Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[davek]

Very significant drop off in new cases and on Tuesday of all days. It is very hard to get past the death figures but as we all know one lags the other

Just think where we;d be if the country was actually in a lockdown worthy of the name...and it had come well before the end of December.

 

[peteblue]

Dont be sad @peteblue

Was the kind option, and I will be making her ham egg and chips later.

 

[roydo]

Yes, as long as doctors can't show they lack the capacity to make the decision under the Mental Health Act. Onus is on doctors to prove it like, not the other way around.

EDIT: Sorry, it's the Mental Capacity Act*

Mental Capacity Act 2005

An Act to make new provision relating to persons who lack capacity; to establish a superior court of record called the Court of Protection in place of the office of the Supreme Court called by that name; to make provision in connection with the Convention on the International Protection of...

www.legislation.gov.uk

Mrs R asked me tons of times to take her home, but that as delirium; they just up a dose on their machine and all good.

That fella didnt sound delirious to me

 

[maccavennie]

The patient themselves you could believe was not in a legally competent state to be able to make the decision though - gawd knows what cocktail of drugs he was on and what it did to his mental state.

From what I heard LL he was on the standard medication given to covid patients which is to fight the infection (antibiotics, steroids ). But as soon as you take that oxygen off his oxygen levels will drop very rapidly and the body really has to start working overtime to keep it functioning.

Its absolutely mind bendingly stupid and dangerous what they were doing. That patient walks out I can pretty much guarantee the next place he'd be visiting would be the mortuary a few hours later.

 

[maccavennie]

He's a known idiot.



That's his Change.org petition for something else.

A conspiracy theorist.

Makes sense, a complete knobhead then.

 

[roydo]

From what I heard LL he was on the standard medication given to covid patients which is to fight the infection (antibiotics, steroids ). But as soon as you take that oxygen off his oxygen levels will drop very rapidly and the body really has to start working overtime to keep it functioning.

Its absolutely mind bendingly stupid and dangerous what they were doing. That patient walks out I can pretty much guarantee the next place he'd be visiting would be the mortuary a few hours later.

That is exactly correct, most likely anyrate.

You get a serious lung infection, covid or anything, its a straight forward process.

Treat infection.

Observe infection.

Support breathing.

Monitor sats.

Few days/weeks of sustained sat level independent of oxygen relief, good to go.

 

[maccavennie]

That is exactly correct, most likely anyrate.

You get a serious lung infection, covid or anything, its a straight forward process.

Treat infection.

Observe infection.

Support breathing.

Monitor sats.

Few days/weeks of sustained sat level independent of oxygen relief, good to go.

Exactly mate, how the doctors restrain themselves from absolutely launching at the tit i honestly do not know.

 

[PhilM]

Not really. The idiot storming in had no legal authority over his care, the patient was under medication, seriously ill and could reasonably be shown to have a lack of capacity to request a discharge.

If the patient continues to request discharge when not under duress from the idiot, and the hospital can't prove he lacks capacity under the Mental Health Act, then sure, he could be discharged in a couple of days after an investigation for next steps. But in terms of that situation, there was never a prayer he'd be allowed to leave.

I was thinking of manslaughter through an unlawful act, where their actions are unlawful and dangerous. Should they be in the hospital? No. That's one.

 

[davek]

Briefing by the Executive director of the EMA earlier today:

THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has said that work is ongoing to assess the Astrazeneca Covid-19 vaccine, and it’s hoped that a decision will be made on whether to grant approval “by the end of this week”.

Addressing the European Parliament committee on public health this afternoon, Emer Cooke referenced the shortage in supply of the Astrazeneca vaccine and said the EMA was “working” with the company and it’s hoped the problems with supply will be “short-lived”.

If the EMA agrees to grant a conditional marketing authoritisation to the Astrazeneca vaccine this Friday, it paves the way for its rollout in Ireland.

However, that rollout here is set to be lower than initially expected due to the company’s unexpected delay in delivering millions of doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to EU member states.

Last Friday, the pharma giant said it would not meet its contractual delivery commitments to the European Union because of unexplained “reduced yields” in its European supply chain.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said last night that delivery of the vaccine in March is set to be “considerably lower than what was originally stated by the company”.

However, if approved on Friday, Ireland will receive a supply of the Astrazeneca vaccine “within the expected range” for February.

Commenting on the already approved Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines today, the EMA’s Cooke said that it is requiring rigorous safety and effectiveness studies of these products.


She said that monthly safety updates are required from the companies with approved vaccines, and this is in addition to regular updates already required by legislation.

“With respect to the transparency of this work, we’re planning to publish the first Covid-19 vaccine safety update later this week, and this is based on the monthly safety report that has been reviewed and assessed for the Pfizer vaccine,” she said.

