General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat

[Wilf]

Paging Wilf and his boundless optimism about medical staff.

My store of bounds is decreasing.

 

[_Russ_]

Anyway, apparently the patients they saw don't need to be told as 'everyone was wearing PPE' or something. Honestly I fucking despair sometimes.

Let me translate that...."FFS dont tell any of the patients that would expose our culpability"

 

[platinumsage]

General misanthropic rant warning....

A friend of a friend who works in the NHS turned their work phone on this morning and saw a text from the weekend from a work colleague saying they'd had a positive contact and should they come to work this morning? Anyway, turns out they'd asked a few random people at their work over messages at the weekend and had been told it's probably OK, so they came into work and saw patients this morning. Then someone with some sense told them to go home and contact infection control, who told them not to be in work. Fucking obviously.

Are people actually total fucking morons? Why are you messaging work mates over the weekend asking important advice like that? Why either do you (a) not know as you should have read the regular covid updates emailed to all staff, or failing that (b) call someone sensible (like your line manager or infection control) first thing Monday morning before you amble in and see patients?

Anyway, apparently the patients they saw don't need to be told as 'everyone was wearing PPE' or something. Honestly I fucking despair sometimes.

Strange that no one they messaged knew the right answer. If management are communicating policy by sending out emails that no one reads, they're obviously not doing enough to train staff.

 

[LDC]

Strange that no one they messaged knew the right answer. If management are communicating policy by sending out emails that no one reads, they're obviously not doing enough to train staff.

I have to give covid advice at work to patients pretty much every shift, and tbh I always check the latest official guidance as I wouldn't like to get it wrong, and it does change quite regularly and is sometimes a bit different depending on the circumstances. So think it's fair enough in some ways not to have the right thing to do in your brain, but it's pretty simple to check or refer to someone that knows more rather than make it up.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I think it's because people are strung out and anxious to a large degree isn't it. They're stressed and on edge and the prospect of missing work when people are relying on you just adds to that. And so people look for a way that it might be ok, and others look to reassure them because that in turn maybe makes them feel a bit less anxious. Obviously from a step back it's the wrong thing to do but it doesn't happen just because people are idiots or twats.

 

[LDC]

I think it's because people are strung out and anxious to a large degree isn't it. They're stressed and on edge and the prospect of missing work when people are relying on you just adds to that. And so people look for a way that it might be ok, and others look to reassure them because that in turn maybe makes them feel a bit less anxious. Obviously from a step back it's the wrong thing to do but it doesn't happen just because people are idiots or twats.

Yeah, I know. The culture around work and not missing it 'off sick' is there and plays a part, especially in the NHS at the moment where staffing is fucked. So, yes, complex reasons etc etc. But I wanted a rant. (And sometimes people are a faith-in-humanity-testing-nightmare...)

 

[Badgers]

Had someone (unvaccinated) test positive today.

Ryanair steward. Moaned a lot that mask wearing is about 50% on the planes.

Lives in a shared house with 8 other people.
Was at a gig on Saturday night.
Cinema Sunday night.

Not having a go at them but when you crunch the numbers...

 

[Badgers]

In other news...

Under new rules, close contacts of suspected Omicron Covid cases must now self isolate if they are contacted by NHS Test and Trace, regardless of vaccination status.

 

[20Bees]

I’ve just been pinged with a message saying I was in contact (on Saturday) with someone who has tested positive and to book a PCR test, which I’ve done. I should have taken a screenshot of the message but I didn’t, and now I can’t find it on my phone, it’s not in the notifications. I’m sure it didn’t mention Omicron, I’m sure I would’ve homed in on that, but is there a way of retrieving that message?

 

[elbows]

In other news...

Yeah that was part of the first rule changes they brought in when Omicron first showed up on the radar, I've gone on about it a few times since but self-isolation rule changes dont seem to generate very much discussion.

 

[Badgers]

Yeah that was part of the first rule changes they brought in when Omicron first showed up on the radar, I've gone on about it a few times since but self-isolation rule changes dont seem to generate very much discussion.

Kinda why I posted it. Literally nobody knows this.

 

[elbows]

Kinda why I posted it. Literally nobody knows this.

I suspect a bigger deal will be made of it in the press once most infections are assumed to be Omicron, which isnt currently the case.

Some of the anti-restriction tory nutters are aware of it because they started taking out of their arse about the pingdemic again when debating the legislation last week.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Kinda why I posted it. Literally nobody knows this.

It was all over the news for days, including the right-wing press moaning about another incoming pingdemic. and other reports of how so many people were deleting the NHS covid app to avoid being pinged.

