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News

NHS under huge strain as A&Es turn away ambulances – BBC

Over the past week, 20 NHS Accident and Emergency departments in England issued diverts, with patients taken elsewhere.

Those A&E departments still taking new patients have seen long delays, with more than 25% of ambulances waiting at least 30 minutes to handover patients.

http://archive.today/2022.04.07-133656/https://www.bbc.com/news/health-61023908

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Opinion

The NHS still refuses to treat us like humans – The Telegraph

Even here, in the Soviet-style behemoth that is “our NHS”, choice can no longer be taken for granted. There is a defiant reluctance among GPs to go back to seeing patients in person. Many hospital appointments are still online. Hopes that patients could start to enjoy the comforting old normal are dashed by an arrogant, unfeeling bureaucracy which puts its own health first.

“There are no immediate changes to IPC (infection, prevention and control) requirements,” says an ominous letter to clinical staff from NHS England. I am told that masks are so embedded in NHS behaviour that we will probably never again see a nurse’s smile.

http://archive.today/2022.02.24-205150/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/24/nhs-still-refuses-treat-us-like-humans/

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News

Did the Covid modellers get it wrong? – The Times

It is more than a rebuke to Medley and the modellers though. This pandemic began, for many, with an announcement from Imperial College, whose study predicted 500,000 deaths if we did nothing. We locked down and never tested the prediction.

This time, in the face of what the public saw as dire predictions, we didn’t lock down and the apocalypse never came. The unspoken — and sometimes spoken — implication is clear: are we all fools?

http://archive.today/2022.02.12-105548/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b7b928e6-8b4c-11ec-8600-c48a9935f856

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News

London Covid: Beds bought for NHS during Covid can’t be used at a waste of £13m – MyLondon

The NHS has wasted around £13million after hundreds of beds meant for the Nightingale hospitals are unable to be used for patients in other wards. The temporary Nightingale hospitals were built across the country to tackle waves of Covid-19, including at a site in London.

The huge loss was documented last week in NHS England’s annual accounts, with the health service claiming that the beds can’t given to other departments as they don’t meet the required standard. Some of the millions of pounds written off include paying for storing the beds.

http://archive.today/2022.02.07-183434/https://www.mylondon.news/news/uk-world-news/london-covid-beds-bought-nhs-23004907

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News

Number of Covid patients in ICUs plummets – The Sunday Times

A report from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre suggests a collapse in the number of patients becoming very unwell. It put the number of admissions to ICU of patients with Covid at 19 on January 23. About 400 people were being admitted daily at the peak of the second wave in January last year.

http://archive.today/2022.02.06-053528/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/number-of-covid-patients-in-icus-plummets-rvkbl3qh2

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News

‘80% of serious COVID cases are fully vaccinated’ says Ichilov hospital director – Prof. Yaakov Jerris, Israel National News

Are Israeli hospitals really overloaded with unvaccinated COVID patients? According to Prof. Yaakov Jerris, director of Ichilov Hospital’s coronavirus ward, the situation is completely opposite.

“Right now, most of our severe cases are vaccinated,” Jerris told Channel 13 News. “They had at least three injections. Between seventy and eighty percent of the serious cases are vaccinated. So, the vaccine has no significance regarding severe illness, which is why just twenty to twenty-five percent of our patients are unvaccinated.”

Jerris also revealed some of the confusion in reporting cases. Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, he told ministers, “Defining a serious patient is problematic. For example, a patient with a chronic lung disease always had a low level of oxygen, but now he has a positive coronavirus test result which technically makes him a ‘serious coronavirus patient,’ but that’s not accurate. The patient is only in a difficult condition because he has a serious underlying illness.”

http://archive.today/2022.02.03-193036/https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321674

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Publications

COVID-19 total deaths – weekly summaries All data up to 4pm 19 January 2022 – NHS

Commentary from Paul Embery of UnHerd:

Fresh NHS data shows that the total number of covid-related deaths in hospitals in England involving patients under the age of 80 and with no pre-existing condition is 3,037. This covers the entire period of the pandemic.

Screenshot with comment of Table 3 – Deaths by Condition

https://england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-20-January-2022-weekly-file.xlsx

Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220122113121/https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/01/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-20-January-2022-weekly-file.xlsx

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News

‘Dodgy data’ used in push for tighter Covid restrictions – The Telegraph

One of Britain’s most senior health advisers has been accused of disseminating “dodgy data” that inflated the potential risk of omicron.

Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), is understood to have been the source of a contested claim by Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, that there is typically a 17-day lag between patients becoming infected and requiring hospitalisation.

