The virus. PPE. Part 1

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cambsno said:
Possibly but that is too simplistic an argument. You need to study the deaths in more detail and understand who died and why. The problem is that a care home will have by nature, old people with health conditions, so if they get it they will (probably) die. The key question is how many of these deaths would have occured without covid-19? Some of these people would have been in poor health and died over the coming weeks or months anyway. The slightest thing could kill, from a cold, to flu, or any other trivial ailment.

I guess the only way you can protect a care home is to lock it down to all visitors, and that the staff are tested every time they turn up for work (although IIRC up till recently tests would take 24/48 hours to come back) and even then, have to wear full PPE. The downside to that would be, this would have to stay in some form or another for 18 months till we get a vaccine, and then you have a quality of life issue for the residents - basically you know you may not have long to live and you spend your final months effectively in isolation from family and friends. That would probably see people just giving up on life. Very hard balance to get right
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You say " Possibly but that is too simplistic an argument." then a full paragraph of facts and figures about people in care homes they everyone knows and accepts.
The graphs they used on the lunchtime news illustrating care home deaths were just that "simplistic" they showed a number of months of average care home deaths up to the onset of
covid-19 and the rise in the figures since. Many of these extra deaths are recorded as covid-19 deaths, also many of the unattributed deaths (i.e above the median line of the graphs)
are also thought to be covid-19 related. What else would the graphs figure suggest ?
 
badlywornroy said:
It would seem from the latest reported hospital deaths plus the care home deaths now beginning to be 'available' to the general public that the total UK deaths
attributable to covid-19 is way in excess of 30,000. While there is obviously going to be discrepancies due to the gathering of the data it is reported that the
higher death totals we were reading in France, Spain and Italy were including care home deaths. It now looks as if the UK probably has the highest death rate in the World after the USA ?
In the Governments haste to "Protect the NHS" (their words) have they 'accepted' the high mortality rate? and thrown the care homes 'under the bus' ?
This Government has been in power and therefore custodians of the NHS for 10 years. When their handling of this pandemic is analysed I surmise that they cannot
afford to have the failings of an inadequate NHS held responsible in any way. This would surely be the death (sic) knell of this government,

Discuss.
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I think anyone that didnt simply believe the figures at face value knew numbers were likely higher due to no reporting of care homes, private hospital and deaths of people in their own home (there was a nurse in London died alone in his flat).
As for the acceptance of high mortality rates related to the elderly and care homes in particular? Yes, I'd agree that either through negligence or design they are responsible for a higher death count than should have happened.
As for the current government being held responsible for an inadequate NHS? They will simply argue that it did it's job admirably, proven by the face that a 4000 nightingale hospital didn't need to be used etc etc and that there is still emergency capacity within hospitals etc. Of course no one will have the brains to push home the fact that if the NHS has coped so well, why has damn near everything else the NHS does been stopped?

cambsno said:
Possibly but that is too simplistic an argument. You need to study the deaths in more detail and understand who died and why. The problem is that a care home will have by nature, old people with health conditions, so if they get it they will (probably) die. The key question is how many of these deaths would have occured without covid-19? Some of these people would have been in poor health and died over the coming weeks or months anyway. The slightest thing could kill, from a cold, to flu, or any other trivial ailment.
Click to expand...

Were you born stupid or is it a skill you have developed over the years?
You've just described the care home system as a f*****g hospice and devalued every nurse, doctor, pharmacist, physio, occupational therapist, care assistant, social worker and any other health worker on the front line that works in both these areas.

cambsno said:
- basically you know you may not have long to live and you spend your final months effectively in isolation from family and friends. That would probably see people just giving up on life. Very hard balance to get right
Click to expand...

Not if you were in f*****g charge, with your level of knowledge you'd be rebranding as Dignitas waiting rooms anyway! :banghead::banghead:
 
Chris Giles and Gill Plimmer in the FT, via The Guardian:

'Since the beginning of March, there have been 27,015 more deaths registered up to April 17 than the five-year average for the time of year.

With an average delay of four days between someone dying and their death being registered, the figures relate to the period to April 13, during which the government said there had been 11,408 deaths of people testing positive for coronavirus in English and Welsh hospitals ...

