Saga Lout wrote: ↑Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:39 pm
Yes, everybody should crack on.
Except
No, the weak and vulnerable should isolate and shield and be supported in doing so
The trouble is, how much collateral damage do you want to sustain and for how long? Hospitals have been maxed out for a year and routine ops have stagnated (my own dad has put off his knee op til who knows when).
This could take years to burn out if you let it run its course. I don't think the general population is geared up for that, therefore the vulnerable will be exposed (as they have done already through a mixture of ignorance, bad luck, non-compliance, poor policy decisions etc).
My own aged parents don't want to spend the next five years isolating.
You've got evidence to support this claim or is it anecdotal?
Hospital near us has been much quieter than normal.
You've got evidence to support this claim or is it anecdotal?
Hospital near us has been much quieter than normal.
My brother's a nurse at addenbrookes, he's been pulling extra shifts for a year now. His missus is a research nurse normally, been back on wards now for a year. I know the Norfolk and Norwich was stretched recently.
Of course it's anecdotal, I'm not writing a paper on it.
Anecdotal evidence from my SiL who is a doctor at a south coast hospital says it was so quiet they were almost fighting over patients to treat. That was a few months ago, don't know about more recently.
FWIW in July when I went for my pre-op MoT, they were just returning staff from covid work to their usual tasks.
The No More Surgeons blog has a lot of details about how surgery wards were repurposed for covid care and about how staff from all disciplines and of all types were working on covid care.
Mussels wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:13 pm
Anecdotal evidence from my SiL who is a doctor at a south coast hospital says it was so quiet they were almost fighting over patients to treat. That was a few months ago, don't know about more recently.
Well this is also the flip side - who wants to go near a hospital at the moment? Personally I'd have to be a beat away from my heart stopping. I've seen inside a few recently - the relative nonchalance of nurses, who've been engaging with covid every day for a year whilst the rest of us have been hiding, takes some getting used to.
Don’t forget that they’ve had to social distance all wards. Aside from resources being diverted from wards, those routine ones that need to exist have effectively had a reduction in bed base because of distancing needs.
After lockdown one I remember loads returning to work and it genuinely was quieter. I imagine it’s like that now as folk nervously hope we’re finally coming through this. They’ll still have to distance, mind.
Docca wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:20 pm
Don’t forget that they’ve had to social distance all wards. Aside from resources being diverted from wards, those routine ones that need to exist have effectively had a reduction in bed base because of distancing needs.
When I was in (early August), the ward had four beds but, for distancing, only two were used. I was told to expect a 2 or 3 night stay, but they cleared every patient (2 4 bed wards, plus side rooms) out the following day.
Also, at that time, the hospital was running split i two, one of which clear of covid (every patient tested before admission and self-isolated for two weeks).
It looks one doctor with extreme views is rubbishing another doctor with extreme views, I doubt either of them have a balanced view.
David Oliver is a respected and renowned medic, the other doctor is a pathologist. It’s quite a narrow view to suggest one is extreme one way or t’other- the pathologist has been routinely rubbished for speaking out of her arse ( must be some ointment of that ).
Oliver is good. Rachel Clarke is extreme.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting article. Apologies for not introducing it- didn’t have time, at the time.
Boss is the on take Consultant last few days - we still have quite a few Inpatients but nothing like December and January .
Interestingly enough my normal job has gone into overdrive as people who couldn't/wouldn't attend are now doing so and are sicker as they are being diagnosed at a later point.
The actual death rate from coronavirus is immaterial unless you happen to be one of them. What the thin yellow line doesn't show are the tens of thousands of people/hundreds of thousands who would all be falling ill all at the same time cluttering up the health service. In the early days, if you were diagnosed with the virus, it was not known how badly you might react until a couple of weeks later when you wake up dead.
That's what a pandemic is and why it is more dangerous than say a bomb falling on a town and killing the same number of people.
Then of course there's "long covid". Anyone dealing with that is going to be less than impressed with those sneering at the low number of dead.
Naturally, it's a lot less scary now it appears as if mankind has found a vaccine that works. Whether it will continue to work or a random mutation will kill every living thing is as yet unknown. I mean, do we even know yet if this novel virus will persist or eventually disappear?
). 
