More stringent measures next week?

[AchillesLastStand]

From the Guardian just now:

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/10/stringent-uk-covid-measures-needed-within-a-week-leak-reveals

@JoanOgden

If Plan C is (as trailed) masks in restaurants and bars, reinstatement of the check-in app and more use of vaccine passports, then I am pretty sure it will be almost entirely pointless.

Oh the app, that marvellous piece of technology! I never checked in with it before so won't be using it if they bring it back.

@chequerBoard what do you suggest? We close everywhere, send people home from their jobs and leave them without money for Christmas? Without money to heat their homes in these conditions? Try think of the bigger picture

[quote Autumndays123]**@chequerBoard* what do you* suggest? We close everywhere, send people home from their jobs and leave them without money for Christmas? Without money to heat their homes in these conditions? Try think of the bigger picture[/quote]

Hahaha from someone I bake to see the bigger picture that's really rich!

@chequerBoard sorry I can't make head or tail of what you are trying to say

My child had an op yesterday and was the only patient, they said no one else was in yesterday whatsoever.

My dad is having screenings for prostate cancer, so a colonoscopy and a CT scan every three months. He phoned the consultant to ask a question about a mole on his back, and was asked to come in the very next day. So in terms of being overwhelmed, my personal experience across children’s and adult wards is that they are empty in my local hospital…..

The definition of ‘mild’ is interesting though. How people are interpreting that vs what the doctors in sa meant when they were talking about their patients IN HOSPITAL (but not on oxygen - so mild to them).

@GoldenOmber

I can't quite understand this. 7000 in hospital v 40,000 at peak.........

Non-covid backlog and issues exacerbated by lockdowns, plus harder to discharge to care homes because they don’t have the beds, plus covid on top.

So clearly the solution is to fire care staff and lockdown again? 🤷‍♀️

Plenty of beds.... Not enough carers!

I definitely don't think more test and trace involvement through check ins is the way forward

Will theatres stay open?

Wow. Completely different in elderly orthopedics. We spent hours both in the ambulance "queuing" outside the hospital and then in the "corridor queue" before being seen properly. It was hideous. Care on the ward was so incredibly short staffed. My mum has been a hospital regular pre covid and this is something different.

The reality is all the Covid theatre of masks, hand gel, WFH and vaccination passports will only make a small difference.
Lockdowns work however unpalatable they are. Especially those where schools are shut. But the financial implications are also too much.
So lockdown by stealth as in Scotland seems a likely scenario- if we go back to 10 days isolation for contacts - it will be the pingdemic again and a very lonely Christmas for many

A quick google finds recent articles like this
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/ambulance-nhs-patients-dying-paramedics-b1952277.html

Ambulance waiting times twice as long as height of pandemic...

Honestly it's not just our hospital. It's across the board.

I am no fan of Nicolas but I saw her face during that briefing today and I’m worried.

It reminds me of early days or last January. She’s really concerned.

I’ll see what Linda bauld says; she’s been consistently calm and proportionate through this whole thing and I trust what she says.

@thebellagio

My child had an op yesterday and was the only patient, they said no one else was in yesterday whatsoever.

My dad is having screenings for prostate cancer, so a colonoscopy and a CT scan every three months. He phoned the consultant to ask a question about a mole on his back, and was asked to come in the very next day. So in terms of being overwhelmed, my personal experience across children’s and adult wards is that they are empty in my local hospital…..

Your personal experience doesn't equate to the national picture.

Try reading some facts:

6 million on waiting lists, which is an all time high

10,464 patients waiting over 12 hours in A&E in November, again an all time high

8,200 patients waiting more than an hour in an ambulance outside A&E
Plus the the Royal College of Emergency Medicine's November report estimated that 4,519 patients are likely to have died after waiting more than 12 hours in emergency departments during 2020-21.

Add another wave of Covid patients to that picture and it's not going to pretty.

@IamGusFring

Yet no one has been hospitalised with it or have died yet ......

