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15 minutes ago, beardy said:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29990618/

2016/17 168 outbreaks in 8 months 2.5% mortality rate. These events in nursing homes are common.

 

15 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

The Wuhan military Olympics in October adds another dynamic.  US sent 170 athletes so could guess including coaches, family, etc so would imagine 500 to 1000 travelled. 

There are definitely problems with the timeline.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52526554

Dr Cohen, head of emergency medicine at Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, said the patient was a 43-year-old man from Bobigny, north-east of Paris.

He told the BBC's Newsday programme that the patient must have been infected between 14 and 22 December, as coronavirus symptoms take between five and 14 days to appear.

The patient, Amirouche Hammar was admitted to hospital on 27 December exhibiting a dry cough, a fever and trouble breathing - symptoms which would later become known as main indications of coronavirus.

This was four days before the WHO's China country office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause being detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Big blame game going on here. Very high stakes.

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On the care home scandal I think party allegiances need parked as it is quite frightening what’s gone on. 

 

We collectively watched in horror at Italy and Spain then pretty much decided it was ok just to chuck the old and infirm under the bus as it looked likely the NHS would get overwhelmed.  I’ll readily admit I thought it was a  fair enough strategy.  Where the government failed was when it didn’t react as there was plenty of capacity to take them into hospitals and that warrants investigation.  

 

However, something that makes me hugely uncomfortable is just how easily as a country we essentially consigned a section of society as worth sacrificing for the greater good without even testing if the NHS could cope after seeing the scenes in a few regions of Italy and Spain.  It’s even more uncomfortable that it happened at the exact time that England in particular were whipping themselves up in a frenzy of not forgetting. 

For me it just shows how easily it is to go down a very dark road and even being convinced its the right thing to do.        

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Somebody should be made to explain why so many of these folk in care homes are not being taken to hospital. It must be obvious that they are very ill. I know the disease can progress very quickly in some cases but that can't possibly account for them all. If it is down to DNR notices then that needs to be seriously investigated. Possibly by the police? Somebody must be taking the conscious decision not to send these folk to hospital. We need to know who and why. Having a DNR notice in place shouldn't deny these people hospital treatment.

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1 hour ago, thplinth said:

 

There are definitely problems with the timeline.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52526554

Dr Cohen, head of emergency medicine at Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, said the patient was a 43-year-old man from Bobigny, north-east of Paris.

He told the BBC's Newsday programme that the patient must have been infected between 14 and 22 December, as coronavirus symptoms take between five and 14 days to appear.

The patient, Amirouche Hammar was admitted to hospital on 27 December exhibiting a dry cough, a fever and trouble breathing - symptoms which would later become known as main indications of coronavirus.

This was four days before the WHO's China country office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause being detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Big blame game going on here. Very high stakes.

The narrative will be defined that China has caused this. I'm not sure where.it came from, I'd be surprised if it was man-made.

The stakes are high and i think a major economic war could be coming. China are already adding tariffs to Australian goods apparently in retaliation for Australia criticising them.

13 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Somebody should be made to explain why so many of these folk in care homes are not being taken to hospital. It must be obvious that they are very ill. I know the disease can progress very quickly in some cases but that can't possibly account for them all. If it is down to DNR notices then that needs to be seriously investigated. Possibly by the police? Somebody must be taking the conscious decision not to send these folk to hospital. We need to know who and why. Having a DNR notice in place shouldn't deny these people hospital treatment.

Agreed, the ICNARC report around 3000 deaths in ICU that's a lot who are not dying in ICU.

50000 excess deaths since mid March. 

ICU's not full, nightingale hospital not used. A lot of DNRs and palliation in my opinion. Some poor clinical decision making/policy in my opinion. 

I think there was unnecessary rationing of care. Old, comorbidites no escalated care. However an 80 year old into UK has 8-10 years of life on average. Even an obese 70 year old diabetic  has 9 years. As for comorbidites 3/4 of 80 year olds have 2-3 comorbidites. 

Someone has made the decision to protect NHS beds, I think it was wrong and overly aggressive.

Also what happened to Dyson's ventilators?

Edited by beardy
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23 hours ago, ThistleWhistle said:

From a purely SG perspective there is definitely questions need answering on care homes.

From a UK perspective if the yoons see this as a stick to beat the SNP with its akin to deciding to attack someone with a landmine whilst you're stuck in the middle of a field of landmines and honestly shows how absolutely shit the media are.  

From what I've read Scottish care home deaths are at about 1,000 whereas UK is at 12k which works out at about population split.  There is a report in the Guardian that excess care home   deaths in England and Wales could be as high as 24k.  

Commenting on the ratios is pretty obtuse - would you rather have a big half slice of a relatively small shit sandwich or about a third of a massive shit sandwich?   

