Perhaps our situation with covid is looking up

I know a lot more people with Covid now than I have at any other stage of the pandemic, but people seem less worried about catching it, suppose this is because they're all fully vaccinated and the disease is less dangerous.
Must admit that I am still very worried that DH could be severely affected though.

People believe what they want to believe about the future of Covid for a range of reasons. There are so many unknowns - such as a new variant yet to appear from the unvaccinated parts of the world - that we have to wait and see. Boris is walking a policy tightrope. What I would like to know is how many annual deaths from Covid does he consider acceptable to keep the economy open. His backbenchers seem to think keeping the economy open is worth any price.

lemsip Where I work, all the Nightingale signs are stacked up with rotting wood pallets!

My dental hygienist told me (whilst I was in no position to comment!!), that the client before me was an historian and had been telling her that historically, all world pandemics last around 3 years. I have no idea if that is so and no inclination to google it, but if it is the case, we could be over half way through! Not sure if that's a positive or negative - suppose it's subjective, but fingers crossed it won't be longer!

According to BMJ Omicron is JUST a cold.

Bmj - British medical journal.

Save the nhs by destroying small/medium sized businesses.
I cannot accept locking down everyone was ever the only option.

Just to clarify AJKW it’s not actually save the NHS, it’s save the lives of UK citizens who will die if the NHS fails to meet their needs. This could be you, a family member, your grandchild or your best friend.

Nobody is suggesting another lockdown are they?

You will probably find that a lot of the deaths are those with cancer who were denied treatment over the last two years, or those with comorbidities that have eventually succumbed to being sidelined by the NHS.

The fault does not lie with the NHS. Now Covid is treatable they are pushing as many patients as possible through the system. When Covid was an unknown quantity people with other conditions were thought to be at more risk of dying from Covid if they went into hospital than from their other condition, unless it was an urgent situation. Hindsight is a wonderful thing effalump.

^Save the nhs by destroying small/medium sized businesses.
I cannot accept locking down everyone was ever the only option.^

And what will happen to the small/medium sized business employees once the NHS is so underfunded and defunct that the only people who can get medical care will be those in well funded jobs or those who are comfortable enough to pay for it?

AJKW

Save the nhs by destroying small/medium sized businesses.
I cannot accept locking down everyone was ever the only option.

It was at a time before we had vaccines to protect us. It’s almost as if people have already forgotten that, at the time of the first lockdown, the medical knew very little about the virus and had no vaccines, therapeutics or anti virals in their armoury. A circuit breaker if a kind was all they and we could do to protect us.

We are in a much better place than we were a year ago.

Most of us, even old folk, if we are double jabbed and boostered , should avoid covid infection, but if we are unlucky enough to get it, we should not become seriously ill.

The least we can do to show gratitude for our jabs is to continue to be very careful. Limit contacts. Wear masks. Keep pour distance.

That is the least we can do to protect everyone else and safeguard the NHS.

Effalump - yes a lot of the deaths with Covid at the moment will be patients who are Covid +ve dying of other things. As you say, cancers, chronic kidney disease, heart disease, COPD, other pneumonias. Actually patients did die of these before the pandemic and that has continued. Mostly not because they've had problems accessing treatment (or have been too worried about Covid to present for treatment, which seems commoner) although both are happening. Mostly it is just that a high proportion of people have covid at the moment and some of these, though asymptomatic with Covid, will die of another illness.

Alegrias1

Nobody’s ever accused me of being a Pollyanna.

It is possible to see positives in the way that the omicron wave is developing and still appreciate that the NHS is in trouble. They are separate but linked. If the omicron wave is less of a problem than it could have been, then that’s a good thing and we need to be positive about that.

The fact that there are no more restrictions on the cards for England, but there are surge hubs being built is causing mixed messages. Its only an extra 800 beds across the whole of England, that’s a drop ion the ocean, I think. It seems to me that we are only working on one side of the equation; there are only so many resources in the NHS so its incumbent on us not to get sick. Well why are there only so many resources in the NHS? We’ve had a pandemic for 2 years and there’s still telling us the NHS isn’t up to it. I know its not possible to magic up doctors and nurses, but have we done anything to make the NHS more robust and capable of dealing with a new disease that’s never going away, can someone tell me? Or are we all expected to change our behaviour forever because politically the NHS isn’t being properly funded?

