Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Stoic Ape]

I wouldnt use the term "positive", but I get the gist of your post.

Apparently, the R in London is around 3, but the national, (England or UK, I dont know), is circa 1.2.

In conclusion, I havnt a clue how 1/2 million folk are getting infected in a week. We get told its down to household spreads. I just dont buy that. I mean unless I am dead weird or a hermit, I cant remember when we last visited another house, but you get the impression large parts of the country are gleefully cavorting around their neighbourhoods with wild abandon.

Feel exactly the same.. With that number of infections it's like I'm in a minority of people actually trying to distance from people. Very odd indeed.

 

[Nymzee]

I wouldnt use the term "positive", but I get the gist of your post.

Apparently, the R in London is around 3, but the national, (England or UK, I dont know), is circa 1.2.

In conclusion, I havnt a clue how 1/2 million folk are getting infected in a week. We get told its down to household spreads. I just dont buy that. I mean unless I am dead weird or a hermit, I cant remember when we last visited another house, but you get the impression large parts of the country are gleefully cavorting around their neighbourhoods with wild abandon.

Could be a case that during the early days of COVID when we were all locked inside our houses there was sufficient fear of the virus to keep people on board.

8 months later people might thing "well it's been 8 months, haven't got it yet, back to normal life for me."

 

[roydo]

That can be better organised, and click and collect and home delivery can be expanded.

lol

Clueless. The whole supermarket home delivery/on line delivery is, and has been, at the absolute peak for 6 months. Its been relentless.

With Christmas round the corner. Buy or hire a van, call any delivery company, and you will coin in £1000 a week.

 

[Jebus_lives]

Yeah, I know!

Obviously you're well aware. But the point was more generalised around the 'why don't hospitals have more beds, it's because if Tory cuts'.

It's because by and large people recover better at home.

 

[Jebus_lives]

Good summary.

I don't know that side of it obviously but part of the focus , or a lot of it from my side of things has been trying to get back to normal so to speak, within the social distance framework.

For the thousands upon thousands of patients waiting for treatment / appointments and for the thousands more since, the focus may have been put towards that rather than keep focusing on one particular element of a nations health care.

For one service alone we had over 2000 waiting simply for an assessment and that isn't even with a doctor or surgeon.

I've said it before but times that over every speciality in Liverpool to give you a good idea of people waiting , you may even know one or two. Then times that all over the country because it will be the same in nearly every trust I imagine.

The scale of this is often not realised by most because it's never printed in the news so to speak. It's always how many covid patients there are or infections, if people realised the scale of everything else then it would put more into perspective.

A lot of this hasn't been helped by lack of access/unwillingness to see GPs.

 

[Kenshin]

A lot of this hasn't been helped by lack of access/unwillingness to see GPs.

Access very much part of the issue yes. But then many of the waiting lists currently stem from the gp themselves , it's how the referral system works these days. You go the gp and they refer you into the hospital. So the GPs have still been doing their job so to speak, but to what extent I couldn't tell you beyond referring patients into hospital.

So in a way gp access is a talking point , thousands upon thousands have been referred in still. I'd imagine the real talking point is in community care over the past 7 months but then I haven't personally had any experience there.

 

[roydo]

Obviously you're well aware. But the point was more generalised around the 'why don't hospitals have more beds, it's because if Tory cuts'.

It's because by and large people recover better at home.

Yep. Once the medics have solved the immediate issue, home time. Makes perfect sense.

 

[davek]

lol

Clueless. The whole supermarket home delivery/on line delivery is, and has been, at the absolute peak for 6 months. Its been relentless.

With Christmas round the corner. Buy or hire a van, call any delivery company, and you will coin in £1000 a week.

There's now some capacity to get food via amazon. Morrisons have - as far as I remember - done a deal with them.

In any case, I'm not sure the advance of supermarkets as super spreaders is that credible proportionate to the number attending. That wasn't my claim. I'm responding to it.

 

[LinekersLegs]

@Bruce Wayne @LinekersLegs

I know you both had appreciated these in the past so a quick summary of the general chat from last week:

Hospitals are seeing lots of pressure - more covid cases in ICU than non covid. Emerging information about gyms/leisure as a common area of spread from the common exposure analysis. Lots of worry going into winter regarding how to manage flu and Covid. Possibility of a change to isolation periods coming up.

