Virus/Vaccine News

Quite the rehabilitated drung, in fact.

“Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?”

1 Like

What is going on?
Daily Mail: Only THREE hospitals are busier than they were last winter, data shows.

Usual daily mail bs , if hospitals aren’t as busy it’s because they are cancelling routine procedures

Is it?
But NHS England figures paint an entirely different picture, with thousands more hospital beds spare this year than last winter. On average, 77,942 out of 88,903 (87.7 per cent) available beds were occupied across the country in the week ending November 22, which is the most recent snapshot. This figure does not take into account make-shift capacity at mothballed Nightingales, or the thousands of beds commandeered from the private sector.

For comparison, occupancy stood at 94.9 per cent, on average, during the seven-day spell that ended December 8 in 2019 — which is the most comparable data available for last winter — when around 91,733 out of all 96,675 available beds were full.

But it is not really the lack of beds more the lack of ICU beds that is the problem, that and the lack of staff that service them due to staff shortages due to illness/stress/covid.
A lot of operation’s have been cancelled for the same reasons.
You cannot just conjure trained staff out of thin air.
I am just going by what my partner says as she was a senior icu charge nurse.

1 Like

Important to remember that despite the extra bed capacity in the Nightingale hospitals there are no extra staff. To operate them staff need to be taken away from the hospitals they usually work in.
Another big issue, which is rarely mentioned, is that a significant number of NHS staff are either sick with Covid-19 themselves or self-isolating thus further reducing the staff available. And let’s not forget that vacancies are running at about 100,000 in England alone.
It’s way too simplistic to talk just about the number of beds.
Izzy x

1 Like

Nail on head really - talking to the occupational health physio about my neck he was relieved that I was seeing someone privately (which still took 5½ weeks, tomorrow if no disasters occur) - his comment was that pretty much anything musculo-skeletal on the Nash was “come back when Covid is over”.

2 Likes

Well physio on the NHS is definitely something I cant agree on, I have just begun treatment for my neck. My first appointment was via the phone 3 weeks ago and the first in person session was on the 16th.
Whilst I do not doubt many of the A&E and ICU staff are exhausted this is the first piece of dialogue. I can only assume the NHS information was obtained via a freedom of information request.

I think physio itself would not have been a problem - but he did not want to offer me physio without an up-to-date MRI and to get that I needed to go through a consultant. The problem then is that non-urgent orthopaedic stuff is very much on a back burner.

Urgent, “can’t wait” stuff is still going through, of course.

Ditto again :blush:

Many health workers don’t want to be a guinea pig for an experimental vaccine and health worker groups for informed consent are being set up…

I think your doctor is right to be cautious on your behalf Stella…my mum doesn’t want it and no one in my family wants it…between us (me via my U.K. family) we come across many U.K. nurses gps and health workers and yet to hear of one willing to have a Covid vaccine without knowing the full data…fully informed consent…

Would you take just any of the Covid vaccines pressurising for approval Paul just to avoid the unpleasant bi weekly swab or do you have a preference…???

That’s a hard one to answer, the Pfizer (and Moderna) vaccine use an mRNA strand in a lipid capsule - the Oxford/AZ vaccine introduces the same or similar mRNA (for the spike protein) using a viral vector - this is (I think) the more “mature” technology but the Pfizer/Moderna approach avoids using an additional (though harmless) virus.

All have been reported as having marked side effects in some individuals (but typically very brief and self limiting).

I suspect I won’t get a choice, just a “roll your sleeve up”.

2 Likes

I assume that you will also all refuse treatment from the NHS or the health service here in France should any of you catch Covid?

2 Likes

Some times ignorance is bliss.
Often it walks hand in hand with greed or deep desire.

1 Like

You might find that you will be unable to enter premises without a vaccination certificate as is being mooted in UK.

Fingers crossed that you’ll be ok…

I’ll follow your progress… and bide my time…

1 Like

Watching the news last night (France 2) a recent poll said that 59% of the population said they wouldn’t be willing to get vaccinated straight away.

1 Like

I am not hearing much news about the roll out of vaccines in France - when is it expected to start?

Obviously as young, fit and beautiful as I am I will be a long way down the queue!

2 Likes