Unsurprisingly - it normally takes around a week between onset of symptoms, and then another week to deterioration (ICU/death)

When they said it'll take a few weeks for enough cases to have gone through those timeliness, they mean it

It is still too early to say what proportion of thse with omicron will have miderate/severe disease (ie need addn

@BitterTits I wouldn't be so sure. I have been trying to get one (in England) for weeks. The nearest I have found in all that time is 55 miles away, in a location which requires a car.

The NHS has been almost at breaking point nearly every year prior to covid but everyone just got on with they're lives ignoring the pleads from nhs/private health care staff for years and years. This has just pushed them over the edge completely it's not just covid its Brexit and covid putting on and already near to collapsing system. Making vaccines mandatory for the already overwhelmed residential home and community care staff which forced loads to leave certainly didn't help either. I love the NHS or more I love the idea of it. I used to work there myself and was so very proud but now I just dont know if it's fit for purpose anymore :( I left due to my own personal reasons not to do with covid but I did plan on going back one day if there is even an NHS to go back to. The NHS is already on its knees people are already suffering and I think covid has only highlighted this.

@WoodenReindeer

A quick google finds recent articles like this www.independent.co.uk/news/health/ambulance-nhs-patients-dying-paramedics-b1952277.html

Ambulance waiting times twice as long as height of pandemic...

Honestly it's not just our hospital. It's across the board.

This. People are already dying because they can't get in the hospital due to Covid patients..... 90% of whom are unvaccinated in ITU's by the way.

I do fear some people want it to resch breaking point so it can be privatised/other measures pushed through.

I am actually worried. I dont think we have anything left to throw at covid (who seriously will succumb to lockdown agian...)

Beyond the scaremongering headlines it says hospitals admissions remain flat!

They haven't even got plan b in full effect yet to see and they already pushing plan c.

Honestly they can fuck off. This is all to force people to get vaccinated.

@FestiveMelts

Genuine question - why does the R rate need to stay below 1 for a less deadly variant?

There seems to be an assumption that even if it's only like a cold, it will still hospitalise many more people than a cold would. Or even flu. I am too stupid to understand why.

Of course if it's even half as bad as the original virus was, and evades the vaccines, then we have problems.

I think they want to get as many people getting the vaccines and boosters and are going to slowly introduce more ultimatums until the majority do it

I agree completely - except there's no guarantee how long those will protect people for either, or how long it'll be until the next variant arrives and yet another one's needed

Interesting that the article says AZ confers no protection against mild illness after only 4 months. Unfortunately some will take this to mean it was effectively useless, an attitude which may transfer to the next ones they're expected to get

Best hope that the quick peak in SA is replicated here and that we can somehow power through this without too much disruption. The NHS is already broken, but I'm thinking of everything else

@chequerboard I agree nationally it’s a concern, but as my dad says - he’s in the system for a check up every three months, each time having a colonoscopy, a CT and a blood test. How many times will he be included within those figures? More than once I would suggest…

The problem with statistics is that they can be used in a multiple of ways.

My issue with a focus on the hospital numbers is that they’ve never been clear on a) how many people tested positive while receiving treatment for something else? B) how many people in hospital with COVID are symptomatic or asymptomatic? C) what is the average length of stay in hospital for those who have tested positive and how has this changed over time? d) how many people caught COVID in hospital?

I fully admit there is clearly a national issue, but that’s down to a decade of lack of investment. The nhs simply isn’t fit for purpose anymore.

But I can’t get worried about the nhs nationally. I can only go by my local hospital’s capacity, which as it stands is very quiet. Obviously other hospitals will be struggling but to say that every single hospital in the country is, just isn’t accurate.

So lockdown by stealth as in Scotland seems a likely scenario- if we go back to 10 days isolation for contacts - it will be the pingdemic again and a very lonely Christmas for many

Surely a lot of people just won't give their contact details to T&T. I'm not saying that's right but I can imagine people just telling close contacts they're positive and letting them make their own decisions.

I hope not but the vote on Tuesday is for what is already proposed

Some MPs have been talking about not even voting for those

So they’d need to be convinced to pass more - although Labour seem keen

Scotland is 10 days isolation for household contacts now rather than all close contacts. So harder to just not give names to T&T. Probably not going to work brilliantly well with the urging everyone to take LFTs all the time, though - people will be less willing to do that if a positive line meant your whole household is isolating.