Increasing number of cases

[AutumnAlmanack]

Could anyone please explain to me why it is that the UK is recording such a high number of daily cases, and rising, whereas the rest of Europe and elsewhere seem to be showing a steady decline in numbers? It really baffles me!

Oh, I give up. You don’t want to head that anything is more complex than you want it to be.

Good luck Florianus at lobbying English politicians to bring in mask-wearing to protect all those hospitals in Northern Ireland and Scotland!

If you read the SAGE minutes they don’t say that exactly

More be ready and

Any resurgence in hospital admissions that is driven by waning immunity may be
more gradual than previous waves, allowing more time for effective intervention.

Scenarios modelled for the coming winter and into 2022 suggest COVID-19 hospital admissions above the level seen in January 2021 are increasingly unlikely, but there are uncertainties around behaviour change and waning immunity.

They don’t actually say deploy Plan B now

@MarshaBradyo

If you read the SAGE minutes they don’t say that exactly

More be ready and

Any resurgence in hospital admissions that is driven by waning immunity may be
more gradual than previous waves, allowing more time for effective intervention.

Scenarios modelled for the coming winter and into 2022 suggest COVID-19 hospital admissions above the level seen in January 2021 are increasingly unlikely, but there are uncertainties around behaviour change and waning immunity.

They don’t actually say deploy Plan B now

Plus ...

In the event of increasing case rates (*), earlier intervention would reduce the need for more stringent, disruptive, and longer-lasting measures.

(*) Which there have been since the SAGE meeting just over a week ago.

@GoldenOmber

Oh, I give up. You don’t want to head that anything is more complex than you want it to be.

Good luck Florianus at lobbying English politicians to bring in mask-wearing to protect all those hospitals in Northern Ireland and Scotland!

What I hear is what the BMA, the NHS Confederation and now SAGE are saying: that early intervention would reduce the need for more stringent, disruptive, and longer-lasting measures.

With all respect, I think they know more about the current situation than armchair "experts".

Yes but it doesn’t say we recommend deploying now so any article that suggests they’ve said this isn’t accurate

@MarshaBradyo

Yes but it doesn’t say we recommend deploying now so any article that suggests they’ve said this isn’t accurate

It says early intervention. Unless you want to ignore all of the failures in 2020, early intervention does not mean dithering for the next few weeks.

With all respect, I think they know more about the current situation than armchair "experts".

What I have observed over past 18 months is that some “armchair experts” (including a few Mumsnetters and twitter modellers like James Ward or Andrew Lilico) tend to have a better read of the real time situation than epidemiologists or SAGE. Scientists value precise data but it is only available with a 4-5 days time lag. In a fast moving situation it becomes out of date as soon as it is produced. Amateur forecasters seem better at “operating in the grey”.

Based on the current situation (numbers reported today and broken down by date of specimen at the regional level):

• East Midlands and Yorkshire & The Humber have joined NW in its drop. Cases in all the three regions are now going down.
• NE may still be peaking this week (with medium level of certainty).
• SE, WM and SE are all increasing. SE seems to be going up faster than SW.
• London remains a mixed bag with Western boroughs driving the growth.

I don’t think you need to be an expert, armchair or otherwise, to understand that UK countries have different rules. And that there may be a few issues in calling for Boris Johnson to institute Plan B to save pressures in hospitals in Belfast.

I may be wrong about this, of course…

We are not ‘intervening’ anymore. We are allowing cases to naturally rise and fall rather than prolong this misery to no end.

It’s a completely different plan to last year when the situation was very different.

We do not want to drag this out any longer.

It says early intervention. Unless you want to ignore all of the failures in 2020, early intervention does not mean dithering for the next few weeks.

It’s not the same situation as last winter so I wouldn’t use that as a guide

Plus if hospitalisation is unlikely to exceed last year (without restrictions this time) then it will be high but within capacity

@MarshaBradyo

It says early intervention. Unless you want to ignore all of the failures in 2020, early intervention does not mean dithering for the next few weeks.

