Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[LinekersLegs]

They don't need to, all they have to do is say, there are 7333 cases reported today 3000 of those are due to a backlog being cleared up.

We’ll have to agree to disagree mate - as long as it is clear when the cases were from I don’t see anything sketchy in that.

Obviously it would be great if data comes in a timely fashion but putting myself in the shoes of someone working in a lab I can understand why a sudden surge of 3000 cases would cause reporting delays especially if some of your own staff are among those impacted.

 

[Seanjd]

I used to flip flop with lockdowns, however.
My current view is. This one is pointless and I fully believe is a government just doing something to be seen to do something. It's January, Xmas has gone, people have socialised, money has been spent. It is the month for chilling and for not doing a lot, and dreading the credit card bill.

My second thought about lockdowns in general is a divisive one.
Sack them off.
Now, the majority of us are vaccinated, why should I stay at home, because Dave in Tesco has chosen to not vaccinate. His choice. His risk.
The other one is let's say you are vaccinated, and you end up getting it bad. Well that sucks. But how is that any different to any other ailment you might get. Sorry, but the chips have fallen badly for you on this. Sucks. But why should I put my life on hold, cause Mary is susceptible to a virus
I suffer bronchitis. Before all this, nobody suggested locking down the country in winter, for cold and flu season. Which if I got, could turn into something that cripples me for a few weeks if I got run down and the old bronchials started acting up.
Others get cancer etc. Sorry but this is an issue that affects you. Deal with it.

For me, we are double/triple jabbed. Let's crack on. If.you get sick after being vaccinated. Well then it sucks to be you.
If you get sick, cause you ain't vaccinated, well your choice. Tough.

Slamming the NHS. Fund it properly. Cut out all the wastage, and run it properly, and then we might just not get overwhelmed.

But the NHS isn’t currently in a state in which it can hold up and run effectively if hospitalisations were to get out of hand. So the ‘sucks to be you’ attitude starts to become a little less self-assured when basic treatable illnesses in hospital potentially get out of control due to the amount of hospitalisations with Covid.

I agree that it needs funding properly, but that won’t happen overnight (or ever with this government).

 

[roydo]

Covid is now a "Major Incident" in London today. 26000 cases, but the massive issue isnt just that, its the number of emergency services staff with it. So the fire brigade have limited means to help with driving ambulances, for example.

 

[Kev50]

It’s not about you or me, though. It’s about vulnerable people who this could kill. It’s also about being cautious at the start of an unknown situation.

vulnerable people have been given the vaccine and a booster. They can also take further precautions if necessary. But the idea we need to start closing McDonald's on uni campuses everywhere to safeguard them is just nuts.

 

[Tipp blue]

We’ll have to agree to disagree mate - as long as it is clear when the cases were from I don’t see anything sketchy in that.

Obviously it would be great if data comes in a timely fashion but putting myself in the shoes of someone working in a lab I can understand why a sudden surge of 3000 cases would cause reporting delays especially if some of your own staff are among those impacted.

I have no issues with there being a delay, they should just report it as such, not doing so makes it look like meddling.

 

[LinekersLegs]

 

[Amw79]

But the NHS isn’t currently in a state in which it can hold up and run effectively if hospitalisations were to get out of hand. So the ‘sucks to be you’ attitude starts to become a little less self-assured when basic treatable illnesses in hospital potentially get out of control due to the amount of hospitalisations with Covid.

I agree that it needs funding properly, but that won’t happen overnight (or ever with this government).

This is a conversation the UK should really be having now. If we accept that we’re likely to get a new Covid wave every winter, for several years. The public is probably not going to get behind a lockdown. And we know that lockdowns are primarily to prevent the NHS going under, then the only option is to increase NHS capacity.

It’s too late for this winter, but we’ve got a year to address this and get the NHS in a place where it’s capacity isn’t on a knife edge. Sadly this would involve the government having to be honest with the public, and telling them it’s gonna cost them money, so never gonna happen.

 

[Seanjd]

vulnerable people have been given the vaccine and a booster. They can also take further precautions if necessary. But the idea we need to start closing McDonald's on uni campuses everywhere to safeguard them is just nuts.

I think it’s more the sheer amount of pre-Christmas gathering which is the worry, not the type of example you used.

I would argue that the idea of letting the numbers grow exponentially weeks before vulnerable/old people are in contact with their families is nuts.

People will die as a result.

 

[LinekersLegs]

This is a conversation the UK should really be having now. If we accept that we’re likely to get a new Covid wave every winter, for several years. The public is probably not going to get behind a lockdown. And we know that lockdowns are primarily to prevent the NHS going under, then the only option is to increase NHS capacity.

