Funnily enough one of my patch friends is an ex theatre nurse and she was saying that the HIV levels in SA were a breeding ground for Covid mutations cos of the reduced immunity to infections.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I don’t know the answer either @punkdoc, but as a start I would like to see a reasonable, non-hysterical, grown up debate about the options that are potentially open to us as a way forward.
Otherwise we will all be locked down from December to February every year - now they know that lockdowns are an option to be able to run an under capacity system it will be difficult not to call for them in all manner of circumstances.
"we will all be locked down from December to February every
year - now they know that lockdowns are an option to be able to run an
under capacity system it will be difficult not to call for them in all
manner of circumstances."
Full lockdowns are pretty deeply resented across the board for a thousand reasons and blame will usually be put at the feet of the govt for failing. They create chaos and terrible economic fall out. I suspect it will work more the other way, that govts should probably lock down but will resist it to the bitter end.
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A controversial perspective perhaps, but I think it's pretty evident that the NHS can't possibly meet the tasks it was initially set up for in 1947, even with a massive increase in budget and taxation to fund it. Without the public on board with health messages - around diabetes, obesity, smoking, drug use, alcohol etc - it's a bottomless well. An ageing population makes huge demands. It strikes me that we are trying to fit a large square peg into a small round hole.
No need to re-invent the wheel @punkdoc and @chicky. Just adopt the proven German system which began way back in the 1880s as a means of ensuring the poorest workers and government employees had access to health care. It is evolved to be the most consumer oriented system in the world with almost always free choice of care and practitioner for patients.
There would also have to be considerable investment in training staff who are currently in short supply and providing the facilities - decent working conditions plus hospitals, clinics, equipment and laboratories - to deliver good care across all the regions.
As for lockdowns, no need if everyone would just wear their masks properly when out and about, wash their hands regularly, keep their distance and get their jabs. That would slow the spread and then, maybe, there'd be no catastrophic spikes of infection and maybe, just maybe, the virus will run out of steam. The Plague went away and so did "Spanish" flu but it looks like SARS and its variants are more persistent so we all just need to be mindful and considerate of others and take more care.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
We need a change of government. We need a set of leaders who will make radical reforms inside government/the civil service to cut excessive waste, overhaul the procurement systems in a way that delivers best value for money and favours British firms, make hiding wealth offshore illegal and demand the super wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, impose a tariff on all stock exchange deals (the Robin Hood tax), strip out the House of Lords in favour of an elected 2nd House, stop MPs having 2nd jobs unless they fall within a defined set of jobs that benefit the community, regulate the property industry to the point where oligarchs/shell companies cannot buy/build purely as investment, and reform how political parties are funded to prevent high net worth individuals 'buying' MPs. All this wealth can then be used for the national good - more medical staff trained (for free through bursaries), more hospitals built, more schools - taking out the for profit investors in both, improvements in existing infrastructure, more money for local councils to create joined up social care, investment in green technologies... And, since this is the Covid thread - a concerted joined up effort across the globe to create and disseminate vaccines. Until all countries have the vast majority of their populations vaccinated (and continuing to be vaccinated as more variants emerge), no-one is safe. Sadly someone - a local lady, very involved in the local community - said to me recently that on the whole she thought Boris has done a good job over Covid. No. No he hasn't. And until that filters through to those who are not politically engaged, who simply glance at the Mail as they go about their daily lives what we have got is Boris and his cocaine-snorting sycophants working hard on having a good time and doing all they can to stay in power.
Sadly, I don’t think that anything much will improve when important decisions like health care and dealing with crises like pandemics are in the hands of elected individuals. They will always have an eye on their future re-election prospects, so decisions will be made with one eye on the voters, and by the nature of the system, will be driven by short term gains. Ive long been of the opinion that someone who actually wants to go into politics is the last person that should be appointed!
OK @Chris-P-Bacon - so say those three sitting in that room in the video had no underlying health problems. They all look fairly young and healthy. But say one of them had covid without knowing it and passed it on to one of the others and that person got really sick and died (having himself passed it on to however many others) - then I think you'll see why a transmissible disease like covid needs to be taken seriously. In another scenario, say one of those three had prostate cancer and died from it - the deaths stop there. Yes there are millions of deaths each year - we all die - but covid resulted in a much higher than average no. of deaths.
Posts
BUT, how do we do it?
I certainly don't know and I spent most of my working life pondering it and worked in several other health care systems.
[ Actually not quite true, I do have some ideas, but some of them would be very unpalatable to a lot of people, so I keep them to myself ]
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
There would also have to be considerable investment in training staff who are currently in short supply and providing the facilities - decent working conditions plus hospitals, clinics, equipment and laboratories - to deliver good care across all the regions.
As for lockdowns, no need if everyone would just wear their masks properly when out and about, wash their hands regularly, keep their distance and get their jabs. That would slow the spread and then, maybe, there'd be no catastrophic spikes of infection and maybe, just maybe, the virus will run out of steam. The Plague went away and so did "Spanish" flu but it looks like SARS and its variants are more persistent so we all just need to be mindful and considerate of others and take more care.
Sadly someone - a local lady, very involved in the local community - said to me recently that on the whole she thought Boris has done a good job over Covid. No. No he hasn't. And until that filters through to those who are not politically engaged, who simply glance at the Mail as they go about their daily lives what we have got is Boris and his cocaine-snorting sycophants working hard on having a good time and doing all they can to stay in power.
Ive long been of the opinion that someone who actually wants to go into politics is the last person that should be appointed!
https://twitter.com/triggerpod/status/1469349065032978438?s=20