Life on the front line.

[DaveP67 is back!]

Another great post Dubs, IMO unless we get test and trace working and mass testing in place with quick results until a vaccine is available at least to the over 50’s we are going to be in serious trouble. People who want us to let it run and rely on herd immunity are naive at best, the pressure this will put on the NHS critical care facilities would mean forget any routine hospital treatment, forget being able to actually see a GP face to face and many people with curable conditions will die. It is that simple. Follow the rules folks and challenge those you see breaking it, it’s in all or interests! My wife is a district nurse on the front line and for the sake of her mental health I don’t want things to become as bad as they were...

[Dubbag]

The other day...I was not so much asked, as told...."why all the fuss about the increase in SARS-CoV-2 cases?"
Just let it run its course and let everybody get on with there lives....It is a fair point but one I think is misunderstood from a Public Health Care point of view...So I attempted to explain as best I could the reason for the concern........and it goes something like this....

In a normal winter season, the general population get exposed to the variant from of winter flu...hence the seasonal flu jab...if the correct vaccine is chosen be the expert (1/3 chance) then many wont suffer debilitating effects from the flu. For example, two seasons ago...there was a pretty bad flu virus going around and we had quite a few people more then usual die that winter from it...It was a relatively higher kill rate then normal...but not headline making. But in hospital any case of confirmed flu has to be isolated from other sick patients, otherwise a sick patient could contract the flu and die from related complications, from what just perhaps toe surgery in the first instance.
On our ICU unit...we have approximately 27 beds..of which 10 are isolation rooms. The remainder are open wards of 9 patient beds....
My question to my colleague the other day was this....If we said nothing about SARS-CoV2 last January (no public announcement, just quietness) would we have noticed any difference in our winter/Spring case load on the unit?[B] The answer is a staggeringly huge yes!"!
We most likely would have had a collapse in our health care system with the sheer amount of patients presenting very sick in through A&E.

We would have been over whelmed very quickly as would the rest of the Western world......As it stand now...if a patience acquires MRSA, C.Diff, VRE or even the almost untreatable CPE in hospital, they must be isolated to protect all other sick patients on the ward. If all other isolation beds are already taken up with C-19 patients...then these infected patients have to stay on the ward where there is an increased risk of it been transmitted, no matter how great your hygiene care is...So you come in for a small elective surgery, that you may have waited months for...it goes well you are recovering well...and then you are told you now have a hospital acquired disease, which means a longer hospital stay with more drugs and with more risk of other things going south.......

The knock on effect is huge....so even if most of the current cases are under 40 and seem to be mild...it is only a matter of time and math before hospital cases start to increase again......we are seeing it already.......I spent most of Friday and Saturday gowned up on duty those days.....confirmed cases and suspect cases are starting......

We all know the flu season comes and goes and it was the hope of the experts that this virus would behave similarly...WELL...IT HASN'T!! The only silver lining (for want of a better description) I see here is that perhaps the seasonal winter flu may be curtailed by our increased knowledge of hand hygiene etc......

I really hope purchasing in our hospital has got plenty of stock built up...cause this is a rising tide again.........

[baggieal]

The other day...I was not so much asked, as told...."why all the fuss about the increase in SARS-CoV-2 cases?"
Just let it run its course and let everybody get on with there lives....It is a fair point but one I think is misunderstood from a Public Health Care point of view...So I attempted to explain as best I could the reason for the concern........and it goes something like this....

In a normal winter season, the general population get exposed to the variant from of winter flu...hence the seasonal flu jab...if the correct vaccine is chosen be the expert (1/3 chance) then many wont suffer debilitating effects from the flu. For example, two seasons ago...there was a pretty bad flu virus going around and we had quite a few people more then usual die that winter from it...It was a relatively higher kill rate then normal...but not headline making. But in hospital any case of confirmed flu has to be isolated from other sick patients, otherwise a sick patient could contract the flu and die from related complications, from what just perhaps toe surgery in the first instance.
On our ICU unit...we have approximately 27 beds..of which 10 are isolation rooms. The remainder are open wards of 9 patient beds....
My question to my colleague the other day was this....If we said nothing about SARS-CoV2 last January (no public announcement, just quietness) would we have noticed any difference in our winter/Spring case load on the unit?[B] The answer is a staggeringly huge yes!"!
We most likely would have had a collapse in our health care system with the sheer amount of patients presenting very sick in through A&E.

