Corona virus Lockdown

Discussion in 'Just Talk' started by koolpc, Mar 23, 2020.

  1. Tangoman

    Tangoman Well-Known Member

    As I said, Sweden is clearly a month BEHIND Italy with this outbreak. Italy was the first hit European country due to being a major hub for travellers from China. Look at the trends, NOT the current totals.
     
  2. Tangoman

    Tangoman Well-Known Member

    I think you mean you believe the lies they tell on TV

    Because obviously nurses are out there making their own protective gear and figuring out how to sanitise and reuse gear because they have nothing better to do with their time?? Not only that, they're told they'll be sacked if they tell the media they don't have the right gear.

    Worst of all, PHE are instructing hospitals not to use PPE for suspected patients, only confirmed cases, and outside of ITU they're only advising partial protection. All this to safeguard inadequate supplies. That's why doctors and nurses are dying.
     
  3. Tony Goddard

    Tony Goddard Screwfix Select

    Don't think the virus will snuff itself out, why would it?, it's doing rather well - what it might well do is mutate to a more mild form, as has happened with other virus' in the past - after all, killing it's host is not the best plan if it could use that host again next year - but that kind of evolution takes quite a while, thats what ended the Spanish flu, but it took a few years and when it happened it all ended quite rapidly.
     
  4. Tony Goddard

    Tony Goddard Screwfix Select

    Agree there is a problem, and it's a problem the whole world is facing - the supply chains of PPE simply would never have coped, nor were they designed to cope with this sort of huge demand.

    There is a huge amount of work going on to get more supplies, plug the holes and increase capacity, much of which is very impressive - but this was always going to be the roughest time in terms of the pandemic and getting things running smoothly.

    There is an issue with PPE over-use, and it's a tricky one to address, I know from a doctor mate that some staff are changing their PPE far more often than clinically needed. They are doing that with the best intention for themselves and the patients and no one wants anyone to not be adequately protected, but it is an issue. One hospital was using 9000 face visors a day, which is clearly too many, and that is a product that can be easily cleaned and re-used, I know our local hospital now has a rotation of re-usable gear where it is stored for 7 days, then cleaned for re-use.

    I would argue that it was clear this was going to happen by the beginning of Feb, so maybe we (and others round the world) were slow off the blocks, but progress is being made.

    Having worked in industry it is really incredible how quickly the Rolls Royce/JCB/F1 consortium have re-tooled and now have the approval to start ventilator production, normally that would have taken months.

    More impressively, dyson have designed a ventilator from scratch, are tooled up and just awaiting approval to commence production, all in just 4 weeks. When I worked for a surgical instrument makers I can remember it taking up to 2 years from design to approval for simple products. So industry is very much doing it's bit.
     
  5. Muzungu

    Muzungu Screwfix Select

    In terms of the "lies they tell you on TV", not at all, all though I would be grateful if you would explain which lies you mean; I may be mindful of different ones than yourself. The problems with PPE has been covered exhaustively from all sources on the media and is being covered as I speak on the news. I am not saying there may not be a shortage, what I am saying is the Government appears to me to be moving heaven and earth to address it.

    Any death of frontline NHS staff due to the lack of PPE is of course to be regretted, to say the least, if it is taking place. Matt Hancock has instituted an investigation of every case to see if the lack of PPE was involved.

    Currently I understand around 30 NHS staff have died of the virus. Given that there are roughly 750,000 frontline staff (as I understand) that ratio of deaths is not that different from that in the wider community so it is unlikely to be due to the lack of PPE. If the statistics are telling you something different please let me know.
     
  6. Tangoman

    Tangoman Well-Known Member


    I'd agree with much of that - and had the government stepped forward and said, "Sorry, we were slow off the blocks, there's a problem now with PPE, we're doing our best etc etc", I'd have had some sympathy. But that has never been the official message. I don't know enough to comment on PPE over-use - if there is some though THAT should have been kept private between PHE and hospitals, NOT used in a government address to the nation to try to deflect blame for the shortage onto doctors and nurses.

    The real shortage is in the N95 masks as these SHOULD be essential for anyone working with a suspected covid patient - that's why so many health workers are contracting the virus - at best they're being told to wear surgical masks which really only protect the patient from THEM! I don't believe N95 masks can be re-used.

