When will this shit end?

[stuartbert two hats]

1 minute ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Which part? I bet he doesn't.

He did say "broken" didn't he, I take it back!

Edit: although NHS Providers is not quite the same thing as the NHS, but still - I take your point.

Edited June 5, 2021 by stuartbert two hats

[Havors]

3 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

He did say "broken" didn't he, I take it back!

Edit: although NHS Providers is not quite the same thing as the NHS, but still - I take your point.

Broken is just a choice of words I guess, substantially changed could mean the same thing 😄 

[stuartbert two hats]

Actually, I take back taking it back 😁. Me and Chris Hopson are on the same page - I think we're probably not going to be overwhelmed, but there is still a relationship between cases and deaths: 

https://twitter.com/ChrisCEOHopson/status/1401151509811838980?s=19

You'd have to find him to ask, but I strongly suspect he'd be in board with the idea that the relationship between cases and deatsh has been substantially altered, but not broken.

[kalifire]

.

Edited June 5, 2021 by kalifire

[Fuzzy Afro]

Another thing we need to consider is the average length of stay in hospital.

 

In the first wave it was short for all the wrong reasons. We didn’t know about the power of dexamethasone and thought chucking every Tom, Dick and Harry on a ventilator was a good idea. The mortality rate was very high and many patients unfortunately didn’t stay long in hospital due to passing away.

 

In the second wave the stay was much longer because the NHS had learned how to treat covid. The mortality rate of those hospitalised fell but this meant much longer hospital stays as people recovered from the virus.

 

Hopefully this third wave sees much shorter stays but people still surviving. Much better to have a 37 year old come in, get a blast or two of a CPAP machine and then be on their way than to have a 64 year old end up in ICU, barely survive by the skin of their teeth and be in hospital for two months learning to walk again. 

[BobWillis2]

10 minutes ago, Havors said:

No the fact still remains. A lot of people tested positive in hospital where not actually there for covid. 

 

The NHS Boss disagrees with you. 

I think it was reported last year that a third of all cases were caught in hospital. 

[steviewevie]

1 hour ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

The NHS is always busy, it isn't designed to have loads of surplus capacity nor should it. 

Isnt it usually busier in the winter months?

[efcfanwirral]

52 minutes ago, Havors said:

I dont think thats the issue, with the talk that the link is broken from severe illness then in theory exponential growth is irrelevant as it will hit a wall and stop. 

I think people dont understand the real issue with increased cases is the increased chance of more bloody variants. We do want to keep cases down as much as possible but we need to find a balance. 

unless we weld the border shut those variants will happen anyway. Otherwise any opening is temporary and this is just the beginning of cycles of lockdowns. There will always be case regardless of vaccination levels 

Edited June 5, 2021 by efcfanwirral

[Ozanne]

28 minutes ago, Hannibal Schmitt said:

Some very positive encouraging news from India as situations seems to be improving.
The megacities of Delhi and Mumbai, along with other regions, are now venturing to ease their plans for the first time. Markets and shopping centers open on Monday. However, shops with even house numbers should open on different days than those with odd numbers. In addition, the metro will be allowed to run again with half of its seat capacity. Offices could also reopen with half of their workforce (Standard).

This is great news, their situation was so bad. I hope they don’t reopen too quickly. 

[Crazyfool01]

5 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

unless we weld the border shut those variants will happen anyway. Otherwise any opening is temporary and this is just the beginning of cycles of lockdowns. There will always be case regardless of vaccination levels

the variants will reduce according to the amount of active virus in circulation wont they ? so the lower the numbers the lower the chance ? or have i got that wrong ? so its important we deal with areas of the world with the surges ? 

[steviewevie]

15 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

unless we weld the border shut those variants will happen anyway. Otherwise any opening is temporary and this is just the beginning of cycles of lockdowns. There will always be case regardless of vaccination levels 

In theory vaccines reduce spread of the virus, right? so once whole world has been vaccinated sometime is 2056 then cases will decrease and less chance of variants...?

Edited June 5, 2021 by steviewevie
replaced stop with reduce

[Euphoricape]

Is it just a matter of time before a vaccine beating mutation appears? Or is there a good chance this won't ever happen? 

[Crazyfool01]

Just now, Euphoricape said:

Is it just a matter of time before a vaccine beating mutation appears? Or is there a good chance this won't ever happen? 

don't we just adapt the vaccines each year as we do with flu ? and they can do this more quickly than with the flu ones ? 

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, Euphoricape said:

Is it just a matter of time before a vaccine beating mutation appears? Or is there a good chance this won't ever happen? 

No expert...but I think ToiletDuck has said, and I have read elsewhere, that this is unlikely, but you could get some where vaccine less effective which is the case now. I think eventually they will have vaccines that would be good for all possible variants, or be able to quickly make vaccines for any nasty dominant variant.

[incident]

Just now, crazyfool1 said:

the variants will reduce according to the amount of active virus in circulation wont they ? so the lower the numbers the lower the chance ? or have i got that wrong ? so its important we deal with areas of the world with the surges ? 

Yes. Long term this is a worldwide problem and needs to be attacked as such.

Unfortunately, it's going to be tricky to solve and I don't see any real attempts to provide a full solution. Some countries would simply benefit from more vaccines, and hopefully we can start to funnel more of our likely surplus to them via COVAX - but others need a lot more help than that. I used Brazil as an example once before, but giving them more vaccines today would be shit all use because they're already struggling on the ground and unable to deliver the ones they do have - and they're not the poorest country or likely to be the worst affected by a long shot. We need to assist them in scaling up delivery, and as well as providing vaccines we should be looking to provide needles and the other equipment that western nations have pretty much been hoarding for the last year.