We would have been over whelmed very quickly as would the rest of the Western world......As it stand now...if a patience acquires MRSA, C.Diff, VRE or even the almost untreatable CPE in hospital, they must be isolated to protect all other sick patients on the ward. If all other isolation beds are already taken up with C-19 patients...then these infected patients have to stay on the ward where there is an increased risk of it been transmitted, no matter how great your hygiene care is...So you come in for a small elective surgery, that you may have waited months for...it goes well you are recovering well...and then you are told you now have a hospital acquired disease, which means a longer hospital stay with more drugs and with more risk of other things going south.......

The knock on effect is huge....so even if most of the current cases are under 40 and seem to be mild...it is only a matter of time and math before hospital cases start to increase again......we are seeing it already.......I spent most of Friday and Saturday gowned up on duty those days.....confirmed cases and suspect cases are starting......

We all know the flu season comes and goes and it was the hope of the experts that this virus would behave similarly...WELL...IT HASN'T!! The only silver lining (for want of a better description) I see here is that perhaps the seasonal winter flu may be curtailed by our increased knowledge of hand hygiene etc......

I really hope purchasing in our hospital has got plenty of stock built up...cause this is a rising tide again.........

I understand all this Dubs. Please explain to me why Sweden therefore has a much lower rate of infection than the UK and many other countries and had no lock down? Without being callous - surely herd immunity needs to run its course as there's no way the economy can suffer another lockdown as already the axe on employees will fall at the end of October.

Also is there any data yet with the lockdown the increasing number of cancer patients who could not see a GP face to face or easily have access to blood tests. Cancer cases and deaths will be at an almighty high level due to not detecting cancer early and delayed or postponed operations. Likewise mental health issues with lockdowns will have/and will go through the roof.

I know there is no easy answer but surely now we need to let it run its course and also this no doubt, will keep more elderly and vulnerable at home! For me some of the very elderly are the absolute worst ( bless them ) at social distancing!

Clearly The UK ( unlike most EU Countries ) is not enforcing masks/social gathering/social distancing anywhere near as strict as other countries - there's a protest every other week - you go into most supermarkets and staff filling shelves don't have masks etc etc. I did say Boris was a fool to back Cummings and people now do as they please and still do!

[mickd1961]

The other day...I was not so much asked, as told...."why all the fuss about the increase in SARS-CoV-2 cases?"
Just let it run its course and let everybody get on with there lives....It is a fair point but one I think is misunderstood from a Public Health Care point of view...So I attempted to explain as best I could the reason for the concern........and it goes something like this....

In a normal winter season, the general population get exposed to the variant from of winter flu...hence the seasonal flu jab...if the correct vaccine is chosen be the expert (1/3 chance) then many wont suffer debilitating effects from the flu. For example, two seasons ago...there was a pretty bad flu virus going around and we had quite a few people more then usual die that winter from it...It was a relatively higher kill rate then normal...but not headline making. But in hospital any case of confirmed flu has to be isolated from other sick patients, otherwise a sick patient could contract the flu and die from related complications, from what just perhaps toe surgery in the first instance.
On our ICU unit...we have approximately 27 beds..of which 10 are isolation rooms. The remainder are open wards of 9 patient beds....
My question to my colleague the other day was this....If we said nothing about SARS-CoV2 last January (no public announcement, just quietness) would we have noticed any difference in our winter/Spring case load on the unit?[B] The answer is a staggeringly huge yes!"!
We most likely would have had a collapse in our health care system with the sheer amount of patients presenting very sick in through A&E.