    Incidentally, this equipment shortage was noted in an exercise entitled Cygnus that took place in Oct 2016 - so it's not like we didn't have plenty of prior warning.
     
  7. Tangoman

    Tangoman Well-Known Member

    The lie: We've had well over a month of politicians claiming "there is no PPE shortage - all care workers have access to sufficient supplies for their job." And the only thing Matt Hancock is capable of investigating is the contents of his butt.

    And no - the impact of covid on healthworkers is far from typical - this was clear from China, from Italy, Spain and now in the UK. Usually covid has serious consequences for mostly older people with underlying conditions - the number of under 50 yr old patients dying is low. Not so amongst health-care workers, this is why the majority of the younger deaths from covid have been nurses.
     
    Sparkielev likes this.
  8. Muzungu

    Muzungu Screwfix Select

    How many nurses under the age of 50 have died of Covid and how many because they did not have access to PPE? These are questions which, in my opinion, should be answered with figures before one can take an absolute opinion on the issue. I have looked at the rough figures given and the discrepancy does not seem out of the ordinary, you may have access to figures which prove otherwise.
     
  9. Tony Goddard

    Tony Goddard Screwfix Select

    It is an established fact with all virus types that the volume of virus particles that enter your body is a factor in how well you build an immune response. Over 50 particles will generally cause an infection and antibody response. However too many and the immune response is too slow and you get a much worse infection. Hence those on the front line are much more at risk of that happening, which explains the increased mortality - so they absolutely need N95 (FFp2) or even N99 (FFP3) respirators as standard kit - and supplying them should be priority number 1.

    A fair portion of the NHS deaths, and indeed worldwide have been from so called ethnic minority groups, that certainly needs looking at, it could just be chance (there are a lot of asian/arab consultants in the NHS, so as a group they probably have a higher than average representation), but if there is a reason for it in the genome that could be vital intelligence in defeating the virus,

    I think the government were wrong to keep making promises that could not be kept, they should have simply gone with the "we are doing are upmost and are sorry for any shortfalls" and that would have garnered more sympathy.
     
    Tangoman likes this.
  10. Tangoman

    Tangoman Well-Known Member

    What "rough figures" are you referring to?
     
  11. Muzungu

    Muzungu Screwfix Select

    The figures quoted from various sources in the press, for example; Nursing Times, the Guardian etc. These do not give a definitive breakdown of ages and whether they were linked to problems with PPE, you may have other figures which are more authoritative.

    Significant that many of these quoted in the link below were actually over the age of 50 and one of the younger cases was working on a helpline. Until final stats are out it will be impossible to tell for certain. The point I am making though is that the death toll is, at the moment, not statistically significant with the limited information I have seen; you may have other figures.
    Link
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2020
  12. Tangoman

    Tangoman Well-Known Member

    It cannot be proven because the figures for the UK simply don't exist. Hell we aren't even including the deaths of hospital staff in the official figures! The only data on them is in the ONS reports 3 weeks later and the obituaries the press carry. It's simply that every time I see the face of a young person who's died, when I look they either had serious underlying conditions, or they were NHS.

    Note - it's a pattern repeated from elsewhere. The doctor who first reported the outbreak in Wuhan and later died of covid, was just 34. He wasn't alone. Then in Italy. Spain.

    Note talk elsewhere has moved away from the impact on healthcare workers, largely because their protection has been stepped up. Only here are we still putting people on covid wards with just a simple surgical mask to protect them.

    Perhaps you're right and statistically they're NOT being put at more risk, but given the fact that they're critical to our fight against this virus, and with anecdotes such as nurses being forced to make their own equipment and subsequently becoming infected, I think it better to err on the side of caution no?

    It's the same with facemasks - almost certainly the evidence to prove they're effectiveness will NEVER be there, but there's more than enough circumstantial evidence to suggest mass usage reduces transmission. And on that note, home-made masks are just as effective, there's no need to deprive the NHS of the serious ones they rely on.
     
    Muzungu likes this.
  13. Muzungu

    Muzungu Screwfix Select

    The BBC have put a correction up, this was not an NHS trust manager but is, quote "part of a network of organisations helping to source personal protective equipment for some NHS trusts", which could mean a private individual who is doing it off their own bat, they don't say.