 

Apologies for quoting myself but essentially Jackson Carlow attacked NS with this yesterday at questions and she pretty much answered with the 24,000 figure.  Unsurprisingly the attack seems to  have been reported more widely than the defence.  

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50 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

On the care home scandal I think party allegiances need parked as it is quite frightening what’s gone on. 

 

 

 

We collectively watched in horror at Italy and Spain then pretty much decided it was ok just to chuck the old and infirm under the bus as it looked likely the NHS would get overwhelmed.  I’ll readily admit I thought it was a  fair enough strategy.  Where the government failed was when it didn’t react as there was plenty of capacity to take them into hospitals and that warrants investigation.  

 

However, something that makes me hugely uncomfortable is just how easily as a country we essentially consigned a section of society as worth sacrificing for the greater good without even testing if the NHS could cope after seeing the scenes in a few regions of Italy and Spain.  It’s even more uncomfortable that it happened at the exact time that England in particular were whipping themselves up in a frenzy of not forgetting. 

For me it just shows how easily it is to go down a very dark road and even being convinced its the right thing to do.        

 

The cynic in me says surely that can't surprise you in Great Britain, particularly with the government we have. The elite in the UK have never, ever hesitated to sacrifice a large portion of society for their own needs. That runs through building the empire and all the wars we've ever had to the neglect and abandonment of large swathes of the country in the eighties and nineties.

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1 minute ago, biffer said:

The cynic in me says surely that can't surprise you in Great Britain, particularly with the government we have. The elite in the UK have never, ever hesitated to sacrifice a large portion of society for their own needs. That runs through building the empire and all the wars we've ever had to the neglect and abandonment of large swathes of the country in the eighties and nineties.

You're completely right and the actions of the UK government possibly seeing the death of a few thousand non-producers as a silver-lining in this pandemic.

What really did surprise me was my own acquiesce to it after seeing Italy and Spain.  Just shows how easy it is to go down a very scary path.   

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38 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Somebody should be made to explain why so many of these folk in care homes are not being taken to hospital. It must be obvious that they are very ill. I know the disease can progress very quickly in some cases but that can't possibly account for them all. If it is down to DNR notices then that needs to be seriously investigated. Possibly by the police? Somebody must be taking the conscious decision not to send these folk to hospital. We need to know who and why. Having a DNR notice in place shouldn't deny these people hospital treatment.

Sadly, going to hospital for a lot of the sorts of people that are in care homes, ie. the elderly with multiple and serious underlying medical conditions will not only not help people who contract COVID-19 -or indeed and other similar serious disease - in fact it is more likely to hasten the end of their life in a much more unpleasant, painful, harrowing and less dignified way than if they were to die in their home.   Going on a ventilator as opposed to just getting oxygen is an invasive procedure.  We're seeing that for a lot of people who have had serious treatment for COVID, its a long way back and that's without underlying conditions.

DNR - do not resuscitate - is specifically around whether or not someone's heart should be restarted - or more accurately whether that should be attempted - if it fails.   Again, that's all to do with the damage that procedure can cause and what the likely quality of life is likely to be should it be successful.

It will be the individuals GP who makes the clinical decision on whether or not someone should be admitted to hospital - unlike a car crash or similar, someone contracting COVID will experience a decline over a number of days or hours and particularly in a controlled environment like a Care Home, that will have been monitored.

The GP - where that's happened - is also likely to have been the person who had any discussion with the individual over whether or not to have a DNR - and remember that's the individual's decision - and will also know the individual's medical history.   They are the person who is best qualified to make the decision on whether or not to admit to hospital.   Having a DNR will not in itself stop someone from being admitted to hospital, however the underlying reasons why there is a DNR may also be the same reasons why admittance to hospital is not the best option.

Bluntly, the people who are most likely to die from COVID-19 are the elderly, particularly those in poor health and with other comorbidities.     A lot of Care Home residents will fall into those categories.    It shouldn't therefore be a surprise that with a large number of deaths from COVID-19, that a significant number will have happened to people either in care homes themselves or who have been care home residents and have been admitted to hospital.

That's not to suggest that's in anyway inevitable or acceptable, what does need to be looked at in detail is whether or not the advice, guidance and support given to Care Homes around infection protection was in itself sufficient and whether or not that guidance was followed in all cases.    

 

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2 hours ago, beardy said:

The narrative will be defined that China has caused this. I'm not sure where.it came from, I'd be surprised if it was man-made.

The stakes are high and i think a major economic war could be coming. China are already adding tariffs to Australian goods apparently in retaliation for Australia criticising them.

Agreed, the ICNARC report around 3000 deaths in ICU that's a lot who are not dying in ICU.

50000 excess deaths since mid March. 

ICU's not full, nightingale hospital not used. A lot of DNRs and palliation in my opinion. Some poor clinical decision making/policy in my opinion. 

