Westministenders: Peak something

[BigChocFrenzy]

Westministenders: Peak something

The story so far

COVID has changed the world for the next few years, like a slowly exploding nuke:

• killed well over 100,000 people
• made many people afraid to leave their home
• caused a Global Depression

Countries locked down because they needed the extra time to

Raise the Line while Flattening the Curve:

1. Flatten the curve of the numbers needing healthcare to a level the system can manage

2. Raise the capacity of their health services and public health systems - their testing and tracking process

Also, scientists desperately needed time to find out more about COVID:
how to avoid it, how to treat it

What happens next ?

Research teams around the world are working to produce a vaccine,
will become hopefully available within the next couple of years

In the meantime, treatment procedures are being developed to better treat COVID sufferers.

Also in the meantime, countries will need to gradually exit lockdown to rescue their economies from complete catastrophe.

Timing & measures for each country will be dependent on:

Death rate after peak,
health service capacity,
testing & tracing capacity etc

....and also what their govt and public deem an "acceptable" level of extra deaths & serious illness.

Possibly some countries will need to cycle in and out of lockdown,
whereas others will be able to accept the death toll with lesser social distancing measures.

The first few countries are already relaxing lockdown,
so the UK will watch, wait and hopefully learn what works and what doesn't

..... then copy these the correct way round

I've just finished watching Wolf Hall again. Still liked it. Claire Foy a brilliant actor. Women didn't have it easy. And I've decided it's doing too great a compliment to the current schoolyard lot to compare them to the intrigue and plotting of those years.

Ooh is it on iplayer?

“We’re looking for guilty men, but not necessarily of the crimes committed”.

Yes that was a great line and quite apt for the times. We had the DVD so made good use of it.

I've seen a few things on Twitter about the FT running a story tomorrow on the death rate of covid being more like 41,000 extrapolating from the latest ONS data. Will be interesting to see how they've gotten there. Somehow I fear they may not be that wrong but I sort of hope they are.

squid4, sorry, cutting in very late about Covid testing.

On our pathology system, when we check for Covid, it says 'second run, or 'third run'; What does that mean?

TIA

Wednesday front pages

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/nurse-shortage-causes-nightingale-hospital-to-turn-away-patients

Nurse shortage causes Nightingale hospital to turn away patients
Exclusive: Covid-19 patient transfers to new London facility cancelled owing to lack of ICU nurses

Dozens of patients with Covid-19 have been turned away from the NHS Nightingale hospital in London because it has too few nurses to treat them, the Guardian can reveal.

The disclosure comes amid a growing belief among hospital management in the capital that the Nightingale, built to great acclaim over just nine days, was becoming a “white elephant”.

The hospital has been unable to admit about 50 people with the disease and needing “life or death” care since its first patient arrived at the site, in the ExCeL exhibition centre, in London’s Docklands, on 7 April. Thirty of these people were rejected because of a lack of staff.

Apparently they have enough doctors. But there is a shortage of critical care nurses as they are all already working in hospitals around the capital.

Hands up, who is surprised?

And whilst you are all stunned by this government and their lack of ability to think logistics through...

... Here's the FT talking about when a political decision isn't a political decision really.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632783-400-could-the-coronavirus-trigger-post-viral-fatigue-syndromes/

We may expect to see an outbreak of post-viral fatigue syndromes in some people who have had covid-19,
according to some researchers.

Viral infections have previously been linked to problems with long-term fatigue symptoms.
For example, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), which is also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), sometimes occurs after viral infections.

Here's a fascinating article from a doctor about just how covid causes low oxygen and lung damage, how it's often "silent" until sats get very bad, and how absolutely vital early treatment is.
Which is unfortunately at major odds with the very disturbing anecdotes about refusal to admit patients in the UK until they're in obvious extreme distress.

www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html?fbclid=IwAR3E_BizMh19GsO73wFelUr5t6HT77uKILyQeRYUAfE8TasJHCJO6NUmeqo

BCF I heard that on the radio yesterday (MS link) and thought it was possibly the biggest irony of all; Bozo wants us to become infected for "herd immunity" that instead makes us even less productive as a nation than we already are and with added long term health problems.
You couldn't make it up.

