We also need to consider that a vaccine may not be found as we proceed with any course of action.
The trouble is there are so many unknowns about this virus or any new virus come to that. There are the generic āvulnerablesā like age and infirmity but do we know enough about other groups to allow close mass gatherings. I think Premier League Football or other spectator events in packed stadiums is a looong way off.
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Will depend on sensitivity and effectiveness of the first developed vaccinesā¦ but in terms of assessing vulnerabilties, indeed there are many risk factors that still need to be identified. The more challenging and difficult question IMHO are going to be less about these scientific solutions, which will comeā¦ but with the moral dilemmas/decisions that we will have to eventually make, no matter how unpleasant they appear to be.
At some point with these things there is a risk threshold that needs to be assessed; the point at which we have to go back to āwork as normalā to avoid situations where we risk the health, subsistence etc of everyone - and this does include the economyā¦ without revenue generating activities, we cant deliver the care, or services we needā¦ vicious circle effect/paradox - It will inevitably mean that some folks will die from this with each seasonal outbreak, due to increased risk of infection, but as with the 600,000 who die in a bad flu year, what do we believe is an āacceptableā number in order too maintain provision of food, water, services and care to all?
Its not a question I would feel comfortable answering
Itās basically an issue that our health system faces every day, but condensed and compressed into a single event. Thatās what NICE are there for, to decide who gets what treatments after a cost/benefit analysis.
Not quite, NICE is there to assess the cost benefit of a product/therapy, and in which patient segments it provides most value/benefit, not directly who gets access to it, which is an important it subtle difference.
My point is more the moral one about - a time point in which the risk to the vulnerable will be outweighed by the risk to the many (to paraphrase spock)
Youāre both wrong.
NICE is a biscuit.
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These are enormous numbers with enormous consequences if the businesses and the people they employ donāt kick back in quickly when we open up againā¦
The middle section in particular made me chuckle
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Seems to be a lot of finger pointing going on at the minute. Of particular note is the Aussie PM saying that the virus most likely came from Wuhan market.
To what end, I wonder.
To preserve his iron ore export market
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The London nightingale hospital will close having seen just 54 patients and the Birmingham one closed without seeing any patients (if I recall correctly). Itās great that we managed to build these hospitals in such a short period of time and that the options were there but the question has to be asked, what was the point and how much money was spent on resources that werenāt needed? Maybe they were needed but were built too late? Why did they have so few patients while thousands of people died in care homes? I feel that there are a shed load of questions that need asking and answering.
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One way of looking at it is that the most unwell people need the ICU and nightingale beds, tragically those people have been dying at the rate of 800 a day, and that frees up a lot of beds in hospitals, negating the need for overflow beds. That combined with slowing down the rates of infection maybe? In these situations I think itās better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
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Think of it as insurance - at one point our trajectory was looking like it would overwhelm our normal hospitals - luckily the lock down measures seem to have worked in that regard
I would rather they spent the money and not needed it than not spent the money and found out we ran out of beds
The govt have got pelters for being unprepared on PPE and ventilators- you cant give them a hard time for being over prepared on this count
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Iām not going to criticise the government for building these places even though they werenāt needed (as much as they might).
But the bit Iāve quoted is the real question to be answered for me.
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Ditto.
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With regard to people dying in care homes, other things have to be considered. In the worst cases sedating and ventilating someone who is frail with multiple underlying health issues is essentially inhumane and more traumatic than making them comfortable and letting ānatureā take itās course. Sadly I get the feeling that everyone in a care home has been put in this boat, regardless of individual circumstances, and many could have been saved if individual circumstances had been taken into account.
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So they needed to be built earlier then?
Or we needed to be locked down earlier, or both.
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This is the question that Iām asking - were they āover-preparedā or, once again, under-prepared given that by the time the hospitals were built theyāre werenāt needed. They were needed when hospitalisations and deaths were at the peak.