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My mum is also booked in next week for jab number 2.
Some how she got it on pretty much day 1 of the roll out.
Fingers crossed it doesn't get bounced back.
Maybe they are waiting till the very needy have had 2 x jabs till extending the time frame
Caterham, Surrey
This one is really not urgent or critical though. Just a bile readsorbtion test to give some possible options to manage symptoms or not. (and the symptoms aren’t that bad… more inconvenient)
Sent you a message about your scan, as had one in the summer.
Wales rules seem a little clearer (this time around). We're allowed to exercise as far as we want if it's from home (which I think was added due to pressure from cyclists last time), and you're allowed to travel a short distance to start for 'accessibility reasons'.
We won’t outrun it with vaccination, it will save a few of the deaths (and is worth doing!) but won’t stop the spread quickly enough to matter.
If this is the case, then Q4 2021/Q1 2022 is going to be marked by a lot of squabbling over whether relying on a second and third full lockdown was preferable to adequately ramping up hospital capacity. So much so, that I suspect it will be a major question in any inquiry that comes next.
I think the added risk at the moment is nhs capacity. I have a horrible feeling we’ll see some terrible scenes in the coming weeks of hospitals running out of oxygen/beds and people dying who may have survived with adequate treatment. It really is worth trying to avoid catching this at the moment just in case you need hospitalisation.
whether relying on a second and third full lockdown was preferable to adequately ramping up hospital capacity.
Was the latter even an option?
It really is worth trying to avoid catching this at the moment just in case you need hospitalisation.
This. As soon as capacity is exceeded, outcomes will get sharply worse. Time to hunker down if you can, particularly if you have anyone vulnerable in your household. As someone in the extremely vulnerable group (just about), I'll certainly be taking shielding even more seriously than first time around.
adequately ramping up hospital capacity
There isn't a cupboard full of nurses somewhere waiting to be opened.
adequately ramping up hospital capacity
There isn’t a cupboard full of nurses somewhere waiting to be opened.
Absolutely this. We are building new ICUs and HOBs here, additional staffing is being provided by redeployment but the pool is getting smaller.
Is it a lack of bottled oxygen or lack of equipment to administer it? Seems crazy to have to ration something so cheap and basic.
There isn’t a cupboard full of nurses somewhere waiting to be opened.
Yup, this is all about public perception, as we've only ever talked about hospital capacity issues for years with 'beds' as the unit.
“Is it a lack of bottled oxygen or lack of equipment to administer it? Seems crazy to have to ration something so cheap and basic.”
In the hospital my wife works at its more a case that the ‘plumbed in’ O2 system can’t deliver enough flow to keep up with demand so they are having to use bottled O2 instead.
That California tweet is very scary. But [more subtle] rationing of care will be happening here in the next few weeks. Perhaps we need to be less subtle, and more transparent, in the UK, depressing though it would be... to get the message across that we are acting to try and reduce transmission for important reasons.
Absolutely this. We are building new ICUs and HOBs here, additional staffing is being provided by redeployment but the pool is getting smaller.
So what capacity is there, beyond the soundbites pedalled by the government, if push came to shove and we brought in as many retired/industry doctors/nurses as we could and mobilised all of the militaries healthcare resources? How much could we squeeze from the stone?
Aren't we already? When my aunt was a "military" nurse, she worked in NHS hospitals as often as not. Although she's "retired" from that, she's now in charge of nursing for a care home... so very much needed there. I don't think we have a nation of thumb twiddling doctors/nurses that haven't already stepped forward if they can... we've had that "recruitment" drive already.
Fair enough!
Sorry, I just can't quite believe we've got to a point where we've spent ****ing billions on vaccines and lockdowns to then seemingly shit the bed at the last minute and spaff all that effort and money away.
I can believe it. I also think that it is entirely unforgivable. Which is why I was calling for Tory MPs to put a full time PM in place who will act sooner than the last minute.