So the BMA, the doctors’ union, think there should have been more restrictions in England. I agree with them. But they are a pressure group and in my experience, doctor err on the side of caution. DH had a very bad sports injury many years ago and was told by the doctor he’d never take part in that sport again. A few years later he was national champion. You’ll forgive me if I find a doctor’s view of things just a little bit negative.

Finally, why would the Beeb just give the basic numbers for deaths without explaining what it meant? Clearly at least one person on this thread thought that deaths were increasing, and they’re not. They might in the future, they probably will, but right now, the data they gave was misleading and there’s no excuse for that. If you look at just the numbers that the BBC report, you might think that the deaths had increased six-fold in one day, which is scary by anybody’s metrics – but not true, of course. So why do they do it? Lack of understanding of the numbers? Carelessness? A desire to paint the most negative picture possible? We’ll all have our own ideas about that but none of them cast any glory on the BBC. I'm with maddyone on this one.

Sadly - all the resources the NHS have have gone into trying to ‘firefight’ the pandemic and the subsequent delayed morbidity. I just don’t think anyone has had capacity to look at things enough to say ‘how can we make the NHS more robust?’ GPs have tried to maintain distancing through virtual
Consulting, secondary care has tried to decrease flow with limited visitation, admission avoidance schemes ( GP in ED, admissions through consultant only etc) and early discharge post elective care but this has been unpopular with the public ( see the many threads on ‘why can’t I see my gp face to face) and the media.

I think it is a gross overgeneralisation to say doctors are negative, especially based on your n=1 of your husbands case. Doctors are taught to be realistic and set the expectations of patients. If we all said ‘don’t worry, you’ll
Be ok’ to every patient it wouldn’t be very helpful! Perhaps, ( and I wasn’t there) your husband was told - it is unlikely to you will play that sport again.. perhaps your husband was one of the ‘miracle patients’ we see once in a blue moon who has defied the current medical knowledge. Regardless, the majority of leaders on the NHS are not optimistic, whilst perhaps accepting we are undoubtedly in a better place than last year. As I was previously a medic, have medics in the family and a whole network of friends and relatives practising in a variety of fields within both primary and secondary care and public health all I can say is - the feeling on the ground is one of exhaustion, stress, depression, overwork.. to quote a good anaesthetist friend form a conversation yesterday ‘we are all on our knees and no one is seeing it’

No - we shouldn’t need to have restrictions indefinitely. We know pandemics burn out at some time. Clearly this is not that time! But - yes - we should be changing our behaviour temporarily. If anything - to acknowledge the huge strain our medics and allied professionals are under, and to help play our part in trying to make things a little easier for them.

The reasons for why there are not enough resources in the NHS ate complex and tricky to simplify. It’s not just a case of poor financing.
In short: it isn’t valued - the hours and working conditions are poor compared to many other countries eg Aus,Canada,NZ so there is an increasing exodus of professionals to these counties.
Brexit
The pay has been decreasingly steadily for all for years due to the pitiful, Less than inflation pay rises. Which decreases morale and makes living difficult for some people. A large proportion of staff will leave to work in the private sector, abroad or use their skills in another profession.
Medicine and care is extremely stressful. The general public can be very unkind, angry and behave poorly. There has been an increasing amount of verbal and physical
Aggression noted in both primary and secondary care. Again this leads to poor morale, Poor mental health and staff shortages.
Covid - staff have left or are off sick either due to Covid itself and it’s effects (long Covid etc) or having to isolate due to such large case rates. Recent example - midwife care on labour ward ideally 1 midwife for 1-2 ladies. Few midwives available so ward ran on 2 midwives for the entire ward.. ( a good friend is director of midwifery in local hospital)

Apologise for the rant but your comment comes across as - why should we change our behaviour, the NHS should have prepared better and the doctors are just being negative.. I would urge you to try and walk in their shoes for the past 2 years

Apologies LadyWee if it came across that I was criticising the medical staff of the NHS, that's not what I meant at all. My family has had to make use of the NHS for non-covid issues over the last 2 years and the service has been excellent. My criticism is for the people who decide on how the NHS will be organised and run. Maybe that's the government, I don't know, but it does seem that nothing has been put in place to make it more able to cope with the peaks in demand that covid causes, they're just expected to get on with it and we're expected to avoid getting ill.

