Corona Virus Treatment

Darwin's theory of natural selection put in practice.

 

From the BBC article?

 

I take away an awful lot more than that from it, that is for sure.

• A third of positive cases are in unvaccinated people. Therefore two thirds (majority) are in vaccinated people; that correlates with the previously quoted figures for vaccination which mean that there are so many people vaccinated now, cases are bound to have a majority where the person is vaccinated.
• 99% of those who were positive were under 60, so only 1% were over 60. Only assumption here, but that would suggest that those who are in the latter category are being more sensible generally and are not being exposed to potential infection as much. Again, pure assumption but I would guess that this is because many of them are retired or are in jobs where they can work from home. It would also suggest to me that the vaccine is being very effective in the older age ranges (and presumably vulnerable group) which was its intended purpose
• 13% of those hospitalised were unvaccinated, therefore that means 87% are vaccinated. Again that does correlate with the high numbers of people who have now been vaccinated as mentioned above, but of all the figures this is the most disappointing to me as this in its raw state suggests that the vaccine is NOT doing what it should be for some people; this data cannot be ignored as it is key to improving the vaccines, and this is the sort of thing that would normally happen in the many years a vaccine is tested and assessed.
• The likes of the BBC should be stopped from presenting data in this way because it is the very thing that is fuelling division and arguments. Bluntly, their headline could just as easily be worded the other way (the majority of people who are positive are vaccinated, the majority of people testing positive are under 60 and the majority of people hospitalised with covid are vaccinated) - - none of these statements is incorrect, however if it was to be presented in this way there would be an outcry... why? We need to stop this polarised view and do some critical thinking here. Science is about listening to, assessing and understanding different points of view and different data.

 

Exactly - it is this sort of poorly represented, deliberately divisive stuff in the media that is at the root at a lot of this; coupled with today's insanity that you are either in one camp or another, with no middle ground. That is not specific to the covid situation - brexit is another example and there are many more.

It does not help when data is deliberately being skewed, it does not help when we have articles presented in the way we see here, and it does not help calling people anti-vaxxer or conspiracy nut just because they haven't had the vaccine.

 

Do you have enough petrol to get to the vaccine centre?

 

But not this week!

 

The NHS is not knackered at hospital level as far as I am concerned, to be fair I don't think the ambulance service is either - going by my own experiences, it is things external to hospitals that are the issue.
Firstly, social services and social care are an absolute mess - often, people cannot be discharged from hospital unless there is a care package in place and these are taking far too long to set up which means that folks stay in hospital much longer than they need, putting strain on the hospitals.
GP & district nursing services are stretched beyond the point of breaking which is resulting in either no care or insufficient care being given in the community, this in turn sees more people getting ill (sometimes seriously) leading to them being taken into hospital, putting more strain on the hospitals.
Housing provision is shot to bits, with a significant number of homeless people and an equally significant number of people living in sub-standard accommodation whilst paying out over the odds for it (also reduces their budget for a good diet and self-care) - these folks get ill (sometime seriously) leading to them being taken to hospital and putting strain in the hospitals.

All of the strain on the hospitals means that ambulances stack up outside waiting to transfer sick people into the hospitals, thus knackering the ambulance service. Throw in mental health (that used to be a social services thing for the most part), and of course the fact that we have approx 15 million more people in the country than we did ten years ago, and we arrive at the position we are in now.

We can dance around it all we like, but until we sort housing, GP services and community care services, we are stuffed.