HSTEd
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Given that the proportion of tests coming back positive is still comparatively small (20%), the positivity can be used as a surrogate for caseload in the test-limited scenario
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Omicron variant and the measures implemented in response to it
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But then the media don't get to use the word "overwhelmed"...
Robert
Member
Consultant surgeon Dr Anthony Hinton on GBNews yesterday:
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Or just ignore the result and carry on as normal as happens in real life.
We cannot afford it and it's not going to happen.
I’m assuming you’ve all seen the tread on Southern removing all their services from Victoria due to staff shortages, this is what happens when a virus is allowed to run rampant through a population. Staff who provide vital services become unavailable and therefore those services become unavailable
Bantamzen
Established Member
No, this is what happens when politicians panic and demand that people with mild or no symptoms isolate for 10 days.
Or with the low risk of harm from the virus, should we be reducing (or even removing) the isolation period further? Once you feel better, people should be going back to work like you would in previous years before covid?
Based on the latest statistics over the last 7 days (appreciate there are gaps and issues), with 914,723 reporting a positive test (plus many more who get covid go unreported),
- 6,878 patients admited to hospital, although since this data is over a week old, I have assumed 10,000. Thus 0.75% are going to hospital for covid (or have it while undergoing something else)
- 516 died, thus 0.06% dying from covid
If there was a new virus, it would be interesting to see what percentage of people would be acceptable to die of it before making a minor and major impact on their life.
I personally would say that a death rate of 0.5% would make me undertake a few minor changes in my everyday life and major changes for 1%.
Would be interesting to see what others people would accept as rates.
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bramling
Veteran Member
Or, to put it another way, it's what happens when you give people the means to have Christmas off as a freeby without any recourse.
I'm not saying that the majority will be doing this, but I can absolutely guarantee some will be.
All anyone has to do at present is claim to have symptoms and/or a positive LFT, and they're then off work until they're able to get a PCR. Ideal for getting Christmas week off.
So you are suggesting that people who test positive just ignore the results and carry on spread the virus amongst the population
I understand that the current version is less serious than previous versions but suggesting that people just deliberately spread it is one of the worst takes I’ve seen on here, and imo they’ve been many bad ‘I’m all right takes previously’ but this takes the biscuit
Or we as a society do our best to try and reduce the spread of this virus by using masks reducing contact instead of as some advocate just going around and acting as if nothing happening
bramling
Veteran Member
Do we normally do that for people who have no symptoms? A lot of the people currently unavailable will be either mild symptoms, no symptoms, or swinging the lead. This has only arisen because of the massive increase in testing.
As for masks, when are people going to come round to accepting that quite simply they don't work?
This is what happens when people with mild or no symptoms are required to isolate.
It is not normally the case that we would be requiring people to isolate; we need to get back to normality as soon as possible.
How does one "deliberately spread" a virus, and who has suggested this?
There is no way to prevent this virus being exposed to the entire population, by the way.
Hardly anyone wears an effective FFP3 (or similar) mask of the sort that is actually designed to prevent transmission of viruses though.
It's true that in some settings (the ones where virus transmission is least likely) see a large proportion of people being seen to be wearing masks, but on a closer look you will see that almost all of these are of the sort that are flimsy, loose fitting and not designed to filter aerosol particles.
If anyone wishes to avoid virus transmission they can choose to do this by wearing an FFP3 mask, however they'd have to take it off at various points during the day (e.g. to eat/drink) and so this is only going to be delaying the inevitable (and at huge environmental cost if everyone did this!)
I'm not reducing any of my contacts; there is nothing to stop you doing so. But if everyone did so, the economy would be in big trouble and many people would lose their jobs. Then there's the toll on mental health. Public health would be in a far worse place if this happened.
There is nothing we can do to prevent the fact that the entire population will be exposed to Sars-CoV-2. What we can do to soften the effects of the virus, is get vaccinated. Around 90% of adults in the UK have done so.
We should, as indeed other countries are starting to do.
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That is exactly what people have been doing with other colds, flus and viruses for years and we're still here.
When proof is given, if masks don’t work then why do hospital staff all wear them in surgical situations to prevent them infecting their patients
If masks did work, why do Scotland and Wales - who have had much higher levels of mask wearing and stricter rules - have much higher cases and deaths per capita than England?
bramling
Veteran Member
A surgical situation is a completely different application entirely.
