Dancing with tiers in my eyes, Weeping for the memory of a life gone by

[dancemom]

New thread, a very appropriate title I feel ...

Should say I don't mean that to read as goady as it does but honestly I don't see any other options other than learning to live with it given its a high mutating virus.

I'm totally bemused why there hasn't been more done to upgrade the NHS over the past 18 months. Why haven't more beds been being created, nurses trained, clinics set up, ambulance capacity increased, backlogs of patients seen while things were a bit quieter over summer 2020 and this summer? It's hardly as if it's a surprise that things will get worse over autumn into winter. That's what happened last year, even though lockdown etc was tighter in the autumn then.

So why are we in the situation, again, where things are on their knees before we're even seeing the worst of it?!

I know it applies to both NHS Scotland and England/ Wales, but really... What has actually been done to mitigate against the situation we're seeing? Rather than spending money on LFTing the fuck out of everyone, and on advertising campaigns to ask us to roll up our sleeves and make sensible choices or on shutting down entire wards of hospitals because the staff had to be redeployed onto other stuff or were too ill or knackered to come in - why not spend some of that money on increasing NHS capacity, or maybe even on helping GPs and dentists and so on to start seeing and treating people again before it becomes urgent/ an emergency...? I understand it's not an easy thing, it takes time and resources and money is tight (when isn't it...though there's been money around for lots of other pandemic things, and there may have been more if it hadn't been spent on random unidentifiable election bribes policies) but it's only basic-level rocket science, surely. It shouldn't be up to us to start curtailing what we want and need to do to ensure we "make sure the NHS is available for those who need it". Again.

Well, I don't think that I, a random citizen, should be expected to have the answers. That's why I never ran for government - it seems really hard. But these people chose to put themselves in a position of great responsibility so yeah, I'd like them to have the answers please. Or at least make a show of not having got completely bored with trying to keep the people who voted for them alive.

I think Resilience has generally covered it. Other things I'd add:

• admit Brexit is part of the problem in staffing levels and revoke it (too late but it never used to be...)

- lead by example, not by doing what the fuck they like then laughing while we do nothing to stop them

• not give their unqualified friends billions of pounds for very little return
• not turn down offers from actual qualified people, such as companies offering PPE and ventilators in the early days
• face up to the fact that this can't be resolved by washing hands, and put money into ventilating public buildings
• taking a look at the measures other countries are living with and actually trying to learn something, rather than cling to our British exceptionalism

And, yes, I agree with scottishskifun when you compare the Covid situation with eg flu, it just seems so disproportionate. Covid is different to flu of course, but ultimately, it's likely to affect the same people worst, including potentially leading to death in potentially a few 10s of thousand people a year (as flu does in a bad year). Maybe some who would be vulnerable to flu will now be affected worse by covid, or some who would come down with post viral illnesses from flu will now get long covid instead. We don't know the numbers, but we can predict they will be higher than if just flu were circulating. So if we're "just living with it" we need to resource that, so we're not in this "aaaaarrrgh, loads of people are off ill and we can't run our hospitals" scenario Every Bloody Year.

If we're relying on vaccines and boosters and natural immunity to boost up the immunity of the population, we do just need to stop trying to curtail spread through non-sustainable means and accept that the virus will spread, but we have vaccines and treatments and resources to deal with it.

This article just came up on my Twitter feed which ties in with what we're talking about.

The NHS is already in a crisis and we're in mid October. The government does have a Plan B which they, er, seem to have sort of forgotten about?

I mean, the time to implement mitigations isn't when it's too late...they learned nothing. How do they envisage this winter playing out by doing nothing? I just find it so so bizarre!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk

Genuine question - how many of the hospital staff who are off are actually 'off sick' and how many are off because they've been contract traced, or picked up as asymptomatic (so less likely to transmit). I know it's possible for asymptomatic to spread COVID before anyone jumps down my throat but this is also true of other viruses, and we don't routinely screen healthy people for those (and then insist that they quarantine). Is it just possible that relaxing COVID measures a smidge might relieve some pressure on the NHS?

My friend’s husband is a nurse manager in a big hospital and says that quite a lot of those off are at it. I’m just saying what he says.

But surely Bojo's plan B is our "new normal" / "baseline measures" or whatever we're calling it. Which has hardly proven to be a Silver bullet. If England break the glass on their Plan B it may well jerk the country to think about how they are going about their everyday (assessing the necessity of contacts, checking ventilation, limiting indoor time etc), which may have some beneficial effects in the short term - but ultimately, I really can't see it will do any more to suppress the spread than it has here. Any benefit will surely just result from "being seen to be doing something" meaning it's suddenly become important and concerning again, for anyone who had forgotten (and restoking the divisions in society re "essential work", "true exemptions" "careful behaviour" and all the stuff we have up here) rather than the chosen measures themselves being specifically beneficial.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

Genuine question - how many of the hospital staff who are off are actually 'off sick' and how many are off because they've been contract traced, or picked up as asymptomatic (so less likely to transmit). I know it's possible for asymptomatic to spread COVID before anyone jumps down my throat but this is also true of other viruses, and we don't routinely screen healthy people for those (and then insist that they quarantine). Is it just possible that relaxing COVID measures a smidge might relieve some pressure on the NHS?

Yes, this is the kind of thing I'm getting at. I know the NHS has had a culture of turning up even if your leg is dropping off, so as not to let your team/ patients down. And that obviously isn't necessarily the best from an infection control point of view. But now things seem to have gone the other way. Of course you don't want care/ NHS staff infecting vulnerable patients (though that has obviously been happening to some extent anyway) but surely asymptomatic staff, with good PPE, well ventilated wards etc etc would be a lower risk overall than not having enough staff so having to close wards, bring in locums and so on.

