Plan B

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lpm
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Plan B

Post by lpm » Wed Oct 20, 2021 8:56 am

The NHS "leaders" have called for the introduction of Plan B immediately in England.

This would mean the radical step of... er... face masks. Plan B is vaguely similar to what's already in place in Scotland, NI and Wales.

Nothing too wrong with requiring face masks again, to fight against colds and flu as well as Covid. I've no idea what the thinking behind vaccine passports is, other than to encourage vaccination rates. And calling for WFH suits me fine but isn't so great for lonely extroverts. Encouraging people to get the booster is obviously a good thing - though almost certainly less of a benefit than getting first doses into vulnerable/elderly refusers.

However.

These "leaders" were going to say this regardless of actual Covid cases and hospitalisations. They don't care that hospitalisations are actually dramatically lower than forecast - in fact below even the range of likely outcomes for October. It's not leadership to ignore evidence. This is a pretty shameful announcement because it doesn't acknowledge the dud forecasting - people who aren't transparent should have less of a voice.

They've thrown away their credibility by going for this far too early, at a point when hospitalisations are basically pretty stable.
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Sciolus
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Re: Plan B

Post by Sciolus » Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:15 am

NHS staff were massively overworked in 2019 as a result of austerity measures in the face of rising demand. We've now added a significant number of covid patients plus an 18-month backlog of non-covid work. Staff are knackered, and a vicious circle has set in: staff are overworked; staff go off sick with stress or breakdown or burnout, or leave or retire; more work for the remaining staff.

Overload happens at the margins. Getting 7000 people out of hospital would make a huge difference.

"Dramatically lower than forecast" is irrelevant. It's actual numbers that matter.

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Re: Plan B

Post by Troubled Joe » Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:20 am

I’d prefer too early to the government default of too late. Squash the Sombrero, I ask you, what a thunder****.

Declared interest : Mrs Joe is a doctor in an NHS hospital. We would like to avoid shitshow 2, electric boogaloo, thanks
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Re: Plan B

Post by jimbob » Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:12 am

https://twitter.com/garius/status/1450778722085265414
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@garius
LOL at everyone acting like this government has a 'COVID Plan B'
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Plan B

Post by shpalman » Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:48 am

it's ok we don't need to says the (checks notes) business secretary?

(of course it's pretty meaningless to compare yesterday's high post-weekend catchup death toll to anything but the 7-day average is anyway rising again, as are hospitalizations).
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Re: Plan B

Post by dyqik » Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:20 pm

"Plan B" is a US "morning after" contraceptive pill, isn't it?

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Re: Plan B

Post by Fishnut » Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:32 pm

Do they even have a plan A? Because our current strategy of "ah f.ck it" doesn't really feel like a plan.
it's okay to say "I don't know"

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Re: Plan B

Post by nezumi » Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:17 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:32 pm
Do they even have a plan A? Because our current strategy of "ah f.ck it" doesn't really feel like a plan.
In fairness, all plans end up being "ah f.ck it" in my experience. The government's plans so far have been the following: ah f.ck it, oh f.ck, f.cking hell, ah f.ck it, for f.ck's sake, oooh f.ck and, again, ah f.ck it.

I have typed that word enough times for it to no longer make sense as an English word.
Non fui. Fui. Non sum. Non curo.

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Re: Plan B

Post by Troubled Joe » Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:00 pm

nezumi wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:17 pm
Fishnut wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:32 pm
Do they even have a plan A? Because our current strategy of "ah f.ck it" doesn't really feel like a plan.
In fairness, all plans end up being "ah f.ck it" in my experience. The government's plans so far have been the following: ah f.ck it, oh f.ck, f.cking hell, ah f.ck it, for f.ck's sake, oooh f.ck and, again, ah f.ck it.

I have typed that word enough times for it to no longer make sense as an English word.
It’s a wonderfully adaptable word. In fact you could use it to describe the corpulent blonde c*ckwomble’s response to the pandemic as ‘the f*cking f*cler’s f*cking f*cked the f*cking f*cker up’

Perfectly clear in context
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lpm
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Re: Plan B

Post by lpm » Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:23 pm

Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:15 am
NHS staff were massively overworked in 2019 as a result of austerity measures in the face of rising demand. We've now added a significant number of covid patients plus an 18-month backlog of non-covid work. Staff are knackered, and a vicious circle has set in: staff are overworked; staff go off sick with stress or breakdown or burnout, or leave or retire; more work for the remaining staff.

