News Forum - UK and the EU brace for more Omicron-induced closures and restrictions

[oldschooler]

AZ x 2 (viral vector) being near useless against Omicron was apparently entirely unforseen ( why ?) and will of course, combined with the unforgiveably slow non- AZ (mRNA) booster program (why not completed end Nov before Winter ?) , and the five million unvaxxed adults (inexplicably roaming unhindered inside UK ?) , prove disasterous in UK…and USA.

Pressing on with the non- AZ Boosters plus reasonable separation practices is all that can be done in ( late / minor ?) mitigation. But cant see how another 100k+ UK covid deaths can be prevented ? Same profile I suppose ? Very Old / Unfit / Unvaxxed/ 0.03%.- 0.05% pop. ?

And Why oh Why do people insist on long haul vacations under pandemic conditions ? STAY in your country / state !

[Manu]

4 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

Covid is on top of the usual winter pressure the NHS feels. Not instead of it.

You also need to factor in that up to 10% of NHS personnel may be off sick with covid.

It is neither or instead, it is what it is. Some years are bad with flu or other repiratory diseases, some not. We have had a new one with covid but the question is, was it just really that worse than usual? Does it really need that madness surrounding that perticular new disease, especially now 2 years later? Did we do a little too much?

Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity 1 April 2019 / 31 March 2022) - https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2019-20

Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity 1 April 2020 / 31 March 2021) - https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2020-21

2 numbers compared:

There were 286,224 useable critical care records recorded in 2019-20.

There were 235,262 useable critical care records recorded in 2020-21.

So quite a few less critical care during covid than the year before. Of course there are different factors linked to covid 19, no doubt, however does it reflect the response to it really? Is it a covid crisis or a NHS crisis?

But then it is globally... between the poor countries with no healthcare systems and the western world with completely derelict ones, it looks like the latter have not done better anyway. So another example.

France. Same healthcare system on the edge of collapsing. Cutting costs for many years, too much bureaucraty, less beds and staff year after year. So since March 2020, people would think that at least the governement would stop reducing beds if that pandemic was so bad. Well no: more than 8000 beds have disapeared since March 2020. And now they have a vaccine pass coming and they will vaccinate the little kids, desperation to cover their own failure and lies by blaming and controlling (well it works so well so far, it is simply too tempting not to continue) the people. Well, there are general elections in 5 months...

And then the report of the ATIH, a governement body that records all hospitalisations (here if ou can read French https://www.atih.sante.fr/sites/default/files/public/content/4144/aah_2020_analyse_covid.pdf).

Number of covid hospitalisations in 2020 - 2% of all hospitalisations

Covid in Intensive care in 2020 - 5% of all hospitalisations

These numbers surely do not reflect nor justify the madness in that country in 2020.

And I am not even mentioning the leader of the western wold, the USA.

The question is not if covid is a bad disease or not, if it is there or not obviously not. It is simply: are we not exagerating the response just a little, especially now after almost 2 years?

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by Manu

[Jason]

47 minutes ago, Fluke said:

I am not certain that everyone hopes that . 

Some people seem desperate for the virus pandemic to continue and to get worse and they seem to be cheering Covid on 

I'm NOT one of them! 

[vlad]

Yesterday London declared a Major Incident due to the rising of Omicron. There has to be a reason to issue this Statement.  90,000 cases have been reported as of today with 10,000 daily. Germany and France along with Holland who has already locked down with all bars and nightclubs closed until at least the new year. Sadly its only a time when the UK will have to lock down again  as Hospitals will be over run with Cases some are already over stretched and hospital beds are being taken by Covid infections.

[Rookiescot]

31 minutes ago, Manu said:

There were 286,224 useable critical care records recorded in 2019-20.

There were 235,262 useable critical care records recorded in 2020-21.

So quite a few less critical care during covid than the year before. Of course there are different factors linked to covid 19, no doubt, however does it reflect the response to it really? Is it a covid crisis or a NHS crisis?

And when exactly did they start vaccinating people?

You anti vaxxers simply dont think things through do you?

[mcambl61]

Just now, Rookiescot said:

And when exactly did they start vaccinating people?

You anti vaxxers simply dont think things through do you?

There it is, a silly generalization wrapped with an insult. 

