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

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

#341

Post by TMWNN »

mhh__ wrote: post #225
TMWNN wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was a good piece in the private eye a few years ago listing headlines saying the NHS is doomed tomorrow going back to before Blair. https://twitter.com/KulganofCrydee/status/833654730849136641 >Just to flesh this out, the NHS could use more money, but it's worth saying that it's the only European healthcare system I'm aware of so fragile. You've fallen for the very "NHS is more fragile than systems in other co…

I said fragile but I would've mentioned efficacy - it's past midnight. The NHS isn't even that good, but it's hard to bring it up because it's the sacred cow. I think Denmark apparently has the most comparable system in Europe, but I've not read much about it (just heard it in passing).

>I said fragile but I would've mentioned efficacy - it's past midnight. The NHS isn't even that good, but it's hard to bring it up because it's the sacred cow.

NHS does well in the Commonfund healthcare comparisons (https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/other-publicat...), especially given how small a share of UK GDP healthcare spending is. That's certain an argument for its unitary, top-down structure. That same integration, however, makes it vulnerable to the sort of political grandstanding that Private Eye satirized.

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

#342

Post by s1artibartfast »

labster wrote: post #49
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…

Or maybe these people will keep believing the lie, even after they die from COVID, like the Calormen at the end of CS Lewis’ The Last Battle. Everyone else will be in Heaven, and they’ll be all like, “Let me out of the hospital, corona is a lie!”

Unfortounately it is more complicated than that, Odds are 1000:1 that when when they get it the symtoms will be "just a flu" and they will tell their famly and friemds their experience

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

#343

Post by asdff »

jtbayly wrote: post #255
asdff wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them are far closer than I would be comfortable without a mask outside. I only take mine off when there is no one around for like 25 yards, because you never know when someone will cross paths with you and end up very much in your personal space. You can be sure if people are this lax in a busy commercial district in public, they are just as lax when they gather with their friends and family in private, which…

25 yards? Outside? Humans really are bad at evaluating risk, I guess.

Yeah you would be fine at six feet too. But if that person just stopped moving to check their phone, turned around and doubled back my direction and passing me on the narrow sidewalk, all kinds of reasons that they would quickly close in from a safe distance to within six feet of me, that wouldn't be too great. Easier to just throw on the mask sooner than wait till the last minute.

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

#345

Post by Closi »

akmarinov wrote: post #344

Maybe start by looking at limiting international travel? The UK are the only countries that have a stay at home lockdown but no international flight ban and testing at arrival.

It’s a good idea and should be done, although there is too much transmission in the community at the moment for it to make any significant difference unfortunately.

It would have probably made a difference if it was done earlier.

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

#346

Post by markdown »

war1025 wrote: post #340
markdown wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Funny, I didn't see anyone calling to shutter the economy when my dad was dying of cancer. Similarly, I didn't see any great outrage this summer when my uncle died of a heart attack. Don't be obtuse. Neither of those things are contagious. > Death is tragic, but it's also a fact of life. Death is a fact of life. But nobody wants you around if you have a contagious deadly disease. > A lot of people have fallen into…

> I guess without your dad and uncle, you have nobody old left that you care about. My 98 year old grandma was the first person in my family to catch the coronavirus. Since then I've an aunt and uncle both catch it. All three have recovered just fine, as have my five or six neighbors who also caught it, and nearly everyone in my broader community who has caught it. But yes, me and my cold dead heart killing old peopl…

> My 98 year old grandma was the first person in my family to catch the coronavirus. Since then I've an aunt and uncle both catch it. All three have recovered just fine

There you go. All your old people are dead or immune. Yours are no longer threatened, so bugger everyone else.

> without visitors for the past nine months and the whole place still caught the virus.

That's not possible. Somebody with the virus had to to have visited in order for it to have spread.

Did all the other grandmas in the nursing home survive as well?

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

#347

Post by matthewmacleod »

cptskippy wrote: post #283
matthewmacleod wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK you have misunderstood the data; the “open” figure is not the number of unoccupied beds, but the total number of beds available for patients (1033) of which 882 were occupied by patients already (meaning 151 unoccupied).

I disagree. The word open is superfluous if that's the case. What's the meaning of the word open if not unoccupied or available? Of course that begs the question, why did they use open instead of unoccupied? If open is meant to mean bed that can be utilized, then we don't have a true number of beds or a reason why a bed would be closed. Either way it's confusing but generally the term open as the opposite of occupied…

You can disagree all you want you really are categorising these numbers incorrectly; the data as supplied lists the categories “open”, “occupied”, and “% of open beds occupied” - which seems pretty clear.

There is inherently no “true number” of beds because this number varies in response to things like hospital space configuration, staffing levels, and demand.

AFAIK the term “open” is analogous to that in “open for business” - there may be other physical “beds” available, but without staff or without some equipment or some other constraint that makes them not open.

I do appreciate that it’s confusing, because I had to doh me check myself. But it’s not without reason that it’s described that way.

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

#348

Post by lolc »

postalrat wrote: post #330
lolc wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The projected natural end of this pandemic would come within a year when the majority of the population got infected. As a society we've decided to not let this happen. Which is why the numbers diverge from your simplistic formula. > A fast spreading variant could overall reduce deaths over the next 5 years. What do you mean by this?

> What do you mean by this? Assume being infected from this variant grants some protection to future variants. If everyone was infected (or vaccinated) and protected then it would be difficult for the virus to spread and mutate. A slower spreading virus would produce more mutations over time and its possible one of those mutations could be catastrophic (though unlikely). Not only do you have more mutations but you al…

> A slower spreading virus would produce more mutations over time

Mutation is not primarily a function of time but of infections. So mutation is higher when there are more hosts. Letting the virus infect people leads to more mutations.

Now we're probably not talking about the same thing when we say mutations. I mean the sum-total of mutations. You mean successful mutations. But here comes the connection: The virus is more likely to evolve into infecting vaccinated people when it is more widespread. Because there are more mutations and consequently more chances for one of them to evade the immune response of vaccinated people.

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

#349

Post by s_gourichon »

laqq3 wrote: post #21
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…

Good analysis but small nitpick: the use of "Θ" in Θ(a×exp(R×𝑡)) is slightly inaccurate (or is it the use of "a"?) because the set of functions Θ(a×exp(R×𝑡)) is the same for all positive a.

Well, yes, of course: isn't "a doesn't matter" the core of the point of the parent comment?

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

#350

Post by Havoc »

midasuni wrote: post #249
Havoc wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No it’s not. huh? There were lots of reports about ambulance queues last week already https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-42570660 https://www.itv.com/news/london/2020-12-30/ambulances-with-c... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6mCJt__oxQ

That’s from people who sight it before Christmas. Takes 3 weeks from catching it to hospital - that’s still a few days away

And? You think the post Xmas will somehow be better?
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