And DH definitely isn't a medical miracle ?. He had a badly broken leg and was told it would mean an end to his participation in his sport. Doctors are perhaps not negative, but all the ones I have come across are most definitely risk averse! And n=2; I was quite ill some years ago. I was misdiagnosed quite dramatically and then when they finally worked out what was wrong with me, told something similar, that I'd never be able to do activity X again; they were wrong about that too.

I haven't forgotten the BMA's objection to the 12 week gap for vaccines, driven I think by a short sighted view of the evidence that hasn't been borne out by fact. Sometimes the doctors just don't get it right.

As the BBC said the figure was higher because of Christmas holiday - like they are higher in Mondays because of weekend! That is - there are 2/3 days accumulating to cause higher figure!

Is it not right, that if the masses of people who consider themselves impervious to Covid, could just use some common sense, if they have any, and mask-up just to protect themselves, let alone all the other people they spread it to, relative, friends or even strangers.

End of my gripe.

lemsip

well I've just read this on NHS England.

NHS plans new Nightingale facilities in response to Omicron
30 December 2021
Coronavirus
The NHS is setting up new Nightingale surge hubs at hospitals across the country as part of preparations for a potential wave of Omicron admissions.

Temporary structures capable of housing around 100 patients will be erected in the grounds of eight hospitals across the country, with work starting as early as this week.

It's a real shame that this kind of increasing of facilities was not thought of pre-covid to help with the appalling situation of poor folks dying in queues and ambulances whilst waiting to be attended to! Everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten how bad it actually was!? 3-8weeks delays trying to see a GP ? So bad that 1000s were forced to go to A&E in desperation! And the original nightingales? What happened to them? Are They all dismantled with beds etc all chucked into storage facilities(warehouses) unusable due to being scrapped unused? When we didn't have the staff to run them, they were looking very like a "look what we've done before everyone's else, aren't we good?" Vanity project. At every turn the gov. Quotes the" we're better than all other countries" crap, who CARES about other countries at this time we should not be treating this as a popularity contest! But our conceited governors are incapable of grasping what real life is actually about! If the going gets impossible do we think they're going to change their lifestyles one iota?

Mummer an excellent post that I totally agree with. Where did all these nightingale hospitals go, couldn’t they have kept them up and used them for other projects instead of once again wasting money by rebuilding. Just for the record there has been talk on this post about go’s coming across as doom and gloom and I did feel, rightly or wrongly, that I was included as being one of them. Well for the record in myself I am happy but with the state of crises I am not, I am fearful for myself, even though I have been sent a pcr testing kit by the nhs. I am to use this if I get any symptoms and then send it off, if positive the nhs will send me medication to lesson the effects of covid, all well and good. But I can’t help worrying about how well the system works as I just don’t have any faith in how it is all being run and there must be plenty like me.

I won’t post the links *Barmeyoldbat but most of the Nightingales are being used in whole or part. Some as units for people recovering from operations, some as vaccine centres and a couple of other uses. So not totally wasted.

Barmyoldbat, our's in the South West is about to become a hive of activity plus two theatres:

The NHS Nightingale Hospital Exeter will provide diagnostic, rheumatology, ophthalmology and orthopaedic services to patients living across Devon and the wider South West region.
After being decommissioned as a COVID-19 hospital earlier this year, the Nightingale was purchased by NHS

Well said LadyWee- absolutely agree. Have also several members of the family in the medical profession- it has been a very difficult 2 years for them. So many patients who don’t take care of their health - my son desperately trying to save the lives of grossly overweight people and operating through mountains of fat - having to tell an elderly woman with a tumour that he couldn’t operate because the ICU dept which she would need afterwards, was full of unvaccinated Covid cases - GP’s in the family who say that 60% of patients arriving for a consultation, do not need to be there- we really do have to take ourselves in hand and stop moaning.

muse

*Barmyoldbat*, our's in the South West is about to become a hive of activity plus two theatres:

The NHS Nightingale Hospital Exeter will provide diagnostic, rheumatology, ophthalmology and orthopaedic services to patients living across Devon and the wider South West region.
^After being decommissioned as a COVID-19 hospital earlier this year, the Nightingale was purchased by NHS^

Yes, great news muse. They first had to re enforce the floors to accommodate the CT and MRI scanners and the heavy equipment used in theatre. It takes time for buildings to be properly adapted behind the scenes so to speak.

Well that’s great news to hear about the Nightingale Hospitals, but the one in our area was dismantled