It’s not the same situation as last winter so I wouldn’t use that as a guide

Plus if hospitalisation is unlikely to exceed last year (without restrictions this time) then it will be high but within capacity

The difference this year is that NHS staff are exhausted, with many off sick, and hospitals are trying to catch up with an enormous backlog of postponed surgery, cancer care and so on.

For that reason, it is expected that hospitals will be overwhelmed by a much smaller number of Covid-19 patients than last year.

Thus it is that three General hospitals in Lanarkshire (Hairmyres, Monklands and Wishaw) declared a Code Black warning yesterday. Aberdeen Royal Infirmary is also at a “critical occupancy level. levels”. Soldiers are having to assist NHS Borders this week, while two further health boards – Grampian and Ayrshire and Arran – have also asked for assistance. I have already mentioned that the Belfast Children's Hospital and Truro Hospital in Cornwall have already declared themselves to be overwhelmed.

I don't know how many hospitals need to stop accepting patients before people begin to understand the warning signs.

The fact that there are now only (!) 8000 hospital admissions a day for Covid-19 does NOT mean that hospitals are not being overwhelmed. Hospitals are already nearly full (in some cases, actually full) with non-Covid work.

@Florianus

"The fact that there are now only (!) 8000 hospital admissions a day for Covid-19 does NOT mean that hospitals are not being overwhelmed. Hospitals are already nearly full (in some cases, actually full) with non-Covid work"

That's completely wrong? Obviously. There's just over 8k in hospital IN TOTAL. And around 2k over those are in for something else and happen to test positive.

In Jan we had 40k in there in total.

[quote bluetuesdayy]@Florianus

"The fact that there are now only (!) 8000 hospital admissions a day for Covid-19 does NOT mean that hospitals are not being overwhelmed. Hospitals are already nearly full (in some cases, actually full) with non-Covid work"

That's completely wrong? Obviously. There's just over 8k in hospital IN TOTAL. And around 2k over those are in for something else and happen to test positive.

In Jan we had 40k in there in total.[/quote]
Sorry, I should have said 8000 a week.

The point is that hospitals are now trying to cope with a huge backlog of surgery along with cancer care and everything else that has been delayed, with staff who are totally exhausted. That is why comparisons with January are pointless and why the much lower number of Covid-cases now still means that a number of hospitals (I have listed six, plus some entire health authorities) are already overwhelmed.

This isn't going to be a pleasant winter for anyone working in the NHS or needing NHS care.

It's not just the rising number of Covid cases, it's also the expected bad 'flu season and the fact that the system is close to tipping point before the onset of these and the other usual 'winter pressures'.

Take a look at Cornwall, that's a totally broken health system which is not coping, even now. The lack of social care is preventing patients from flowing through the system out of hospital leading to total log-jam at the front doors. That's people sick enough to be conveyed in an ambulance - heart attacks, strokes etc that can't get in the doors of A&E for treatment.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/treliske-cornwall-nhs-critical-incident-b1943107.html?amp

The virologist. Prof Peter Openshaw (of Imperial College and NervTag, but speaking in a personal capacity) has said he is 'very fearful' there will be another 'lockdown Christmas' if measures to mitigate the rising numbers are not taken now.

Meanwhile, a joint statement from unions including the TUC, Usdaw, Unison, Unite, the GMB and Aslef representing three million workers have also demanded the Government bring in policies including the return of home-working and mandatory face masks.

Also, the World Health Organisation has warned the vaccine alone will not be able to lift the world out of the pandemic.

Whether deaf ears will start listening, I doubt.

No, the vaccine alone won’t be enough because there is a significant rump of f*rs who won’t get vaccinated.

About three times as many people have died from covid by the 28 day measure in the last three months as the same period last year.

People seem to think the situation isn't as bad as this time last year.

But given that government covid policy has managed to kill more people despite vaccination - isn't it worse?

