4 ms·

Desperate times and all that. With a incident rate of >1000 (and a lot higher in some hotspots), hospitals are at their breaking point right now.

jmnicolas 5y ago
Meh. If it's like in France there's a lot of dramatization: we got an official report about last year: COVID represented 2% of all hospitalizations and 5% of intensive care.
- soco 5y ago
  Right now in Switzerland there's 16.8% COVID patients from the hospitalizations. Would you call this dramatization?
  - jmnicolas 5y ago
    There is probably a wave of hospitalizations now like every year with the flu. When you average on a year it won't be as bad and won't justify trampling civil liberties. It's just a power grab IMHO and people are so afraid of COVID they just go along. But sadly we won't get our freedoms back once all this is over.
    - tzs 5y ago
      A hurricane doesn't raise the average wind speed for the year at your house by much. Yet you can't ignore it. If I were to press the business end of my soldering iron onto your hand it would only raise the average amount of thermal energy that your hand absorbs this year by a negligible amount. Yet I'm pretty sure you would very strongly object. Hospitals in many areas are being overwhelmed to a far greater extent than they are in even bad flu years. When you are going to need a hospital for something in the future that you can be flexible with scheduling, then you just need a hospital that on average has enough capacity. When you need a hospital now with no flexibility in timing, all that matters is if demand now is above what the hospital can serve.
      - jmnicolas 5y ago
        You're right but does it justify the power grab anyway? What has been done since last year about hospitals capacity? I can tell you that in France we have less beds than last year (not sure about intensive care though) and we fired quite a lot of unvaccinated nurses.
        malermeister 5y ago
        What you're suggesting basically comes down to mitigation, which we've been having a lot of issues with. I think what we actually need is a solution, so there's nothing left to mitigate. Imo mandatory vaccinations might be just that.
        jmnicolas 5y ago
        The vaccine isn't efficient enough. Look at Gibraltar: 99% are vaccinated and they're still cancelling Christmas celebrations.
        malermeister 5y ago
        Vaccination isn't a binary state. Protection wanes over time. I don't know where to get the data, but I'd guess that most people in Gibraltar have been vaccinated quite a while ago. Maybe we need tighter schedules, i.e. one shot every two months? With delta, i think that's when effectiveness starts to wane.
        tzs 5y ago
        Gibraltar is having a case surge, but they are having almost no deaths [1]. [1] https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/gibraltar/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...
- gehatare 5y ago
  Well, it's not like in France, so I don't see your point. Hospitals in Salzburg and Österreich can't treat emergency patients properly anymore for lack of capacity. Also year round numbers won't help you if the cases are clustered.
- soneil 5y ago
  numbers for a year aren't hugely useful. The issue is the concurrent rate, not the annual rate. I'm in Ireland - the numbers given on Wednesday were 15 ICU beds free nationwide, with 40% of beds being used by covid patients. An easy month and a tough month might average out over the year, it doesn't actually help anyone if there's a lack of beds during the tough month. It's like the "HN hug of death" - if your server fell over when you needed it, it doesn't matter if you got no visitors for the rest of the year. The average is irrelevant.
  - jmnicolas 5y ago
    The "HN hug of death" is a sign that your infrastructure is not adequate. A regular flu year was 1.5% hospitalization. We're drowning with .5 more after years and years of reducing hospitals capacity. I can't comment on Ireland I don't know the situation but I'd bet it's the same than in France: not enough beds when something is a bit out of the ordinary.
blub 5y ago
Mandatory vaccines in February won’t do anything until April probably and by then the current wave will be over. Assuming the new South African variant won’t make things worse yet again.

jmnicolas 5y ago

Meh. If it's like in France there's a lot of dramatization: we got an official report about last year: COVID represented 2% of all hospitalizations and 5% of intensive care.

soco 5y ago
Right now in Switzerland there's 16.8% COVID patients from the hospitalizations. Would you call this dramatization?
- jmnicolas 5y ago
  There is probably a wave of hospitalizations now like every year with the flu. When you average on a year it won't be as bad and won't justify trampling civil liberties. It's just a power grab IMHO and people are so afraid of COVID they just go along. But sadly we won't get our freedoms back once all this is over.
  - tzs 5y ago
    A hurricane doesn't raise the average wind speed for the year at your house by much. Yet you can't ignore it. If I were to press the business end of my soldering iron onto your hand it would only raise the average amount of thermal energy that your hand absorbs this year by a negligible amount. Yet I'm pretty sure you would very strongly object. Hospitals in many areas are being overwhelmed to a far greater extent than they are in even bad flu years. When you are going to need a hospital for something in the future that you can be flexible with scheduling, then you just need a hospital that on average has enough capacity. When you need a hospital now with no flexibility in timing, all that matters is if demand now is above what the hospital can serve.
    - jmnicolas 5y ago
      You're right but does it justify the power grab anyway? What has been done since last year about hospitals capacity? I can tell you that in France we have less beds than last year (not sure about intensive care though) and we fired quite a lot of unvaccinated nurses.
      - malermeister 5y ago
        What you're suggesting basically comes down to mitigation, which we've been having a lot of issues with. I think what we actually need is a solution, so there's nothing left to mitigate. Imo mandatory vaccinations might be just that.
        jmnicolas 5y ago
        The vaccine isn't efficient enough. Look at Gibraltar: 99% are vaccinated and they're still cancelling Christmas celebrations.
        malermeister 5y ago
        Vaccination isn't a binary state. Protection wanes over time. I don't know where to get the data, but I'd guess that most people in Gibraltar have been vaccinated quite a while ago. Maybe we need tighter schedules, i.e. one shot every two months? With delta, i think that's when effectiveness starts to wane.
        tzs 5y ago
        Gibraltar is having a case surge, but they are having almost no deaths [1]. [1] https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/gibraltar/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...
gehatare 5y ago
Well, it's not like in France, so I don't see your point. Hospitals in Salzburg and Österreich can't treat emergency patients properly anymore for lack of capacity. Also year round numbers won't help you if the cases are clustered.
soneil 5y ago
numbers for a year aren't hugely useful. The issue is the concurrent rate, not the annual rate. I'm in Ireland - the numbers given on Wednesday were 15 ICU beds free nationwide, with 40% of beds being used by covid patients. An easy month and a tough month might average out over the year, it doesn't actually help anyone if there's a lack of beds during the tough month. It's like the "HN hug of death" - if your server fell over when you needed it, it doesn't matter if you got no visitors for the rest of the year. The average is irrelevant.
- jmnicolas 5y ago
  The "HN hug of death" is a sign that your infrastructure is not adequate. A regular flu year was 1.5% hospitalization. We're drowning with .5 more after years and years of reducing hospitals capacity. I can't comment on Ireland I don't know the situation but I'd bet it's the same than in France: not enough beds when something is a bit out of the ordinary.

blub 5y ago

Mandatory vaccines in February won’t do anything until April probably and by then the current wave will be over. Assuming the new South African variant won’t make things worse yet again.