We would have been over whelmed very quickly as would the rest of the Western world......As it stand now...if a patience acquires MRSA, C.Diff, VRE or even the almost untreatable CPE in hospital, they must be isolated to protect all other sick patients on the ward. If all other isolation beds are already taken up with C-19 patients...then these infected patients have to stay on the ward where there is an increased risk of it been transmitted, no matter how great your hygiene care is...So you come in for a small elective surgery, that you may have waited months for...it goes well you are recovering well...and then you are told you now have a hospital acquired disease, which means a longer hospital stay with more drugs and with more risk of other things going south.......

The knock on effect is huge....so even if most of the current cases are under 40 and seem to be mild...it is only a matter of time and math before hospital cases start to increase again......we are seeing it already.......I spent most of Friday and Saturday gowned up on duty those days.....confirmed cases and suspect cases are starting......

We all know the flu season comes and goes and it was the hope of the experts that this virus would behave similarly...WELL...IT HASN'T!! The only silver lining (for want of a better description) I see here is that perhaps the seasonal winter flu may be curtailed by our increased knowledge of hand hygiene etc......

I really hope purchasing in our hospital has got plenty of stock built up...cause this is a rising tide again.........

Does this not just prove what I’ve been saying for weeks Dubs?

We are protecting the weaknesses of the NHS and not people.

The government don’t care if 40,000 or 400,000 die from Covid.......it’s more a matter of how it looks from the sidelines!?

Trolleys on car parks with people queuing up to die is a bad look for any government but if we had proper NHS capacity where people were dying quietly in high numbers and nobody would give a stuff!

This is all about perception I think.

If 400,000 are at severe risk from Covid they will mostly die at some point from it......it’s managing the look of that which counts to government.

[Dubbag]

Does this not just prove what I’ve been saying for weeks Dubs?

If 400,000 are at severe risk from Covid they will mostly die at some point from it......it’s managing the look of that which counts to government.

But it has been the case since last February to be honest Mick........Experts for different reasons were a little slow to respond to the unfolding crises...This has always been about protecting the health system and not so much people......behind the scenes it was well regarded that this was going to kill hundreds of thousands and then possibly millions of people....but in what space of time???So it is happening but at the rate that is more acceptable to the mass of the population.....But to address what you are saying......to quote your figure of 400,000.....it is happening but in a more "in control" kind of way....
But the health systems are not very strong across the globe and this disease has pushed many to capacity very quickly....a bit like a real live testing of the system under pressure.......and it was found massively wanting....
Were it not for the lock down preventing the disease from spreading more rapidly...collapse was not too far away....remember it has only been through the cancelling of operations and other daily surgeries that have prevented collapse in many countries....but many have also passed away BECAUSE they did not have that much needed procedure. Health systems are the most important part of your economy......Banks can always have more money shoved at them to stop them from collapsing...
You cant do that with health services......If your country has not got healthy people...well the old saying and it is true....you cant buy good health.
I don't care how good your health insurance is.......

[Dubbag]

I understand all this Dubs. Please explain to me why Sweden therefore has a much lower rate of infection than the UK and many other countries and had no lock down? Without being callous - surely herd immunity needs to run its course as there's no way the economy can suffer another lockdown as already the axe on employees will fall at the end of October.

Also is there any data yet with the lockdown the increasing number of cancer patients who could not see a GP face to face or easily have access to blood tests. Cancer cases and deaths will be at an almighty high level due to not detecting cancer early and delayed or postponed operations. Likewise mental health issues with lockdowns will have/and will go through the roof.

I know there is no easy answer but surely now we need to let it run its course and also this no doubt, will keep more elderly and vulnerable at home! For me some of the very elderly are the absolute worst ( bless them ) at social distancing!

Clearly The UK ( unlike most EU Countries ) is not enforcing masks/social gathering/social distancing anywhere near as strict as other countries - there's a protest every other week - you go into most supermarkets and staff filling shelves don't have masks etc etc. I did say Boris was a fool to back Cummings and people now do as they please and still do!

Lots of reasons...some medical...some science...some biology......how you count the numbers differs from country to country...UK has a much higher populations of over 50s.....when you measure death rates per million of populations figures change..Stated aim I believe through policy in Sweden is as you say possibly herb immunity...but tests indicate so far less then 10% of Swedes have been infected....they have fared poorly against other countries in their region...regarding economy....too early to say what the true fall out it ...that will continue to play out....
I don't have the answers to much to be honest...but try to share what I do hear and see....