[Fluke]

2 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

And when exactly did they start vaccinating people?

You anti vaxxers simply dont think things through do you?

December 2020 was the first vaccination in the UK

[Rookiescot]

1 minute ago, Fluke said:

December 2020 was the first vaccination in the UK

Correct. And Manu's own figures show that it has reduced the number requiring critical care with the pandemic raging.

[Stonker]

 

2 hours ago, Manu said:

It is neither or instead, it is what it is. Some years are bad with flu or other repiratory diseases, some not. We have had a new one with covid but the question is, was it just really that worse than usual? Does it really need that madness surrounding that perticular new disease, especially now 2 years later? Did we do a little too much?

Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity 1 April 2019 / 31 March 2022) - https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2019-20

Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity 1 April 2020 / 31 March 2021) - https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2020-21

2 numbers compared:

There were 286,224 useable critical care records recorded in 2019-20.

There were 235,262 useable critical care records recorded in 2020-21.

So quite a few less critical care during covid than the year before. Of course there are different factors linked to covid 19, no doubt, however does it reflect the response to it really? Is it a covid crisis or a NHS crisis?

But then it is globally... between the poor countries with no healthcare systems and the western world with completely derelict ones, it looks like the latter have not done better anyway. So another example.

France. Same healthcare system on the edge of collapsing. Cutting costs for many years, too much bureaucraty, less beds and staff year after year. So since March 2020, people would think that at least the governement would stop reducing beds if that pandemic was so bad. Well no: more than 8000 beds have disapeared since March 2020. And now they have a vaccine pass coming and they will vaccinate the little kids, desperation to cover their own failure and lies by blaming and controlling (well it works so well so far, it is simply too tempting not to continue) the people. Well, there are general elections in 5 months...

And then the report of the ATIH, a governement body that records all hospitalisations (here if ou can read French https://www.atih.sante.fr/sites/default/files/public/content/4144/aah_2020_analyse_covid.pdf).

Number of covid hospitalisations in 2020 - 2% of all hospitalisations

Covid in Intensive care in 2020 - 5% of all hospitalisations

These numbers surely do not reflect nor justify the madness in that country in 2020.

And I am not even mentioning the leader of the western wold, the USA.

The question is not if covid is a bad disease or not, if it is there or not obviously not. It is simply: are we not exagerating the response just a little, especially now after almost 2 years?

 

While your stats and sources are correct, your interpretation of them is way off and not only unsupported but they contradict your conclusions.

Whether you've deliberately cherry-picked and misinterpreted them or you simply don't understand them, I don't know.

Out of the several million NHSE admissions every year, you've cherry-picked and compared only those admitted through critical care units:

2 hours ago, Manu said:

2 numbers compared:

There were 286,224 useable critical care records recorded in 2019-20.

There were 235,262 useable critical care records recorded in 2020-21.

You then asked:

2 hours ago, Manu said:

So quite a few less critical care during covid than the year before. Of course there are different factors linked to covid 19, no doubt, however does it reflect the response to it really? Is it a covid crisis or a NHS crisis?

The answer is 'yes it does', but not in the way you've taken it.

You can get a better answer by reading the Institute for Fiscal Studies paper "What happened to English NHS hospital activity during the COVID-19 pandemic?" and the NHS CQC survey.

It does "reflect the response to it", but primarily not because the drop was due to Covid cases or vaccines but because it was due to the drop in numbers going to A&E and critical care due to lockdowns - less traffic accidents due to less traffic, for example, and a 57%+ drop in trauma admissions as a result.

You've simply completely mis-interpreted the stats.

[Stonker]

2 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

Correct. And Manu's own figures show that it has reduced the number requiring critical care with the pandemic raging.

Sorry, @Rookiescot, but while @Manu's links do show that (but you have to go into them at some length and read the links within links) his "figures" don't as he's cherry-picked only the stats from critical care unit admissions which are actually much more a reflection of the lockdowns than of the vaccinations.

The critical care unit admissions dropped, but that wasn't for the reasons claimed.

[Stonker]

3 hours ago, Manu said:

And then the report of the ATIH, a governement body that records all hospitalisations (here if ou can read French https://www.atih.sante.fr/sites/default/files/public/content/4144/aah_2020_analyse_covid.pdf).