The official figures verified Financial Times modelling that suggested 41,000 people had died by last Tuesday either directly or indirectly as a result of coronavirus, with the death registrations higher than expected by the FT’s model.

With almost 30,000 excess deaths by mid-April across the UK, approximately two weeks ago, the number of total deaths now is likely to be in excess of 45,000, according to the FT model.'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...08103bdf8097fa#block-5ea83d178f08103bdf8097fa
 
badlywornroy said:
It would seem from the latest reported hospital deaths plus the care home deaths now beginning to be 'available' to the general public that the total UK deaths
attributable to covid-19 is way in excess of 30,000. While there is obviously going to be discrepancies due to the gathering of the data it is reported that the
higher death totals we were reading in France, Spain and Italy were including care home deaths. It now looks as if the UK probably has the highest death rate in the World after the USA ?
In the Governments haste to "Protect the NHS" (their words) have they 'accepted' the high mortality rate? and thrown the care homes 'under the bus' ?
This Government has been in power and therefore custodians of the NHS for 10 years. When their handling of this pandemic is analysed I surmise that they cannot
afford to have the failings of an inadequate NHS held responsible in any way. This would surely be the death (sic) knell of this government,

Discuss.
Click to expand...

I am in no doubt that when/if there is a full inquiry into CV-19 this government will point the fingers of blame elsewhere. They are not being held to account by the press for their failings and right now, banning Ch4 news and The Sunday Times from asking (difficult and probing) questions in their briefings. It's a strange time when Piers Morgan is about the only 'journalist' to put any real pressure on government ministers in interviews.
For 10 years the NHS has been stripped and pillaged by the Conservatives in an effort to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, now the chickens are coming home to roost (and the way the NHS is getting it's much needed funding........a brave man, just short 100yrs of age doing a sponsored walk, if that alone doesn't make you feel sick and ashamed I pity you.) . We then find out that Cummings, one of the PM's cheif advisors is sitting in on SAGE meetings, he is no scientist and it is claimed he said something along the lines of, when discussing the affects of CV-19 on the ecconomy, "if some old folks die then that's too bad", so we all know where his priorities lay. Would a Labour or Liberal or whatever party government fared any better? we'll never know, but maybe a cross-party committee should have been formed and thrown party allegiencies out of the window untill this crap was resolved, too late for that now. Rant over.
 
joxby said:
Its a rad left ranty insult-a-thon

never mind, the lefty immunity police are on tea break so it won't count.

:ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
?
 
Around here and I know many other places, care homes were closed to visitors long before the lock down
so who infected the residents is questionable, possibly staff or they on necessary visits to local hospitals.
The lockdown certainly didn't save them, nor would PPE unless it was changed for every patient the workers visited

Yes it's a sad fact that many have died, but it goes to show that being in isolated communities doesn't save lives
and without proper autopsy we will never know what many did actually die of
 
Gremlin said:
Around here and I know many other places, care homes were closed to visitors long before the lock down
so who infected the residents is questionable, possibly staff or they on necessary visits to local hospitals.
The lockdown certainly didn't save them, nor would PPE unless it was changed for every patient the workers visited

Yes it's a sad fact that many have died, but it goes to show that being in isolated communities doesn't save lives
and without proper autopsy we will never know what many did actually die of
Click to expand...
Local care home lost 16 residents to coronavirus recently.
Local shop a few hundred yards away from the care home had 2 staff infected.
Possibly staff from the care home visiting the shop carrying the virus and not realising? Or could be coincidental.
 
Marc said:
Ignore him, it's a sort of latter day "reds under the bed" thing.
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I've never understood the plural in that. Can you actually get more than one red under a bed? I suppose you could get two under our king size but what will they do with our spare duvets and my camera begs? :naughty:
 
I referred in my post #6801 above to the graphs showing the care home deaths. Here is the graph I saw

i-LKwxRrC.jpg


When comparing the graphs since the 3 Apr with the previous Mar graphs it is desperately hard not to believe the covid-19 deaths are being underreported.
 
