Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Azrael]

Regarding the discharge of elderly patients to care homes: if it can't be done safely, requisition some of the hotels currently lying empty, build temporary hospitals for the sickest elderly patients if needed, hire and train more carers if needed. The state's resources are vast. Decades of laissez-faire dogma has blinded us to what it can do when it wants to.

 

[andysays]

Do you have any idea of how complex and what a minefield it would be dealing with every single care home resident that wanted to go home but you needed to 'detain' and send to a dedicated CV+ place? And the corresponding uproar if that had happened?

Sorry if my post wasn't clear, I'm not suggesting this can or should happen, mostly because of logistical issues.

But given the danger of one care home patient who returns infecting many others, I think there's a strong argument that the needs of the many uninfected should outweigh those of the few already infected if it were logistically possible.

But that's not to say that's in any way an ideal or non-problematic way of attempting to deal with it.

 

[Chilli.s]

So the system that we have built to look after our old ones is basically broken by this infection, what a pity no one saw that coming. Care homes as we have them now have generated a huge profit for their owners in the last 20 years.

 

[teuchter]

We have a care home system that can not deal with this current crisis. Calling for decision makers who have to deal with the situation as it is to be sent to prison for negligence isn't going to help anything.

 

[zahir]

Do you have any idea of how complex and what a minefield it would be dealing with every single care home resident that wanted to go home but you needed to 'detain' and send to a dedicated CV+ place? And the corresponding uproar if that had happened?

Surely the problem isn’t going to go away and there will have to be some system of quarantine care homes set up for people to stay between leaving hospital and returning to regular care homes.

 

[LDC]

So the system that we have built to look after our old ones is basically broken by this infection, what a pity no one saw that coming. Care homes as we have them now have generated a huge profit for their owners in the last 20 years.

I think the care homes issue is like lots of things with CV, where it's exposed and exacerbated already existing problems. I guess the question is will it go back to how it was, or can we make something better from this mess?

 

[Combustible]

Do you have any idea of how complex and what a minefield it would be dealing with every single care home resident that wanted to go home but you needed to 'detain' and send to a dedicated CV+ place? And the corresponding uproar if that had happened?

I genuinely find this hard to fathom. The UK has vast swathes of the economy shutdown, people are confined to their homes, and in general the whole country is in a massively unprecedented situation, yet it would have been beyond the pale to temporarily house infected care-home residents elsewhere. When care-homes is evidently a major source of transmission, which disproportionately leads to deaths. The lockdown itself is also a massively complex minefield, and I am sure would have elicited uproar had it been suggested a few months ago

 

[LDC]

Surely the problem isn’t going to go away and there will have to be some system of quarantine care homes set up for people to stay between leaving hospital and returning to regular care homes.

And all similar institutions? And then the same for people in households that aren't care homes? Or would you treat care homes and the residents differently?

 

[gentlegreen]

Surely the problem isn’t going to go away and there will have to be some system of quarantine care homes set up for people to stay between leaving hospital and returning to regular care homes.

I'm still struggling to understand how the thousands of spare beds in the Nightingales are going to be excused.

 

[Doodler]

Bank and agency staff are on zero hours contracts. NHS has refused to furlough. But bank staff have been invited to apply for substantive posts.
Things will be back to normalish in a couple of weeks so there will be work.
Although given the nhs debt has been wiped they should at least furlough the bank staff.

I've heard nothing off the Staff Bank since an offer of weekend work taking dirty scrubs to the laundry. Am now applying for a permanent part-time role at the hospital, fingers crossed. Yet recruitment agencies have been advertising temporary and part-time jobs for porters, ward hosts/hostesses and similar at the same hospital. It's a confusing picture.

 

[Chilli.s]

I think the care homes issue is like lots of things with CV, where it's exposed and exacerbated already existing problems. I guess the question is will it go back to how it was, or can we make something better from this mess?

That's the hopeful kind of answer I'm wanting!

 

[LDC]

I genuinely find this hard to fathom. The UK has vast swathes of the economy shutdown, people are confined to their homes, and in general the whole country is in a massively unprecedented situation, yet it would have been beyond the pale to temporarily house infected care-home residents elsewhere. When care-homes is evidently a major source of transmission, which disproportionately leads to deaths. The lockdown itself is also a massively complex minefield, and I am sure would have elicited uproar had it been suggested a few months ago

The lockdown is being conducted largely willingly by the population as a whole. What you're talking about is not allowing people back to (or removing them from) where they live legally, and providing them with complex care on an indefinite time period. They're different things, and the later is much more complicated in a number of areas than you seen to realize.

 

[weltweit]

I'm still struggling to understand how the thousands of spare beds in the Nightingales are going to be excused.

Surely it is better that we have them and they are empty than not having them and the NHS being full?

 

[Chilli.s]

I'm still struggling to understand how the thousands of spare beds in the Nightingales are going to be excused.

I'm thinking that this was seen as doing something big to save us. I suppose it might involve spending a load of cash too, probably to a select firm who have donated to the tories in the past.