However, independent experts pointed to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, which suggested an average delay of nine or 10 days.

http://archive.today/2021.12.26-151133/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/12/25/dodgy-data-used-push-tighter-covid-restrictions/

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News

Two-thirds of new Covid hospital patients in England only tested positive AFTER being admitted for a different illness, official data shows amid mounting evidence Omicron is milder – Daily Mail

More than half of new ‘Omicron patients’ are actually people being treated in hospital for a different reason 

These people are in hospital for physical injuries such as broken bones, heart attacks, or even routine care

Ministers are keeping a close eye on Covid hospital admissions as they weigh up imposing more restrictions

Two-thirds of new Covid hospital patients in England were actually admitted for a different ailment, MailOnline’s analysis of NHS data suggests – as a growing number of studies show Omicron is much milder than Delta.

In the two weeks to December 21, hospitals in England recorded 563 new coronavirus inpatients — the majority of which are believed to be Omicron now that the variant is the country’s dominant stain.

But just 197 (35 per cent) were being primarily treated for Covid, with the remaining 366 (65 per cent) only testing positive after being admitted for something else.

http://archive.today/2021.12.24-094639/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10339555/Two-thirds-new-Covid-hospital-patients-England-tested-positive-admitted.html

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News

Omicron may be no worse than flu, says government adviser – The Telegraph

Britain’s omicron wave may be no worse than a flu pandemic, an expert has said, as the first major study into the new variant suggests it is less severe than delta.

The first real-world study looking at 78,000 omicron cases in South Africa found the risk of hospitalisation is 29 per cent lower compared with the Wuhan strain, and 23 per cent lower than delta, with vaccines holding up well.

Far fewer people have also needed intensive care from omicron, with just five per cent of cases admitted to ICU compared to 22 per cent of delta patients, the study shows.

http://archive.today/2021.12.14-233226/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/14/omicron-less-severe-covid-delta-variant-two-vaccine-jabs-give/

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Opinion

‘I alerted the wider world to Omicron – and I believe Britain is overreacting’: Doctor Angelique Coetzee, the South African GP who knows more about its effects than anyone, calls for calm despite variant cases spiking 50 per cent in 24 hours – Daily Mail

The UK Government’s handling of what Boris Johnson warned will be a ‘tidal wave’ of Omicron infections verges on hysteria.

With predictions of one million cases by the end of the month and concerns about the NHS being overwhelmed with up to 10,000 hospitalisations per day, I gather there is talk of Christmas again being cancelled and a possible New Year lockdown.

Yet you only have to look at the picture in South Africa, where the world’s first known cases of Omicron were spotted, to realise this reaction is out of all proportion to the risks posed by this variant.

And I should know — because I am the doctor who first raised the alarm about Omicron back in November.

http://archive.today/2021.12.13-232420/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10306211/DR-ANGELIQUE-COETZEE-alerted-wider-world-Omicron-believe-Britain-overreacting.html

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News

The NHS is hiding a guilty little secret – The Telegraph

Plan B is a go. And just like that, more mask mandates, working from home guidance and, most controversially, vaccine passports have been rushed in. While we wait, of one thing we can be certain: Covid decisions this winter are once again being determined by one institution. While we wait to find out more about the omicron variant, there is one thing we can say with certainty: our future rests once again on the ability of the National Health Service to handle an uptick in cases.

…Yet the NHS has a guilty little secret, rarely talked about given its status as the national religion. On many metrics, capacity has not been rising – it’s actually been falling.

http://archive.today/2021.12.10-111316/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/09/nhs-hiding-guilty-little-secret/

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News Opinion

Covid-19 vaccine unlikely to be as effective against Omicron variant, Moderna boss warns – The Times

The boss of the drugmaker Moderna has warned that Covid-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant in comments that have added to uncertainty about its impact and unsettled financial markets.

“There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level we had with Delta,” Stéphane Bancel told the Financial Times. “I think it’s going to be a material drop. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to … are like, ‘this is not going to be good’.”

http://archive.today/2021.11.30-105303/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5c3a67a2-508f-11ec-8d72-b8ab431649b1

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Opinion

Why hospitals are like prisons – Spiked

Foucault saw the tendencies to try to control, normalise and rationalise everything as ubiquitous in industrialised society. ‘The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge… [E]ach individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it his body, his gestures, his behaviour, his aptitudes, his achievements.’ Foucault asked: ‘Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?’