Gremlin said:
Around here and I know many other places, care homes were closed to visitors long before the lock down
so who infected the residents is questionable, possibly staff or they on necessary visits to local hospitals.
The lockdown certainly didn't save them, nor would PPE unless it was changed for every patient the workers visited

Yes it's a sad fact that many have died, but it goes to show that being in isolated communities doesn't save lives
and without proper autopsy we will never know what many did actually die of
Click to expand...

Proper isolation in combination with testing saves lives. There were weeks when residents infected by chains of transmission that started before the lockdown, others returning from hospital, and staff went untested . In this sort of setting, everyone needs to be tested and anyone found to be infected, isolated.
 
Donnie said:
I think anyone that didnt simply believe the figures at face value knew numbers were likely higher due to no reporting of care homes, private hospital and deaths of people in their own home (there was a nurse in London died alone in his flat).
As for the acceptance of high mortality rates related to the elderly and care homes in particular? Yes, I'd agree that either through negligence or design they are responsible for a higher death count than should have happened.
As for the current government being held responsible for an inadequate NHS? They will simply argue that it did it's job admirably, proven by the face that a 4000 nightingale hospital didn't need to be used etc etc and that there is still emergency capacity within hospitals etc. Of course no one will have the brains to push home the fact that if the NHS has coped so well, why has damn near everything else the NHS does been stopped?



Were you born stupid or is it a skill you have developed over the years?
You've just described the care home system as a f*****g hospice and devalued every nurse, doctor, pharmacist, physio, occupational therapist, care assistant, social worker and any other health worker on the front line that works in both these areas.



Not if you were in f*****g charge, with your level of knowledge you'd be rebranding as Dignitas waiting rooms anyway! :banghead::banghead:
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Thanks for your constructive reply. I was thinking of two local care homes I have particular experience of. Both generally have 70+ residents and iirc I don’t think they have anyone under 60. Appreciate all care homes are different but in the main these have people who have health issues and most of the people are over 80.
 
tarric said:
Well I've just re-watched last nights panorama programme, if even half of what they stated is true it's a damming indictment on the government and goes some way to explaining the PPE fiasco.
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As ever with panorama they do seem to like to border in the dramatic, for example they claimed the government counted gloves as singles not pairs...every big pack of disposable gloves (I,e. hospital ward box style packaging) I have ever bought is a pack of 100 gloves, not 50 or 100 pairs.

https://www.gompels.co.uk/gloves/?sort=p.sort_order&order=ASC&page=1&end=1

https://www.sja.org.uk/first-aid-su...-and-consumables/disposable-first-aid-gloves/

https://www.justgloves.co.uk/Nitrile-Gloves

Etc. Etc.

(The exception has been when St. John ambulance supplies used to supply prepacked pairs of gloves for glove box kits and the like designed to be kept in small quantities and used occasionally, these were sold as packs of 10 pairs).

Splitting hairs I know but the entire culture of claims like that on panorama means I struggle to take it seriously.

Although there do appear to have been significant issues with ppe and those in the nhs and care industries have my sympathy.
 
cambsno said:
Thanks for your constructive reply. I was thinking of two local care homes I have particular experience of. Both generally have 70+ residents and iirc I don’t think they have anyone under 60. Appreciate all care homes are different but in the main these have people who have health issues and most of the people are over 80.
Click to expand...

So what is your point ? I refer you to your comment in your earlier post:-

" The key question is how many of these deaths would have occured without covid-19? Some of these people would have been in poor health and died over the coming weeks or months anyway. The slightest thing could kill, from a cold, to flu, or any other trivial ailment. "

Are you trying to justify government apathy towards the huge loss of lives in care homes ? A nation should be judged on how it cares for it's old, weak and infirm.
With their overwhelming focus on the NHS ( politically motivated ? ) The care homes have been left 'leaderless' and sadly lacking in PPE. These are 'Care Homes' not nursing homes.
Care home residents are no more likely to have health issues than elderly perople still lucky enough to live at home or with family. I believe this will all 'come out' in an enquiry when
some sort of normality resumes and I am betting the many thousands of families who have lost mothers, fathers etc in care homes are not going to like what surfaces.
 
