Re: Coronavirus
 

I don't agree with them but until the facts are actually known a lot of these theories (and the conventional argument) are simply that. If it is not proven either way that the vaccines cause these issues, and to be fair we don't know the effects of the vaccines after 2 years or more anyway because we've only been issuing them that long, we can't say whether they are overall safe or not. I'm sure people were saying to pregnant women that taking thalidomide was all safe until their kids were popping out with birth defects and then they realised the issue. Needless to say the vaccines have done the primary intended job of stopping people dying when they get covid, or at least reducing the likelihood of this, the milder omicron lineage is also an important factor here. Whether in 5-10 years they have caused another problem couldn't have been foreseen at the time, nor could we have waited to see that, and I guess the health services will have to address that if it's possible when that does happen.


More concerning to me is not this particular issue but the slightly related one in that SM is allowing a lot of people who may well be highly qualified but not necessarily experts on viruses or epidemiology to have a platform to put their own personal views forward under the general pretext of "I'm a scientist and I say this". A guy called Kit Yates, who is a professor of Pure Mathematics at Bristol, was using his SM to question why the gov isn't mandating or putting in stronger messaging about face masks again. Now if he was talking about calculus or something I'd agree he was probably an authority and he is probably capable of mathematical modelling in various scenarios but in terms of measures to mitigate a virus, where are his credentials there? He's probably left school with A-levels in Maths, FM and Physics or another science and then read maths at uni and taken his PhD remaining with it. Where's his expertise in epidemiology or virology as opposed to someone like Jonathan Van Tam or Jenny Harries? This is the thing with these IndySage types, whilst they are clearly intelligent people and entitled to their viewpoints without taking into context who they are and their backgrounds you don't know really how informed they are on the actual subject. Though they are there to provide expertise in the field they know about, so there is clearly a requirement for maths people to be there. It reminds me a bit of the scene in Chernobyl where Legasov was telling Scherbina they needed to evacuate and he was like "stick to putting out the fire", as though it wasn't ultimately his decision - though you could say that was taken into account at a different level as they ultimately agreed it was the right thing to do. But on the contrary we don't need masks now and Yates should keep that as a personal opinion not transmitted in any official capacity IMO

Re: Coronavirus
 

Jenny Harries :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Re: Coronavirus
 

tbf, Kit Yates has a D.Phil in Mathematical Biology (so at the moment, he’s a "Doctor", not a "Professor"), and he’s an Author and Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Biology, and is the Co-Director of Centre for Mathematical Biology Institute for Mathematical Innovation at Bath University, so he’s not just "Pure Maths".

Re: Coronavirus
 

Thanks for letting me post on this topic this quickly again. :tu:
.....and I'm not trolling. I posted a load of research and got abuse.

Anyhoo.....in reply to someone earlier who correctly pointed out that the link to McColoughs wikipedia page does him no favours. I posted it so you could see his credentials (as I said at the time), not the slander he's getting.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Thank you for the link. I have.
A few problems with it:
Link 9 points at the same wikipedia page. Finding the actual page, it turns out that it simply to a blog post

Link 10 leads to factcheck.org which
a) Starts off by stating "Large, randomized controlled trials and a substantial body of real-world data support the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines"....which is, if you look at the original Pfizer data that they tried to suppress for 50 years, an outright lie.
b) looking around the site at subjects that I am very knowledgeable about, they are not above using incorrect and/or dodgy sources and data.

Link 11 Is simply an opinion piece on a site called sciencebasedmedicine.org. btw, that site is run by New England Skeptical Society whose 5 million/yr funding proports to come from 'donations'. Interestingly, it seems that they got shut down a few years ago by the IRS for not reporting their income for 3 years running. Make of that what you will.

Link 12 points at an article wherein it's authors lament how they tried to get their paper published but "We report here our request to the editor of FCT to have our rebuttal published, unfortunately rejected after three rounds of reviewing."....so the rebuttal wasn't good enough to be published.

Re: Coronavirus
 

In my opinion, you were trolling myself.
However, your break was only ever intended for the rest of the evening.
We have no way to automate that atm, so I manually removed it a few hours later. ;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

You're splitting hairs in that he (and to be fair, it was an example) is a mathematician not a doctor or an epidemiologist.