I understand from family member that nhs staff are following same guidelines as everyone else.
If a close contact then pcr test. If that's negative then return to work with regular LFT.
If pcr positive then stay home.

I think if someone works with very high risk patients like cancer ward then they may be moved to work elsewhere if they are living with a household member who is positive

@BlameItOnTheBlackStar but the only govt which has invested in proper ventilation especially in schools in Wales
The same can be said of why the SG have diverted funds away from the NHS that they were given from WM and have wasted money on apps when they were offered one, court costs etc.
Other than brexit you can pretty much just swap the name to your list.

I don't expect a normal citizen to solve it as the very harsh reality is that nobody can solve a mutating virus but science has made so many progressions with it, survival rates are a lot better and treatments are a lot more advanced.

They do look elsewhere hence there is a booster programme. Most of the world's leaders fecked up in the early days but that ship is sailed and did in Feb 2020.

I don't like the Tories but its not as simple as just say its Borris. The SG doing differently hasn't made a blind bit of difference in fact our death rate per head of population from covid is worse as is serious cases.

Yes they have a plan B which will need enacting at the right time but actually it's not required currently. It's not going anywhere so we can't go through winter shut downs for years.

Have you been to England for a visit? Stuff is still done by businesses, churches, schools especially around ventilation it's just not constantly in your face and masks aren't madatory for most areas.
My works London offices has CO2 monitors for example, if they rise to a certain level fresh air flow is increased to control the levels. Many offices have these I think they are also installed in civil service buildings. So the they aren't doing anything isn't really true. It's just they aren't making a song and dance about it and don't force control measures which don't have much effect.

I haven't heard about ventilation improvement programmes in Scotland for schools like Wales is doing or for offices they simply say to work from home instead.

Ventilation improvement has certainly been happening in my school though I can't speak for them all. We've had fancy machines installed that increase ventilation and we also had co2 monitors in all rooms presumably to identify which classrooms needed the fancy machines. It's very hi tech. I'm terrified to touch them 🙈

@forfucksakenett that's great news that it's happening in your school the CO2 monitors if they go above 900 ppm show poor ventilation. I hope it's a Scottish wide initiative and not based on local authorities!

My friends who are teachers up here are primary but we are a good way north of you they haven't yet had monitors or ventilation just open windows still. Hopefully it will be across Scotland and soon!

@Scottishskifun There have been groceries and fuel shortages due to driver shortages because of the UK Government's decision. They then changed the visa rules for 3 months ( until Christmas) when they realised what a s'*it show they'd created.

I'm genuinely not sure. My room stayed at around 650ish all day but a few rooms were well into the 900s and then got the fancy machines. A colleague had heard about it in the radio which makes me think nationwide but who knows. I'd be stunned if our LA had done something like this off their own back to be honest but stranger things have happened!

The shortages and staff and driver problems caused by Brexit have caused a total shitshow, easy to blame on “cos Covid”

[quote StarryEyeSurprise]**@Scottishskifun* There have been groceries and fuel shortages due to driver shortages because of the UK Government's decision. They then changed the visa rules for 3 months ( until Christmas) when they realised what a s'it show they'd created.[/quote]
The driver shortage for fuel was originally only a warning for one supplier for a few petrol stations there are multiple different downstream suppliers.

The media then reported on it causing people to panic buy and thus causing a issue across the country. Just like with food supplies at the beginning of the pandemic there wasn't a issue with supply/availability in warehouses purely caused by people panic buying and no not many industries can double supply capability overnight because people are panic buying.

The govt then had to enact a emergency planning operation which is actually designed for low fuel supply when refineries are low or strike action not for when there is plenty of supply which comes at a cost to the tax payer.

I like many up here work in the energy sector so do get more detailed updates.
Haulage is a issue generally but it didn't cause a fuel shortage as there actually wasn't one in terms of availability within the countries stocks it was caused by the public and media.

My school has the co2 monitors. They’re in odd places though, like outside the office and in the staff room, and I suspect it so it looks like we’re doing fine. I’ve seen the staff room one go red if there’s 8 of us in there so I dread to think what my class of 30 will look like even with the windows open.

@jerometheturnipking that's awful. I'd get on to the union. My understanding was they were to identify ventilation issues in the classrooms.

Absolutely no additional ventilation in my classroom. One day of co2 monitoring. At one point my room was over 1000. Monitors collected 24 hrs later and nothing else has happened. It’s certainly not Scotland wide.

I will tell my friends to push for them thanks for the info!

@Iwantthesummersun

Absolutely no additional ventilation in my classroom. One day of co2 monitoring. At one point my room was over 1000. Monitors collected 24 hrs later and nothing else has happened. It’s certainly not Scotland wide.

That's awful! How do you know it's not Scotland wide though? Maybe they've just not fitted your machines yet? Why would they monitor if they had no intention of doing anything? Have the union said anything?

@ scottishskifun there's been huge distribution issues , caused by visa changes. I don't know why you can't accept this but you appear to have blinkers on. Yes, refineries have fuel.

No additional ventilation here either. I think my open windows will only go so far as we go into windy season - my p2s are very easily spooked by the blinds rattling in the wind, and that’s not accounting for the cold.

I think there are things blamed on Brexit that are little to do with that tbh. The vote was taken in 2016, there have been 5 years in which to mitigate things. It's failure to take action and plan as well as some of the plans being impacted by covid restrictions.

Covid and Brexit have just been convenient to take the blame for anything. A friend of DHs believes that Brexit is to blame for the coffee shortage in brazil and many other completely unrelated things.