Latest How To Vaccinate the World on the Radio 4 has Larry Brilliant - ex-hippy, ex Hindu monk, ex WTO epidemiologist, ex Google etc.
His take was that countries like the UK and USA that haven't got the track, trace and isolate message would get back to normal in end 2021 but go through hell first. Sadly, I think he's right.
Other takeouts from his smallpox experience in India - a vaccine's not enough but it's a good start. Once you've got a working vaccine track, trace and isolate is needed still.
His other point was that new virus jump between species all the time. We got lucky with ebola because it was so rapidly fatal and not airborne. We got unlucky with COVID-19 because it wasn't rapidly fatal but was easily transmissible. What happens with the next novel virus is a lottery.
I can and I can't, I sort of expected them to at least make sure they were spending their money wisely being that they call themselves Tories.
But nooo, six months of my knocking heads together to help get a vaccine manufacturing facility up and running pissed up the wall.
BBC R4 Today doing their "balance" thing and platforming Sunetra Gupta the day after an important new lockdown measure is introduced. Not sure whether this is better or worse than giving Nigel Lawson a megaphone on climate change.
I'll be back to doing a night loop that mostly involves the TPT near me.
I'd ride in the day but the TPT will be like bank holidays every day now unless heavy rain.
Yeah, heard that this morning DrJ... she didn't sound as if she believed what she was saying, did she? No one should.
I heard the larry brilliant interview, well worth a listen
My friends dad died from covid. Fell on ice, swollen knee didnt go down but got worse
Went to hospital, waited anf waited to be seen, finally ly admitted amd sortef next day
Went home, back a week later with covid, dead in 3 days. Old though but avoidable
The UK is many tens of thousands of Nurses short anyway. EU nurses no longer want to come here adding to that. Not much point in having beds if you cannot staff them.
Retired nurses lose their registration. rightly so as they will not be up to date)
So what capacity is there, beyond the soundbites pedalled by the government, if push came to shove and we brought in as many retired/industry doctors/nurses as we could and mobilised all of the militaries healthcare resources?
maybe 1% at a guess. Its a very small amount for sure and would either need an exemption from registratiion requirements with a legal exemption from negligence claims or a training programme to regain regisytration
One year out of work = no registration.
I am going to listen to that Larry Brilliant interview. Never heard of him before, but with a name like that I feel confident that it will be really really good.
Well the roads seem fairly busy out there where I'm looking. Kids out wandering with parents too so I guess none of them are doing any online learning.
I'm sat supposedly wfh delivering online guitar lessons to high school kids.....first 3 haven't showed up. Take up during the first lockdown was really good....seems a lot less enthusiasm for anything lockdown related this time around.
Still if none of them show up I can completely bin off my music and go full time as a van driver!
One year out of work = no registration.
Government is happy to assume liability. See Pfizer.
And they have been (re)training. But this has all been happening already... there isn't an un-tapped reserve of retired people to bring back in at short notice this month.
One year out of work = no registration
Which is a lot less than for a doctor (Could be wrong but reaccreditation is every five years). Being able to prove that you have kept up to date with CPD over an absence would make a hell of a lot more sense than putting in a random shift once or twice a year to keep a PIN number.
Well the roads seem fairly busy out there where I’m looking. Kids out wandering with parents too so I guess none of them are doing any online learning.
Doesn't seem much quieter here either!
theotherjonv
is this dithering and prevarication deliberate, knowing this would happen anyway and just trying to keep the right side of open revolt.
Increasingly I believe that the dithering, prevarication is as much to do with not making any decision but having decisions forced on them/us. Quite literally by doing little/nothing the choices are made for them.
Are the government in private doing a brilliant job, but if they tell us how brilliant it is then it loses its effect……
Has anyone seen Saint Dom and his team of oddball geniuses recently?
I suspect not and wonder what St. Dom is doing ... probably off on another eye test?
Don’t seem much quieter here either!
Pretty quiet here but the hospital was heaving!
