Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[elbows]

Well being a medical professional is not on its own a reliable guide to pandemic levels of caution, and conferences were one of the first things some people were keen to rush back to as soon as possible, despite being one of the settings I'd be more inclined to visit if I were trying to catch Covid!

 

[teuchter]

Not sure what's surprising about medics, most of whom by definition won't have been working from home for the last two years, deciding they'd like to attend a conference in person.
From my observations, trying to do conferences online is miserable and just doesn't really work.

 

[8ball]

Well being a medical professional is not on its own a reliable guide to pandemic levels of caution, and conferences were one of the first things some people were keen to rush back to as soon as possible, despite being one of the settings I'd be more inclined to visit if I were trying to catch Covid!

Or crabs.

 

[Wilf]

Not sure what's surprising about medics, most of whom by definition won't have been working from home for the last two years, deciding they'd like to attend a conference in person.
From my observations, trying to do conferences online is miserable and just doesn't really work.

But that doesn't add up to the people putting it on doing a risk assessment and thinking 'yeah, fine'.

 

[teuchter]

But that doesn't add up to the people putting it on doing a risk assessment and thinking 'yeah, fine'.

Large gatherings have been going on all over the place for some time now. Every day millions of people are sitting in pubs, trains, cinemas, planes, theatres. I don't see why a medical conference would be treated specially. Do you mean the attendees would be at an unusually high risk of carrying Covid?

 

[Wilf]

Large gatherings have been going on all over the place for some time now. Every day millions of people are sitting in pubs, trains, cinemas, planes, theatres. I don't see why a medical conference would be treated specially. Do you mean the attendees would be at an unusually high risk of carrying Covid?

Nope, I just think medics would be a bit more minded to put public health first.

 

[LDC]

Nope, I just think medics would be a bit more minded to put public health first.

I love and admire your boundless optimism comrade Wilf.

 

[8ball]

I love and admire your boundless optimism comrade Wilf.

The place is bloody exploding with it at the moment.

 

[Wilf]

I love and admire your boundless optimism comrade Wilf.

Pessimism of the head and optimism of the heart.

 

[platinumsage]

Nope, I just think medics would be a bit more minded to put public health first.

The conference was about heart valves, including hands-on surgical training elements with new technologies. You may think that doctors should abandon such things for the foreseeable, but thankfully they don't agree with you.

 

[Raheem]

Very important that they met in person in order to look at a screen.

 

[Supine]

LOL at people criticising medical professionals for carrying on working during a pandemic.

 

[two sheds]

tbf not really laughing at them for carrying on working - just questioning whether a largeish gathering in a conference room is a good idea when it might be better doing it virtually.

 

[platinumsage]

tbf not really laughing at them for carrying on working - just questioning whether a largeish gathering in a conference room is a good idea when it might be better doing it virtually.

It was both virtual and in-person. As has been said, it's not possible to do everything online, especially when it comes to new medical equipment.

But I'm sure some randoms on the internet know better than the clinicians involved.

 

[two sheds]

It was both virtual and in-person. As has been said, it's not possible to do everything online, especially when it comes to new medical equipment.

But I'm sure some randoms on the internet know better than the clinicians involved.

 

[StoneRoad]

In theory, I have no objection , at all, to this type of conference.

But you would think that the people attending in person would be more than paranoid about ensuring the anti-covid precautions were above top-notch - and including travel to/from & during any 'socialising / networking' associated with the event.

I'm more incline to think the person concerned caught it on one the flights involved. [cf the Dutch experience with flights from SA recently]

 

[Wilf]

It was both virtual and in-person. As has been said, it's not possible to do everything online, especially when it comes to new medical equipment.

But I'm sure some randoms on the internet know better than the clinicians involved.

If there's a good argument for a mass gathering of a 1000+ people sat next to each other in a hall, some without masks, I'm open to hearing it. And no, I don't have any objection to ongoing practical training.

 

[platinumsage]

If there's a good argument for a mass gathering of a 1000+ people sat next to each other in a hall, some without masks, I'm open to hearing it. And no, I don't have any objection to ongoing practical training.

You realise that hospital doctors are more likely to catch the virus in hospital than elsewhere, right? Attending the conference would have reduced their risk for several days.

 

[IC3D]

Judging from the sidelines is why nurses and doctors are reluctant to strike despite knowing that care given suffers through underfunding they will get blamed by patients for and blamed by the public for taking industrial action to do something about it.

 

[existentialist]

Judging from the sidelines is why nurses and doctors are reluctant to strike despite knowing that care given suffers through underfunding they will get blamed by patients for and blamed by the public for taking industrial action to do something about it.

No, most medical people are reluctant to strike because they tend to give a pretty serious damn about the job they do. I think it's a bit of an insult to suggest it's because they're worried about being blamed.

And, of course, successive governments have been only too happy to exploit (and mischaracterise, as you have done) that sense of vocation, and use it to enable themselves to shit on front line medical staff, in the almost certain knowledge that they'll just suck it up.

ETA: interesting that IC3D thinks that this post is amusing (per the "like")

 

[elbows]

You realise that hospital doctors are more likely to catch the virus in hospital than elsewhere, right? Attending the conference would have reduced their risk for several days.

I dont agree with that at all. Conferences have inherent risks as was demonstrated near the start of the pandemic. Especially when participants gather from around the world. Obviously medical settings have big risks too but also plenty of mitigation measures, especially if appropriate PPE is actually available. The risk-reward balance is also different, and one setting involves absolutely essential work that cannot be said of the conference.

