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London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

hsj.co.uk

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Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#141

Post by patrec »

polote wrote: post #94
simonbarker87 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re totally allowed to have that opinion and other people are totally allowed to think it’s idiotic, unless I’m missing you’re point?

Well then why do some people think it is idiotic?

Speaking only for myself, I think your opinion is idiotic based on some simple back of the envelope math I did many months ago (when the UK announced its herd immunity plan), relating to hospital capacity, likely peak case numbers, proportion of cases that would need hospital treatment or die and some simple minded guesses about knock-on effects for the rest of the health system. I have not bothered to redo these calculations in the light of current evidence (some things have gotten better, others have gotten worse), but I remain sceptical that anyone numerate who spent one or two hours trying to work out the likely results of your advocated policy would arrive at similar conclusion as to the best course of action as you did.

So let me ask: on what basis did you arrive at your opinion?

[Edit: HN comment from 10 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22578742]

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#142

Post by andy_ppp »

flukus wrote: post #64
stupidcar wrote: post #28

This article is confusing. It starts off by saying this is an analysis of "best" and "worst" case scenarios for continued growth in cases, but later it says: > HSJ understands that the briefing was part of an attempt to get senior clinical leaders to focus on what they would have to do, if current growth trends were not surpressed by the tighter lockdown . So, er, what if the growth trends are suppressed by the tight…

> So, er, what if the growth trends are suppressed by the tighter lockdown, as seems likely? Will things then be better than the "best" case scenario? There's two lag factors to consider. The first is the lag between restrictions and cases dropping, this takes a couple of weeks and cases and the growth isn't likely to even slow for 1 week. The second is the lag between infections and people getting seriously sick and…

Or because of the incompetence of those in charge people just don’t take the lockdown seriously...

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#143

Post by simonh »

ppod wrote: post #77

People who are making claims about hospital capacity should compare them to the same times in previous years. The data is all available online: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...

The link you provided is for last year, and that site doesn’t have any data after February 2020 anyway. I think this is the best source:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#144

Post by akiselev »

xienze wrote: post #69
yread wrote: post #11

Even bigger news is that as of yesterday there were just 46 free ICU beds (out of 1300+) in the whole London

Is there any context to that number? I’d be very interested in seeing how many beds were free this day in 2019, 2018, etc. It’s not a secret that hospitals are designed to run at or near capacity at all times, I don’t know where the notion that hospitals run at 40% capacity at all times in order to account for the random once-in-a-century pandemic comes from.

Even now ICU utilization nationwide in the United States is only ~63% [1]. Regardless of country, ICUs are not supposed to be run at capacity as a matter of practice - the staffing level in ICUs is on the order of one to three people per patient and it's not a resource that can be scaled up or down quickly.

For a large metro area like London, you might have some hospitals at high utilization because they're very close to other ICUs and can redirect incoming patients. It's not supposed to be at high utilization regionally, otherwise a single minor disaster can cause the system to tailspin.

[1] https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-capacity

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#145

Post by titzer »

dandellion wrote: post #96
jpxw wrote: post #33

And yet we still have idiots here in the UK saying things ranging from: * coronavirus is invented as a government power grab * the government locking down is a deliberate ploy to kill small businesses * the government should just let this run its course, it’s Just A Flu TM * hospitals are actually empty (the “proof” being people recording empty waiting rooms in outpatient departments on bank holiday weekends) * coron…

What do you gain by insulting them and calling them idiots? What if it just makes them even worse? Not saying they don't fit the definition... but maybe the reaction doesn't actually help.

In every society since the dawn of man, certain things carried a social cost. In our society, advocating idiotic conspiracies should carry, IMHO, a social cost of feeling embarrassed and stupid. Frankly.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#146

Post by tin7in »

Although lockdown measures in the UK look very similar to measures in other European countries I can tell that there is very little police control, probably due to lack of resources.

For example I don't know anyone who arrived from abroad being checked if they are self isolating at home as they declared.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#147

Post by Closi »

callamdelaney wrote: post #24

>The NHS England presentation, seen by HSJ (see slides below story), showed that even if the number of covid patients grew at the lowest rate considered likely Covid rates have consistently grown at the lowest rate considered likely.

Well even at the most conservative readings of recent statistics the growth rate has been 3.5% daily, so you might have 2 and a half weeks if you are really lucky.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#148

Post by garmaine »

madeofpalk wrote: post #124
dfsegoat wrote: post #93

Ignorant US Guy here: I had to google to learn a 'Fortnight' is 14-days / 2 weeks.

??? Is this not an extremely common phrase? I'm not from the UK (or the US) but... I've never considered this phrase is not known in America?

It's not a term used in America, outside of some extremely old black-and-white movies. Still I'd be surprised if someone born and educated here didn't know what it meant, since it must have been encountered in books or film or something.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#149

Post by lol768 »

ppod wrote: post #77

People who are making claims about hospital capacity should compare them to the same times in previous years. The data is all available online: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...

So, January 2019 in London Commissioning Region hospitals:

1033 open adult critical care beds; 882 in use. 85% utilisation.

Best-case forecast Jan 2021:

2078 critical care beds required, 1,661 available (increase of ~600). Forecasted 125% utilistation.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#150

Post by tasogare »

brendanmc6 wrote: post #84
lmilcin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are probably living in two different worlds. There is reality and there is the world you live in. In real world it is not the restrictions that save lives, it is people following them. If people ignore restrictions it doesn't matter whether they were or were not tightened. Actually, if people were sane we would not need restrictions. Everybody would wash their hands, avoid touching their face, wear their mask prop…

Following your nonsensical logic there would be no difference in covid cases between states or nations. Obviously this is not true. It is absolutely the government’s job to enact policy to slow the spread of deadly disease. It is also the job of governing leaders to encourage and educate citizens on how and why they should comply with these policies. This is where the USA is failing miserably. We could discuss the tr…

No he could be right: the covid is better handled in places were people are more careful, which explains the difference between countries. In fact there is less deaths in countries with less or no restrictions (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan) than the ones who heavily locked down their population (Europe) which tends to prove the point.
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