Cummings will be gone within 48 hours

Chewkw do you do stand up?

If he doesn’t go now it will break Johnson’s government

Thanks for all the replies. I wonder how much more social mixing is required to make it get exponential again? Surely in urban areas not a whole lot due to intense multiplication of any effect?

I agree with you Kelvin don’t worry! But what’s to be done? Also it may not happen. Right? Right?

Genuinely I also really worry about the effects on business. I worry people are simply going to come to accept the high death toll for the economy to survive. As a worker in the NHS with a relatively secure job I don’t feel I can now argue much to the contrary.

TiRed, I think in Ferguson being given the heave ho they are already subtly working at project “it was the scientist’s fault.” Vallance and Whitty might find themselves in a very isolated place soon if the recriminations begin.

I also want to get your opinion on whether you believe the virus is about to proliferate again? I don’t see why it won’t yet i see online so many businesses now making preparations for their grand opening. As a clinician I’m now trying to keep my mouth shut and just hoping for the best as any opposing POV will go down very badly. It fills me with dread to think about the potential negative outcomes for us all if it all just restarts again.

Interesting guys. It’s interesting you are blaming the modelling and hence the scientific advice as I felt it was political resistance to plenty of people remonstrating doubling time was far faster than they were coming out with. I think once it’s all said and done they are going to hang all scientists involved to pardon their decision making. I really don’t want them to have ammunition to do so.

*believed

thecaptain
Member
Then how come SAGE said it was 5-7d on the 18th? When was this communicated and by who?

Can I ask what difference you feel that doubling time makes to your overall predictions? I beloved it was 3 days doubling in March too although can’t remember where I got that information from.

Completely agree with that assessment TIRED. I would be more empathetic towards the government if we hadn’t been screaming at them for weeks to act before they did by which point it was far too late.

I assume you were one of those trying to cross illegally then Rogermoore?

Total B***ends

Not published but seems fairly certain a slightly more infectious strain has started to dominate

They banned the sale of alcohol for the duration of lockdown though.

Ah well f*** that then

Hi folks,

Would like to participate although i’m on nights this weekend. Keep sending me invites though Weeksy! I appear to have become slightly hooked on another cycling format…

OWG no not of we continue social distancing. Why pressure from economic fronts whilst not unexpected needs to be held against the above worst case scenario.

Thank TiRed never seen statistics be so affirmative :D

Normal readings are around 96-100, 94 for some people. Anything lower than this is definitely very low as long as you are a healthy individual at baseline. I know some people who did experience a significant drop in sats (Oxygen levels) and were fine in the end so it’s not an absolute harbringer of doom but definitely get checked out by a doctor if it’s in the low 90’s or below.

Sorry to hear that TiRed hopefully he makes a good recovery.

Germany appears to be experiencing a slight increase in cases a few days after opening up slightly. Need to watch there carefully as they had the most effective lockdown policy of the bigger European states.

That article probably underestimates how crap the test is. AFAIK the sensitivity is around 70% ie. 30% false negatives. It’s so crap that it’s only just part of the assessment of patients and isn’t changing their management in any way. I’m not sure how sensitive the one say in Germany is by comparison?

Really sorry to hear this and want you to keep hoping. Many people do make it out of ITU from this. You will feel very angry right now and it’s understandable. Keep us updated as to his progress. My dad is isolating with chronic respiratory problems who probably wouldn’t have a good chance if he caught it. I really feel for you right now.

The strategic plan was herd immunity as per the video above. Now we’ve shown that’s just a very good way to kill lots of people with no guarantee of immunity they’ve had to redress. I don’t think they have one currently but that might not be the wrong thing as we still don’t know enough about the virus yet. We have the US to watch as an experiment in reopening too early in some places and some of our European neighbours doing it in a more calculated manner. There should be good examples to base our plan on soon.

Listened to any questions on radio 4 tonight. Those interviewed were of such unanimous and sycophantic allegiance to our incompetent masters that we might as well just all infect ourselves with Covid and stick out our stiff upper lip. As a clinician it made me realise more than ever those in power are so horrendously in the same pocket as one another including the BBC. Teresa Joff-f*** face was made to look like an innocent bystander when my colleagues in ITU are likely going to have to go without proper PPE this weekend. Beyond outraged.

Agree @Superficial ideally someone else should record the respiratory rate but its a useful guide if you dont have any other means of assessment. The most important thing is people seek medical advice early if you start to feel really awful. Lots of reports of people feeling ok and very suddenly getting very unwell so everyone will be different. Capillary refill is used to assess fluid status ie how much the body is shifting blood to the peripheries and will often only worsen at a very late stage of illness so not useful in Covid.