Using mathematical methods to model infections works to an extent. But this is where he (and Pagel, who is no less intelligent) fail to see that immunity doesn't always fit models, especially when behaviour changes too.


In any case, I don't see how anything in KY's current research has much to do with a cv
https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/kit-yates

Re: Coronavirus
 

:rofl:

What immunity?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Thought you weren't posting on this thread any more.


And your argument really needs to be better than that.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

The thing is that I wasn't specifically talking about covid but any immunity to any virus in general.


Some people will of course be naturally less susceptible to it irrespective of previous infection or vaccination. Some people will be vaccinated but not immune (to any extent). How much do models think about these things?

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is correct. I have Covid at the moment and due to the vaccines plus the milder current variant, it equates to a bad cold. The concern is where the virus mutates next. The more people spreading & catching Covid, the more likely it is to mutate. The hope & expectation is that it continue to get milder but this is not guaranteed.

The very large numbers of people currently getting Covid in China where they expect deaths in the 100,000's is a worry. That number of infections mean more chance of mutations.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You thought wrong.

It really doesn’t.

---------- Post added at 22:51 ---------- Previous post was at 22:50 ----------

Neither does catching Covid.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Immunity in a sense does not exist.

People who are 'immune' to a virus still 'catch it', but their body's defence system neutralizes it before any damage is apparent, or done, so you see no effect, and thus appear to be immune. You are not immune, you are just really good it fighting it.

Vaccines train your defences to react to a virus. in effect they provide an extra level of defence (for some) that you would not otherwise have had because they help the body learn how to fight the [real] virus when it attacks.

However, despite this defence boost, some will still fall victim to the effects of the virus, although [generally] it will seem less severe. Catching covid does a similar thing, your body learns how to fight it, and is thus better prepared when it encounters it again.

This is all basic stuff, its why vaccines exist, not sure why people try to argue against it.

Re: Coronavirus
 

There seems to be some confusion between immunity and sterilising immunity here. The current COVID vaccines are reasonably good at raising immunity as measured in antibody levels and immune cell (T and B cell) responses. They might not recent infection but certainly shorten the length and severity of the disease.

Sterilising immunity prevents infection. For, this, you need antibodies at the infection sites, namely the nose, throat and lungs. The current vaccines are not very effective here. To get sterilising immunity, you need to vaccinate at the potential infection sites. Vaccines which are good at this include polio, smallpox, nasal flu (flumist) It is a huge challenge to make vaccines that work at the sites of infection as these can be quite a harsh environment. If you want to do something quick or ‘good enough’, injectables are the way forward.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Should the UK be introducing COVID checks/controls on travellers from China given the surge in coronavirus there and the plan to permit travel in and out of the Country?
Haven’t we been here before?

Re: Coronavirus
 

If we aren’t going to do anything beyond that, the obvious question is what would be the point?

Re: Coronavirus
 

The first flight tested this week from Beijing to Italy had an astounding 52% of passengers test positive for coronavirus

https://onemileatatime.com/news/chin...sitivity-rate/

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-pat...ifted-12775498

Good luck to me, I teach a class of 500 of which 80% come from China...

When do we get the 5-th vaccination?;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

There is absolutely no point unless you put all arrivals into quarantine which then has the obvious effect of quarantine hotels becoming incubators for the virus anyway.


As we're not going to pay for hotels to put all travellers from China in for a week, and as the WHO advice seems to be mixed (but mainly towards not) on closing borders anyway, it doesn't seem worth it.


This isn't a new virus any more, it's the same omicron strains which are going around the rest of the world anyway, due to omicron and people being vaccinated as well as a lot of people having the virus previously we have more immunity levels than in 2020.


Not really sure what any border restrictions on China would actually achieve in relation to the costs (financial and otherwise) of putting them in to begin with.



We really do need to move on from it as it's as manageable as getting colds and flu in most people these days.

Re: Coronavirus
 

“The same omicron strains” :rofl:

You’ve fell for the narrative hook, line and sinker. I thought we were all immune anyway :rofl:

Re: Coronavirus
 

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes.

