That is fundamentally and massively wrong. On the 23rd of January last year the UK had it's first confirmed case of Covid, by the 23rd of Feb 30+ cases were being reported a day. Our government chose to do nothing, in fact they did worse than Nothing, they did everything they could to downplay the risks. Bojo gave his famous 'I shook hands with everybody' speech on the 3rd of March, at that point **** was already hitting the fan in Italy and it was obvious that Covid was not just a new flu. By the 23rd of March Covid was the third leading cause of death in the UK after cancer and heart disease, Boris finally announced the first lockdown. By the 23rd of April Covid was the leading cause of death in the UK, roughly every fourth death in the UK was Covid. By that point hospitals were operating beyond their normal capacity, they were operating at an intensity not seen since the second world war. During the first lockdown we were only allowed to send the direst of emergencies to hospital. Unless the phrase 'imminent danger of loss of sight,' was involved nobody went. No cataracts, no investigative referrals, nothing. By the time normal-ish services resumed I had a backlog of around 100 patients. Multiply that by the ten or so Optician practices in my area, multiply that by every routine referral for every possible ailment. Last summer until early November normal services were running. Everyone I know was working flat out, the work rate was almost as high as it had been through March and April. If the government had been more stringent with restrictions NHS service might have been able close the gap (mostly) by the end of this year. But of course that isn't what happened, the doors were flung open, the second wave came, and our government more or else ignored it until after Christmas. The second wave was worse than the first, even more hospitalisations, even more deaths, more months of suspended hospital services. After the second wave any hope of catching up the backlog was gone. People can't work at that level of intensity forever. Assuming Covid ever does come back under control it will be years and years before anything goes back to how it was. Nobody, and I mean nobody, within the NHS chose for this to happen. Covid is a disease that spreads like the flu and it's killed every 50th confirmed case in the UK. Dropping everything to focus on Covid cases is not a matter of choice. If you do anything else the consequences are apocalyptic. NHS staff have worked harder in the last 18 months than at any point in the NHS' history and they're continuing to do so. If anyone has created a rod for the NHS' back it's Boris and his chums. They're the ones who chose to do nothing until crisis point was reached, twice. They're also the ones who cut the NHS to the bone beforehand. We are all suffering the consequences of their actions. As people suffer and die from entirely preventable or treatable diseases that should be remembered at all times. It should be especially remembered when the next election comes around. But it won't of course, because people are morons.
The Commonwealth Fund report looks at NHS performance over the last 4 years, not just during the pandemic. It was already slipping in perfomance well before then, due to cutbacks to the bone. It is because of these cutbacks that the NHS did not have 'surge capacity': the ability to deal with the pandemic while at the same time continue with its normal business. When you are already running at 100% bed occupancy, you have no spare capacity left. My personal perspective: on 23rd of March 2020 the hospital Trust where I worked asked our psychology team for a plan to psychologically support 22,000 staff. We're a team of 18 --a tiny service to serve thousands of patients with severe, life-foreshortening or disabling disease or traumatic injury. My co-Lead and I worked through the weekend and delivered a 2-year plan by the 26th. This involved training hundreds of Psychological First Aiders and their supervisors very quickly, with us supervising in turn, and a whole Occupational Health team being pulled in as co-ordinators, and involving Staff Counselling and Chaplaincy (who were inundated with dying COVID patients). Of course within weeks we were also running across four hospitals dealing with all sorts of crises ourselves. We kept this up for 3 months --12+ hours a day, 7 days a week, with few breaks, and it is the first time in my life I was actually physically sick due to exhaustion. Then in August, we were asked to "go back to normal business" and pick up our patients again (although we kept supporting the most in need throughout), whose already 9-month waiting list had grown to a year, and were all distressed because important treatments had been delayed; and we found ourselves running across 4 hospitals dealing with distressed inpatients alongside very stressed-out staff. Then we did it all again around Christmas, but this time dealing with a bigger wave, already exhausted staff and with only 7 team members, because this time patient services could not be suspended and we had to keep those going at the same time. Luckily by then we had a lot of PFA-trained staff in place and a new support team in the Mental Health Trust, rapidly assembled within the last 3 months. There was a lot, lot more going on besides --co-ordinating efforts between a big mental health Trust and the second-biggest hospital Trust in the country, which was also hardest hit by COVID in the UK, managing healthcare staff's own anxieties about COVID (we had deaths amongst healthcare staff, as well as deaths in their families), on top of the demands posed by lots of sick and dying patients. Dealing with resource limitations and applying for additional funds, creating a Long COVID pathway for patients. Looking after our own team. Managing press communications. All this against a backdrop of COVID containment measures, involving learning how to PPE up on wards, set up and master remote working IT and practices (I'm the only tech geek in our team, so that was fun). And we're not out of the woods yet... In short: doctors and nurses, healthcare assistants, physios etc. have been working hard. Harder than our team, even. For a long time they looked like death warmed up. They've been redeployed all over the place and then redeployed again, and there has been no let up, no pause, no break. It's been pretty brutal. Meanwhile we get is a lot of criticism from members of the public at the side lines with zero ****ing clue, mostly Ayn Randian NHS abolitionists and anti-vaxxers and COVID denialists who think we're all lying and conning them and having a jolly knees-up at best or conspiring to kill them or turn them into Borg drones at worst. But morons be morons, and may Natural Selection sort them out.
I think by now most people have had it already but with mild to no symptoms. Hopefully 'your' immune system will have a lasting memory needed to give you protection against future mutations.
Cop26 in Glasgow caused some huge demonstrations with 90% of protestors to be marching there without masks of any sort. So i guess Glasgow will become a hotspot for Covid-19 once more ! Let the "Christmas Lockdown" begin !
Recently, every time I read/see/hear about anti-vaxxers, I like to believe they're just afraid of needles, and the insane rationale and conspiracies that they come up with is all a front to avoid admitting it.
As a long-time KISS fan i have to agree with Gene Simmons............... https://variety.com/2021/music/news/kiss-gene-simmons-speaks-against-unvaccinated-1235110527/ @Mister_Tad I'm afraid of needles but it didn't stop me getting 2 jags and a booster..
If'n these boosters are important why do I have to do a 2 hour round trip to get my 5g nono bots installed..
We're 'special', wife over 50, me & daughter with asthma, so queue jumped. Just a bummer that with the travel time / distance we couldn't all get in together and have to go days apart instead, still them's the joys of living in a rural idyll rather then a more populated centre
I thought it was to do with the NWO and reduce life expectancy or some sort of mind control to turn everyone whose been jabbed into zombies
I had my FLU jab for the very first time a few weeks ago and at the age of 49 it was money well spent.
I did laugh, but, seriously .... https://cumbriacrack.com/2021/11/12...s-jailed-for-roles-in-deadly-weapon-delivery/