Mozthecat said:
As ever with panorama they do seem to like to border in the dramatic, for example they claimed the government counted gloves as singles not pairs...every big pack of disposable gloves (I,e. hospital ward box style packaging) I have ever bought is a pack of 100 gloves, not 50 or 100 pairs.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry I thought that 10's of thousands of people dying was quite dramatic enough, but if they were not trying to pad the figures why not just count a box as 1, that's what my company did as we went through about 2,000 boxes a day but then I suppose 200,000 sounds better if you are trying to show how hard you are working to keep up with supply, I wish I'd thought of that I could have made it look like I was really busy.
 
cambsno said:
Possibly but that is too simplistic an argument. You need to study the deaths in more detail and understand who died and why. The problem is that a care home will have by nature, old people with health conditions, so if they get it they will (probably) die. The key question is how many of these deaths would have occured without covid-19? Some of these people would have been in poor health and died over the coming weeks or months anyway. The slightest thing could kill, from a cold, to flu, or any other trivial ailment.

I guess the only way you can protect a care home is to lock it down to all visitors, and that the staff are tested every time they turn up for work (although IIRC up till recently tests would take 24/48 hours to come back) and even then, have to wear full PPE. The downside to that would be, this would have to stay in some form or another for 18 months till we get a vaccine, and then you have a quality of life issue for the residents - basically you know you may not have long to live and you spend your final months effectively in isolation from family and friends. That would probably see people just giving up on life. Very hard balance to get right
Click to expand...

You are not taking into account the many reports that people with COVID19 (maybe symptomless) and others "recovered from COVID19 but both lots untested/unreliably tested, have been discharged from hospitals into care homes., that also are short of the right PPe.
 
We stand heads bowed in respect
stream_img.jpg

They should stand heads bowed in shame.
stream1_img.jpg
Except the one at the bottom right by all accounts he is doing a wonderful job.
 
cambsno said:
Thanks for your constructive reply. I was thinking of two local care homes I have particular experience of. Both generally have 70+ residents and iirc I don’t think they have anyone under 60. Appreciate all care homes are different but in the main these have people who have health issues and most of the people are over 80.
Click to expand...

It wasn't meant to be constructive so your smartass reply is moot. As is your attempt to justify your stupidity in the post I replied to by saying no ones less than 60 (so what?) and most are over 80, again, so what?
None of that has any bearing on your comments assuming everyone going in a home has either weeks or months to live!
 
Donnie said:
It wasn't meant to be constructive so your smartass reply is moot. As is your attempt to justify your stupidity in the post I replied to by saying no ones less than 60 (so what?) and most are over 80, again, so what?
None of that has any bearing on your comments assuming everyone going in a home has either weeks or months to live!
Click to expand...
Indeed, when I was 60 (granted I wasn’t in a care home) I had another 23 years to go (so far) and have had ”health issues“ all that time but mostly very “healthy” thanks to NHS :)
 
sphexx said:
but mostly very “healthy” thanks to NHS :)
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The one good thing that should come out of this is bringing the NHS back together again and reversing out the nonsense of the internal market. When I use the word "nonsense" I am writing from experience: I was involved with the early development of systems to achieve the mandated changes and as we proceeded it became clear that it would achieve the exact opposite of the government's stated aims. Like all vanity projects it aquired a life of its own because too many people had nailed their colours to its mast and did not dare to admit their many and various errors.
 
.The simple truth is, and always has been. The NHS is not in safe hands with the Conservative party. Despite their protestations a 'National' health service is basically at odds with their beliefs.
Backdoor privatisation and outsourcing is akin to 'death by a thousand cuts'
 
tarric said:
They should stand heads bowed in shame.
View attachment 276877

Except the one at the bottom right by all accounts he is doing a wonderful job.
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I respectfully suggest a reshuffle.

The position of the person on the upper left should be swapped to that on the lower right and vice versa.

I would anticipate a considerable improvement in the competence of the government.
 
Uncle Fester said:
I respectfully suggest a reshuffle.

The position of the person on the upper left should be swapped to that on the lower right and vice versa.