Why is it funny ?

You thought wrong, as I'm sure you already knew [anyway] :rolleyes:

Re: Coronavirus
 

All that changed is the WHO decided not to name new variants since it didn’t fit the narrative of “moving on”. There are already variants under the Omicron umbrella that evade immunity from each other. Had they stuck to the initial naming convention we’d have run out of Greek letters by now.

I’m laughing at the concept.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I'm sure you'd like to think that, but you already gave the most obvious reason.
They are still identified, just less pretty or memerable names now, like BA.5, BF.7, BJ.1, BQ.1 or XBB

No one mentioned the "concept" except you.

Re: Coronavirus
 

So where and when does the first post-Omicron variant arise? What criteria does a variant need to meet to be given a new name?

The answer is none and never. No matter how much (or how little) evolution takes place. They are indeed identified by letters but the public given the comforting narrative of “still omicron”.

It’s been a running theme for a few pages and is the flaw that underpins every one of nffc’s posts.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The UK is approaching 200,000 reasons why there's a continuing need for this virus to be taken seriously. We don't even know the full long-term effects.

Resigning ourselves to indifference may be the economic solution but we could end up in shit creek without a paddle.

Re: Coronavirus
 

We're sort of already snookered if there are long-term consequences yet to be revealed about the virus. A sizeable majority of people have had it at some point.

Realistically we've done all we can now. Vaccines and natural infection have turned it into an endemic virus. There might be an argument for some restrictions on China purely because visitors from the country are unique in that the country is effectively in its initial wave so there will be a far greater amount of infections coming in. Whilst we've done what we can we probably don't want a bunch of new infections just from a convenience standpoint if nothing else.

But I am not sure restrictions would help much so it's time to move on and accept this is the world we live in now.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Dont know, dont care - if your so concerned, feel free to research it yourself. :)

Those answers make no sense compared to the questions. :erm:

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

I’m not really sure why you’re choosing to argue the point tbh if you don’t know or care.

---------- Post added at 20:46 ---------- Previous post was at 20:39 ----------

They’re not necessarily the same variants, simply under the same umbrella “omicron” that is now so wide as to be rendered meaningless.

Re: Coronavirus
 

No-one can argue with you when you are so keen to misunderstand and add meanings into comments which aren't there.


It renders your responses meaningless.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Then take it back to you falling for the narrative hook, line and sinker. And laughing at the comfort taken in immunity that isn’t there. With the laughing emoji.

---------- Post added at 21:03 ---------- Previous post was at 21:01 ----------

I don’t think it’s an unreasonable point to make, given the diverse range of Omicron variants that don’t even give immunity among themselves, that a political choice was made at the WHO to go down this route. Given they have form for pandering to China at the start of the pandemic, it’s not unreasonable to hit the conclusion that calling everything the same variant is helpful for the message there’s nothing to worry about.

https://www.who.int/activities/track...CoV-2-variants

The table shows a much more diverse range of sub-lineages and mutations within Omicron than predecessor variants.

And that’s before we start on the world’s greatest behavioural scientists informing the UK Government.

Re: Coronavirus
 

He's jumped onto something which wasnt said though.


It does seem somewhat odd that all of the omicron variants are still omicron. I don't know how they work out which lineages are worthy of a new name, maybe they got sick of doing it. But they do still have names and yes BA.1 is different from BA.2 which was going round at the same time then we had BA.4 and BA.5 and now we have a few more and it's each of those which has a slight immune escape from others and vaccine immunity etc which is causing the spikes but that's probably normal. But they are all still omicron. I guess there's less scare factor from popping new names all over the place, that or they aren't that mutated.


The point I was making, which was clear enough for you and others to get, except one person - is that the variants in china are the same variants going round the rest of the world. So what difference does it make? We have it here anyway, so some people with covid coming over from china isn't going to stop it coming in here so popping them into quarantine isn't going to do anything useful because it's already here. If they had different variants which somehow had differing outcomes in terms of severity or immune escape then the answer would be possibly different but in general these restrictions haven't stopped it yet so why would they now? Look at how the world responded to omicron initially yet it still ended up everywhere didn't it?