John Campbell remains upbeat:
In the thread, I linked to a study which compared the wearing of flimsy surgical masks with tight-fitting FFP3 masks; there was a huge difference in the infection rate.
If you have any evidence which has not already been presented in that thread, please report the last post in that thread and include a draft of what you'd like to post, and we will be happy to consider reopening the thread.
Around 80% of English hospital admissions with coronavirus are admitted for other reasons
UK, 24th December
Omicron hospital patients, 366
Total omicron deaths, 29
UK, 27th December
Omicron hospital patients, 407
Total omicron deaths, 39
Omicron cases + 45,307
= 159,932
UK, 29th December
Omicron hospital patients,
+ 261 + 98 = 766
Total omicron deaths,
+ 10 + 4 = 53
UK data
Latest Daily UK COVID-19 Data: Vaccines, Cases, Trends | ZOE
COVID infection & vaccination rates in the UK today, based on public data and reports from millions of users of the ZOE Health Study appcovid.joinzoe.com
England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.coronavirus.data.gov.uk
SA data
SA hospital data
Diseases A-Z Index - NICD
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A Acinetobacter baumannii Acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) Acute rheumatic fever Adverse event following immunization (AEFI) Anthrax Antimicrobial Resistance Antimicrobial resistance maps Arbovirus Avian Influenza B Bartonellosis Blastomycosis...www.nicd.ac.za
US cases and deaths data
Isolation down to 5 days is asymptomatic
20% of covid admissions caused by viral complications
December 21, England
Covid patients in hospital
= 6,245
Up 259 from previous week
Of the 259, just 45 admitted because of the virus
Of the 259, admitted, 214 for other conditions but having also tested positive
“incidental Covid” admissions
Previous week, December 7 to December 14
Majority of hospitalisations were still delta
Primary covid cases were 59% of the 289 weekly rise
People currently in hospital with Covid
“incidental” cases, 1,813 out of 6,245
Highest so far
Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine, Oxford University
This is not the same disease we were seeing a year ago
The horrific scenes that we saw a year ago –
intensive care units being full,
lots of people dying prematurely –
that is now history in my view and I think…that’s likely to continue
Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers
What our guys are saying is that incidental cases are making around 25 to 30 per cent of cases that are arriving,
but that will vary from place to place
In London you would expect to see higher levels
lower in somewhere like the South West, where community infections are lower
They are seeing an increase in the number of hospital admissions
but it's not precipitous.
It's not going up in an exponential way
As the number of cases in the community rises, there are significant levels of incidental cases
But we mustn't forget that having those people in hospital causes complications because of infection control measures
under significant amounts of pressure and are struggling with high numbers of staff absences
More cases of incidental Covid compared to previous waves
Dr Raghib Ali, consultant in acute medicine at Oxford University Hospitals,
There is certainly a smaller proportion of people ending up with Covid pneumonia in intensive care
Probably half the cases I’ve seen are incidentals
You’ve got completely incidental cases,
someone coming in with a broken leg, who also tests positive for Covid,
then a third category of older people who have comorbidities.
Maybe they’ve had a fall or chest pain and also test positive and it's unclear if the virus is having some sort of impact.
And when the prevalence of a virus with relatively mild symptoms is high in the community then you will see higher incidentals
Similar to Gauteng, with 52% incidentals
Report from Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (May 1 to Dec 24)
Surgeons do not wear standard loose fitting surgical masks to avoid infecting patients with respiratory viruses; this was discussed in the following thread:
The case for and against the effectiveness of face coverings and the mandating of their use
How utterly bizarre. I assume you’re referring to your argument?
www.railforums.co.uk
In the thread, I linked to a study which compared the wearing of flimsy surgical masks with tight-fitting FFP3 masks; there was a huge difference in the infection rate.
If you have any evidence which has not already been presented in that thread, please report the last post in that thread and include a draft of what you'd like to post, and we will be happy to consider reopening the thread.
Because we are members of society and we don’t just have to consider ourselves but others.
this is the primary difference between the pro and anti restrictions people one group think about how the rules restrict their lives and one group think primarily about how their behaviour affects others in society
I know which group I prefer being a member off
bramling
Veteran Member
A severe case of looking in a rose-tinted mirror here.
