify punishing children to protect adults who have chosen not to protect themselves.

A double vaccinated friend of the family has passed away today from covid.

@ladygindiva sorry to hear that