    To get something so wrong with a news story as important as that is puzzling, surely they must have checked the person was who they said they were, and certainly doesn't help the BBC when they are accused of bias.
     
    Tangoman likes this.
  14. kitfit1

    kitfit1 Screwfix Select

    This is something you just have to put down to Lazy journalism, it's something endemic across the whole of the broadcast industry nowdays. Not only was the journalist lazy for not checking the source, the editor was as well for not making sure the journalist had checked and finally the producer for not having the evidence in front of them before going to air.
    Add that together with an inbuilt left wing bias within the BBC, it's no surprise that things like this get to air.
     
  15. ajohn

    ajohn Screwfix Select

    Seems from an expert in this area that there was a pandemic plan thought about in 2016. This included stock levels and it seems we wont be able to find the plan. Obviously not a good plan for a real pandemic. There is a plan about, mentions stock but have to wonder about usage rates that were assumed. Sounds like it was get when needed. Always going to be a problem if there is a real pandemic but near misses have for one reason or the other haven't happened. It's on the gov web site also talks from the groups that are behind the gov.

    Really this whole PPE area confusion is down to typical politics. Big numbers go down well, where they actually are. delivery logistics and the usage rates etc are another matter and if mentioned wouldn't sound so good. Bit like money - n million to such and such, quietly over n years and never ever said just about covers expected inflation and is a tiny fraction of the near trillion total budget and the budget that is being increased and it's been moved from something else. They do have a reserve though so it's a mix.

    The media don't help either. News gets stale so they move on to something else. They never report things that were obviously going to happen from earlier news - such as care homes - it's been clear from the start that these were not being tested as all testing went to hospital entries pretty quickly. Now each day they state how many have been tested - nice big number. A capacity of 100,000 tests a day doesn't say they can be done. Sounds feasible though if they take say from 30sec to 1min per person to do but how? The time sets how many front line type workers are needed to do it. Nursing tends to be rather specialised in many areas. It surprised me how much actually. Might explain the rather wide range pay scales. I'll ask one some day if I can.

    The beeb is seen as left wing when ever they let out something about the right. C4 call it being mischievous. Both are a much better source of information than many other who in real terms are sensationalists. All are if they can be but some far worse than others. All make mistakes and there are so many hours and sources of it that need to be filled. ;) I can just about remember when a bloke on tv sat at a box and read it out always reporting 2 views on just about everything.

    Politicians are front men. The real work is done by the people behind them. All a politician offers really is beliefs.
     
    Tangoman likes this.
  16. ajohn

    ajohn Screwfix Select

    Comment reported on the B'ham Nightingale - slip of the tongue or what?

    The facility will be run by University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust (UHB), taking patients convalescing from coronavirus, freeing up the main hospitals to care for the most critically ill.
    Trust chief executive Dr David Rosser said the hospital would help prevent 'awful scenes' like those seen in Italy of critical care wards filled to capacity.
    He added there was now 'a different problem' emerging, as it became clearer the peak could be managed, with Covid-19 affecting the population over the longer term.
    'We need to think how else we use this facility to help us through the next couple of years,' he said.


    I could add another use that has been mentioned but not sure if it's correct.
     
  17. albert607

    albert607 New Member

    Coronavirus is spreading rapidly all around the world. here is a complete lockdown for 16 days. No one knows where things are going.
     
  18. albert607

    albert607 New Member

    I have canceled my UK trip that was scheduled for next month because of the Coronavirus. I'm single for the last one year. I thought that if I go to the UK, maybe I will find my love there. I've heard that British girls are very beautiful, so I planned to travel to the UK. But Coronavirus made it worse. Now I have changed my destination to Colombia to spend my holidays. But I don't know how I'll find a girl for a date there in Colombia. I have found an article online4.love/colombian-dating-sites/ that is specifically written about dating in Colombia. what you say guys should I travel to Colombia or still need to think about another destination? I would never want to go to a place where Coronavirus has arrived. But Colombia is still safe comparatively.
     
  19. sandy lee

    sandy lee New Member

    I think you should postpone your plan because Corona has been spread all over the world.
     
  20. Astramax

    Astramax Super Member

    Might be nice for you and sandy to meet up as Albert and Sandy has a nice ring about it.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice