Get Boosted Now & ignore the last week.

sorry mate totally understood your original post then, my fault, and apologies

 

Saw stories of the BNP leading the line re the protests . Agent provocateur came to mind . Too predictable .....

 

I know and it's very troubling that is the case, it's like a embargo has been placed on any reports of people opposing covid restrictions.

 

We should have seen a quicker explosion of cases if the modelling had been correct. I'm not saying it won't rise yet further my point was more to the fact its unlikely to continue to the stage where it runs through the whole population in one huge wave.

 

Folk have had trouble getting tests this week remember. In addition how many people are frightened of taking the test and it coming back positive? With Christmas less than 7 days away, will some members of the population bury their collective heads in the sand to avoid being isolated once again?

You've then got the skip fire which is going on in Number 10. Minister's will start to go rogue to position themselves in the best possible way, pending the leaders removal.
They're all fitting like rats in a sack at the minute.
All whilst a public health and economical critical situation is playing out.

How will the PM react? Nero or Caligula? Either way he won't go down without creating more chaos.

 

People not making pubs be ‘absolutely rammed’ is them taking personal responsibility. I went out for a meal with a few work colleagues last week for Christmas but we chose somewhere with table service and social distancing. That was our attempt at personal responsibility and still doing something nice and supporting hospitality. Someone else’s personal responsibility will involve not going out at all. Someone who doesn’t have anyone vulnerable to consider may go wherever they want with no restrictions and that’s them taking personal responsibility. Pubs are open and people are able to make their own choices. You can’t call for personal responsibility and then moan that people are doing exactly that.

 

I've just said I'm all for protest. It's just that because it's about restrictions wouldn't it make more sense to be extra careful so they don't add to the numbers which means more restrictions are necessary? A bit like the climate protesters using fuel to get to the protests, a bit ironic but a right to protest will always be a hill I'd die on.

 

The increase is there but masked by Delta.

All epidemic curves slow down before running through the entire population. It's largely a function of the availability of people to infect. There's more to the modelling than exponential rises.

 

Agree with all of that really. Where I would draw the line is the hopefully unture suggestion from yesterday's leaks that we will move to outdoor table service only. Because in January we all know that's essentially closing them down in all but name so the government don't have to support them financially.

 

Again I agree, which is why I made the point that the graphs we have seen presented to the public previously just showing doubling are stupid.

 

Interestingly we’re not seeing Omicron replace Delta at the moment, rather we’re seeing it on top of Delta, which is possibly a reason we’re seeing such steep rises. Which might be down to Delta continuing to circulate in partially or unvaccinated people and Omicron circulating in fully vaccinated people.

 

Definitely. We’re in a very different position this winter vs last winter, largely because of the impact of the vaccination programme. And the ‘good’ thing about Omicron (if you can call it that!) is that it appears so infectious that it won’t be able to maintain its rate of spread for a sustained period of time, which might be beneficial in the long run. And might mean any impact on hospital capacity is short-lived. So quite different to the Alpha and Delta waves we’ve seen previously.

The tricky bit is that, even if short lived, it could be severe, and the high rates lead to high levels of isolation amongst frontline staff which reduces your capacity right when you need to do everything you can to maximise it.

And the big unknown at the moment is what proportion of Omicron cases will end up hospitalised/ventilated/dying. That should become clearer in the next week or two; the only problem is that by the time cases start ending up in ICU in large numbers, even if you put measures in place at that point, you’ve got two or three weeks of that situation continuing baked in before your measures start to have any effect.

I don’t envy the decision makers to be honest. Even a competent administration would have struggled over the last couple of years, and sadly ours has been anything but competent (which is probably one of the few views that the had broad agreement across the BBS!)

 

Only if the testing is random.

But the testing isn’t random, it’s targeted, so we shouldn’t expect the cases found to rise. Sampling 101.

You’re right there’s some good news in the fact the % positive has decreased though, although that in itself needs to be balanced against other facts.

 

No it’s not.
People are self selecting to be tested when they believe they need to be. There’s nothing ‘random’ about that.

If it was truly random, you’d have to accept that if 20% of people who are tested test positive means that 20% of the population are positive.

 

I dont spend that much time on here, so I didn't see your post - ergo I didnt reply.

I didn't insult anyone nor was I not being amicable.

I made a statement I see often, that some people don't want restrictions, nor do they want people dying of treatable illnesses, but they fail to recognise the impact of closing wards down and opening them up as Covid wards. As of 2-3 weeks ago Leeds was short of 350 FTE nurses at it's 2 major hospitals. I went into an A&E last year with my Dad as his kidney was giving out due to cancer. I spent an hour in their and it was f@cking grim. Packed with people on chairs, puking up, moaning, crying, laid trolleys, side rooms etc, all waiting to see a doctor and nowhere to go because there weren't any beds/staff available to see them. Anyone thinking that by not enacting measures to stop transmission has zero affect on people waiting to be seen in a hospital is living in fantasy land, especially at this time of year.

It's a simple numbers game in that the more people who get Covid, the more people will likely end up in hospital. The more in hopsital the more beds and staff you need to be taken off wards. The Tories might want to get rid of the NHS, but they're not stupid enough to know the results of it completely falling over due to external pressures. Basic medical treament is at the heart of any country and if you don't have that then you have real problems.

 

Isn't that a&e every year?