Corona Virus main thread

[Aggy 755]

45 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Well I guess those studies must be rather selective of the lockdowns they considered then since there are a number of blindingly obvious examples round the world which show lockdowns as highly effective in reducing deaths, and not forgetting some horrific death tolls in countries which have resisted lockdown.

On the NHS being overrun I half agree with you - it has seemed to me from the very outset that this obsession with avoiding the NHS being overrun is entirely driven by Johnson's fear of the political backlash associated with it rather a genuine concern for saving as many lives as possible, and in that sense it has warped policies and the response generally in a very unhelpful way. Nevertheless it is hard to see what the alternative would look like, especially with a government so inept and hopelessly out of its depth as this one.

The reality is lockdown had to be part of the picture but if it had been done timely and competently it would have been shorter, saved lives and caused less economic damage. Instead in the UK, we have pretty much the worst of all worlds - huge excess death toll, massive disruption to all our lives and one of the worst, if not the worst, economic impacts - yet still we have no plan or strategy other than to keep on muddling through (although in reality we are doing nowehere near as well as that) in the hope that a vaccine will eventually turn up and fix it for us.

Lockdowns won’t reduce overall deaths if you don’t have a vaccine at the end of it, unless you never come out of lockdown. As we’ve seen this time round, it just flares up again later. And when we have a “Normal” Christmas as Boris keeps referring to, it will flare back up around late Jan/February and we’ll need to lockdown again then.

If you don’t have a vaccine, the only way lockdowns will save lives is on the basis that without them hospitals might become overwhelmed and then you’ve got people who might have had treatment and survived but who can’t get the treatment.

I disagree on the strategy. Whitty has said the three tier system showed a reduction in the r rate. And this is where I do feel some of the timing criticism is a bit unfair. SAGE’s modelling at the start of October and before then showed a much smaller figure than we saw this weekend. The government brought in a system which even SAGE say was having an impact and which could have worked. The issue is that SAGE’s October figures were wrong. The new modelling suggests much higher, so the three tier system was always doomed to failure as it started too late. Had SAGE’s modelling been more reflective of reality in September, say, then the three tier system might have come in earlier and been sufficient. Some on here will say they always knew this was going to happen and the figures were higher than being reported, but then they must have known better than SAGE and scientists whose modelling SAGE used in September and October.

[paul moy 235]

3 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Lockdowns won’t reduce overall deaths if you don’t have a vaccine at the end of it, unless you never come out of lockdown. As we’ve seen this time round, it just flares up again later. And when we have a “Normal” Christmas as Boris keeps referring to, it will flare back up around late Jan/February and we’ll need to lockdown again then.

If you don’t have a vaccine, the only way lockdowns will save lives is on the basis that without them hospitals might become overwhelmed and then you’ve got people who might have had treatment and survived but who can’t get the treatment.

I disagree on the strategy. Whitty has said the three tier system showed a reduction in the r rate. And this is where I do feel some of the timing criticism is a bit unfair. SAGE’s modelling at the start of October and before then showed a much smaller figure than we saw this weekend. The government brought in a system which even SAGE say was having an impact and which could have worked. The issue is that SAGE’s October figures were wrong. The new modelling suggests much higher, so the three tier system was always doomed to failure as it started too late. Had SAGE’s modelling been more reflective of reality in September, say, then the three tier system might have come in earlier and been sufficient. Some on here will say they always knew this was going to happen and the figures were higher than being reported, but then they must have known better than SAGE and scientists whose modelling SAGE used in September and October.

Lockdowns save the lives of those that do not have covid .... obvious ?

[Aggy 755]

7 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

Is it true that the elderly were denied ICU and other treatments to give it to younger sufferers or actually that the elderly, average age 85, were too I'll to benefit from treatment?

Since ICU facilities were never at peak capacity in the spring  ( see NHS special uses services for proof), I suggest the latter is true. 

Absolutely the latter.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2020/10/nhs-and-other-professional-bodies-response-to-sunday-times/

[Aggy 755]

2 minutes ago, paul moy said:

Lockdowns save the lives of those that do not have covid .... obvious ?

Save them how? If you mean people didn’t die in car crashes etc. Then are you suggesting we should have a perpetual lockdown so nobody ever dies of anything other than ‘old age’ ever again?

[Barbe bleu 826]

A virus will continue its passage through a population until r =1 through herd immunity.

Lockdowns by themselves do not save lives they just delay the virus.

What happens with the time (literally) bought is what is important.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

8 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Is it true that the elderly were denied ICU and other treatments to give it to younger sufferers or actually that the elderly, average age 85, were too I'll to benefit from treatment?