I would anticipate a considerable improvement in the competence of the government.
Click to expand...

I've got to agree the swapping of Boris for Larry has it's merits and I really don't see a downside, but leaving him in charge of those rats I see nothing but a blood bath, my humanity says it's probably better they go.
 
badlywornroy said:
It would seem from the latest reported hospital deaths plus the care home deaths now beginning to be 'available' to the general public that the total UK deaths
attributable to covid-19 is way in excess of 30,000. While there is obviously going to be discrepancies due to the gathering of the data it is reported that the
higher death totals we were reading in France, Spain and Italy were including care home deaths. It now looks as if the UK probably has the highest death rate in the World after the USA ?
In the Governments haste to "Protect the NHS" (their words) have they 'accepted' the high mortality rate? and thrown the care homes 'under the bus' ?
This Government has been in power and therefore custodians of the NHS for 10 years. When their handling of this pandemic is analysed I surmise that they cannot
afford to have the failings of an inadequate NHS held responsible in any way. This would surely be the death (sic) knell of this government,

Discuss.
Click to expand...

Chris Whitty has continually said they are using hospital deaths as a measure because it is the most comparible to the way other countries are collating their figures:

Speaking at the press conference on 9th April, the government’s chief medical adviser Chris Whitty said that both the wider registration-based figures and the hospital-based numbers had their uses. The merit of the NHS figures was the speed with which they became available, making them particularly valuable for decision-makers and allowing them to “see in relatively near time the trends over time.” He also said that they were “very comparable to international figures which tend to be collected in the same way.”

IMO the Government have done an absolutely fantastic job and couldn't have handled this any better than they have - my applause on Thursday evenings is mainly directed towards this government - it really is the best I can remember; I got paid my small business grant within 5 days of applying and the payment for staff I furloghed was paid into the account within 4 days.

The monumental effort has been incredibly impressive over such a humongous logistical challenge - well done HMG (y)
 
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RWDW said:
IMO the Government have done an absolutely fantastic job and couldn't have handled this any better than they have - my applause on Thursday evenings is mainly directed towards this government - it really is the best I can remember; I got paid my small business grant within 5 days of applying and the payment for staff I furloghed was paid into the account within 4 days.

The monumental effort has been incredibly impressive over such a humongous logistical challenge - well done HMG (y)
Click to expand...

Why I accept this situation is (here's that word again) unprecedented and the Government is hopefully learning all the time ? to credit them with doing "an absolutely fantastic job"
is at the very least a 'blinkered' view and seemingly at odds with the majority of the UK population at this time. Are you basing your lavish praise on the Government's response to
your business and furloughed staff and not gving sufficient credence to the human suffering ?

Leaving aside the complete abandonment of UK care homes, until the wider public knowledge of the death toll here has forced a response let us look at the wider reaction.


A sample of headlines from The Times, The Guardian and The Independent

Public trust plummets in Britain's handling of pandemic, new poll reveals

Coronavirus: Majority of public believe Boris Johnson imposed lockdown too late, poll shows.

Fears that Cheltenham Festival may have spread coronavirus throughout country

More than 250,000 racegoers attended the four day racing festival last month – and there are claims that the event helped spread coronavirus across the UK.

Coronavirus tracker shows Liverpool is hotspot as city's death toll rises

Why were 3,000 Madrid supporters allowed to come to Liverpool when matches in the top two divisions in Spain were already being played behind closed doors while nurseries, schools and universities were shut.

And regarding the supply of PPE to front line staff well, where do we start ? Choose your headline.

UK government accused of cover-up over EU scheme to buy PPE

Why are the Government not able to be open and honest with the UK public and admit their mistakes the vast majority will be understanding.
 
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Maybe the "abandonment" of care homes was a decision that happened from necessity with no real conscious input.
No one knew or knows how lethal this disease might be, so who do you make the most effort to save with limited resources?
Younger people who can reproduce, work, rebuild the economy and replace the fallen or those that can't?
Nature invariably chooses that way, civilisation has always relied upon survival of the fittest

The system has failed to provide for the elderly in much the same way it abandoned the mentally ill years ago.
All the deaths we are seeing now are the result of many years of underfunding in geriatric care.
 
