Quote:
Originally Posted by jfman
The fact a decision is complex isn’t a justification to shirk responsibility, hope for the best and end up having to impose stricter restrictions anyway. Which is inevitable if this “wing and a prayer” approach that has served Britain so well to date is persisted with.
You may hate the term “long covid” but I’d hazard a guess those who suffer it might dislike it more?
In an area where elective hospital procedures are being cancelled and the military are supporting, people are being asked to avoid A&E unless “life threatening” I’d hazard a guess that the wait and see approach is doomed to failure.
|
They have had that kind of message pre-covid when hospitals are full of people throwing up across wards because they have a noro outbreak or if they have a lot in with complications of flu though.
Plus, avoiding A&E unless it's urgent is kind of the point of A&E isn't it? If you haven't had an accident and aren't seriously ill then you don't go, you go to a walk in or the doctor's or stay in bed. They don't need people turning up at any time or under any conditions who could be treated more effectively elsewhere which is presumably one reason why arrivals are triaged.
I get that the response is somewhat area-dependent too, and that one particular area is getting affected more than others at the moment (and that is a good reason not to make national restrictions) which can make the local healthcare system more pressured, but in terms of raw numbers of hospital admissions, it's not growing out of control (e.g. doubling every few days), it's marginally below the levels of last year (if it stays around the 1k mark a day it will probably be no major pressure) although last year it was on a much quicker upward curve than this, and still far below the levels of 4k odd a day we were seeing last January when the NHS really couldn't cope. There is no doubt figures relative to the capacity available which would show this quite easily. And as well if people aren't in hospital as long then this can influence a raw number anyway.