Since ICU facilities were never at peak capacity in the spring  ( see NHS special uses services for proof), I suggest the latter is true. 

Giving certain ICU treatments to extremely old patients is immoral. Intubation for example will take a long while for a healthy young person to recover from (physio, long lasting rehab) doctors have to make the call. 

[paul moy 235]

8 hours ago, Aggy said:

Save them how? If you mean people didn’t die in car crashes etc. Then are you suggesting we should have a perpetual lockdown so nobody ever dies of anything other than ‘old age’ ever again?

Wow....... if hospitals are full and a person has a heart attack at home and nobody can get an  ambulance, and then if they can and cannot get treated  ?   Covid thus pushes up the death rate in other areas.  Do I really need to explain this ?

 

[paul moy 235]

7 minutes ago, The Real Buh said:

Giving certain ICU treatments to extremely old patients is immoral. Intubation for example will take a long while for a healthy young person to recover from (physio, long lasting rehab) doctors have to make the call. 

If hospitals are full we wont just be talking about not treating elderly. People can have cancer and heart attacks at a young age.

[The Real Buh 3,432]

Just now, paul moy said:

If hospitals are full we wont just be talking about not treating elderly. People can have cancer and heart attacks at a young age.

Yep we don’t want that

[paul moy 235]

8 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

A virus will continue its passage through a population until r =1 through herd immunity.

Lockdowns by themselves do not save lives they just delay the virus.

What happens with the time (literally) bought is what is important.

Lockdowns allow capacity to be available in the NHS by reducing demand on the service due to covid.

[paul moy 235]

8 hours ago, Aggy said:

Save them how? If you mean people didn’t die in car crashes etc. Then are you suggesting we should have a perpetual lockdown so nobody ever dies of anything other than ‘old age’ ever again?

A side-effect will be fewer dieing in car crashes as more stay at home in lockdown.  Not many, but still lives saved and less demand on the NHS accident and emergency departments. So you lose the argument there too..... LOL

[Aggy 755]

37 minutes ago, paul moy said:

Wow....... if hospitals are full and a person has a heart attack at home and nobody can get an  ambulance, and then if they can and cannot get treated  ?   Covid thus pushes up the death rate in other areas.  Do I really need to explain this ?

 

Err...

9 hours ago, Aggy said:

If you don’t have a vaccine, the only way lockdowns will save lives is on the basis that without them hospitals might become overwhelmed and then you’ve got people who might have had treatment and survived but who can’t get the treatment.

 

[paul moy 235]

2 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Err...

The lockdown will be saving lives by allowing intervention for non-covid patients and delaying deaths for covid patients by keeping the NHS working under its full capacity.  At full capacity deaths from all causes will obviously rise as many people will not get care at all and will be triaged for early death.  

[Aggy 755]

3 minutes ago, paul moy said:

The lockdown will be saving lives by allowing intervention for non-covid patients and delaying deaths for covid patients by keeping the NHS working under its full capacity.  At full capacity deaths from all causes will obviously rise as many people will not get care at all and will be triaged for early death.  

Good point. If only someone had mentioned that in any of the posts you’ve quoted..

[SHRIMPER 328]

Steve Bannons twitter and youtube accounts has been suspended after he said that Fauci should be beheaded. In my opinion Bannon should be given the chop from every social platform there is.

[Barbe bleu 826]

 

1 hour ago, SHRIMPER said:

Steve Bannons twitter and youtube accounts has been suspended after he said that Fauci should be beheaded. In my opinion Bannon should be given the chop from every social platform there is.

He should have taken the moral highground and called him a fvckwit instead...

[Barbe bleu 826]

1 hour ago, paul moy said:

The lockdown will be saving lives by allowing intervention for non-covid patients and delaying deaths for covid patients by keeping the NHS working under its full capacity.  At full capacity deaths from all causes will obviously rise as many people will not get care at all and will be triaged for early death.  

I dont think anyone on here is debating that if the hospitals are at capacity we shouldn't lockdown,  but the view of some here is that hospitals are not at capacity and the figures do not support the assessment that we will be in the near future.

[ricardo 7,395]

11 hours ago, Herman said:

The stat earlier about how many health workers are off/isolating was concerning. Maybe that was one of the big turning points.

 

Sounds a lot doesn't it? Until you realise that 1.4 million people work for the NHS. So just over 2%.

[Bagster 101]

The truth is coming out and our support grows by the day

You lot call me what you want, I am right and some of you have behaved so terribly that now I can see how we ended up with n a z I Germany.