It’s too late for this winter, but we’ve got a year to address this and get the NHS in a place where it’s capacity isn’t on a knife edge. Sadly this would involve the government having to be honest with the public, and telling them it’s gonna cost them money, so never gonna happen.

And other strategies like improving ventilation which would hopefully have a payback on overall reduction in other airborne viruses.

 

[Kev50]

I think it’s more the sheer amount of pre-Christmas gathering which is the worry, not the type of example you used.

I would argue that the idea of letting the numbers grow exponentially weeks before vulnerable/old people are in contact with their families is nuts.

People will die as a result.

if exponential growth starts to kick in people will adjust their behaviour anyway without the state butting in and running up a £200 billion debt.
People die everyday. The mortality rate for covid, is it higher than typical life expectancy? I think it's around the same.83. And we've wrecked people's lives for a generation as a result. All the lost schooling, lost diagnoses, businesses gone pop. If we had politicians worth any stripe they would lay it on the line and say 'yes, it's going to be difficult, but we're not going to ruin everyone's life to, at best, delay things'.

 

[LinekersLegs]

that's true but the official word from the Dr who discovered the strain in SA is it shows very mild symptoms in unvaccinated people too.

However, you are obviously more at risk of developing severe symptoms if unvaccinated.

I think the issue atm is - and me and @LinekersLegs briefly touched on this the other day - that Delta is still so prominent in the UK right now. In SA, Omicron has completely taken over (98%), so there is very little Delta left.

The UK is kind of experiencing the start of a second endemic here while there is another one still ongoing. However, they are predicting Omicron to be the dominant strain within a week or so. If that does happen, we could see Delta replaced and suddenly the hospitalisation numbers may not be as great. We really don't know yet because of the lag between cases and hospitalisations but we can say that so far things do look positive with Omicron when it comes to hospitalisations.

Unfortunately at the moment seems to be the two layered on top of each other, lets hope that most recent downtick continues,

 

[Bruce Wayne]

This is a conversation the UK should really be having now. If we accept that we’re likely to get a new Covid wave every winter, for several years. The public is probably not going to get behind a lockdown. And we know that lockdowns are primarily to prevent the NHS going under, then the only option is to increase NHS capacity.

It’s too late for this winter, but we’ve got a year to address this and get the NHS in a place where it’s capacity isn’t on a knife edge. Sadly this would involve the government having to be honest with the public, and telling them it’s gonna cost them money, so never gonna happen.

Sunak was in California recently meeting with American healthcare firms Joking aside though, people talk about "increasing capacity" like it's a straightforward thing. We saw with the Nightingales that it's easy peasy to build new beds, but if you've got no one to staff them then they're kinda useless. That's kind of the problem because healthcare in its current form succumbs to Baumol's disease, and so is heavily dependent upon the staff levels.

Of course, you "could" try and reorient things and focus more on prevention, keeping people well, which is not only cheaper but also requires less qualified staff than fixing us when we're sick, but it's next to impossible to meaningfully change the NHS when it's in constant fire-fighting mode, so it lumbers on from crisis to crisis, while at the same time the population is aging, the number of people with chronic conditions caused by poor lifestyles grows ever greater, and we have a government hell-bent on reducing immigration so that people don't feel uneasy hearing Polish in the milk aisle.

 

[BlueToff]

Sunak was in California recently meeting with American healthcare firms Joking aside though, people talk about "increasing capacity" like it's a straightforward thing. We saw with the Nightingales that it's easy peasy to build new beds, but if you've got no one to staff them then they're kinda useless. That's kind of the problem because healthcare in its current form succumbs to Baumol's disease, and so is heavily dependent upon the staff levels.

Of course, you "could" try and reorient things and focus more on prevention, keeping people well, which is not only cheaper but also requires less qualified staff than fixing us when we're sick, but it's next to impossible to meaningfully change the NHS when it's in constant fire-fighting mode, so it lumbers on from crisis to crisis, while at the same time the population is aging, the number of people with chronic conditions caused by poor lifestyles grows ever greater, and we have a government hell-bent on reducing immigration so that people don't feel uneasy hearing Polish in the milk aisle.

stuff like this is really the way forward isn't it?
Look after yourself, exercise, eat better, give free access to vitamin D (they've rescinded this for some reason) to immuno-compromised people especially in winter. And work on treatments other than vaccines for COVID - i think me and @Amw79 spoke about this the other day.

 

[mill]

Covid is now a "Major Incident" in London today. 26000 cases, but the massive issue isnt just that, its the number of emergency services staff with it. So the fire brigade have limited means to help with driving ambulances, for example.

This is mainly anecdotal but it seems that so so many people have got it here. It deffo feels more prevalent.

 

[JLW]

lollollol