Another Lockdown?

[smurfchops]

Do we think Boris would dare to announce another lockdown, possibly in a couple of weeks, the way things are going ? Or will he allow more and more Covid cases to spread all over England? Just asking….

[naomi24]

sqad, //I was trying to be sarcastic towards the post of naomi, but failed.........//

You didn't fail. Your intention was clear.

gulliver, //Sajid has been vaccinated twice ,( just saying) //

And, like most in his situation, he's not terribly ill and in hospital. Just saying.

[jim360]

I've no doubt that there are still longer-term knock-on effects that have, by definition, not been measured. Each such case would be a tragedy. But weighed against taking no action, or less action, then it seems difficult to argue that the costs would have been worse. That's even more true when you consider that, had the Health Services been overwhelmed by out-of-control Covid, all the knock-on effects you are worried about would have been even more likely.

[New Judge]

//No there won’t, [be any lockdowns because of ‘flu] you are just being silly.

Really? The Academy of Medical Sciences has issued dire warnings about what to expect next winter:

https://acmedsci.ac.uk/file-download/38576298

Their “modelling” suggests that up to 60,000 people could die from ‘flu this winter. It does not go so far as to suggest that lockdowns due to the incidence of ‘flu should take place but reading their full report, it is clear that is the intimation. After all, last winter (November to February) some 76,000 people died from Covid, and look at the measures which were taken to mitigate that.

Far from being the “envy of the world” the NHS is singularly unfit for purpose. The country had to be locked down for various periods during that time in order to “protect” it. Furthermore, much of the remaining services it performed were severely curtailed. This is quite obvious, despite the report cited by jim. Just about everybody knows of people who have suffered enormously (some of whom sadly died) as a result of normal NHS services being largely abandoned. But the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. The government now knows that it does not have to improve the NHS so that it can cope; it can simply deny treatment to patients who are not suffering from the latest disease to threaten the NHS, and impose social restrictions in an (often fruitless) attempt to prevent its spread. They know a compliant public will go along with it “to protect the NHS.” The government has chosen to allow people suffering from non-Covid ailments to die in order to treat those with Covid. It's as simple as that. If you have Covid and need hospital treatment you will be admitted without delay. If you have cancer or some other life threatening illness you will have to wait your turn - however long that takes. If that's the "envy of the world" I shudder to think what things must be like elsewhere.

[Ellipsis]

The NHS is a creaking hulk that's hugely under-resourced. But for most people, the NHS is the only medical cover they've got ... especially if there's something very seriously wrong with them. And given its under-resourcing, it does an amazing job, relying mostly on people who are not properly financially rewarded. But it will buckle if pushed too far.

At present, we have 4,094 patients in hospital with Covid and the peak in January was 39,254 - about 10x more. At present, about 12.5% are in mechanical ventilation beds, in January it was 10% (i.e. somebody in hospital now is 25% more likely to need a ventilator than somebody who was in hospital in January). Beds, ventilators, nurses, doctors, oxygen, drugs ... these are the kinds of resources that need to be considered.

At present we have about 50,000 cases a day, in January it was about the same. The much lower hospitalisation numbers now show that the vaccine is working. However, as of yesterday we're not locked down and in January we were. Cases per day are predicted to rise to 200,000. If that's correct, it would appear that hospitalisations will be below January's levels. But nobody really knows

a) whether it will stop at 200,000 or grow much larger, meaning that more hospital beds will be needed
b) whether the increased numbers will hit different parts of the population who are more likely to need a hospital bed, meaning that more hospital beds will be needed

These are the two great unknowns that mean that the NHS could be overwhelmed if the guesswork is wrong. As hospitalisation increase, the demand for every resource that goes with that increases: beds, ventilators, nurses, doctors, drugs, etc etc. In the end, something has to give somewhere.

I don't particularly love the NHS, but it's all we have and it is what it is right now. It's there to do a job and I want it to be able to do that job for me or the people I do love if needed. That's the concern.

[tomus42]

There'll probably be another lockdown when all the politicians have had a nice break but need to reconvene parliament again in September.

[teacake44]

We have a vaccine, we have proved that there is little else one can do. The vaccine needs to be tweaked were possible, other than that the only answer I could come up with is complete isolation hospitals for future covid patients, so other illnesses could be treated with less fear of people coming out of hospital with far worse than they went in for, can't really see that happening, but something needs to happen now for other illnesses without doubt.