[Euphoricape]

1 minute ago, crazyfool1 said:

don't we just adapt the vaccines each year as we do with flu ? and they can do this more quickly than with the flu ones ? 

But surely this would take us back to square one, having to re- vaccinate everybody again, with deaths sky rocketing until then.. 

[steviewevie]

Just now, incident said:

Yes. Long term this is a worldwide problem and needs to be attacked as such.

Unfortunately, it's going to be tricky to solve and I don't see any real attempts to provide a full solution. Some countries would simply benefit from more vaccines, and hopefully we can start to funnel more of our likely surplus to them via COVAX - but others need a lot more help than that. I used Brazil as an example once before, but giving them more vaccines today would be shit all use because they're already struggling on the ground and unable to deliver the ones they do have - and they're not the poorest country or likely to be the worst affected by a long shot. We need to assist them in scaling up delivery, and as well as providing vaccines we should be looking to provide needles and the other equipment that western nations have pretty much been hoarding for the last year.

some of these countries must vaccinate kids at school for TB etc? They have hospitals, and health/state infrastructure.  Brazil isn't Yemen, surely with a competent leader they could actually address this. Same with India...although they also have a twatty leader, and also have a fuckin lot of people.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, Euphoricape said:

But surely this would take us back to square one, having to re- vaccinate everybody again, with deaths sky rocketing until then.. 

I think we'll be getting a booster vaccine later this year...maybe just for over 50s. Hopefully they will have a vaccine that will give good protection for all possible covid variants eventually.

[Crazyfool01]

2 minutes ago, incident said:

Yes. Long term this is a worldwide problem and needs to be attacked as such.

Unfortunately, it's going to be tricky to solve and I don't see any real attempts to provide a full solution. Some countries would simply benefit from more vaccines, and hopefully we can start to funnel more of our likely surplus to them via COVAX - but others need a lot more help than that. I used Brazil as an example once before, but giving them more vaccines today would be shit all use because they're already struggling on the ground and unable to deliver the ones they do have - and they're not the poorest country or likely to be the worst affected by a long shot. We need to assist them in scaling up delivery, and as well as providing vaccines we should be looking to provide needles and the other equipment that western nations have pretty much been hoarding for the last year.

I guess for countries that don't seem so able to deliver the vaccines like we have been able they are learning all the time on how best to do these things ... as well as the vaccines we have a very competent jabbing system already in place for flu and some of the other countries will slowly develop that but thats going to take some time and obviously in some places some help ... I don't know if its a WHO remit but there needs to be some sort of way of being able to mass jab areas / countries with teams going in ... its going to take a while though 😞 

[JoeyT]

 

[Copperface]

40 minutes ago, Havors said:

So a covid ward could have someone with heart failure, someone with kidney failure, someone with x y and z on the same ward? 

No. Exactly the opposite. They could of course have all those conditions AND Covid but Covid positive patients are kept separate.

[steviewevie]

I'm on the upward gradient of the rollercoaster...reckon because of a weakened link between cases and severe illness due to vaccines, a big push to vaccinate going on at moment, and poitical pressure on Johnson, I think roadmap won't be delayed. Or maybe it's just the class As I've been consuming all afternoon.

[Crazyfool01]

6 minutes ago, Euphoricape said:

But surely this would take us back to square one, having to re- vaccinate everybody again, with deaths sky rocketing until then.. 

diferent jabs and delivery methods become available so it becomes easier .... wasnt it unlikely that it changes completely to evade vaccines .... more that the changes need to be adapted for ..... maybe @Toilet Duck might give us a bit of insight on having to rejab the healthy younger population ? but obviously the flu jab cohort would get the annual jab including covid  as usual .... and maybe this goes to a slightly younger age ?

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

28 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Isnt it usually busier in the winter months?

Yeah it's usually busier, it's why you get major incidents, social workers scrambling to get old folks out if hospital and home with care packages etc... It's always sailing close to the wind though. It's designed to. 

[incident]

Just now, steviewevie said:

some of these countries must vaccinate kids at school for TB etc? They have hospitals, and health/state infrastructure.  Brazil isn't Yemen, surely with a competent leader they could actually address this. Same with India...although they also have a twatty leader, and also have a fuckin lot of people.

In the poorest countries a lot of vaccinations are handled by aid organisations like MSF rather than local authorities. Vaccinating a whole population in a (hopefully) short space of time is a big ask and way beyond normal scope of what's done - especially if it's being done near simultaneously all over the world.

Yes, the problem in Brazil is a lack of preparation and allocated resource rather than a lack of capability to provide resource. But it's still a problem regardless of how it came to be.

In both scenarios I do think there's some benefit to the UK Government (and the US, and EU nations) stepping in and providing specific targetted resource (which could equipment, money, and even personnel) to nations that are for whatever reason unable to sort themselves out. As an easy example, many areas now have buses converted to rolling vaccination centres - as soon as we're finished, rather than scrap them or convert them back to normal use get the Army to put them all on transporter planes and have them travelling around the world. We've trained up tens of thousands of volunteer vaccinators - offer them a chance of paid work accompanying those buses for a month or two. It'd only be a minority that took the chance, but what a positive experience it'd be.