Sorry ME not MS!

Govt. may be shit-useless at some things, but when it comes to showing the instruments of torture to the nation's senior diplomat to jog his memory, it can still be done in an hour flat.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52369916

These fuckers care only for the preservation of their own arses.

amp.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d05-43bc-ba03-e239799fa6ab?__twitter_impression=true
Coronavirus pandemic death toll in UK twice as high as official figure | Free to read
FT estimate has been updated to reflect latest mortality trends

The estimate is more than double the official figure of 17,337 released by ministers on Tuesday, which is updated daily and only counts those who have died in hospitals after testing positive for the virus.

The FT extrapolation, based on figures from the ONS that were also published on Tuesday, includes deaths that occurred outside hospitals updated to reflect recent mortality trends.

The analysis also supports emerging evidence that the peak of deaths in the UK occurred on April 8 with the mortality rate gradually trending lower since, despite the 823 hospital deaths announced on Tuesday, which were sharply up on the 449 in the previous 24 hours.

And

Excess deaths from all causes stand 16,952 above the seasonal average across the UK since fatalities from Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, began to mount in mid-March.

The “all cause excess mortality” figure is widely recognised as the best measure of the death toll linked to the pandemic.

And

Prof Spiegelhalter said that coronavirus was not given as the cause on many of the death certificates but was likely to be a direct or indirect factor. He said many doctors would initially have been reluctant to designate the virus as the cause on death certificates as it was a new disease and they could not have been certain.

Some of those who died from other causes may have been too scared to attend hospital or did not want to be a burden on the health service so they could be seen as possible indirect victims of the virus, he argued. But he added, the sheer number of deaths caused by the virus meant, “there is no suggestion that the collateral damage — however large it is — is anything like as big as the harm from Covid”.

The ONS said on Tuesday it had asked Public Health England to investigate why care home deaths were rising so sharply.

And

As 24 per cent of deaths normally occur in care homes in the UK, the analysis suggests that just under 11,000 more people than normal have died in residential care since the start of the outbreak.

And

The ONS data also showed that the vast majority of all excess deaths were people aged over 75 years old. This age bracket accounted for 70 per cent of the total, the same proportion as those with Covid-19 on their death certificates.

And about those unexplained excess deaths...

www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exclusive-nhs-using-flawed-covid-19-test-missing-25-of-positives/
Exclusive: NHS using ‘flawed’ COVID-19 test – missing 25% of positives

Someone has said on the coronavirus threads that the Telegraph is running the flawed test story too.

So yes if someone tests negative for Covid-19 and then dies what do doctors put on the death certificate? It makes it harder to put covid-19 despite that. Yet we apparently are using bad tests. Despite Hancock declaring that no test was better than a bad test...

Apparently it took 5 hours, Mockers. How he must have suffered.

"But five hours later Sir Simon retracted his comments after Mr Hancock disputed the suggestion the decision not to participate had been a political one."

"This is a very fine gold-plated, index-linked pension, Sir Simon. What a pity it would be if something happened to it...."

...and oh look, Sir Simon, I see we have a vacancy as Governor of Pitcairn Island...

According to the Mail it was ‘Raab’s fury‘ that led to Sir Simon’s retraction.

According to the Mail it was ‘Raab’s fury‘ that led to Sir Simon’s retraction.

Definitely not political then...

Here's a fascinating article from a doctor about just how covid causes low oxygen and lung damage, how it's often "silent" until sats get very bad, and how absolutely vital early treatment is. Which is unfortunately at major odds with the very disturbing anecdotes about refusal to admit patients in the UK until they're in obvious extreme distress.

From what I read Germany is hospitalising covid cases early. Which may contribute to their lower mortality rate.

The article in the NYT confirms that pulse oximeters really should be given to people at home with (suspected) CV-19.
Wonder where they are made and how easy it is to get millions shipped to the UK...

They were easily available here but they’re much more expensive suddenly due to covid.

I’ve got one as one of my son’s has mild asthma. Bought one for my parents on Amazon about a week ago at 3x the normal price.

Generally made in China.

Thanks, Tatiana