As for the immunity question, which again one person seems to fail to understand - we do in fact have significant population immunity in the sense that pretty much everyone here has either received doses of a covid vaccine or has had covid or probably both. But this is always going to be partial in a virus which is evolving with immune escape. So yes people are going to get it multiple times because most people (especially those under 50) haven't even been vaccinated with an omicron spike protein (which will be BA.1 not even BA.5 or one of the newer variants) and even those who have previous immunity from an omicron infection aren't necessarily protected from newer variants. This is how the immune system and antibodies work. If the virus can get in faster than the immune system can respond you still get ill. But the response from vaccines or previous infection means the immune system can usually catch up quicker meaning the illness is likely to be less serious or not happen at all. That's how it always works, people who understand immunity as a concept don't need it explaining to them after all.


So no, we shouldn't believe the media line on anything because they aren't trustworthy and the gov have added a fair amount of scare factor to the way people act too, but finding the facts and making your own conclusions...

Re: Coronavirus
 

Except the evidence doesn’t back that up.

As I said, it’s a comforting narrative, nothing more and nothing less.

So much immunity we’ve had 4 waves this year and rising again in the ONS prevalence study. In 2019 and before if anyone sold you getting infected possibly a couple of times a year as “immunity” you’d laugh them out of town.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yet you ignore the part where I said that the immunity is partial and selectively quote to spout drivel.


Quite frankly your ad hominem drivel and attempts at arguing are comedy gold.

Re: Coronavirus
 

<removed>
Enough of your argumentative drivel.

You seem to have nothing better to do that make up arguments about things no one said.
As always, you also try and twist posts to suit your strange view of the world. Go do it somewhere else.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Comment in FT:

I am fully vaccinated but kudos to a good joke!

Re: Coronavirus
 

From what I understand, the COVID virus is stopping being sequenced in the various countries it is found. This removes the ability to detect new variants if I understand this correctly. Why is this important? So far the virus has mutated to a more benign, relative to first variant, form and it is the hope that this will continue to do so. However this trajectory is not guaranteed so when we are about to get ~10% of the world's population infected when these people have possibly less than effective vaccine cover, we are rolling the dice big style. More infections == high chance of vaccine evading mutations.

I feel the Covid weariness could come back to bite us ..

Re: Coronavirus
 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ers-from-china

And it’s a u-turn!

I suppose when you’re a Government devoid of ideas it’s a good dog whistle, feigns the impression of taking action and allows them to put their feet up for a bit.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Not a U-turn, but a late decision based on the CCP's lack of transparency.

The EU is not happy with Italy requiring testing before entry. But they had 52% infected on just 2 planes from China a few days ago. Whilst there was a ban on flights from China by the CCP? :confused:

Re: Coronavirus
 

With prevalence that high people will inevitably test negative and go on to develop Covid. Or travel indirectly, or get infected at interchange airports, etc.

It’s a big sieve, and doesn’t even inform or influence steps the Government will take in any case. Would they bring in targeted community testing or contact tracing for a hypothetical concerning new variant? If not, then testing arrivals from a single location is merely performative. Against a backdrop of ongoing community transmission in any case.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Requiring a negative test is probably as far as would be reasonable to go.


But as rightly stated, it's not perfect at all. If you got the test whilst they were waiting to get on the plane for a long flight like China you could get someone test negative at the airport but be towards the end of the incubation period, develop symptoms and test positive on landing, and then you'd have an exposure at worst with the whole plane, all of whom might take several days to get the virus or not.



Even a negative test on landing doesn't mean that person will not then get covid from being exposed to it in the end of their trip or on a coach to the airport, within the airport, on the plane etc & then get it over the next few days when they have gone back home and to work, school etc.


Closing the border entirely wouldn't work either as people would have already arrived before then and they could always go through other countries.


The real only solution is mandatory hotel quarantine for all arrivals from China for a wwk or maybe up to 10 days. But this costs and can itself seed infection within the quarantine facility (and has done elsewhere).