@speedstar Ordinarily you’re right, however at the moment we’re trending towards 100% ventilated, and the ones that aren’t are people we’ve extubated.

Measures short of ventilation that we’d ordinarily use on ITU are being done elsewhere.

@ratherbeintobago I was only quoting from the latest ICNARC data. Every ICU will be fighting its own independent battle although there is some thought whether ventilation is actually counterproductive for some patients. I’m not an ICU doctor so this is all second hand information and happy to be corrected.

Only 2/3 of patients in ITU are ventilated. It’s not the only thing ITU offers. But if he does go to ventilation within 24 hours it is not a good predictor.

OldagePredator, sorry to hear about your symptoms. I think it’s important to emphasise these illnesses cause a lot of inflammatory damage including to your muscles and they will have taken a kicking as will your cardiovascular system. I would think that will take several weeks to resolve and you would be best served by doing very mild exercise initially and working up to higher HR stuff over the next few weeks. Definitely listen to your body right now.

Hydroxychloroquine hasn’t shown any advantages in properly controlled trials so far. It’s part of the national trial process however so more data will confirm this. A French physician was promoting it but he is renowned for adjusting data to suit end results so not reliable.

Pondo, Most people appear to regain a sense of smell and taste by around 14 days so hang in there!

Vicksplace these are the kind of metrics they would use to evaluate you’re status. And to some degree you are right about oxygen being the only support at least in the less severe stages of illness. Most people will have some chest tightness and shortness of breath with Covid and it’s very difficult for non-medical people to evaluate what is more serious than not so I would say to anyone who is experiencing symptoms that really concern them not to sit on them but ask for advice. You may gain some reassurance which can be just as helpful.

Doctor here. A good guide to how to measure shortness of breath is the number of breaths you are having to take in a minute. Normal breathing is around 12. When unwell with Covid-19 or other respiratory illness’ this might go up to 15 or even 18 but once it’s getting to the 18-20 mark I would call your gp or if you just feel awful simply call 999. There are lots of secondary effects of Covid-19 including myocarditis as well as pneumonia so it is important to speak to a medical professional if you have any very concerning symptoms. The most important thing is not to wait until your symptoms become too severe as earlier intervention usually means better outcome.

Watford General closed it’s doors to all emergencies as running out of oxygen

There is a problem we’re identifying with the numbers from what I hear. GP’s can put a clinical diagnosis of Covid-19 down on the death certificate but with no testing many may not be and may simply be putting pneumonia. Beyond this there is a reporting lag from the weekend due to the death registration process. From looking at last weeks numbers Wednesday and Thursday’s look more realistic. I can tell you from inside the hospital that numbers are starting to escalate quickly. I expect although can’t be certain we are going to see very large increases in numbers by the end of the week.

I have seen the mention of these hypothetical leaders. But yet when we have other leaders to compare ours to – Merkel vs Trump – can we not simply state that Johnson followed the Trump model initially then realised Merkel’s was right after all? That to me seems purely fact without castigating other potential leaders who aren’t in power

Definitely agree. On reflection it’s an error of thinking to assume because they haven’t previously they won’t in the future as this virus is already showing. Showing my own prejudices badly there. Chat in the GP forums that we might not be able to say “it’s just a virus” ever again…

MoreCashThanDash

Some people will say this isn’t the time for politics but if those who made these decisions aren’t held to account

It definitely isn’t, and we have no way of knowing if any other government would have listened to other experts and taken a different path.

Rather than rushing to blame, we need to be rushing to learn, improve and prepare.

Do Germany, South Korea and China not count as governments?

With all due respect whilst I understand these are more severe infections, by their very nature they don’t tend to travel as well due to their severe mortality rates. I am not sure we should be more worried about these viruses affecting us in the Northern Hemisphere although i’m happy to be corrected? The virus we are seeing currently does to a large degree seem to be a perfect storm for us.

What is important to recognise and what Richard Horton has been saying repeatedly time after time is that we had time to prepare. We knew at the end of January there was probably a pandemic coming and had ample time to ramp up our resources. We didn’t because our government chose the herd immunity path that was recognised from the outset to end in hundred’s of thousands of deaths although this was assumed to follow the modelling based on Influenza epidemics. By the time they started listening to the evidence that the Lancet had been stating from the beginning that the mortality and morbidity rate was far greater than that model could ever accommodate, the time for tracing and containment was well and truly behind us. Some people will say this isn’t the time for politics but if those who made these decisions aren’t held to account eventually at least at the ballot box then what purpose democracy?