Cooke also said today, in response to questions from MEPs, that EMA staff are working around the clock on the process to approve vaccines. She said it wouldn’t be unusual to see staff exchanging emails in the middle of the night.

She said that it wasn’t specifically in the remit of the EMA to boost production of a vaccine, but the agency would “do everything we can to facilitate production from a scientific and regulatory perspective”.

She said: “The other issue that we’re working on with the companies of the national authorities is how to ensure that production capacity can be increased.

“And we’re looking at different manufacturing options which require formal manufacturing changes in order to increase the production capacity. I think you’re all aware of the problems with supply identified at a European level, due to some of the manufacturing issues. We’re working with the companies on these and we very much hope that these will be short lived.”

Cooke said the EMA is continuously monitoring the impact of new variants of Covid-19, and was requesting companies with approved vaccines to submit information on the immunse response induced by the vaccine against these new strains.

She said the next vaccine potentially in line for approval – made by Janssen (the pharmaceutical wing of Johnson and Johnson) – is being examined on a rolling basis, but there is no indicative date for when it could reach approval stage as of yet.

Cooke also addressed the media reports regarding the efficacy of the Astrazeneca vaccine in people aged over 65.

This morning, Germany’s health ministry joined the pharma company rubbishing reports quoting unnamed government sources that claimed the vaccine showed little efficacy for people above 65.

Cooke said that the EMA is examining the “totality of the data” provided by Astrazeneca across different age groups. She said she wouldn’t prejudge any decision on the vaccine’s approval, but said it was possible for an approval to contain a provision that the vaccine only be given to certain age groups.

MEP Mick Wallace questioned Cooke on the speed with which the EMA is approving its vaccines, compared to the UK which has already approved the Astrazeneca vaccine as well as the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

“Does the EMA demand more complete or higher quality data than the UK regulator?” Wallace asked.

Cooke said that the mechanism used by the UK to approve vaccines was through a temporary use authorisation, which is not something within the remit of the EMA. The EMA instead provides conditional marketing authorisation to vaccines it deems safe and efficacious.

Astrazeneca’s vaccine was already approved for use in the UK before it applied for European approval earlier this month, and Cooke said this was a reflection of the further data needed, and that this data had been provided by Astrazeneca in recent weeks.

“We are confident that the process behind a conditional marketing authorisation provides a robust scientific review that can be relied upon in all 27 member states,” she said.

“The conditions and criteria that we use for the evaluation of the conditional marketing authorisation are the same conditions we would expect for any vaccine.”

"Astrazeneca’s vaccine was already approved for use in the UK before it applied for European approval earlier this month, and Cooke said this was a reflection of the further data needed, and that this data had been provided by Astrazeneca in recent weeks."

Interesting.

 

[davek]

The peak that the LCR is coming down from is the result of Rotheram's determination to drop the region into Tier 2 in order to please commercialm interests.

I hope he can sleep at night.

 

[davek]

Johnson: "I take responsibility for the government's handling of the crisis"

...so why are you still Prime Minister?

Maybe he doesn't think 100,000 people dying on his watch is a resignation issue?

 

[LinekersLegs]

Johnson: "I take responsibility for the government's handling of the crisis"

...so why are you still Prime Minister?

Maybe he doesn't think 100,000 people dying on his watch is a resignation issue?

The botched handling of Christmas alone would be grounds for resignation you’d have hoped.

 

[BlueToff]

The botched handling of Christmas alone would be grounds for resignation you’d have hoped.

At this stage though, him resigning would do literally no good at all.

He should walk, but it doesn't help one bit. There's just a series of useless Tory cyborgs ready to take over and there isn't going to be an election any time soon.

 

[LinekersLegs]

 

[Neiler]

Very thorny ethical situation - presumably in this case the doctor believes he has a realistic chance of saving the patient if the current treatment is continued.

Some similarity to the difficulty in treating a patient who refuses blood transfusion due to religious beliefs I’d assume.

Very unpleasant, ethically over here if the patient wanted to be discharged and withdrew consent for treatment and understood the risks, he would be discharged.

If he was delirious or lacked capacity, family wouldn't have a say, it’s purely a medical decision to work in the best interests of the patient. NOK has no legal standing.

The only other clinical decision I’d consider here is the protection of vulnerable adults legislation, is that man being put under threat or duress to conform to the wishes of the family, your then into social work/criminal justice.

Seems a pity this situation escalated to this, in quick order I’d be on to security then, the police. Arguably these people are putting lives at risk by exposing a symptomatic COVID patient to the rest of society, if he died would they be culpable of manslaughter or assisted suicide. The criminal justice aspect would be interesting.