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tijuana taxi said:
Maybe the "abandonment" of care homes was a decision that happened from necessity with no real conscious input.
No one knew or knows how lethal this disease might be, so who do you make the most effort to save with limited resources?
Younger people who can reproduce, work, rebuild the economy and replace the fallen or those that can't?
Nature invariably chooses that way, civilisation has always relied upon survival of the fittest

The system has failed to provide for the elderly in much the same way it abandoned the mentally ill years ago.
All the deaths we are seeing now are the result of many years of underfunding in geriatric care.
Click to expand...

I understand this thinking and in some scenarios this would be a cogent argument but the covid-19 related deaths are not spread across the generations. Statistics say only 1% of the deaths are in the 20-39 age group. Deaths by age.
Dan Snow the historian has just been on TV lamenting the loss of so many of the older generation and their memories of the 2nd World War etc We owe these people better than this.
 
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badlywornroy said:
I understand this thinking and in some scenarios this would be a cogent argument but the covid-19 related deaths are not spread across the generations. Statistics say only 1% of the deaths are in the 20-39 age group. Deaths by age.
Dan Snow the historian has just been on TV lamenting the loss of so many of the older generation and their memories of the 2nd World War etc We owe these people better than this.
Click to expand...

I totally agree that our older generation deserve better and this has highlighted the poor provision of services.
 
tijuana taxi said:
Maybe the "abandonment" of care homes was a decision that happened from necessity with no real conscious input.
No one knew or knows how lethal this disease might be, so who do you make the most effort to save with limited resources?
Younger people who can reproduce, work, rebuild the economy and replace the fallen or those that can't?
Nature invariably chooses that way, civilisation has always relied upon survival of the fittest

The system has failed to provide for the elderly in much the same way it abandoned the mentally ill years ago.
All the deaths we are seeing now are the result of many years of underfunding in geriatric care.
Click to expand...
Actually this complete b******t. It‘s not “nature’s way” to kill off the old in favour of the young, if there is any “way” at all it would be to “sacrifice” the youngest as evidenced by the high death rates of the young in “natural” systems.

This goes double for “civilisation” where the old are repositories of learning, experience, skills and so on while the young know nothing (I exaggerate slightly of course :)) though they have their uses, mainly as cannon fodder in wars if history is any guide :(.
 
sphexx said:
Actually this complete b******t. It‘s not “nature’s way” to kill off the old in favour of the young, if there is any “way” at all it would be to “sacrifice” the youngest as evidenced by the high death rates of the young in “natural” systems.

This goes double for “civilisation” where the old are repositories of learning, experience, skills and so on while the young know nothing (I exaggerate slightly of course :)) though they have their uses, mainly as cannon fodder in wars if history is any guide :(.
Click to expand...

Completely unbiased view
 
RWDW said:
Chris Whitty has continually said they are using hospital deaths as a measure because it is the most comparible to the way other countries are collating their figures:

Speaking at the press conference on 9th April, the government’s chief medical adviser Chris Whitty said that both the wider registration-based figures and the hospital-based numbers had their uses. The merit of the NHS figures was the speed with which they became available, making them particularly valuable for decision-makers and allowing them to “see in relatively near time the trends over time.” He also said that they were “very comparable to international figures which tend to be collected in the same way.”

IMO the Government have done an absolutely fantastic job and couldn't have handled this any better than they have - my applause on Thursday evenings is mainly directed towards this government - it really is the best I can remember; I got paid my small business grant within 5 days of applying and the payment for staff I furloghed was paid into the account within 4 days.

The monumental effort has been incredibly impressive over such a humongous logistical challenge - well done HMG (y)
Click to expand...

Boris, is that you?
And thank you for bring some (unintended) joy to this grey morning. Possibly the most humorous post i have ever read on TP!
 
tijuana taxi said:
All the deaths we are seeing now are the result of many years of underfunding in geriatric care.
Click to expand...

Fixed that for you as you seem to have forgotton the 53% of deaths that don't fit into your accepted losses in geriatrics. :rolleyes:
 
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