…To turn Foucault on his head, you could easily argue that it is the medical staff who are the slaves, rather than the masters, in the NHS Panopticon. Those in the blue and green uniforms, the masked and overworked, are expected to metaphorically slave all day for the needs and whims of those of us who lie around all day, doing nothing but eating, reading, sleeping or messing around on the internet.

http://archive.today/2021.11.19-102538/https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/19/why-hospitals-are-like-prisons/

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News

Lockdown fanatics should be ashamed of themselves – The Telegraph

These prognosticators of doom have been wrong time after time after time. And not just a little bit wrong – epically wrong, all while morally condemning their more accurate opponents. As cases rose in early July, in the run-up to England’s full reopening on July 19, restrictions advocates said that it was inevitable we would reach 100,000 cases per day. Keir Starmer released a video statement in which he declared that “Boris Johnson’s recklessness means we’re going to have an NHS summer crisis. The Johnson Variant is already out of control.” A set of academics wrote a letter to The Lancet condemning the reopening as a “dangerous and unethical experiment”.

http://archive.today/2021.10.30-062600/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/29/lockdown-fanatics-should-ashamed/

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News

NHS boss says health service was NEVER overwhelmed in fight against Covid but warns ‘tough winter’ will see thousands more hospital treatments cancelled – Daily Mail

The head of the NHS today said the health service was never overwhelmed by Covid during the height of the pandemic.

Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, told MPs expanding critical care, introducing new treatments and rolling out the vaccine prevented wards from being overrun over the last year-and-a-half.

http://archive.today/2021.10.20-114922/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10107619/NHS-boss-says-health-service-NEVER-overwhelmed-fight-against-Covid.html

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News

COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report: 14 October 2021 (week 41) – Office for National Statistics

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1025358/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-41.pdf

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News

The elderly were ‘just an afterthought’: Devastating report by MPs into Covid pandemic lays bare Government blunders, the £37bn test and trace fiasco… and the shocking decisions that left thousands to die in care homes – Daily Mail

First major inquiry into the Covid crisis says the tragic losses in care homes were among the highest in Europe

The report finds that deaths could have been prevented but instead elderly were treated as ‘an afterthought’ 

Finding is just one among catalogue of failings detailed in the inquiry by the health and science committees

The report found test and trace system which cost Government £37billion was also branded ‘chaotic’ fiasco

http://archive.today/2021.10.11-234511/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10082067/Elderly-afterthought-Devastating-report-Covid-crisis-lays-bare-Government-blunders.html

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News

Private hospitals treated just eight Covid patients a day during pandemic – report – The Guardian

Private hospitals treated a total of just eight Covid patients a day during the pandemic despite a multi-billion pound deal with the government to help stop the NHS being overwhelmed, a report reveals.

And they also performed far fewer operations on NHS-funded patients than usual, even though hospitals has suspended much non-Covid care, according to research by a thinktank.

The Treasury agreed in March 2020 to pay for a deal to block-book the entire capacity of all 7,956 beds in England’s 187 private hospitals along with their almost 20,000 staff to help supplement the NHS’s efforts to cope with the unfolding pandemic. It is believed to have cost £400m a month.

However, the Centre for Health and the Public Interest’s report (Pdf) says that on 39% of days between March 2020 and March this year, private hospitals treated no Covid patients at all and on a further 20% of days they cared for only one person. Overall, they provided only 3,000 of the 3.6m Covid bed days in those 13 months – just 0.08% of the total.

http://archive.today/2021.10.08-072427/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/07/private-hospitals-treated-eight-covid-patients-a-day-during-pandemic-says-report

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News

Confirmed: The Mater Hospital Was NOT Full of Unvaccinated 20/30-Year-Olds on Ventilators on the 22nd July – Citizen Journalists

It remains a mystery to us why some medical staff, doctors and nurses seek to spread misinformation and, at times, lies, that only serve to heighten fear levels and panic in the community and reduce trust in Public Health messaging.

One can only guess why Emma Browne decided to spread disinformation. Maybe her intentions were honourable, and she felt some mistruths were worth the price if her end goal, that of seeing more people vaccinated, was helped along a little? Maybe, like others we have exposed, her aim was to raise her own social media profile and make herself relevant to the discussion? Given that less than 2 weeks after she made these claims she left her position at the Mater, this may suggest Emma was happy to take the chance of spreading disinformation as she was leaving her role at the hospital anyway.

http://archive.today/2021.10.07-051502/https://citizenjournos.com/2021/10/06/confirmed-the-mater-hospital-was-not-full-of-unvaccinated-20-30-year-olds-on-ventilators-on-the-22nd-july/