First ministers briefing

[Trichford]

Is there one on today? If so what time will it be? Thanks

If by ‘political decision’ you mean that ultimately the politicians (I.e. Ministers) make the decisions, well, yes, of course, and that’s how it should be. After all there is more to consider here than just the risk of from COVID, including risks to health from lockdown and the very acute risks to the economy and people’s livelihoods, which also has knock on effects on people’s health and well-being. The advisors I’ve heard (from U.K. and Scotland) have said that progress is fragile and that people still need to keep a distance etc.

This is an interesting piece from the Chief Scientific Advisor explaining that opinions change as the science changes, and there are often disagreements amongst the group. This is how science works, particularly in unknown territory like this. Both U.K. and Scottish governments have said they’ll continue to monitor infection as we relax the rules as no one knows how it will go. Ultimately though, we need to get back to normal life and we can’t wait for absolute certainty because that just isn’t on the table right now. Only time will tell whether we moved too quickly, or didn’t move quickly enough and allowed more harms from lockdown than were necessary. I don’t envy the ministers having to weigh all this up.

I'll be very surprised if we avoid a second wave. A former chief medical officer has said that the delay in locking down has cost 40,000 lives in the UK.

@spottedelk

I'll be very surprised if we avoid a second wave. A former chief medical officer has said that the delay in locking down has cost 40,000 lives in the UK.

So, more than the official figures say have died in total?

Maybe you shouldn't trust the official figures?
From 2 days ago:
"The UK has registered 59,537 more deaths than usual since the week ending March 20"

I don't trust official figures and I know the actual number is higher but that is still a ridiculous statement to say that locking down earlier would have saved 40k deaths. Death numbers do fluctuate and if he's saying that nearly 70% wouldn't have died if they'd locked down earlier, what date is he using? Scotland locked down apparently earlier in the infection phase and yes, has a better outcome in % deaths than england, but is much higher than Wales and NI. I don't think we can necessarily completely compare as we have different population density and levels of BAME and poverty etc etc etc, but some of those things favour us and some go against.

I don't have access to the science they have and they don't have access to the science they need either as the testing has been abysmal, most of this is based on fingers in the air.

The effect on the vast majority of the population is really small but we need to get people back working in ways that mimimise the risk but allow the country to function.

My personal view is that they should have shut down harder and faster initially and it would have been very painful but a lot shorter, but we can all come up with different things with the benefit of hindsight.

I'm not saying the decisions taken since shutdown have necessarily been wrong, just that there is always an element of where political gain can be made while taking them.

It's also funny that all the medical experts are saying different things? Surely they all have access to the same information but are interpreting it differently so therefore who is to say which one is right?

Hindsight probably.

He mentioned Greece, which saw what was happening in Italy and locked down immediately. We could have done similar. Greece has had approximately 100 deaths.

We could have done similar but we continued to have our airports open and folk coming into the country with no restrictions even after we locked down. I caught it via someone who had been skiiing in Italy in mid February, he just came back to work and went about his business, including emptying his water bottle into the drain in the water machine and having people sat with him at his desk for training. I either caught it directly from him as he sat quite close or more likely from the woman he trained who he infected and who ended up in hospital. My feeling is that I most likely caught it from using the toilets after her. 2 cubicles shared between about 100 women meant that there were pretty much always queues so you were going in straight after someone and that is a very high source of infection.

So, knowing the situation in Italy, he should have been made to quarantine at home rather than bring the infection into the office. His partner ended up ill also and he says he "had a bit of a cold".

I say I've had it, there was no testing available to me despite DH being an NHS worker and then having to isolate, he developed symptoms 7 days after me. Still didn't get a test. The assumption is that as fellow worker in close proximity had a positive test in hospital and I had the relevant symptoms which I reported and then stayed home, i will have had it.

I didn't even know she was in hospital or tested when I reported my symptoms, this only emerged afterwards.