@MarshaBradyo it won't be fucking in fucking capacity

Our ICU has already had to expand capacity and will likely have to further resulting in electives being cancelled. 60 beds are occupied with Covid in a hospital that struggled with capacity pre Covid.

People are believing the drivel that Sajid is spewing. Lockdown meant low rtfs, no injuries from sports etc.

They need to hurry the fuck up and bring back masks and introduce passes. We're in Spain and I'm embarrassed to be British. Everyone here wears a mask, no excuses, no exceptions and no whinging. IF we bring in those measures NOW, you may still have access to an icu bed if you crash your car, if not, forget healthcare access for winter, we will be triaging at the door who gets care and who can die

@Florianus if we all lockdown again this winter to protect the NHS, doesn't it risk falling over again next winter as we all get the flu and RSV etc that we didn't have again this year? How do you see the 'protect the NHS' thing going long term? Because its going to be permanently in that precarious state, isn't it?

[quote endlesscraziness]@MarshaBradyo it won't be fucking in fucking capacity

Our ICU has already had to expand capacity and will likely have to further resulting in electives being cancelled. 60 beds are occupied with Covid in a hospital that struggled with capacity pre Covid.

People are believing the drivel that Sajid is spewing. Lockdown meant low rtfs, no injuries from sports etc.

They need to hurry the fuck up and bring back masks and introduce passes. We're in Spain and I'm embarrassed to be British. Everyone here wears a mask, no excuses, no exceptions and no whinging. IF we bring in those measures NOW, you may still have access to an icu bed if you crash your car, if not, forget healthcare access for winter, we will be triaging at the door who gets care and who can die [/quote]
Tbh this kind of ranting… whatever you say.

@endlesscraziness full lockdown yes reduced accidents but also enabled horrors such as the Arthur Labinjo Hughes murder. We need to be measured in our response and consider that all courses of action have pros and cons.

An increase in NHS capacity is the only viable long term solution.

I don't think we should lock down, however to avoid that we need masks and vaccine passes for crowded venues.

I do think if the government continues to piss about they'll end up having to do something drastic. It's utterly ridiculous

But it's ok because Sajid says we're performing with distinction and not exceeding capacity so it must be true.

@itsallgoingpearshaped

Because the UK is a lot more like the US than it likes to pretend: * Picking the economy over lives * Not closing down initially until they really had no political choice; they're still doing it, frankly * Picking 'freedom' over social good * Not requiring masks in enclosed spaces * Allowing too many ridiculous exemptions for mask wearing * Not requiring covid passports for clubs, restaurants, etc * Not vaccinating secondary school students before they went back to school this autumn * Allowing two tiers of rules to apply: the wealthy and connected have always continued to do what they want when they want, while everyone else has to follow the constantly changing 'rules'

This.

[quote endlesscraziness]@MarshaBradyo it won't be fucking in fucking capacity

Our ICU has already had to expand capacity and will likely have to further resulting in electives being cancelled. 60 beds are occupied with Covid in a hospital that struggled with capacity pre Covid.

People are believing the drivel that Sajid is spewing. Lockdown meant low rtfs, no injuries from sports etc.

They need to hurry the fuck up and bring back masks and introduce passes. We're in Spain and I'm embarrassed to be British. Everyone here wears a mask, no excuses, no exceptions and no whinging. IF we bring in those measures NOW, you may still have access to an icu bed if you crash your car, if not, forget healthcare access for winter, we will be triaging at the door who gets care and who can die [/quote]
Things feel very different in Cyprus. Pretty much zero mask wearing from locals and tourists alike.

[quote Brickskithouse]@Florianus if we all lockdown again this winter to protect the NHS, doesn't it risk falling over again next winter as we all get the flu and RSV etc that we didn't have again this year? How do you see the 'protect the NHS' thing going long term? Because its going to be permanently in that precarious state, isn't it?[/quote]
The idea of introducing Plan B now is that it may well avoid another lockdown.