Hospitals in danger of being overwhelmed

I am far more concerned this time round than I was in the first lockdown and am staying at home as much as I can; having Morrison deliveries, doing online postage and getting parcels collected from home. This variant has made the virus a totally new ball game and made it much more serious but some people don't seem to have understood that and are putting the NHS at risk by going about their lives as normal. Wake up and smell the coffee!

Like Froglady I feel far more concerned and anxious this time than last spring. Maybe it's lockdown fatigue, or the time of the year,or even the fact that the "novelty" has worn off, but it feels differently this time. I know our AC would lock and bolt all our doors and windows from the outside and take the keys away, but I am also waiting to get a phone call any day now from my employers saying I am unfurloughed and sent to work at the local vaccination centre as a marshall. It will mean that I will get vaccinated.

Motherduck - I am so sorry to hear what you and your daughter is going through, I hope she manages to stay out of the hospital. Its an impossible situation for you. This of course is the other impact of covid packed wards.

I have been reading today that as schools didn't shut during the November lockdown this mutant virus was able to spread unabated in children who were not affected but of course passed it on. In a way the lockdown actually fuelled the flames.
Heads down and just get through January.

Apart from one or two dissenting voices everyone on Gransnet obviously feels full of admiration for nurses. doctors and other front line staff who are bearing the brunt of this situation, caused not least by people who are too stupid or too arrogant to obey the rules.

I feel no sympathy for the two women who were fined £200 each for five miles from home to go for a walk. The rules are clear. everyone should obey them. I think Dominic Cummings has a lot to answer for!

I went out for a walk on Thursday.It was only a 10 minute walk but I wont go again. Most people kept their distance, stepped out of my way or me out of theirs, but a coupleof times people just kept on walking towards me and I felt vulnerable. I will now make do with my garden although it is not huge I can walk round in circles and be safe. I have a friend who still likes to go shopping (for essentials she says) and I cannot understand why she has to go to 5 different shops in 2 days. She wears a mask and says she feels safe. Many of us abide by the rules and keep ourselves and those around us safe, so why cant other people. It scares me what would happen if I caught it. I think we should have a full proper lockdown just to get on top of this awful thing

It seems so contradictory that there are news articles today stating how concerned the government are yet in many ways despite the situation being dire the lockdown is not as strict as the first. I dont know why more shops are open than the first time or garden centres. If places are open there will always be people who will go.
I have a parcel I need to send. It's not vitally urgent. I dont fancy visiting a post office but my printer is broken.
I've found a website called parcelmonkey which shows you couriers that collect parcels but also provides label for you. Hopefully this be helpful for others in a similar situation.

The BBC have written a useful piece on hospital occupancy

www.bbc.co.uk/news/55536762

AGAA4, I think that is very wise and we shall certainly be heeding our daughters warning. She is so calm and practical but if she is worried then the situation is not good. Stay home and stay safe.

Motherduck my heart goes out to you and your daughter. I wish the idiots who don't believe how bad this has got and still doing as they please, could read what you have told us today. Big hugs xx

Nipsmum, if you believe the hosps in london are not overwhelmed, then why do you think mayor khan declared a major incident yesterday.
with police/fire deployed to drive ambulances.
UCH and the London Hosp are now only taking seriously ill Covid patients.

Whitewavemark2

Nightingale?

And pray who is going to staff these?

MASSIVE wake up call to all those driving to distant locations for their "daily exercise"....wandering the moors and fells.....needing rescue by emergency services & non existent ambulances etc. etc. putting lives at risk by their petty selfishness.
STAY AT HOME! And don't use Dominic Cummings as an excuse, idiot tho he is.

I'm sorry but am ex NHS frontline and it breaks my heart to think of whats now going on in hospitals, the decisions that staff are shortly going to have to make. Decisions the public will never hear about.
The public is directly at fault for what's happening now.

Well, I calculated the 15th January to be the worst day (on average) for 'Christmas get together' related deaths.

What really worries me is the heavy traffic here (NE London/Essex borders) the busy shops (I see them, from across the green, walking my dog) and all the people, out and about, apparently carefree, and mask free too.

I'm finding it hard to believe that we're in lockdown!

So sorry to hear about your daughter Motherduck you must have been distraught. I hope she is more settled and comfortable in the hospice now. My thoughts are with you both

i`ve heard that certain areas are using hotels as wards but that will also mean that they will, of course, have to be manned which means more nurses and doctors

Fact is too many people are not adhering to lockdown, not enough vaccines are available fast enough, hospitals are over run and oxygen is running out, plus having 8-10 people all on oxygen in a ward is another explosive problem. So we all suffer. Stanley Johnson has had two shots, while my much older mother has heard nothing. We definitely haven’t seen the worst of it yet. The new variant seems to be affecting young people much more than in March. Yet some are still saying look on the bright side it’s not that bad when actually it is and I reckon worse than Boris admits. All we can do is stay inside ( I’ve been isolating since March) and make sure our families do the same and give those who are alone a friendly call, letter, email. I’m trawling through photos sending emails to isolated relatives, keeping in touch, much too busy to ‘have to go to shopping’. I plan to reevaluate in April.

nipsmum

I'm sorry, but i don't believe all hospitals are full to capacity with Covid patients. Not in London and not across the country. Not all patients need ICU either. Of the millions of people in this country its a very very small proportion who require hospital treatment .

I have tried to ignore this or even to adopt a reasoned approach like Elegran yesterday afternoon in calmly pointing out how wrong this is.
But I can’t
This sort of misinformation makes me so angry ??
We have members of GN who have given first hand experience of being at risk because the hospital they were taken to had inadequate facilities for shielding and actually saw staff in tears of exhaustion.
Do you think all those pictures of ambulances queuing up outside A&E departments are faked?
Your medical qualifications for stating that “not all patients need ICU” are precisely what? Even routine surgery needs a recovery bed in ITU -hopefully for a short time until a bed can be found on a ward.
Have you taken on board the sheer numbers of new cases -and those who are hospitalised? Don’t kid yourself anybody is taken to hospital unless it is necessary.
And finally the number of deaths including younger adults -30’s 40’s and 50’s
You should be ashamed of yourself - and prepared to apologise to all those whose surgery or cancer treatment has been cancelled, who have lost loved ones to Covid or who have family members on the NHS front line on their knees. ??

What we need now is the vaccine administration accelerated to full capacity and the totally uneccesary red tape abolished to enable qualified volunteers to carry out this task. My SIL was a HCA until retirement 4 years ago and carried out blood tests and flu jabs for years. Why suddenly does she need to prove she is capable. It’s lunacy and insulting and most of all time wasting.

The 70,000 deaths number that keeps being mentioned. Is this still the running total from winter 2019/2020? Whilst ANY death is incredibly tragic we really should keep some perspective on this problem. Normal seasonal flu (in a bad year) can kill as many as 50,000 (you can check exactly numbers for past years on gov.uk) Worldometer.info give a running total of many things, coronavirus being just one of them. They have stated GLOBAL numbers of 90million+ cases, 1.9million deaths and over 64million recovered. I'm sure you are all doing everything you can do to help but you need to some research rather than just listening to the BBC.

I'm sure you are all doing everything you can do to help but you need to some research rather than just listening to the BBC

I'm not sure who that was addressed to, effalump? Was it the OP?
I think what Daisymae said has been widely reported, not just on the BBC.

Maybe we could do with seeing some more footage of nurses in tears having completed a twelve hour shift wearing full PPE after nursing dying people who are gasping for breath.
Maybe visual images will get through to the doubters.