Number of covid hospitalisations in 2020 - 2% of all hospitalisations

Covid in Intensive care in 2020 - 5% of all hospitalisations

These numbers surely do not reflect nor justify the madness in that country in 2020.

I speak reasonable French, but unfortunately your link doesn't work.

 

According to Sortir a Paris, in France last week there were 13,044 hospitalized and 2,426 in ICUs with Covid.

France usually has around 5,000 ICU beds, currently increased to 7,665. At times over 5,000 of those beds have been occupied by Covid patients.

 

[Rookiescot]

21 minutes ago, Stonker said:

Sorry, @Rookiescot, but while @Manu's links do show that (but you have to go into them at some length and read the links within links) his "figures" don't as he's cherry-picked only the stats from critical care unit admissions which are actually much more a reflection of the lockdowns than of the vaccinations.

The critical care unit admissions dropped, but that wasn't for the reasons claimed.

I understand exactly what you are saying mate and the reasons for the drop in critical care will be far more nuanced than I said.

Having said that the vaccinations will have had a major impact on the numbers requiring critical care which is the opposite of what he intended his figures to show.

He interpreted the drop as being evidence that covid had no impact.

[vlad]

45 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

I understand exactly what you are saying mate and the reasons for the drop in critical care will be far more nuanced than I said.

Having said that the vaccinations will have had a major impact on the numbers requiring critical care which is the opposite of what he intended his figures to show.

He interpreted the drop as being evidence that covid had no impact.

Yesterday London declared a Major Incident due to the rising of Omicron. There has to be a reason to issue this Statement.  90,000 cases have been reported as of today with 10,000 daily. Germany and France along with Holland who has already locked down with all bars and nightclubs closed until at least the new year. Sadly its only a time when the UK will have to lock down again  as Hospitals will be over run with Cases some are already over stretched and hospital beds are being taken by Covid infections.

[vlad]

As i stated in another thread 90% of pregnant woman are in Hospital with covid because they were vaccinated. The chief of midwifery in the UK stated that most would not be hospitalized if they had a vaccine. It is also reported today that upto 50.000 nhs could be off on sickness leave before Christmas day, and our head chief inspector is monitering the situation on an hourly basis due to the rapid infection rate here in the uk. 

[Stonker]

59 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

I understand exactly what you are saying mate and the reasons for the drop in critical care will be far more nuanced than I said.

Having said that the vaccinations will have had a major impact on the numbers requiring critical care which is the opposite of what he intended his figures to show.

He interpreted the drop as being evidence that covid had no impact.

Sorry, but his figures don't actually show "the numbers requiring critical care" - you'd expect them to as he did (and you have) and that's what they used to do when they were part of the Admitted Patient Care stats, but they don't any more. To get that you have to go much further into the reports.

It's simply a bogus and misleading figure, as I think will be obvious if you look more carefully at the actual numbers he's quoted which suggest (as quoted) that there were under 800 A&E admissions in England every day in 2019-20 and under 650 in 2020-21. The reality is that for the last ten years there have been around 12,000 hospital admissions from A&E every day, with another 3,000 emergency admissions not through A&E.

That's admissions, not A&E attendance which has been close to 70,000 per day.

The real figures for "the numbers requiring critical care" do show a drop (39% April 2019 vs April 2020), which is the one you're talking about, but they're simply not the figures he's linked to.

Edit: to be fair, they also show a rise, another drop and then a rise again but those tie in directly with lockdowns rather than vaccine roll-outs. You simply can't use the admission figures on their own one way or the other without going into a lot more technical detail, and that applies equally to both sides of this particular argument.

[Stonker]

16 minutes ago, vlad said:

As i stated in another thread 90% of pregnant woman are in Hospital with covid because they were NOT vaccinated. The chief of midwifery in the UK stated that most would not be hospitalized if they had a vaccine. It is also reported today that upto 50.000 nhs could be off on sickness leave before Christmas day, and our head chief inspector is monitering the situation on an hourly basis due to the rapid infection rate here in the uk. 

I think you may have missed out a rather crucial "not" there, @vlad, which I suggest should be where I've taken the liberty of adding it in your post quoted here in RED.