Right at the start I was ticked off on Social Media for mentioning that there was a suspected case in the next town (literally just that, no details beyond) in an attempt to get people in our small town to take it seriously. At that time people will still cracking jokes about it (early March). (NB this is a town with lots of commuting to London and a lot of skiing holiday families, so a real risk). I was really quite embarrassed as I was accused of breaching patient confidentiality...and that it was no one’s business who had it. I thought I was doing the right thing as usually you‘d want to know who has had it so one can avoid them! But my NHS worker friend laid into me publicly on social media.

Taken directly from the NS handbook as the reason for doing nothing about the Nike outbreak.

From the BBC website regarding the restart of the NHS:

^The services likely to be prioritised by health boards include:
Cancer services, including referrals and postponed treatments
Expanding treatments for non-cancer urgent inpatients and outpatients
Outpatient therapies such as management of macular degeneration, paediatrics and respiratory services
Mental health support
Blood monitoring and B12 injections."^

So, because of Coronavirus all these other people might have died?? We had a non urgent follow up appointment with a consultant which was cancelled, and that is fine (he actually phoned us), but I never realized all these services had been stopped.
Just the other day I saw a man being interviewed because he had pull a tooth out himself. Oh dear.
I know for example that in Italy essential services never stopped, including dentistry. Instead here you have to pull your teeth out? If the alternative is necessarily to get Coronavirus I don't think I would have cared...

I think the main issue is that people were very successfully put off going to the GP etc for treatment when they should have gone and been seen.

I think some of these services have been running. DH has certainly transported people for blood issues and when my BiL was in agony a few weeks ago, he did get taken in and a biopsy done on some nodules and he now has a referral to hematology. Hopefully it's not as aggressive as we first thought but he definitely avoided getting help until he absolutely didn't have a choice. He might have missed over a months worth of treatment.

The pause in cancer referrals/treatments and screening is particularly concerning to me as this is so time sensitive, and could well have cost more lives than have been saved from COVID19. I thought this as soon as the pause in screening was announced; around 1600 Scots die annually of bowel cancer for instance and early detection massively increases survival odds. We will have to count up ALL these deaths (COVID and otherwise) when this is all over the inquiries into decisions start.

I had a biopsy op cancelled at the start of this. I've now had a letter saying I can risk it now, but heavy on the "but you might get Covid in hospital!!!" So I'm putting it off.

Mascotte, DH in FV and they only have one Covid ward now - in reality, no more chance of catching it in the hospital than in the supermarket imo.

Hope results are positive when you do get it done.

@Mascotte I work full time in a hospital (ICU) and we don't have any covid ICU patients at the moment. We still have a medical ward with covid patients but you won't be anywhere near a covid ward getting a biopsy. I haven't had covid (as far as I know) despite being in the hospital almost every day of lockdown so I reckon a hospital is much safer and cleaner than a supermarket. I wouldn't put off your biopsy.

Thanks... the letter sounded most discouraging: even though I'm not that worried about Covid in general, they freaked me!

In any case, I'm a single parent and it's a day op so I can't get it done as my dc isn't going to be in school for the foreseeable. I'll rearrange when he's back.

@Mascotte no I don't like the sound of this! Take your DC with you.

They need to cover themselves and make sure you have all information you need, but I'm with trump , get yourself there as soon as you reasonably can. For me this is a good reason to be allowing your son to go somewhere for care while you get the biopsy done.

On a different note. I've emailed my local director of education: the only possibility is a day, maybe, for transition for the P7s. This is desperate.

Mascotte, I would think that you would qualify for the current provisions made for keyworker and vulnerable children. Not that I am saying your child is vulnerable per se, but their parent needing an important medical procedure should count. I don't get the impression that the provisions are full. Is there no-one that could have your child? Childminders are now allowed to open maybe someone would have a space?

Thanks.. There's really not, and he's twelve and seriously fed up.

If he's twelve then I'd make your appointment and take him with you, get whatever portable device he has charged up, take a pack lunch and get your tests done. How long would you be away? Could he stay at home if it was a half day or something?

I couldn't really do that as it's a general anaesthetic.

I'm not precious. I leave him if I have to work, pretty rarely and nice safe house and neighbours 😃