If the variants currently circulating in China weren't thought to be the same as those in the rest of the world, and they had something similar to Delta when it emerged, for example, then it would make more sense to increase arrival measures on the area, but largely speaking experience with this has shown it doesn't work.



So the testing will probably just come under the banner of "look like we're doing something" without thinking as to whether those restrictions are going to actually do anything.



Let's also be fair the testing and isolation rules we had didn't stop it either. Nor does it if you're more strict and get any positive tests into isolation facilities and lock down whole communities for months on end like they have been in China. Living with it and managing covid like it's a cold or flu in terms of measures (i.e. manage the symptoms, stay home or away from vulnerable people until you're better, etc) is probably as likely to keep it under sensible control without applying restrictions which are performative and have less benefit compared to inconvenience.



The threat of new variants is hypothetical (in fact there has been a suggested link between a certain antiviral and mutation, when in immunocompromised patients) and less testing has fewer opportunities for sequencing making it harder to detect.



But i'm not sure what could be done about China which would actually work

Re: Coronavirus
 

Requiring a negative test might pass the reasonable test but it fails the effectiveness test in the absence of a joined up response to manage a pandemic. If the latter isn’t required then why impose the former. The next variant to provoke a wave in the UK will already be in the system at low levels rising as the current variants fall. The absence of testing on any meaningful level guarantees this.

The one after that could come from anywhere. The reality is a “concerning variant” will be embedded in the UK population before it hits any triggers (hospitalisations/deaths). Before that point the line will be we have widespread immunity.

Re: Coronavirus
 

So what would your proposed plan be to deal with the infections half way around the world then?

Re: Coronavirus
 

The Italians started sequencing most positive cases arriving from China. We do not have the money to do that, we have the machines but not consumables...

https://www.politico.eu/article/ital...sitors-so-far/

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Can we 'safely' assume that what these travellers might bring is a variation of the known virus or do we need to be watching too for something entirely new?; who knows how many more of these novel viruses are being incubated? Coronavirus has killed 7m worldwide and hammered our economies: we're not out of the woods yet.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Why do I need a proposed plan to point out the current one is entirely ineffective?

---------- Post added at 05:43 ---------- Previous post was at 05:37 ----------

There’s no real reason to expect that to come from China bar xenophobia. Or perhaps a sentimental “what if” nod to what could have been in 2019.

Hospitalisations are up in the USA, deaths in Japan. Or they might just be about to jump onto the Tube for some New Year celebrations. If variants are a concern it’s the perpetual rolling of the dice that’s the issue, not China.

As ianch99 points out at the top of the page countries that aren’t routinely testing therefore aren’t sequencing. Sure, there are other methods (wastewater testing) but by the time they show up community transmission will be well underway. Unless there was a single outlier symptom to tell people to look out for, invite testing and implement contact tracing it’s already unstoppable.

Re: Coronavirus
 

NHS has no money. They will give the sequencing to private companies with new funding.

Re: Coronavirus
 

we can safely assume they won't bring anything we want, I would ban all travel from china, keeping us safe should be the priority.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I agree Papa although, apparently, that makes us both xinophobic, or something like that :D

Re: Coronavirus
 

Because it shows that as ever you are quite happy to sit there calling everyone's ideas and points crap without coming up with your own solutions to the issue.


As you seem to have nothing positive to offer, then you have lost rights to criticise.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/metrics/doc/variants

https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/initiatives/newborns

https://www.sanger.ac.uk/collaborati...eillance-unit/

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

An extremely flawed interpretation. I’m unsurprised.

If there’s nothing positive to offer it could simply be a case of having exhausted every viable or credible option. The inherent contradiction of trying to stop variants abroad, while allowing unmitigated spread at home. Indeed, as we’ve got “immunity” the evolutionary pressure means it’s far more likely to appear in a vaccinated or population with (sometimes multiple) previous infections.

You don’t confer rights to anyone to criticise anything.

The only practical purpose of testing is to delay (in the order of hours and days rather than weeks or months). What would we do with that time? What mitigations to slow such spread once it inevitably enters our population would have political or popular support?

Re: Coronavirus
 

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Re: Coronavirus
 

I suspect the essence of what he was saying was that you’ve lost the right to be taken seriously, and it’s easy to see why based on the above.