I think there was unnecessary rationing of care. Old, comorbidites no escalated care. However an 80 year old into UK has 8-10 years of life on average. Even an obese 70 year old diabetic  has 9 years. As for comorbidites 3/4 of 80 year olds have 2-3 comorbidites. 

Someone has made the decision to protect NHS beds, I think it was wrong and overly aggressive.

Also what happened to Dyson's ventilators?

Apparantely we dont need them and they may be used in other countries.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.med-technews.com/api/amp/news/dyson-s-covent-ventilator-no-longer-required-in-uk/

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2 hours ago, Orraloon said:

Somebody should be made to explain why so many of these folk in care homes are not being taken to hospital. It must be obvious that they are very ill. I know the disease can progress very quickly in some cases but that can't possibly account for them all. If it is down to DNR notices then that needs to be seriously investigated. Possibly by the police? Somebody must be taking the conscious decision not to send these folk to hospital. We need to know who and why. Having a DNR notice in place shouldn't deny these people hospital treatment.

People need to stop calling them 'Care Homes' for a start. They are the opposite, more like don't give a shit and let you die homes. Scandalous. I'd love to know who decided to do this. They need jailed.

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26 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

What a fccking waste of time. A vanity project. And the end result is an 'adapted' ventilator.  

The dumb thing was Dyson was well placed for PPE, he could.easily have designed and manufactured a N100 respirator system - moulded plastic, seals, filters - it's right in his ball park.

Not a sexy project though,  not showcasing the 'Best of British' engineering.  Would have saved a few lives though. 

 

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9 minutes ago, thplinth said:

People need to stop calling them 'Care Homes' for a start. They are the opposite, more like don't give a shit and let you die homes. Scandalous. I'd love to know who decided to do this. They need jailed.

Stupid comment, not all care homes 'don't give a shit and let you die'. Lots of them do a great job.

Edited by Lairdyfaeinverclyde
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14 minutes ago, thplinth said:

People need to stop calling them 'Care Homes' for a start. They are the opposite, more like don't give a shit and let you die homes. Scandalous. I'd love to know who decided to do this. They need jailed.

Like anything else there are good ones and bad ones. It's clear that as a whole they weren't very well prepared for an epidemic like this. But they are not alone in that. With the official advice up until March being "You are very unlikely to catch the virus in a care home", it wouldn't have helped in reducing the complacency levels of care home owners. Most of these are in the private sector and will be interested in making a profit. Some of them wouldn't need much encouragement to not spend too much on equipment, training and qualified staff. Most folk working in this sector are low paid, low skilled and, if they have had any training in infection control at all, it's mostly at a very basic level.

 

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The system is shit for care homes, almost all of them pay as little as legally possible to their staff. That in itself just spawns problems, there's  reasons I parked my career and look after my gran from her home and that is a big one, however at the same time everyone has a right to live their own life.

It's becoming a bit suspicious that the surge happened in care homes the places least equipped to deal with the circumstances of infectious disease in the NHS circle. Staff dying at twice the rate (low sample size though) of other at risk people. No equipment. Transporting them without establish track and trace, their advocate groups growing increasingly woried about pressure on non-resuscitation orders etc.

It doesn't look good at all.

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The full care home situation is shameful, both in UK and in Scotland.

The Scottish Government have been better than the UK on a lot of things in this pandemic but they have  been asleep at the wheel with regards to care homes.

My mates wife works at one, he first raised issues with our local MP over two months ago with regards to PPE and only over the past week or so has it been at an acceptable level. Not before his wife contracted COVID. Zero testing and staff being brought in from other areas.

Ticking timebomb.

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1 hour ago, Lairdyfaeinverclyde said:

Stupid comment, not all care homes 'don't give a shit and let you die'. Lots of them do a great job.

Or maybe you read it wrong. I am not commenting about individual care homes. I am talking about the seeming policy that if you are in one and get Covid they will not take you into the hospital if it gets bad. Whereas if phart's gran or my father fell ill with it I am 100% certain an ambulance would be called if need be. So that is why they are not fucking care homes, quite the opposite, get it? Fuck putting a relative in one of these places if this is how they get treated.

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I suspect that when the inevitable inquiry happens that there will be a number of factors that will have contributed.  Some of that will be fundamental structural issues with the whole sector, how it's funded and how it interacts with the wider NHS.  People also need to accept that if they want or accept the funding model to change then that's inevitably going to mean they will pay more in taxes or that something else will have to be cut.  It's not good enough to say that more money needs to be spent on X,Y or Z unless you also accept that comes at a cost.

Some of the guidance and policies will have been found to have been inadequate or incorrect, although that always needs to be looked at in the light of what could reasonably have been foreseen at the time rather than with the benefit of hindsight.

There will be cases where the government, the sector as a whole and individual homes will have been ill-prepared and slow to react.