The virus loves it when humans network.

 

[elbows]

And just because the professional classes have ways to dress up their socialising as being of vital importance, I dont view such things with much higher regard than the regard I had for certain classes weakness for dinner parties during the pandemic.

Plus if you think the participants normal jobs incurs a high risk of exposure to the virus, then bringing people with that shared risk together from all over the world so they can then spread anything they picked up in their normal job setting amongst themselves in a more casual setting hardly sounds like something that would genuinely 'reduce their risk for a couple of days'. New connections = new opportunities for the virus. Plus throw in some potential exposure or transmission whilst travelling.

Its not really surprising that lots of people wanted to return to old behaviours sooner than was strictly wise. Some degree of difficult judgements and balance were always going to be required. I'm entirely unsurprised that many poor decisions have been made on this front in 2021. Now the consequences will be felt, although at least even I dont view those consequences as likely to resemble 'being right back to square one'.

 

[platinumsage]

I dont agree with that at all. Conferences have inherent risks as was demonstrated near the start of the pandemic. Especially when participants gather from around the world. Obviously medical settings have big risks too but also plenty of mitigation measures, especially if appropriate PPE is actually available. The risk-reward balance is also different, and one setting involves absolutely essential work that cannot be said of the conference.

The virus loves it when humans network.

I'm not sure you're properly recognizing the insidious risks associated with indefinitely abandoning in-person medical educational and research events. Comparisons to pre-testing pre-vaccine events aren't really useful.

 

[elbows]

The word indefinitely has something in common with 'if not now then when?' stuff that was used to justify a timetable for returning to normal in 2021 that I completely disagreed with.

I generally file all this stuff under 'asking the vaccine to carry more pandemic weight than it was wise to expect it really could, at least for the first year or so'.

A lot of the decisions and balancing acts arent easy, and I dont want to pretend otherwise. But all the mistakes and inappropriate attitudes and though processes at the start of the pandemic, including from the very people who ideally should have known better, offered strong clues about the nature of the mistakes that could be made again during the initial vaccination stage of the pandemic. And I'm a bit grouchy that it is indeed playing out this way as feared.

 

[Supine]

The word indefinitely has something in common with 'if not now then when?' stuff that was used to justify a timetable for returning to normal in 2021 that I completely disagreed with.

I generally file all this stuff under 'asking the vaccine to carry more pandemic weight than it was wise to expect it really could, at least for the first year or so'.

A lot of the decisions and balancing acts arent easy, and I dont want to pretend otherwise. But all the mistakes and inappropriate attitudes and though processes at the start of the pandemic, including from the very people who ideally should have known better, offered strong clues about the nature of the mistakes that could be made again during the initial vaccination stage of the pandemic. And I'm a bit grouchy that it is indeed playing out this way as feared.

Its all very well you sitting at home safely commenting on covid constantly but the medical profession has not had that luxury. They’ve most caught covid and been treble jabbed so to an extent when would they get back to normal if not this year?

Plus 1200 people at a conference and was it one report of catching it? Sounds like the conference could have been completely safe.

 

[IC3D]

You can't learn hospital on zoom.

 

[Raheem]

Its all very well you sitting at home safely commenting on covid constantly but the medical profession has not had that luxury. They’ve most caught covid and been treble jabbed so to an extent when would they get back to normal if not this year?

Plus 1200 people at a conference and was it one report of catching it? Sounds like the conference could have been completely safe.

They can get back to normal when it's a safe thing to do, surely?

Come on, there's no way 1,200 people at a conference are doing anything important they couldn't do over zoom. They're zoning out during presentations and eating food with French in the name. They're not learning new life-saving techniques hands-on, because you don't do that in groups of 1,200, and you rarely need to cross continents to get there.

 

[elbows]

Its all very well you sitting at home safely commenting on covid constantly but the medical profession has not had that luxury. They’ve most caught covid and been treble jabbed so to an extent when would they get back to normal if not this year?

Plus 1200 people at a conference and was it one report of catching it? Sounds like the conference could have been completely safe.

Dont go back to relative normality until the acute phase of the pandemic is clearly over, and a much higher proportion of the world is protected. Which it was not this year, as demonstrated in many ways including over 5 and a half million people testing positive in the UK since the start of June.

These new mistakes and stupid attitudes and justifications look a lot like the old mistakes made at the start. As do the arguments with me about it. Maybe you'll have better luck this time, but I have my doubts.

 

[Supine]

They can get back to normal when it's a safe thing to do, surely?

Come on, there's no way 1,200 people at a conference are doing anything important they couldn't do over zoom. They're zoning out during presentations and eating food with French in the name. They're not learning new life-saving techniques hands-on, because you don't do that in groups of 1,200, and you rarely need to cross continents to get there.

If you looked at the conference website you’d notice there are lots of practical exercises in the syllabus. I’m keen to have heart surgery from people who have had a practice first

 

[platinumsage]

Dont go back to relative normality until the acute phase of the pandemic is clearly over, and a much higher proportion of the world is protected. Which it was not this year, as demonstrated in many ways including over 5 and a half million people testing positive in the UK since the start of June.

These new mistakes and stupid attitudes and justifications look a lot like the old mistakes made at the start. As do the arguments with me about it. Maybe you'll have better luck this time, but I have my doubts.

I thought you said decisions and balancing acts weren’t easy, but apparently they are easy if only everyone would follow your assessment of risk.

If you think that this conference was a stupid mistake, you’re entitled to your view, but don’t act like it’s unreasonable for all those heart surgeons to have arrived at a different view.