You’ve been peddling the same cocktail of cynical pessimism since day one of the pandemic and to be honest for me at least it has just become background noise. A sustained discussion ought to move forward in order to maintain interest but you’re still re-hashing the same complaints, namely ‘policy is flawed, vaccines don’t work, there’s no immunity’

If you’d ever taken the trouble to explore nuance with regard to this subject there might be some basis to debate how well or how poorly the various medical and political responses to the pandemic have performed. But you’re still banging on the same way, despite the fact that blind Freddie can see this population isn’t susceptible to covid in anything like the way it was 2 years ago. There is still an important debate to be had about what worked well and what could have been done better but I’m struggling to see what contribution you have to make to that.

In that sense I think you have ‘lost the right to criticise’.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

The figures are now only published once a week on the site I frequent, hence the blocky look for the past months.

Is it all being swept under the carpet to "normalise" the deaths that are still happening?

Anyway, a big jump this past week.

Re: Coronavirus
 

The Christmas effect coming through? I always said relatives were bad for you.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Meh.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Might just not figure much compared to the number of excess deaths happening generally. The Times has a story tomorrow that it's the highest deaths - excluding the pandemic - since 1951. The NHS is a lot of trouble.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I suspect you meant to say "The NHS is in a lot of trouble".

but I think you got it right the first time.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes, in a lot of trouble.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64209221

Re: Coronavirus
 

Oddly enough, despite what that article says, I started on BP tablets last year [ I already took statins, since 2018 ].

Re: Coronavirus
 

Who'd have thunk it.

Ambulances queueing up, temporary morgues. But at least we protected the economy. :rofl:

---------- Post added at 01:04 ---------- Previous post was at 00:52 ----------

And here I was thinking all the pandemic deaths were the low hanging fruit being pulled forward. We should have less excess deaths, if that were actually true.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Still hitting the "oldies’ hardest, due to pre-existing conditions and Co-morbidities.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...ecember%202022).

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...3&d=1673784783

Re: Coronavirus
 

Death, in general for any reason, usually remains highest for those 85 or over!

Re: Coronavirus
 

What I don't understand is that people, in general, do not seem really bothered about the dire state of the healthcare services. If you judge by the Press & Social media, there is more interest around Harry's book that the collapsing NHS.

Why is this?

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

The media just love a good bit of drama to stir everyone from time to time.


Harry's book provides this but the winter pressures on the NHS less so.


Though I'm wondering if the situation there is any or much worse than years before covid. There has always been winter issues with the NHS but most years it was swept under the carpet and not given an awful lot of airtime but the pandemic response has presumably focused a few more people on the NHS than before.


Plus I guess there's always the view that if it doesn't affect you you're less interested in it. If you're not on a waiting list or in the treatment system or whatever then you're not involved with the NHS and less likely to pay much attention to what is happening there (compared with any other service or workplace you're not using).


To be fair, I'm not really bothered about Harry wanting to stir up drama out of nothing... it's getting tiresome.

Re: Coronavirus
 

But I see no evidence that, as you put it, that "peops are livid/furious about the NHS". A lot of the same people will still vote for the party that is directly responsible for the current situation, a sort of weird collective Stockholm syndrome.

As for "headlines that sting", there is a candidate where the old man who has fallen down at home, repeatedly rings 999 asking for help and no help arrives. In his last call, hours later, he says "just send an undertaker, it is too late". He dies shortly after this last message. I listened to this audio recording in horror. You would think that the tabloid hacks would jump on things like this as they are happening on a daily basis.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes, some people still vote Labour ....

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

You're right. For the NHS, the best period it ever had was under Labour before 2010.

---------- Post added at 16:14 ---------- Previous post was at 16:02 ----------

For something that is so fundamental to us being able to live our lives, I just don't see the coverage that the current status demands.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Re: Coronavirus
 

:rofl:

Re: Coronavirus
 

The Tories have been in power for 12 years now so it is right to hold them to account for their record. They tried to fund it with no capacity for slack as we saw every winter until COVID hit and, when COVID did it, it can't cope anymore. You've got already increasing waiting times even before the pandemic, then the backlog from the pandemic and now the A&E crisis from excess deaths/heart issues stemming from those not seen in time.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Until expenditure on the NHS rises in real terms (presumably by NI or income tax rises or borrowing), the service won't improve.