Finally - and this seems to the case, or at least the implication with Home Farm on Skye - that some individual homes have not followed fully the advice and guidance set out.  In most cases that will probably be because of genuine confusion or mistake, in a small number it will be  dereliction, either directly or indirectly.  

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17 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

The full care home situation is shameful, both in UK and in Scotland.

The Scottish Government have been better than the UK on a lot of things in this pandemic but they have  been asleep at the wheel with regards to care homes.

My mates wife works at one, he first raised issues with our local MP over two months ago with regards to PPE and only over the past week or so has it been at an acceptable level. Not before his wife contracted COVID. Zero testing and staff being brought in from other areas.

Ticking timebomb.

Out of interest, why go to an MP for something that's devolved - also isn't the FM your local MSP, who if anyone could sort it out, it'd be her.

Not that an MP or MSP should ignore something because it's not in their competence, they should at least pass the matter on accordingly, particularly if they are both in the same party  Just interested why that would be the case.

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Scottish government are giving unpaid carers an extra £230.10 one off payment on top of the biannual payment they give unpaid carers of the same amount as well. So we're £700 up annually on RUK. The Biannual payments are making up the deficit between carers allowance and job seekers allowance. and to get carers allowance you have to demonstrate you give 35+ hours of care a week to a single person. who then lose one of their entitlements and you get the carer's allowance. It works out roughly the same amount. So basically my grans entitlement she loses is equal to what i get in carers allowance. EDIT: the latter is administrated by Westminster.

Edited by phart
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14 minutes ago, thplinth said:

Or maybe you read it wrong. I am not commenting about individual care homes. I am talking about the seeming policy that if you are in one and get Covid they will not take you into the hospital if it gets bad. Whereas if phart's gran or my father fell ill with it I am 100% certain an ambulance would be called if need be. So that is why they are not fucking care homes, quite the opposite, get it? Fuck putting a relative in one of these places if this is how they get treated.

It's mad seeing all this VE day shit as well, when the actual folk who participated in anyway are being left to die in care homes.

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1 hour ago, phart said:

Staff dying at twice the rate (low sample size though) of other at risk people. 

This came up on today's daily briefing.   There have been 7 NHS and 8 social care staff who have died from COVID-19 in Scotland, or at least have had that recorded on their death certificate.   They also don't know how many of those contracted the virus while at work and from memory, I think one of the earlier cases was a woman who was on maternity leave.   All tragic in their own right but you can't draw anything from such small numbers. 

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It will all come to pass.  Life on earth.  The most important thing is education.  A bottle of Jura and Emmerdale.  Living the dream.  Got a new bu.., I mean girl.  I haven't actually went out with Tyder yet but I can see she is softening.  I can smell that Tweed on one of her chins already.

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On 5/10/2020 at 1:43 PM, wee-toon-red said:

It's ALWAYS been the UK government's plan to let the virus run its course in the most convenient way possible. They're perfectly content to let tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of people die as long as they don't all do so at once and "overwhelm" the NHS. There's space in the hospitals again so they want us out and about catching it again - that'll let the business owners make enough money to keep themselves going before they need to lock us down again.

The only concern the government has is how to achieve the above but without taking the blame. All their efforts are being lured into deflecting the blame onto Joe Public and “stupid people” not following the rules.

Government announcements are deliberately vague, contradictory and confusing in order to create the environment where they achieve everything you say and avoid blame for the huge death toll.

We are all expendable, the vulnerable doubly so.

We are basically seeing true Tory ideology in practice.

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2 hours ago, aaid said:

This came up on today's daily briefing.   There have been 7 NHS and 8 social care staff who have died from COVID-19 in Scotland, or at least have had that recorded on their death certificate.   They also don't know how many of those contracted the virus while at work and from memory, I think one of the earlier cases was a woman who was on maternity leave.   All tragic in their own right but you can't draw anything from such small numbers. 

The stats i saw were these ones

Not seen any official ones for Scotland alone yet, in the same format. This is Scottish report.

Edited by phart
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1 minute ago, phart said:

The stats i saw were these ones

Not seen any official ones for Scotland alone yet.

They're reported weekly on a Wednesday - part of the NRS data release I think- started maybe 2-3 weeks ago.

I suspect they don't get widely reported as they're relatively low.  The press were at the government for a couple of weeks to release them but the SG refused to do so for reasons of patient confidentiality and there was a definite undercurrent from them that the SG were hiding something.  

The first time that they confirmed the numbers were when it reached 11 - I'm guessing that 10 and below was the threshold where patient confidentiality was a concern.    Our could feel the sense of collective disappointment from the media that it was nowhere near as high as they were hoping it would be.

It was only mentioned today as one journalist didn't know what the numbers were and so assumed they'd stopped being reported but the FM had them to hand  

 

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