The bitterest pill will be yours to take

 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

12 hours ago, Aggy said:

Lockdowns won’t reduce overall deaths if you don’t have a vaccine at the end of it, unless you never come out of lockdown. As we’ve seen this time round, it just flares up again later. And when we have a “Normal” Christmas as Boris keeps referring to, it will flare back up around late Jan/February and we’ll need to lockdown again then.

Sorry but that isn't true, and you only have to look further afield to see that - life in China has been pretty normal for months apart from controls on people entering the country, as have a number of other countries in the region.

Of course the virus flared up again in this country because despite all the advance warning we had from SE Asia and continental Europe we locked down far too late with the virus widespread throughout the country and then unlocked with it still far too prevalent and no effective track and trace system. On top of that we allowed people to go on holiday to other areas with plenty of virus still present and return home without any checks.

Lockdowns can, and have reduced deaths (massively in some cases) in certain countries and whilst there is an inevitable economic hit everywhere as a result of the virus, those countries which have implemented effective public health responses and have also suffered substantially less economic damage than those that have botched it, such as ourselves - this IMO is the key point, in this country (and others) it is treated as a choice between prioritising public health or the economy, or achieving a 'balance' as our dimwits like to say.

What some of the smarter governments around the world realised right at the start was that protecting public health and their economies weren't alternatives but one and the same thing - because it makes no difference whether we're locked or unlocked, allowed to travel or not etc, etc. If this virus is circulating unchecked and people are dying, and scared stiff of catching it then our economy is knackered anyway - and let's face it, our government has certainly scared people sh*tless over the last few months so nothing is going to change that now, unless and until an effective vaccine arrives.

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

2 hours ago, ricardo said:

Sounds a lot doesn't it? Until you realise that 1.4 million people work for the NHS. So just over 2%.

Yeah , welll it is a lot especially as I imagine (but don't know) those most of those 30,000 work on the front line whereas the 1.4 million includes the huge bureacracy that sits behind the front line.

Then when you also factor in that we went into this crisis with the NHS understaffed by 100,000 doctors and nurses.............

[The Real Buh 3,432]

17 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Yeah , welll it is a lot especially as I imagine (but don't know) those most of those 30,000 work on the front line whereas the 1.4 million includes the huge bureacracy that sits behind the front line.

Then when you also factor in that we went into this crisis with the NHS understaffed by 100,000 doctors and nurses.............

Are we really understaffed by 100,000 doctors and nurses?

[paul moy 235]

3 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

I dont think anyone on here is debating that if the hospitals are at capacity we shouldn't lockdown,  but the view of some here is that hospitals are not at capacity and the figures do not support the assessment that we will be in the near future.

Errrrr... many are saying that lockdowns don't work. Read the posts.

[Well b back 3,203]

Unfortunately our hospitals up here in Birmingham are beginning to feel the pressure.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/elective-operations-cancelled-birmingham-queen-19232806

[paul moy 235]

5 hours ago, The Real Buh said:

Giving certain ICU treatments to extremely old patients is immoral. Intubation for example will take a long while for a healthy young person to recover from (physio, long lasting rehab) doctors have to make the call. 

Surely it is also immoral to deny treatment if an elderly patient requests it and they are generally in a good state of health. It is also immoral imo to decree that all elderly people in care homes be deemed for non-resuscitation which is effectively putting them on the old discredited Liverpool Care Pathway, as the authorities did in the previous lockdown.

 

 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

3 minutes ago, paul moy said:

Surely it is also immoral to deny treatment if an elderly patient requests it and they are generally in a good state of health. It is also immoral imo to decree that all elderly people in care homes be deemed for non-resuscitation which is effectively putting them on the old discredited Liverpool Care Pathway, as the authorities did in the previous lockdown.

 

 

It’s not something that’s new. Doctors won’t just keep people alive for the hell of it. Its also something that’s not done lightly. They aren’t going to deny a healthy person who has a shot at survival the care they needed. It’s immoral to keep people “alive” in name alone.

[ricardo 7,395]

56 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Yeah , welll it is a lot especially as I imagine (but don't know) those most of those 30,000 work on the front line whereas the 1.4 million includes the huge bureacracy that sits behind the front line.

Then when you also factor in that we went into this crisis with the NHS understaffed by 100,000 doctors and nurses.............

I think they were very careful not to say front line staff.

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

32 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I think they were very careful not to say front line staff.

I bet they were! 😀

[Teemu’s right foot 53]

 

[ricardo 7,395]

59 minutes ago, Teemu’s right foot said:

 

We have all seen the numbers slow and start to turn but that won't stop them claiming in a couple of weeks that its the Lockdown what done it.