 

[IC3D]

Hospitals being full of humans unfortately have to admit COVID patients, they are treated like anyone with an infection risk in a side room on a regular ward, medical and nurse teams will go between them and the other patients Donnig and doffing ppe as they go their merry way.
Patients (vaccinated or not) can and do become +ve during their stay infecting the beds around them. Visitors come in and out masks on or off constantly, clinicly vulnarble are placed in side rooms to protect from exposure to the gen public.
HCPs can bear some of the responsibility but the patients and visitors are not wearing ppe and bring in the COVID.
That's the situation so instead of being outraged at HCPs ,which is quite the thing, perhaps reflect on the weakness in the hospital system which is the general public.

 

[Badgers]

It was all over the news for days, including the right-wing press moaning about another incoming pingdemic. and other reports of how so many people were deleting the NHS covid app to avoid being pinged.

Maybe it was but I can assure you none of the great British public I speak to know it.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Maybe it was but I can assure you none of the great British public I speak to know it.

Which reinforces what I posted on another thread earlier this afternoon -

"Although, increasingly I've become aware of people that just don't bother to keep up with the news, and then moan about being caught out, due to their own ignorance."

I have no idea how you can get across the messaging, if people can't even be bothered to check at least one main TV news bulletin a day.

 

[Badgers]

I have no idea how you can get across the messaging, if people can't even be bothered to check at least one main TV news bulletin a day.

This is the battle we have. Have done direct marketing with translations, radio plugs, attended endless events, have an information point manned seven days a week, have three centrally located test centres, roadside signage, put posters up in all the shops, met with various faith leaders who have commucated to their flocks, met with councillors from all wards and many more things beside. Have got stalls at various Christmas events to do more education and testing.

Drop in vaccination centres weekly. Provide free taxi's to and from them for people.

We still have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the UK.

 

[Numbers]

Badger them a bit more.

 

[Numbers]

Get the Numbers up.

 

[Numbers]

^^^^ you and I need a night out mate.

 

[two sheds]

Media hub - BMJ Group

Explore the latest published research, corporate updates, and insights from BMJ Group. Stay informed about cutting-edge scientific studies, medical innovations, and our impact on global healthcare.

www.bmj.com

hmmmm

 

[elbows]

Media hub - BMJ Group

Explore the latest published research, corporate updates, and insights from BMJ Group. Stay informed about cutting-edge scientific studies, medical innovations, and our impact on global healthcare.

www.bmj.com

hmmmm

There are some big limitations to that study, including participant numbers and inability to pick apart underlying reasons for the different risk levels they established.

The most obvious one is that people who have attributes that may have led them to think of themselves as being at greater risk were more likely to take steps that gave them a better chance of avoiding being infected.

And its very important to note that the study looked at risk of infection, not risk of severe disease.

I suppose their findings are not shocking to me because I'm aware that older people showed up in far smaller quantities in the daily positive case data than younger groups. And thats not exactly a simple, comforting thought when we consider how many hospitalisations and deaths that lower number of cases in older people led too. If those groups had carried on with their lives more normally in this pandemic, I expect the hospital numbers would have been far more grim than was actually the case, and what was actually the case was quite bad enough already.

 

[LDC]

Media hub - BMJ Group

Explore the latest published research, corporate updates, and insights from BMJ Group. Stay informed about cutting-edge scientific studies, medical innovations, and our impact on global healthcare.

www.bmj.com

hmmmm

Yeah, I'd pay zero attention to that. There's been loads of small studies or pre-studies suggesting all sorts of things in the last year or so, and lots/most turn out to not be anything significantly important.

 

[Badgers]

Bit of a grisly meeting today. There are an increasing number of pregnant women in hospital. Unvaccinated because of concerns for their unborn children's health. Do understand their thinking to some extent, especially given some of the 'advice' that has been handed out to them

Upshot is that an increasing number of babies are being induced prematurely to protect them. Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are running out of capacity.

FFS

 

[teuchter]

Ventilation!

 

[MrCurry]

Ventilation!

We should have all bought shares in HVAC plant manufacturers at the start of 2020. They'll surely be one of the only winners of this shit situation.

 

[Pingety Pong]

We (=school in NW England) received our CO2 monitors yesterday.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Out at a show tonight - the venue required the pass or a negative test to attend, and masks must be worn, but inevitably there are a handful ignoring the rules. The weird thing is, all the blokes not wearing a mask look like Grant Mitchell...

 

[Badgers]

Javid advised to take ‘stringent’ Covid measures within a week, leak reveals

Exclusive: Health officials say urgent action needed to avoid mass hospitalisations and overwhelming the NHS

www.theguardian.com

FFS

 

[_Russ_]

Even that advice is shit, the 'health officials' (whoever the fuck that is) are advising measures to hopefully keep hospitalisations and deaths just barely below the numbers that would collapse the system, no thought of actually doing a little better and saving more lives...no just the bare fucking minimum to squeek through and Oh you can have another week to think about it...and we all know even that pathetic excuse of a reccomendation wont be taken to heart

Fucked off with the lot of em.