Re: Coronavirus
 

People have been complaining about NHS funding for as long as I can remember, even way back in the 1990's, under Labour and Conservative (and coalitions).

Re: Coronavirus
 

Because we've underfunded it for years compared to other similar countries: https://www.ft.com/content/f752a1ad-...9-4909974c6a2c


It's not a surprise that with that underinvestment we're also seeing much longer waiting lists since 2010: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60305502

https://www.cableforum.uk/images/local/2023/01/2.jpg

And again this started before COVID hit. COVID made it worse for sure both the virus itself and the subsequent delayed treatment from the year lost but when you run a health service that can't meet the demand it already had, there is no capacity at all to deal with a crisis.

Look at that BBC article about cancer waiting times. The number of people urgently seen for cancer has dropped from 90% in 2010 to 80% by 2017 and now 70%!

The NHS has got measurably worse. I don't know why we're just accepting such declines.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Exactly.

People are accepting it because:

- Populism There's still a spill-over of populism. "If the NHS was more efficient with its money then there would be no problems." "We need more nurses and fewer admin staff. Once that's done, it will improve."
The we-can-have-our-cake-and-eat-it belief.

- Taxation People don't want to pay higher taxes in order to get a better service. More so with other costs rising. Apart from higher borrowing, that's what they will have to do. If you've got good private healthcare, you may be happier with the lower tax, lower NHS service trade-off.

- Party loyalty. Party loyalists will obviously defend their Party in almost all circumstances with an anecdotal, approach. "X party couldn't do any better." "Everyone's been complaining about the state of the NHS ever since I was a toddler."

Re: Coronavirus
 

Also, "is there a better way of funding/delivering healthcare free of charge at the point of need".

I don’t mean the farrago of nonsense that is the US Healthcare profit monster, I mean something like the French, German, or Australian models - we need to go back to basics and redesign the system and processes to ensure adequate funding and services.

Re: Coronavirus
 

You might mean something like France or Germany but who are the tories inviting to get involved with our healthcare, American companies...

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yeah, it needs to be both. The NHS might well need reform and we can look to France or Germany as a reference point but if we're spending 20% less than France then we're not going to get their levels of care.

I would also want to see what would actually be gained from a European model. One advantage of our system is the simplicity of the service for a patient. There is no topping up of your medical insurance, no Carte Vitale to scan, and no paying your GP and then getting it reimbursed. The French system seems to have multiple options for insurance from the state or your workplace as well which seems confusing.

The main advantage seems to be all the other ways you end up paying for it from personal top-ups to workplaces explicitly paying for health insurance means it's politically easier to funnel more money into the system than when it comes out of general taxation.

Re: Coronavirus
 

But I know that there is huge wastage in the NHS like all large organisations and it's not those doing the work at fault.
People also want more from the service but less willing to pay more for it.
The NHS is doing tasks that should be done by other organisations or families - some social/discharge care could be done by families, in the case of older patients by their children. (Not all).


It is in a mess and has been for many decades but just injecting cash is not going to fix things. And it's not going to be fixed quickly, so what is the priority? Do you focus on prevention, caring for the most numerically, caring for the most critical clinically or something else? As with COVID stats it must be remembered that behind the figures are individuals.

Re: Coronavirus
 

From above

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion "I know that there is huge wastage in the NHS like all large organisations"?

You may believe it, but can you *verify it (considering there have been so many initiatives/reorganisations in the last 20 years)? There is wasted effort in any large organisation (by the very nature of the beast), but "huge waste" is an unquantifiable and emotive sound bite.

https://keepournhspublic.com/factche...onal%20funding.

Here’s an interesting article from a couple of years ago..

How much money does the NHS waste? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37715399


*anecdata doesn’t count… ;)

Re: Coronavirus
 

Fax machines.