Do you restrict the quality of life like with a lockdown for 999 people, to save 1 life? I personally wouldn't and the person unfortunately likely to pass away would be over 80's.
There are also plenty of other people dying on a daily basis. At the moment, 74 people are dying daily with or from Covid in the UK (Based on last 7 days of data).
Pre-covid, 18 people were dying daily due to suicide in the UK, which I am sure has gone up over the past two years and the average age for suicide is very low. I don't see the same level of care, attention or funding to reduce our suicide rates.
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I am not suggesting anything, one way or the other. I am just pointing out what happens in the real world.
Okay; when calling for restrictions, do you consider the impact they have on disadvantaged groups? Have you seen the following threads?
Covid restrictions causing record levels of self harming
Government document admits lockdowns hurt minority & disadvantaged groups the most
Also do you have a list of additional restrictions you'd like to see applied now?
I consider how restrictions affect others in society, and especially those who are disadvantaged. Do yo consider that?
And so do I; if I've said something you disagree with, that is your right, but please state why you disagree with it and I will be happy to provide evidence to justify my views. Have you read any of the articles, have you listened to any of the podcasts, I've linked to from this forum?
There is certainly a rather smug subset of the pro-restriction camp who are only in it for showing how very "caring" they are. In general they appear to suffer from narcissism and extremely low levels of empathy. Having decided on what they think is best for everybody, they seem keen on forcing everybody to do what they've decided irrespective of evidence, debate or individual needs.
Everybody else, whatever their opinions, is really just muddling along trying to live and make decisions based on evidence and science, and trying to make sure that everybody can get along.
Absolutely. Send all the drivers with positive LFD tests to work. Whack open the windows and doors where able and get services moving.
People like this are often very keen on enforcing restrictions while not obeying the restrictions themselves.
initiation
Member
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Interesting, slightly at odds with the figures for here which show only 1/3rd of those hospitalised are unvaccinated (I am not aware of published figures for ICU or ventilators). I wonder what the difference is?
Well, quite. And we can probably say that most of those that are unvaccinated by choice don't want restrictions either. It is the government and some in the media presenting it as the unvaccinated prolonging the restrictions.
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Back in the fantasy world of modelling, Warwick are thinking it is April Fools. This paper published today has a scenario (not a prediction, wink wink nudge nudge) under their 'plan B only' scenario (what England has at the moment) that shows:
- 1.4 million infections per day
- 5,000 hospital admissions per day, and
- 500 deaths per day
This would be reached by Saturday - as in the saturday in 2 days time! How can they even put their names on it I don't know.
Some commentators on twitter have highlighted that Warwick assume no voluntary changes in behaviour (something that was clear in the run up to Christmas). This seems bizarre considering that these models are being used to inform policy changes.
I am not generally performing surgery on people as I walk around tesco, nor am I getting within 1ft of open wounds. In surgery settings, the masks act to prevent splatter from being transferred. They were not worn to limit the spread of respiratory viruses. In addition, hospitals and those in the operating theater will be dealing with many many patients, many of whom will be very ill. will have much stricter hygeine protocols - so no picking a reused piece of cotton out of your coat pocket for the 10th time.
To try and say that because hospital wear one when operating on someone, we should be legally required to wear one while walking through a supermarket is farcical.
If you, as a member of the pro-restriction group, honestly "think about how your behaviour affects others in society" then you wouldn't be pro-restriction at all. Because the restrictions have been demonstrated, repeatedly, to cause far more harm than good. To people's mental health and wellbeing, to those in desperate need of medical procedures, to those seeking company and social interaction, to those faced with losing their job and livelihood, I could go on.
That is a crucial question. If England holds its nerve and nothing bad happens, hopefully Wales and Scotland will see that it's futile.
bramling
Veteran Member
Absolutely. Send all the drivers with positive LFD tests to work. Whack open the windows and doors where able and get services moving.
It isn't helping that we're seeing a lot of people reporting a positive lateral flow, who then turn out to have a negative PCR. And this isn't simply a hypothesis, as I have access to data from my area which is clearly showing this trend (obviously there's always the possibility my place is an outlier - but why should it be?).
Naturally there's two conclusions one can draw from this.
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