Overload happens at the margins. Getting 7000 people out of hospital would make a huge difference.

"Dramatically lower than forecast" is irrelevant. It's actual numbers that matter.
Number of people in hospital with Covid basically hasn't changed since end of July. 7,000 or 8,000. Current 7,900 is below the mid Sept level of 8,400.

Daily hospitalisations were forecast to be between 2,000 and 7,000 by the end of October. Instead it's stuck at 800 or 900. Where's the acknowledgement that the forecasts were duds? Forecasts aren't irrelevant - they are proof of wolf-crying which is such an obvious own goal by NHS leaders.
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Re: Plan B

Post by PeteB » Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:31 pm

EU Covid Death Rates worse than the UK ?

True but read the whole analysis

https://twitter.com/BarclayBenedict/sta ... 3658225664

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Re: Plan B

Post by shpalman » Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:39 pm

Javid is asked directly by a member of the public whether or not it would be a good idea to make face coverings mandatory.

He says “we think it is the right decision to learn to live with this virus ... it’s asking people to take more responsibility.” He advises people to wear face masks and says the government might make them mandatory in certain settings in future. But makes it clear that this will not be happening right now.
live blog
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Re: Plan B

Post by Sciolus » Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:40 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:23 pm
Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:15 am
NHS staff were massively overworked in 2019 as a result of austerity measures in the face of rising demand. We've now added a significant number of covid patients plus an 18-month backlog of non-covid work. Staff are knackered, and a vicious circle has set in: staff are overworked; staff go off sick with stress or breakdown or burnout, or leave or retire; more work for the remaining staff.

Overload happens at the margins. Getting 7000 people out of hospital would make a huge difference.

"Dramatically lower than forecast" is irrelevant. It's actual numbers that matter.
Number of people in hospital with Covid basically hasn't changed since end of July. 7,000 or 8,000. Current 7,900 is below the mid Sept level of 8,400.

Daily hospitalisations were forecast to be between 2,000 and 7,000 by the end of October. Instead it's stuck at 800 or 900. Where's the acknowledgement that the forecasts were duds? Forecasts aren't irrelevant - they are proof of wolf-crying which is such an obvious own goal by NHS leaders.
That's just b.llsh.t. The NHS was overstretched in January 2020, and it's even more overstretched now. We need to get those 7000 people out of hospital so we can return to just being badly overstretched. Saying "yeah but it was really cripplingly overstretched for a while earlier which contributed to the current unprecedented backlog of work, therefore the status quo is fine" is just unbelievable.

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Re: Plan B

Post by shpalman » Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:41 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:23 pm
Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:15 am
NHS staff were massively overworked in 2019 as a result of austerity measures in the face of rising demand. We've now added a significant number of covid patients plus an 18-month backlog of non-covid work. Staff are knackered, and a vicious circle has set in: staff are overworked; staff go off sick with stress or breakdown or burnout, or leave or retire; more work for the remaining staff.

Overload happens at the margins. Getting 7000 people out of hospital would make a huge difference.

"Dramatically lower than forecast" is irrelevant. It's actual numbers that matter.
Number of people in hospital with Covid basically hasn't changed since end of July. 7,000 or 8,000. Current 7,900 is below the mid Sept level of 8,400.

Daily hospitalisations were forecast to be between 2,000 and 7,000 by the end of October. Instead it's stuck at 800 or 900. Where's the acknowledgement that the forecasts were duds? Forecasts aren't irrelevant - they are proof of wolf-crying which is such an obvious own goal by NHS leaders.
Nobody knows why the case rate suddenly went down again last time, which means we can't predict whether it will do that again or not. It doesn't look like it so far.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
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Re: Plan B

Post by Trinucleus » Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:14 pm

shpalman wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:39 pm
Javid is asked directly by a member of the public whether or not it would be a good idea to make face coverings mandatory.

He says “we think it is the right decision to learn to live with this virus ... it’s asking people to take more responsibility.” He advises people to wear face masks and says the government might make them mandatory in certain settings in future. But makes it clear that this will not be happening right now.
So does that mean the Tories will be wearing masks in the Commons?

