In the earlier question I expressed grave doubts about the comments being made that the NHS was “hanging by a thread” (or some other sensational description). In today’s Telegraph there is an article which rather vindicates my viewpoint (which, according to some, means that I have “lost the plot”). Here’s a link to the article. It’s behind the DT’s paywall but if you press “escape” as the text is loading you should be able to see it:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/03/hospital-intensive-care-no-busier-normal-leaked-documents-show/
In case you can’t, it’s headlined “ Hospital intensive care no busier than normal for most trusts, leaked documents show." Here’s a few snippets:
“An update from the NHS Secondary Uses Services (SUS), seen by The Telegraph, shows that capacity is tracking as normal in October with the usual numbers of beds available that would be expected at this time of year, even without extra surge capacity. An NHS source said: "As you can see, our current position in October is exactly where we have been over the last five years."
“Although there has been a reduction in surge capacity since the first wave, with the closure of the emergency Nightingale Hospitals, there is still 15 per cent spare capacity across the country – fairly normal for this time of year.”
“In critical care, around 18 per cent of beds are still unoccupied, although it varies between regions. However, even in the worst affected areas, such as North-West, only 92.9 per cent of critical care beds are currently occupied.”
“Commenting on the new data, Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: "This is completely in line with what is normally available at this time of year. What I don't understand is that I seem to be looking at a different dataset to what the Government is presenting. Everything is looking at normal levels and free bed capacity is still significant, even in high dependency units and intensive care, even though we have a very small number across the board. We are starting to see a drop in people in hospitals.”
There’s lots more and it’s worth reading if you can. This is not about disputing the validity of the forecast that prompted the latest lockdown. It is about a major discrepancy in what we are being told is happening and what is actually the truth.
So who is telling the porkies, and why?