Hopefully should be helped by an increase in testing capacity and a new method for on the spot asymptomatic testing.

Fatigue is very real risk in the NHS and a worry that public aren't understanding/don't care about public health basics of infection control (more reminders will be issued).

Some work is being done on ways to have 'virtual Covid wards' to support community patients. Assessment ongoing as to how successful the tier 3 measures are being. Infection rates has increased across all age ranges.

Care settings - difficult to adequately shield care homes because of the spread across communities (carers, staff servicing care homes picking it up elsewhere and taking it into care homes again). A lot of difficulty in managing flow in the NHS system with discharge being a problem (difficulty in discharge to care homes etc).

Thanks for the summary. Particularly interested in the “virtual ward” concept.

Know when my uncle had what we think was Covid (but aren’t sure as he has no car and there wasn’t spare manpower to send someone to test him at home) as he lives alone he found it a very stressful time, especially at night.

 

[Catfish Blues]

Good news on the echo that the rates in Liverpool and Knowsley have dropped massively over the past week. Still quite high but hopefully in 2 weeks or so it will be much lower.

If the trend continues, in about three weeks, your case rate will be roughly at a value consistent with being in Tier 2. The number of people in hospital and ICU on Merseyside mean that you'd hope that local and national government would agree to keep you in Tier 3 for a couple of extra weeks, so, all being well ( and it might not be ) you'd be looking at early to mid December ?

The worry with dropping areas from Tier 3 to Tier 2 is how people behave when that happens. If everyone piles down the pub and ignores social distancing then, in a few weeks, you could be back having infections going the wrong way again.

I'm very glad I'm not a decision maker in local or national government, because they're very much in a no win situation.

 

[Catfish Blues]

It's because by and large people recover better at home

Very true this.

As my missus says to people ( generally off the record ), hospitals are full of sick people, with quite a few of them infectious so you don't want to be there longer than necessary. Also, you'll generally sleep much better at home and won't be so stressed, both of which are important for recovery.

 

[roydo]

There's now some capacity to get food via amazon. Morrisons have - as far as I remember - done a deal with them.

In any case, I'm not sure the advance of supermarkets as super spreaders is that credible proportionate to the number attending. That wasn't my claim. I'm responding to it.

That can be better organised, and click and collect and home delivery can be expanded.

Go ed, then. How?

Dist Depots usually deal with 20000 items a day, in normal days, and double that at Christmas, are managing with 45000 a day. Just. Before Christmas.

That means a 12 hour day for the drivers, at least 6 days a week. Some are doing 7. For the last 6 months.

But genius, with zero understanding of the system, says "They can be better organised".

As you say, bankrupt.

 

[BlueStevie35]

Hospital figures - 219 deaths were announced today, down 31 on yesterday and up 53 on last Friday. 163 deaths were in English hospitals, 29 down on yesterday and 32 up on last week with 158 occurring in the past 10 days. The 7 day rolling average rises to 195.14

All settings - for the 28 day cut off, 274 deaths were announced today, down 6 on yesterday and up 50 on last Friday. The 7 day rolling average rises to 236.86

For the 60 day cut off, 285 deaths were announced today, 5 down on yesterday and 54 up on last Friday. The 7 day rolling average rises to 245.29

 

[Itchycoopark]

In terms of getting infected, my brother tested positive and tried to distance from me and my mum as much as possible ( he wore a face mask and stayed in his room) yet about 8 days after he had the test my mum and then me started to feel weird and subsequently tested positive ourselves.
I think its really hard when you live with someone who's tested positive to avoid getting it, we kept our distance and washed our hands but still got it. I imagine thats what a lot of these cases are like.

 

[Nymzee]

In terms of getting infected, my brother tested positive and tried to distance from me and my mum as much as possible ( he wore a face mask and stayed in his room) yet about 8 days after he had the test my mum and then me started to feel weird and subsequently tested positive ourselves.
I think its really hard when you live with someone who's tested positive to avoid getting it, we kept our distance and washed our hands but still got it. I imagine thats what a lot of these cases are like.

My boss got it and had to move into the shed.