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Re: Plan B

Post by OffTheRock » Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:52 pm

Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:40 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:23 pm
Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:15 am
NHS staff were massively overworked in 2019 as a result of austerity measures in the face of rising demand. We've now added a significant number of covid patients plus an 18-month backlog of non-covid work. Staff are knackered, and a vicious circle has set in: staff are overworked; staff go off sick with stress or breakdown or burnout, or leave or retire; more work for the remaining staff.

Overload happens at the margins. Getting 7000 people out of hospital would make a huge difference.

"Dramatically lower than forecast" is irrelevant. It's actual numbers that matter.
Number of people in hospital with Covid basically hasn't changed since end of July. 7,000 or 8,000. Current 7,900 is below the mid Sept level of 8,400.

Daily hospitalisations were forecast to be between 2,000 and 7,000 by the end of October. Instead it's stuck at 800 or 900. Where's the acknowledgement that the forecasts were duds? Forecasts aren't irrelevant - they are proof of wolf-crying which is such an obvious own goal by NHS leaders.
That's just b.llsh.t. The NHS was overstretched in January 2020, and it's even more overstretched now. We need to get those 7000 people out of hospital so we can return to just being badly overstretched. Saying "yeah but it was really cripplingly overstretched for a while earlier which contributed to the current unprecedented backlog of work, therefore the status quo is fine" is just unbelievable.
+1

Being this stretched in October is not at all normal. Going into the time we'd normally get winter pressures with fewer medical/surgical beds and 1/5 of ICU beds out of action because they have covid patients in is not good. We don't need the numbers to stabilise, we need them to go down other wise we'll just have to hope that flu doesn't come back and we don't have a cold snap this winter.

July/August levels caused issues for us here IIRC. At one point we didn't have a single ICU bed free in the region. So I'm not sure hospitalisations being that high is necessarily a good thing regardless of time of year.

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Re: Plan B

Post by sTeamTraen » Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:34 pm

dyqik wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:20 pm
"Plan B" is a US "morning after" contraceptive pill, isn't it?
Only 7 more plans to go.
Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:40 pm
That's just b.llsh.t. The NHS was overstretched in January 2020, and it's even more overstretched now. We need to get those 7000 people out of hospital so we can return to just being badly overstretched. Saying "yeah but it was really cripplingly overstretched for a while earlier which contributed to the current unprecedented backlog of work, therefore the status quo is fine" is just unbelievable.
Something that brought the disruption caused by Covid home to me was reading that the average ICU stay following major heart or cancer surgery is about 36 hours, whereas for Covid it's 15 days (i.e., 360 hours). So every Covid patient in ICU means postponing 10 serious operations.
Something something hammer something something nail

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Re: Plan B

Post by lpm » Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:24 pm

Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:40 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:23 pm
Sciolus wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:15 am
NHS staff were massively overworked in 2019 as a result of austerity measures in the face of rising demand. We've now added a significant number of covid patients plus an 18-month backlog of non-covid work. Staff are knackered, and a vicious circle has set in: staff are overworked; staff go off sick with stress or breakdown or burnout, or leave or retire; more work for the remaining staff.

Overload happens at the margins. Getting 7000 people out of hospital would make a huge difference.

"Dramatically lower than forecast" is irrelevant. It's actual numbers that matter.
Number of people in hospital with Covid basically hasn't changed since end of July. 7,000 or 8,000. Current 7,900 is below the mid Sept level of 8,400.

Daily hospitalisations were forecast to be between 2,000 and 7,000 by the end of October. Instead it's stuck at 800 or 900. Where's the acknowledgement that the forecasts were duds? Forecasts aren't irrelevant - they are proof of wolf-crying which is such an obvious own goal by NHS leaders.
That's just b.llsh.t. The NHS was overstretched in January 2020, and it's even more overstretched now. We need to get those 7000 people out of hospital so we can return to just being badly overstretched. Saying "yeah but it was really cripplingly overstretched for a while earlier which contributed to the current unprecedented backlog of work, therefore the status quo is fine" is just unbelievable.
The NHS was overstretched in January 2020 due to 10 years of Tory austerity.

The NHS is overstretched in October 2021 due to 11 years of Tory austerity.

Blame Covid instead of the government and you blame the rain for leaking into your house instead of blaming yourself for not fixing the roof.

If the NHS can't cope with what is now a routine, year-after-year health requirement, the NHS should call for more funding. It shouldn't call for people to wear masks in Tescos, for f.cks sake.
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Re: Plan B

Post by dyqik » Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:23 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:24 pm
The NHS was overstretched in January 2020 due to 10 years of Tory austerity.

