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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

#151

Post by polote »

patrec wrote: post #141
polote wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cal…

if we let the virus lives its life, maximum 2% of pop will die, 90 more % will live normally and a few percent will have covid related health issues. so we sacrifice a few percent of population for the future of the others

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

jiggawatts wrote: post #9

If a mutant strain of COVID-19 becomes twice as deadly, this "merely" doubles the pressure on hospitals. A constant factor like this can be dealt with. However, an increased rate of spread (R factor) is a change in the parameter of the exponential curve, and cannot be dealt with by any sub-exponential response. The only thing that could possibly work is to change the factor. Rapid vaccination or lockdown. It's imposs…

[deleted]

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

#153

Post by matthewmacleod »

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...

This is a consistent taking point among the more egregious parts of the “lockdown skeptic” crew and it is, of course, absolute bullshit - it’s based on shallow comparisons of numbers that are not comparable.

If you do decide to promote this talking point anyway, flag it with the appropriate disclaimer from the NHS:

…caution should be exercised in comparing overall occupancy rates between this year and previous years. In general hospitals will experience capacity pressures at lower overall occupancy rates than would previously have been the case.

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

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

#154

Post by astrophysician »

polote wrote: post #138
jpxw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re allowed to think it, it’s just patently idiotic. Our hospitals would be overwhelmed, the morality rate would skyrocket amongst COVID and non-COVID patients alike.

So now the number of free icu beds in hospital and number of death are the only kpi we look at to make decisions? It is crazy how people opinion like mine is fully ignored in Europe. today we tolerate flu deaths so that people can live freely, why shouldn't we tolerate covid deaths to live freely?

because tolerating flu deaths doesn't completely overwhelm healthcare systems?

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

#155

Post by war1025 »

triceratops wrote: post #120
war1025 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So roughly one death for every thousand people in Iowa. That's sad, but the vast majority of people who died this past year died of something else.

> the vast majority of people who died this past year died of something else. Given that no single cause of death is more than 50% of deaths, this is true for any cause of death.

The media went out of their way to make people think that Coronavirus was basically the only cause of death this year.

Combined with the bogus "positivity rate" that most lay people misinterpreted as the percentage of the population currently infected, this has been coordinated disinformation on a mass scale.

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

#156

Post by tunesmith »

polote wrote: post #138
jpxw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re allowed to think it, it’s just patently idiotic. Our hospitals would be overwhelmed, the morality rate would skyrocket amongst COVID and non-COVID patients alike.

So now the number of free icu beds in hospital and number of death are the only kpi we look at to make decisions? It is crazy how people opinion like mine is fully ignored in Europe. today we tolerate flu deaths so that people can live freely, why shouldn't we tolerate covid deaths to live freely?

One reason of many: flu deaths don't overwhelm hospital capacity. If someone dies from flu, it's generally not because of lack of available care. When hospital capacity is overwhelmed, people die that wouldn't otherwise die. If covid overwhelms hospital capacity, then people will die because of lack of available care. And so therefore, people dying from lack of available care is valued as "worse" than people dying with sufficient medical care.

And so if you equate the two, a lot of people think that is crazy.

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

#157

Post by flukus »

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.

Comparisons to previous years don't really make sense. ICU capacity should have somewhat increased and in previous years they weren't anticipating such a massive influx of new patients.

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

#158

Post by yt-sdb »

lol768 wrote: post #149
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.

Beat me to it. And according to this report, London currently has 46 free ICU beds.

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

#159

Post by matthewmacleod »

polote wrote: post #151
patrec wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cal…

if we let the virus lives its life, maximum 2% of pop will die, 90 more % will live normally and a few percent will have covid related health issues. so we sacrifice a few percent of population for the future of the others

This is obviously not true, since allowing the virus to spread freely massively increases the rate of fatalities and long-term illness once healthcare becomes overwhelmed.

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

#160

Post by doovd »

polote wrote: post #138
jpxw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re allowed to think it, it’s just patently idiotic. Our hospitals would be overwhelmed, the morality rate would skyrocket amongst COVID and non-COVID patients alike.

So now the number of free icu beds in hospital and number of death are the only kpi we look at to make decisions? It is crazy how people opinion like mine is fully ignored in Europe. today we tolerate flu deaths so that people can live freely, why shouldn't we tolerate covid deaths to live freely?

You will tolerate deaths until it becomes a loved one or yourself. At that point you'll realise that all you need to do is stop being an idiot and understand that with some restrictions we can significantly reduce deaths and at some point in the near future resume "free life".

"It's crazy" how much people are willing to risk just because they can't be patient.

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