A single example, but an indicator of wider cultural resistance to new and more efficient ways of working. As recently as 5 years ago the NHS was reckoned to be the single biggest purchaser of fax machines in the entire world. It took a government directive in 2019 to forcibly stop the purchase of new (!) fax machines in England and several hundred are still in operation.

The delightfully unreformed Welsh version of the Labour Party is still allowing their purchase and use in NHS Wales.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/h...g-fax-22899228

Re: Coronavirus
 

I used to work for the NHS first in Chem Path and then IT. I saw and experienced some of the inefficiencies though to be fair when you are dealing with very large organisations some of those are needed to allow for proper governance.
I needed to buy a new PC and it took a lot of work to get the unit that did what I needed to. The standard PC would have been more expensive and less powerful.

Re: Coronavirus
 

This is the point I am highlighting. I don't understand why so many are content to see this.

Re: Coronavirus
 

But that’s been the default in most large organisations (well, the ones I’ve worked in) - standard IT equipment/builds are simpler and easier to maintain (so it would be more inefficient if a large amount of non-standard builds were available by default).

We got round that issue by having a number of standard builds (general office work, IT developers, marketing, etc.) - I know this is how it currently works in NHS Digital, as I have a couple of ex-colleagues who work there.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Is that "spending" or "funding"?

other countries may well "spend" more, but it is not all "funded" by taxation. like the nhs is.

---------- Post added at 14:27 ---------- Previous post was at 14:26 ----------

of course you plenty of examples

---------- Post added at 14:32 ---------- Previous post was at 14:27 ----------

You need to bottom out the spending /funding definition. France and Germany may spend more because they have some sort insurance element to fund it as well as from taxation.

The USA spends loads on health care but funds little of it from taxation, everybody needs some sort of insurance. (generally, there is help for some people).

Re: Coronavirus
 

They'll not be able to use them soon.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...-office-staple

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's spending. Let's use France as I looked into that a while back and I think it's not all funded by direct taxation but ultimately it's enforced insurance that operates like a tax, similar to national insurance. So the majority of people have compulsory deductions from their pay checks as does their employer.

The weirdest thing they do is a top-up scheme you can pay more for that means optical and dental (and a few other things) are covered as well.

I prefer our system as it's simpler and I think it's possible to fall through the gaps in the French one even though in theory those out of work should be covered by a state-provided insurer.

But when we say 'insurance' we're not talking about private insurance like in the United States, it's compulsory and backed by the Government. I think it's what the Americans call 'single-payer'.

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's easier now that hardware is cheap enough to over spec the basic so most users can use that standard and the exceptions can be dealt with.


Then the standard was way below what I needed and to get what I needed from the standard supplier was hugely more expensive with much longer wait times.


I am aware that IT systems are more complex and integrated than when I was trying to get the right serial library to get a PC to talk with a bit of lab equipment but I look at how projects like the NHS national network is reported and I just wonder.


One of the issue I had with the integration above is that the equipment had no idea of a patient as an entitity. It knew about an inpatient or an outpatient but not just a patient that may have both inpatient and outpatient tests. (The nature of the hospital I worked out meant some patients were admitted for extended periods and the consultants would see them as part of their outpatient clinics so a patient could be in and out at the same time, logically possible). This incompatibility is what gets sited as one of the big issues.


But when I was doing patient systems the NHS had a huge set of manuals about how data was "formatted" and how different data sets were related. It may not be possible to force this on the different NHS units but you should be able to specify that in how they communicate. e.g. you will receive queries in this form and you will reply in this form, how you achieve that is not important. That way you specify the communication but not how any one platform manages it. This is probably too simplified in these days where there is a lot more done with computers.


Other inefficiencies included getting rid of bad staff, not those who commit some form of malpractice but those who know how to work the system to their benefit. Insisting on following procedures/protocols that while important could be short circuited in some cases to get the job done faster. (Not all cases, not all the time, not just to avoid paperwork/documentation.)



I'd hope demarcation is mostly gone. Obviously some jobs must be done by the appropriate persons but sometimes if something needs doing and you can do it, just do it.

Re: Coronavirus
 

I think we are in danger of wandering away from the topic of this thread..