B&Q car park was pretty much full when I went past on my way to work this morning. They're still open (properly open for browsing, not just click + collect as during the initial lockdown last year). Don't really believe this mainly purchasing essential supplies & not just people who fancied a stroll round a shop! WTF is wrong with people!Well the roads seem fairly busy out there where I’m looking. Kids out wandering with parents too so I guess none of them are doing any online learning.
Just heard my son's friend that lives in sheltered accommodation due to mental health issues has tested positive... along with everyone else in the facility.
He was taken to hospital by ambulance last night. I've known the lad since he was a baby.
He's only 23 years old.
What pisses me off are the ignorant ****ts who insist on walking two-abreast on narrow pavements on busy roads.
WTF is wrong with people!
If my retired father is anything to go by, they're bored out of their brains and completely fed up. I don't agree with him going there, or indeed his daily stroll to the shop for a paper, but I understand why he does it.
He wants some human interaction, some purpose, something to do. he can't see his mates for a quick pint, he can see me, my brother or his granddaughter. He spent his entire working life talking to people, interacting, and for the last year he can't do that, and it's beginning to show. He's struggling.
It's easy to say they're wrong for doing so, and maybe they are, but you also have to see it from their perspective as to why.
I don't expect this to be a popular view...
Deleted
20+ years working in the operating theatre if I was anywhere near retiring age I’d walk out the door never to return if I was retired like **** would I come back! Had my my vaccine on the 31st to be told I won’t be getting 2nd dose for another 12 weeks as first dose gives ‘ample’ protection slightly peeved about that as I feel iam being put at maximum risk, helping treat trauma patients with unknown covid status, spending hours on itu proning and unproning patients, going out to wards helping intubate patients, sitting in back of ambulances with covid + patients transferring to other hospitals, wife does the same job so we work alternate 12 hr shifts. Pretty f%#$ed off with all tbh. Sorry rant over
My girlfriend's grandad (aged 78) had his 82 year old mate around last night....both sat inside. We're living in our motorhome on their farm now and aren't even going inside their house to use the toilet....they couldn't give a toss though. They'll have their other friends over for Sunday lunch this weekend I'm sure too.....that'll be 4 different households all 75 plus mixing indoors.
They're lovely lovely people and would help anyone out....but it's really really starting to wear me down watching their behaviour. It also really worries me....my girlfriend has never known her dad and was brought up at her grandparents with her mum. Her grandad has had a few health issues and she is terrified of losing him.....he really is basically her dad.
Well this thread is even cheerier than normal today I see 🤣
Increasingly I believe that the dithering, prevarication is as much to do with not making any decision but having decisions forced on them/us. Quite literally by doing little/nothing the choices are made for them.
This explanation was advanced in The Grauniad recently:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/15/boris-johnson-pandemic-britain-christmas-covid
"Johnson’s technique for dealing with problems is to let them run out of control, building to a point of sufficient crisis that delay is no longer viable. That way the choice becomes perversely easier because there are fewer options left. Wait long enough and there might be only one."
has he got a computer? Get him one if not. Done beers with mates via Zoom etc loads, very enjoyable, plus you can see mates who aren’t local which is much more difficult in the actual pub! Start/resume a hobby... you can get pretty much anything you want delivered next day from Amazon. Get him some Lego/Meccano/whatever. Chess.com. Online forums. Get him on here! I can understand people on furlough who are worried about their jobs not being able to enjoy their time “off” in lockdown but not a retired person!He wants some human interaction, some purpose, something to do. he can’t see his mates for a quick pint
Loads of online volunteering options too if he wants to do something that matters.
https://www.standard.co.uk/escapist/charities-remotely-volunteer-lockdown-a4400156.html
Lunge - I think you might be surprised! I certainly understand the why he would want to do that. A lot of us (certainly those off work for a year) understand the want to go out & do "something/anything". One half of me constantly wants to, whilst the other wants to hide under the table!