 

[LDC]

I'm still struggling to understand how the thousands of spare beds in the Nightingales are going to be excused.

Easily. And it's a good thing they're there empty. They were emergency capacity if things went to shit. They largely didn't so haven't been needed. Moaning that beds aren't full of people dying seems a very odd position to take.

 

[Azrael]

Care homes were ridiculously easy risk factors to spot: everyone with the slightest knowledge of the virus knows it's a death sentence for all too many elderly patients; and care homes aren't infectious disease hospitals.

If the government had been remotely serious about "shielding" the vulnerable, they'd have ensured that care homes had the resources and support for staff to live on site for the duration (some have done this, with zero cases), and no-one was discharged to a home if there was the slightest risk they remained Covid-positive.

They didn't, so they weren't.

 

[gentlegreen]

Easily. And it's a good thing they're there empty. They were emergency capacity if things went to shit. They largely didn't so haven't been needed. Moaning that beds aren't full of people dying seems a very odd position to take.

But they could be used to quarantine elderly patients returning to shared accommodation.

 

[LDC]

It's a confusing picture.

Hello the NHS.

 

[LDC]

But they could be used to quarantine elderly patients returning to shared accommodation.

You have no idea how complicated the reality is behind that simple suggestion.

 

[Azrael]

And all similar institutions? And then the same for people in households that aren't care homes? Or would you treat care homes and the residents differently?

China removed suspected cases to requisitioned hotels, and if they tested potivie, moved them to temporary fever hospitals. Many countries have copied the lockdown in a panic but neglected the stringent infection control measures that accompanied it.

 

[two sheds]

Moaning that beds aren't full of people dying seems a very odd position to take.

I've not noticed anybody here doing that.

 

[weltweit]

Weasel wordie Hancock made a play to say that care homes were his priority from the start the last time he was there at the No 10 press conference. I didn't believe him, not a word and I doubt anyone else did either.

 

[quimcunx]

So the system that we have built to look after our old ones is basically broken by this infection, what a pity no one saw that coming. Care homes as we have them now have generated a huge profit for their owners in the last 20 years.

Probably more accurate to say the system is broken and this crisis has highlighted that.

 

[weltweit]

They also got a lot of companies geared up to make ventilators - most of which in the end were not needed. Better to have the potential to have many more than many less.

 

[LDC]

China removed suspected cases to requisitioned hotels, and if they tested potivie, moved them to temporary fever hospitals. Many countries have copied the lockdown in a panic but neglected the stringent infection control measures that accompanied it.

So there should have been a more authoritarian response with forced removal of suspected and confirmed CV+ patients to places, whether they need hospital care or not? Widespread testing across the nation and then quarantining in special institutions for all those that test +?

 

[Chilli.s]

Probably more accurate to say the system is broken and this crisis has highlighted that.

That ignores the profit that's been made from the system. The owners always make money on their investment.

 

[Azrael]

So there should have been a more authoritarian response with forced removal of suspected and confirmed CV+ patients to places, whether they need hospital care or not?

I didn't say we should slavishly copy China: I highlighted our failure (shared across the West) to properly understand and implement their infection control model. Ironically, we've applied its most authoritarian element -- mass lockdown, on a scale that exceeds anything China did -- while neglecting more targeted measures.

I support the least coercive measures compatible with containing and ultimately eradicating the virus, which is why I endlessly praise Taiwan and South Korea. I've consistently said it's a disgrace we allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point that mass house arrest was needed to halt the spread of the virus.

 

[GarveyLives]

Coronavirus: Black African deaths three times higher than white Britons - study

(Source: Associated Press)

"It must be their watermelon smiles"​

 

[Combustible]

The lockdown is being conducted largely willingly by the population as a whole. What you're talking about is not allowing people back to (or removing them from) where they live legally, and providing them with complex care on an indefinite time period. They're different things, and the later is much more complicated in a number of areas than you seen to realize.

The lockdown may be conducted largely willingly, but it is still backed by unprecedented legal powers. I am also not convinced that many of the care-home residents would also not be willing to be housed temporarily, at least among those who are well enough to understand the situation, provided they were given a decent level of care. I can't imagine they want to be spreading the virus to other vulnerable residents. It would require a considerable amount of state resources, but so does every day of the lockdown, And many of the same arguments were being deployed against the lockdown itself, right until it was implemented, that it would cause too many complex problems, that it was unprecedented, overly authoritarian, and that no-one would accept it.

 

[andysays]

I didn't say we should slavishly copy China: I highlighted our failure (shared across the West) to properly understand and implement their infection control model. Ironically, we've applied its most authoritarian element -- mass lockdown, on a scale that exceeds anything China did -- while neglecting more targeted measures.

I support the least coercive measures compatible with containing and ultimately eradicating the virus, which is why I endlessly praise Taiwan and South Korea. I've consistently said it's a disgrace we allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point that mass house arrest was needed to halt the spread of the virus.

Describing what we have in Britain as authoritarian or mass house arrest is a bit ridiculous, TBH.

There are plenty of criticisms that can legitimately be made but this just makes you look a bit of a twat