NHS near ‘implosion’ – and figures show second wave is now hitting more vulnerable patients
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has issued a public warning that the NHS is near ‘implosion’ and almost 100% full – and that the mushrooming of coronavirus infections in the ‘second wave’ of the pandemic is pushing the health service beyond its limit.
The RCEM notes that while the number of patients hospitalised by COVID is four times higher than a month ago, five times as many patients are on ventilators. This is a clear indication that the virus is now spreading rapidly among more vulnerable groups after initially hitting the younger and less vulnerable – pulling down the COVID-denier claim that the virus has somehow become less virulent because numbers of deaths and ICU admissions were low at the beginning of the second wave.
The RCEM also warned that the situation is so dire that yet more patients suffering other conditions are likely to be kept waiting for treatment.
The Tories’ measures so far to counteract the growth of the second wave have been utterly inadequate – and dishonestly applied. This has to change and re-closing schools must be a first measure, not a last (or never) resort – and the provisions for online learning that the government should have been building throughout the pandemic must be put in place urgently now with no further, inexcusable delays.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Haven’t you heard, Skwawk?
I heard 99.9% of so-called ‘cases’ are false positives.
Hospitals nearly full is fake news – ask RH, Bubba, Lundiel, Doug or any of the other experts commenting here. There’s this Swiss guy too, and somebody from Oxford.
The virus died out months ago – it’s just the ‘flu now mate, really.
Bullshit. Don’t go behind my back making lying assertions about me. I’m not an expert, I post my opinion, just like you do. I’ve never made any claims as to percentages of false positives. You are an utter, displicable coward and propagandist.
Hospitals were always going to implode this winter like they almost do every winter and shutting down the NHS to save the NHS made that a self-replicating reality.
I am not and never have been a virus denier. I have always maintained that the virus mainly affects the vulnerable. Most people are marginally affected. We have to assume the virus isn’t going away. We therefore, have to live with it. We can’t assume a vaccine will give total immunity and prioritising the virus over everything else is crazy (this winter’s NHS crisis will prove that and next year’s recession will ram it home). Other than that I would say the government’s handling of the outbreak has been dire, they’ve the care home disaster on their hands and their chosen ‘experts’ can share the blame. As to the future, we have to do what most other countries are doing: secure the vulnerable while protecting jobs as much as possible. The policy on the leisure industry is rubbish (further implicating ‘expert’ social scientists from Edinburgh and Imperial), I happen think Skwawky is right on this and children may be the main spreaders because young people drinking are less likely to mix with the vulnerable than children.
Please don’t make any more untrue attacks on me behind my back, it is cowardly and unbecoming.
“We therefore, have to live with it.”
BloJob phrased it differently, but “herd immunity” means the same thing. Turtly displicable.
If only there were other countries who’d responded effectively so we could look at them and learn how to deal with CV… they didn’t throw their hands up and “live with it” like the Great British World Beating Surrender Monkeys.
And another thing… “because young people drinking are less likely to mix with the vulnerable than children.”
In what fucking universe?
ps comments here are public and behind no-one’s back so don’t be silly.
“I have always maintained that the virus mainly affects the vulnerable.”
As a clinically vulnerable person, I’ve made sure that I had my flu shot a few weeks ago as apparently contracting flu and Covid together could be fatal.
This is utter nonsense. How stupid do they think we are. The local nurses are called the Jaffa cake queen’s. Have the debates escaped everybody’s attention. I give up, off the grid, away from mad queues, mad police, councils, anywhere will do as long as there is an opposition. Bye.
It’s too late. We accept and accede to anything and everything. Question something and get called a murderer. Write to you m.p, ignored. Never mind something is good on the telly.
And still they’re not using those nightingale hospitals…Which they ought to make use of by sending every covid patient to one before using up capacity in ‘normal’ hospitals.
Still, the money wasted on those nightingale beds thus far (As well as the private sector staff tied in to them, sat on their arses doing the crossword instead of helping out the NHS staff) will be balanced out by the money spent on those mobile mortuaries, eh?
Toerags…If they aren’t wasting money with one hand, they’re throwing away lives with the other.