[mickd1961]

Lots of reasons...some medical...some science...some biology......how you count the numbers differs from country to country...UK has a much higher populations of over 50s.....when you measure death rates per million of populations figures change..Stated aim I believe through policy in Sweden is as you say possibly herb immunity...but tests indicate so far less then 10% of Swedes have been infected....they have fared poorly against other countries in their region...regarding economy....too early to say what the true fall out it ...that will continue to play out....
I don't have the answers to much to be honest...but try to share what I do hear and see....

With regards to Sweden it was stated on the news the other day that one of the reasons they appear to fare better than us is because of density of population.

Apparently most areas of the U.K. are 60 x more dense than in Sweden.

It doesn’t take Einstein to work out that if there’s more space between people there’s going to be less transmission.

Thomas would be best to answer this next question but I’ll bet there are few areas like Leicester,Birmingham,Bradford and Oldham with both Asian people and poor people packed like sardines in multi generational households?

[SwedishBaggie]

With regards to Sweden it was stated on the news the other day that one of the reasons they appear to fare better than us is because of density of population.

Apparently most areas of the U.K. are 60 x more dense than in Sweden.

It doesn’t take Einstein to work out that if there’s more space between people there’s going to be less transmission.

Thomas would be best to answer this next question but I’ll bet there are few areas like Leicester,Birmingham,Bradford and Oldham with both Asian people and poor people packed like sardines in multi generational households?

We have densely populated areas as well, for our circumstances. Only ca 10 million people live in Sweden and it is a large country (one of the largest in Europe), so, all in all, Sweden is a scarcely populated country. Many people died in the spring in our densely populated areas (mixed ethnic groups, multi generation households and living ”packed like sardines”).

But, yet again as always, how many of them died with or from Corona? 15 % of ”our death toll” died directly from Corona and the last two or three months fewer people than average have died - 2020 might therefore be ”a normal year” when you sum the number of total deaths up.

I see that the Coronaphobia is still out there with many countries going back to draconian measures, which will not help and cause more death and bad health, and therefore, in the long run, be contraproductive for,eg, the NHS.

The strategy or aim for Sweden has never been herd immunity, if we reach it, great, of course. The strategy is to have a prudent, balanced, and most important, a sustainable approach over time, and to minimize all the negative effects of the measures that have been imposed.

Food for thought about the virus. In July we had beaches crammed with people (”packed like sardines”), and now our NHS and Public Health of Sweden have looked into the numbers of people catching the virus during this period. Result: The number did not go up, it has actually gone down...

The over reactions by countries and people regarding this is hard to fathom - back to ”normal” asap!

[Dubbag]

The over reactions by countries and people regarding this is hard to fathom - back to ”normal” asap!

I find many things in this life hard to fathom too....🤔🤔

[Dubbag]

More people may have pre-existing immunity to the coronavirus than at first thought, according to an article in the British Medical Journal that challenges the widely held assumption that the immune systems of the world’s population were completely naive to infection.

In the article, the BMJ cites six studies reporting T-cell reactivity against the virus in 20-50% of people with no known exposure to it. According to the BMJ, researchers behind two separate studies have concluded that these unexpected immune responses could be explained by cross-immunity after exposure to common cold coronaviruses.

Taken together, this growing body of research documenting pre-existing immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2 may force pandemic planners to revisit some of their foundational assumptions about how to measure population susceptibility and monitor the extent of epidemic spread.

The article tentatively casts doubt on claims, made after seroprevalence studies showed comparatively few people have antibodies to the coronavirus, that the pandemic has a long road to run.

The research offers a powerful reminder that very little in immunology is cut and dried. Physiological responses may have fewer sharp distinctions than in the popular imagination: exposure does not necessarily lead to infection, infection does not necessarily lead to disease, and disease does not necessarily produce detectable antibodies.

Click here to read it for yourself...... https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563.full

This was taken from The Guardian Online site........Over here in Dublin...I think we are about to enter stricter restriction to movement and the like.....Our own admissions are moving back up now......