The NHS is overstretched in October 2021 due to 11.8 years of Tory austerity and 18 months of Tory incompetence in mitigating and managing CoVID.
FTFY.

Too be fair, the vaccine roll out maybe made things a bit better than it otherwise would have been for a few months.

Today I realized that the CoVID case rate in the UK is over 50 times what it is here in Massachusetts. 1 in 250 people in the UK currently have CoVID.

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Re: Plan B

Post by bob sterman » Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:53 am

lpm wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:24 pm
If the NHS can't cope with what is now a routine, year-after-year health requirement, the NHS should call for more funding. It shouldn't call for people to wear masks in Tescos, for f.cks sake.
The NHS has been telling us what to buy (and not buy) in Tesco for many years!

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Re: Plan B

Post by Troubled Joe » Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:57 am

bob sterman wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:53 am
[quote=lpm post_id=100506 time=<a href="tel:1634768693">1634768693</a> user_id=66]
If the NHS can't cope with what is now a routine, year-after-year health requirement, the NHS should call for more funding. It shouldn't call for people to wear masks in Tescos, for f.cks sake.
The NHS has been telling us what to buy (and not buy) in Tesco for many years!
[/quote]

Quite.

No reason it can’t do both if it will prevent/ reduce incidence, for, as was eloquently said, f.cks sake. Same as it’s totally legit for them to say ‘don’t smoke’ as well as ‘money to treat lung cancer please’
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Re: Plan B

Post by lpm » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:46 am

Plan B measures aren't going to prevent/reduce cases. Far too tiny to have an effect - a few more masks, a slight reversal of the going back to the office.

A year ago we did the similar f.cking around of closing pubs at 10 pm. That was such an amazingly inadequate piece of lockdown it seems to have been erased from collective memories. We know what works to drive down cases and it's not this silly trivia - it's shutting schools, closing pubs, ending nightlife and all the rest.

This is like the NHS campaigning to reduce lung cancer by asking for nicotine addicts to stop smoking between 11:06 and 11:08 each Tuesday morning.
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Re: Plan B

Post by lpm » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:56 am

This is the doc that outlines what Plan B is.

There's nothing to it. Such an obvious smokescreen.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... n-2021.pdf
77. The Government’s Plan B prioritises measures which can help control transmission of the virus while seeking to minimise economic and social impacts. This includes:

a. Communicating clearly and urgently to the public that the level of risk has increased, and with it the need to behave more cautiously.

b. Introducing mandatory vaccine-only COVID-status certification in certain settings.

c. Legally mandating face coverings in certain settings.

78. The Government would also consider asking people once again to work from home if they can, for a limited period. The Government recognises this causes more disruption and has greater immediate costs to the economy and some businesses than the other Plan B interventions, so a final decision would be made based on the data at the time.
The paper has a bit of waffle about each component.
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Re: Plan B

Post by PeteB » Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:29 am

Not sure where to post random Covid info now but

https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status ... 9242502144

The vaccines have created fairly effective no-weeing lanes ! (ie not really propagating through to older age groups nearly as much as it was)

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Re: Plan B

Post by WFJ » Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:38 am

lpm wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:46 am
Plan B measures aren't going to prevent/reduce cases. Far too tiny to have an effect - a few more masks, a slight reversal of the going back to the office.
lpm wrote:
Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:56 am
This is the doc that outlines what Plan B is.

There's nothing to it. Such an obvious smokescreen.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... n-2021.pdf
77. The Government’s Plan B prioritises measures which can help control transmission of the virus while seeking to minimise economic and social impacts. This includes:

a. Communicating clearly and urgently to the public that the level of risk has increased, and with it the need to behave more cautiously.

b. Introducing mandatory vaccine-only COVID-status certification in certain settings.

c. Legally mandating face coverings in certain settings.

78. The Government would also consider asking people once again to work from home if they can, for a limited period. The Government recognises this causes more disruption and has greater immediate costs to the economy and some businesses than the other Plan B interventions, so a final decision would be made based on the data at the time.
The paper has a bit of waffle about each component.
Why do you think the UK is currently has the World's worst new case rate, and is up there in deaths too? These measures are what are currently in place in most of Europe, where cases and deaths are much lower.

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