And the numbers roll on

[Suff]

Cromwell and the Telegraph are right in one thing.

If the threshold for new restrictions is 400 Covid admissions, as opposed to admitted and later diagnosed as infected, then we would need to see some 9x more Covid hospital admissions, based on that 21st day figure, before new restrictions come into play.

Whilst it is hard to get solid data on admissions, the one figure I have seen recently is a 50% increase in hospital admissions.

We would then need to see over 17 times the growth already experienced by Omicron so far and that is not supported by these data.

In short no action until we see whether massive numbers of Omicron "new" infections drive up admissions far more than the previous Delta cases did, based on the tripling of cases.

It will take at least 2-3 weeks to really prove this out, but the current trend does not support any further action at this time.

Especially as no country has shown Omicron driving up hospital admissions faster than Delta. In fact a 3x increase in cases created a 50% increase in admissions.

Based on these stats we'd need to hit around 650k cases per day to hit that 400 daily admissions.

Hence we Really need good stats and this is the very worst time of year to get them.

I do note, however, that the reintroduction of masks has, as shown by the massive increase in numbers, done zip.

[Workingman]

If the threshold for new restrictions is 400 Covid admissions, as opposed to admitted and later diagnosed as infected, then we would need to see some 9x more Covid hospital admissions, based on that 21st day figure, before new restrictions come into play.

You have peer reviewed links for these and your other figures? They will be published, won't they?

I can't find them, so they look like 'opinion' and even if correct we need time to analyse these data at some future date, because, as things stand, we do not know.

We are in the dark.

[Suff]

We are in the dark in terms of absolute numbers.

However I was just extrapolating from current levels of Covid specific admissions, the levels the government has set, the current level of recorded cases and the growth of Coved specific cases against the increase in Covid specific hospital admissions.

Of course this is not peer reviewed, that will take years. Government policy is being set on Days worth of data.

Remember, I asked the question about Omicron long before the press did. Before cases exploded but critical cases remained flat. There are only 842 ventilator cases at the moment and that is flat for the last week and down from 2 weeks ago. You'd think this was not difficult to report.

I do expect a. Surge of deaths reporting when the holiday backlog unwinds, perhaps in January.

That being said, the current large. Rise in cases has been going on for over a fortnight now. It has not impacted the NHS and it has not, so far, led to a tsunami of serious cases and deaths.

It is always useful to remember that without a doubling, or more, of serious cases, the chances of deaths doubling is minimal.

We are in a totally different place to festive 2020. The population is mostly vaccinated, there are drugs which are effective at reducing the criticality of the infection and the infections themselves are becoming less damaging over time.

This is all clear from the currently reported situation.

Press hysteria and NHS alarms aside, that is the situation. Hence no new measures for NY.

When, not if, the trumpeted catastrophe does not occur in January Sturgeon and the other devolved first ministers will find their crown of regional action somewhat tarnished.

[Suff]

We got a chunk of the missing deaths for the last week yesterday.

Cue the hysteria and "act NOW".

[cromwell]

Writing in the Telegraph Lord Sumption makes a point which I have tried to (but he does it better!).

He points out the reduction in capacity of the NHS, over many years. (The old 299,000 beds in 1989 to 141,000 in 2019).
And he adds that therefore when the political class say we must "protect the NHS" logically what they are saying is that the NHS must be protected because of decisions made by this same political class.

Politicians of both main parties when in government have reduced NHS capacity and lack of capacity, lack of capacity to cope, has been the big issue during the pandemic.

So; "Protect the NHS!" (just don't mention WHY it needs protecting?)

[Workingman]

And whatever you do don't mention that the UK population has increased by 10 million in that same period.

There were roughly 200 of us per bed back then, it is now about 470.

Something was bound to snap in an emergency. Cuts and efficiencies are one thing, decimation is another.

[Suff]

Reducing beds allowed a reduction in staff and physical costs. Which is why they did it. Of course as costs go up, capacity goes down, unless funding tracks costs.

Because costs exceeded inflation and funding undershot inflation, there needed to be action taken.

The elephant in the room is that labour and material costs are now so high that we simply will not afford to fund those costs. Ergo cut capacity.

Naturally capacity cuts men that in a pandemic we can't cope. The again the medical systems in most of Europe hit the same buffers for exactly the same reason. The medical facilities sized to the funds, not the risk.

The problem with the NHS is that it simply cannot be fixed. It is impossible to get anyone to accept 300bn in funds a year, impossible to stop a wages cash grab if that were to happen and impossible to get voters to accept that the 50% paying no direct taxes today would have to start paying tax again.

The only way to fix the NHS is to tear it down and remove it, then come back in a decade and tell the people (who now know what they have lost), what the government is going to provide for the people and at what cost.

So now that we have entered the realm of fantasy we can get back to the NHS is terminal but the Resuscitator keeps it going. It needs a DNR notice hung on it but nobody has the chutzpah to do it.

Enter the pandemic and pandemonium.

[Workingman]

There are two elephants in the room, well two big Tory Mammoths to be precise.

Trusts. Introduced in the early 90s to make the NHS a bit less socialist and a bit more capitalist by introducing an internal market for no other than political ideological reasons.

Austerity. Where from 2008 to the present day core budget increases have been below inflation bringing it to £159 billion in 2021/ 22 - not £300 bn..

Yes, there have been increases over the last two years but they have been in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which included procuring personal protective equipment for staff, developing the Test and Trace programme, extending use of the independent sector to reduce waits for care. They are not for core functions they are emergency funds.

[Suff]

As the numbers start to stabilise post Christmas/NY, they are beginning to fall. Still needs two weeks to validate as Monday numbers are always a bit lower. But the Serious cases are trending down and they are always up to date. We have also now closed in on the 28 day bracket for Omicron recoveries. Dec 15th was when cases ramped up to over 70k. Today UK recoveries are over 70k. This means the vast majority of the people (nearly all), who caught Omicron 28 days ago are neither critical nor even infected any more. We will find out, soon, if a majority of Covid deaths were Delta and not Omicron.

As the days roll on the numbers may flip, where the new infections are lower than the recoveries. We've seen it before but it was much smaller numbers. Leaving room for some glaring differences when we hit three weeks from now.

If the serious cases keep trending down, then we will move further to the "coping with it" stance and away from the "avoid it by lockdown" stance.

[Suff]

Whilst catching up with the weekend deaths stats pushes todays deaths up over 400, new cases continue their slide down, newly recovered cases exceed new cases and serious/critical cases continue to drop. Down to 713 today.

Meanwhile France just misses half a million new cases in a day and has nearly 4,000 serious cases. Hence deaths are consistently up.

It is a bit of a tale of two tickers. France dropped to single digit thousands heading into autumn 2021, whereas the UK was in the 30,000 - 50,000. Come Omicron, France has hit the levels of cases promised in the UK by the 'spurts. Notably the UK didn't.

During that time the UK continued to test twice as many people as France.

This is far from over, but the trend appears to be set. By Feb it should be completely clear. Well it is already pretty clear; it will be "completely" clear, like beyond an unreasonable doubt. Just as it is in South Africa where it has collapsed as fast as it came.

Of course things might change. But it really doesn't look like it.