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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

#61

Post by jpxw »

e40 wrote: post #54
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…

A colleague made the point that we need more pictures of overflowing morgues and ICUs and (like is happening in LA) people waiting in an ambulance for 7-8 hours (and some of those people dying because of it). Just like the US government banned (discouraged?) pictures of caskets coming back from war. These images need to be on the news and on news websites 24/7.

I agree that this would be effective against most people.

But when this happened in Italy, a large number of the conspiracy crowd just said the photos were faked.

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

#62

Post by ed_balls »

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…

How do we know that lethality ("a") has increased? My understanding is that there is an evolutionary pressure to become less lethal.

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

#64

Post by flukus »

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 needing hospitalization, that takes 3-4 weeks. There's also the serious possibility that the restrictions arn't strict enough to make a big difference.

This scenario is basically baked in, avoiding it required action weeks earlier.

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

#65

Post by notretarded »

stogxx wrote: post #52
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…

NHS is overwhelmed every winter if the hyperbolic headlines are to be believed

They are

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

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

#66

Post by gonehome »

mikepurvis wrote: post #32
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…

I agree, but I think there is now a non-trivial group who are either a) in total denial about the virus or believe it's a conspiracy, b) overwhelmed by news of it and unable/unwilling to process anything new, or c) believe in herd immunity and might even welcome a faster spread on that basis. Arguments about exponentials mean nothing to anyone in any of these buckets— they'll be flaunting a lockdown up until and perh…

We're at a weird mixture of competence.

Extremely good coordination with vaccine invention, extremely bad with all other aspects.

Humanity is irrational, most people believe crazy, inconsistent things, and are easily manipulated.

The average citizen is stupid, the government is vulnerable to sentiment from the average citizen (and partisan media orgs that seek to influence those citizens for their own power or money).

It's a bad situation.

It's basically like Asimov said, "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

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

#68

Post by backWardz00 »

pjc50 wrote: post #39
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…

It's not a wake-up call until protestors storm the government buildings. Apparently.

Brains, amirite?

With the masses sedate at their screens, the bureaucracy has no cognitive experience or expectations for anything different.

Decades of headlines being fed to Main Street going on about growing inequality did not really motivate Main Street to do much but shuffle back into the office.

Relativity pervades all experience. Reading about history in books is not exactly experiencing history.

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

#69

Post by xienze »

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.

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

#70

Post by war1025 »

anonunivgrad wrote: post #37

In Florida, bars and restaurants are just about fully open and everything is just fine.

Near as I can tell things are pretty wide open here in Iowa. We even had the honor of getting an Atlantic scare article of "This is what happens when government does nothing"

Turns out what happens when government does nothing is things are perfectly fine.

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