3.1 million live there. 442 of the population are in hospital with covid. How does that warrant everywhere shutting down again for over a fortnight?
Because the government of Wales are worried that the current high levels of COVID in Wales will soon reach a level that overwhelms individual hospitals within Wales - many of which are small are have a limited capacity for admissions - or have information suggesting that at current rates of spread the Welsh NHS will be unable to cope without drastic action. Wales isn't just Cardiff and Swansea - although those areas are struggling, it is also a lot of small cottage hospitals where 10 admitted cases would be a major problem - in some cases, 50% of capacity.
Months of lockdown and here we again so quickly. I struggle to see what difference 2 weeks would make. Assuming of course it is 2 weeks. "Wait for a vaccine" is not a strategy. It's just a hope. "Wait for X months for a vaccine, & if one has not turned up by then do A instead" is a strategy.
Come on now you know it's been renamed the National Covid Service where any other problem isn't seen with the same level of importance. We are now seeing the hidden side of lockdown where every major illness for both male and females is well above the five year average. Tory favourite questionaire site You Gov are even gathering opinion about the vaccine being mandatory which simply cannot happen.
They’re building a permanent COVID-19 testing station in a car park next to Asda here in Harrogate. Why? No....I can’t answer that one.
Where did you get this chart from? I think it is very, badly wrong from the figures I saw last which suggested that all major causes of death were significantly down but want to double-check the figures first. According to the ONS Mortality Analysis, deaths were down in August for every major cause except "symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions" - basically old age. This was similar for May, June, July & August. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...lymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/august2020
It was on The Sun but there is one on other sites too like BBC...... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54598728
We need to see the figures for the same diseases in hospital too to make a proper judgement. If 100 people less a day are dying in hospital, then it's just that they're dying from home rather than hospital but they'd still have died either way.
the idea of a very hard short term lockdown is literally to slam brakes on. It’s not a long term solution or a long term strategy it’s based purely on the fact that without it you would expect ICUs to be overrun. Particularly an issue with places like Wales with large rural populations poorly served by the NHS.
But how many times can you screw businesses by doing this little two or three week lockdowns? This is the second time and there's no sign of a vaccine yet
you are making it a binary choice between public health and the economy of Welsh hospitals get overun and they can’t cope then their economy will collapse anyway. You have to try and balance the two.
I don't know what you don't understand about hospitals being overwhelmed? Covid being only one of the contributing factors along with 100s of other long and short term illness. What would you rather they do? If we don't keep cases down and it spreads through hospitals and vulnerable parts of society the just short of 50,000 deaths we have now will be just the start. It's not just covid we need to defend against the fall out of hospitals being overwhelmed will be huge and the excess deaths will be massive. We shouldn't be back here it was avoidable.
Very little evidence two weeks will make much difference to that. The side effects of lockdown we know are horrific. Covid19 kills but so does Lockdown. Pushing businesses over the edge and plunging people into poverty.
Thanks for the link. That is just for deaths *at home* (which is higher than normal) - the overall figures for deaths for the main causes are *down*, but a larger number of people are dying at home. This could be because they are scared of the hospital, or because hospital/ambulance capacity is stretched too thin (or other reasons). Overall deaths due to most major causes has been down this year on the previous 5 years.
It doesn’t matter how many doctors say they are in danger of being overwhelmed again, some fkr on here will argue against it
I'm not saying they shouldn't. Just that it would be nice to see a decent reason why. With some actual evidence to back it up. Because the consequences of the action itself are very severe.
Those are not the effects of lockdown. Those are the effects of the government policies around lockdown. This might sound the same, but it isn't. The vast majority of people affected financially by lockdown did not need to be. The government have made the choice not to support those people, business or sectors that have not have adequate support. It is entirely down to government ideology and choice. Successive Tory governments have made the choice over the last decade not to invest in mental health support, help in the community, and other systematic choices that would help people left behind in this situation. The German furlough scheme is in place until the end of next year. The French one is similar. Sweden has much better benefits if you are out of work or off-sick.
there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest the initial lockdown eased the pressures of ICU wards. also lots of evidence that those countries that had the best response to Covid in terms of deaths have outperformed those like us who had the worst.