This morning whilst on the phone to my Son and looking at the road outside could not believe the amount of traffic coming by. Where on earth are they all going, business vehicles yes but all those cars.
Not having supermarkets to queue outside of they are going to B&Q.This morning whilst on the phone to my Son and looking at the road outside could not believe the amount of traffic coming by. Where on earth are they all going, business vehicles yes but all those cars.
Went in town this morning just to one shop with the amount of people about it was just like a normal Saturday apart from the pubs being shut, no idea what our local police are doing,
Thank you OC for pulling me up again,It’s not illegal for folks to go into town
as only those shops deemed “essential” should be open. Where folks could be criticised is if they hang around chatting or don’t follow social distancing guidelines.
Dusty listen to your heart and no one else, if you feel as I do and want to at least try and stay safe for a while longer your heart will tell you. Stay in and stay safe.The A419 link between M4 and M5 has been extremely quiet again today. Even the HGVs are few. In the local High Street still very quiet. Shops only allowing one or two in at a time.They are small 😎. I see in today’s papers there are some saying lift the lockdown and don’t listen to the boffins. Someone tell me who the hell I should listen to please😲😲😲
That's quite true.I do agree the Nightingale hospitals were a sensible precaution although the one here has not been used so far. My daughter works in the NHS , there have been several changes in the service that are not apparent.
The one on Bristol will use UWE on campus accommodation fir those requiring it.These Nightingale hospitals as said before rrequire the Nursing Staff and the dctors, but also require accommodation for them to stay and also food supplys for them. Just the buildings are not enough. We are in the vulnerable , clich, So self locked in until 16th June. 12 weeks more than willing to stay at home, although things can get tense. View attachment 236
Well said Prof.I take my hat off to the workforce that has been able to convert so many exhibition spaces into "Nightingale" hospitals designed to treat Covid-19 patients. Presently both London and Birmingham have operational units, and others around the country will be ready in a few days.
What is not ready though are the numbers of staff required to operate them, and apparently the contingency is that staff from other hospitals will need to be deployed to make them work.
So we have the space, but not enough staff. It is therefore quite a good thing that so far I believe less than 50 patients have been admitted to London's and none to the Birmingham one. So far the NHS has just about managed the patients within the normal hospitals, and that is also amazing.
It does beg the question, " will we actually need the Nightingale Hospitals?" It would seem the lock down measures have been fairly successful, and the predicted numbers of patients have not grown as quickly as expected. This is of course great news but there is a real risk it may spawn complacency about the risk of spreading the infection. The present measures have starved the virus of new victims which is why the rates of infection seem to be slowing. But the infection is still out there in the community, and it will not be eradicated by the present measures alone.
There is a real danger that when the restrictions start to be relaxed, previously uninfected people will come back into circulation, and judging by the short history of the virus it will readily find its way to begin a second wave of infection, and I suspect the same pattern will repeat each time we use a lock down. Providing nothing else changes, I would expect each subsequent wave to have lower numbers of patients.
The game changer would be if we can manufacture an effective vaccine.
However there are some other factors that may circumvent the benefits of a vaccine. We need to be able to make the vaccine available world wide. Such schemes have worked for smallpox.
We are still not sure if having antibodies to the infection is effective at preventing a second dose of the virus. There have been a few reports (unsubstantiated) that some people have survived one dose, but now seem to be succumbing again. We don't know if its the same strain or a newly mutated form. and we also don't know if the reinfections are as severe.
It is in the nature of viruses to adapt, and there is debate about how likely it is that Covid-19 might mutate enough to render previous acquired antibodies are capable of preventing reinfection to a modified strain.
So do we need the nightingales? I would suggest we do. It may be appropriate to use the Nightingale units as the only units treating Covid patients, allowing the established hospitals a chance to restart some of their belayed services.
We are slap in the middle of what's being reported as the biggest and most catastrophic pandemic in recent history.I'm not happy with the NHS my wife has been waiting since last November to see an Orthorpedic specialist two week ago they cancelled her appointment at our small hospital so what is this specialist doing now don't tell me they are on the frontline also all the cancer appointments being cancelled, not impressed one bit, like the Prof says get all the corona patients in the Nightingales and the hospitals can operate normally, if they ever can,