5 ms·

Instead what happened (at least where I live - UK), is that hospitals stopped treating many other conditions for ~2 years, creating a huge patient backlog, and

Instead what happened (at least where I live - UK), is that hospitals stopped treating many other conditions for ~2 years, creating a huge patient backlog, and set "Covid Safety" policies that continue to make diagnosis and treatment slower than normal, causing the backlog to continue to grow at a record-breaking rate. To give you an idea of what that looks like, I currently have two options to get healthcare. I can try to get a GP appointment. The only way is to phone, and the phone system of my local surgery is overloaded as soon as it opens at 8am. You have to ring repeatedly until you can even get a place in the phone queue, then you stay on hold until you get through to a very stressed receptionist who will see if there are any appointments left. They run out quick, and if there aren't any, you have to try again tomorrow at 8am when the next batch are released. The other option is to go to A+E. Calling an ambulance is out of the question, because there's a good chance you'll die before one turns up (if you actually have a life-threatening emergency). Good job we saved the NHS, eh? Covid won't kill granny, good ol' neglect will.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
So you're saying NHS was overloaded due to the pandemic. Not sure how you're disagreeing with me, unless you're claiming that letting the pandemic run wild would somehow lead to less overload, which on the face of it seems absurd.
- katkatkatkatket 4y ago
  No, I'm saying that the NHS stopped treating other conditions. Whether it was actually overloaded from March 2020 onwards is another question - the publicly-available patient data shows that the total patient occupancy was at about 70% of normal levels during the Covid years. It was also found (and relatively quickly) that Covid patients didn't need complex care - bed rest and low-flow oxygen was the best treatment, for those who didn't need forced ventilation (and there's a whole lot of discussion about how much damage that may to do a Covid patient anyway). The argument that follows is that "we couldn't treat other conditions because that would have caused Covid to spread more widely", with the assumption that it's better to have this many untreated patients than for Covid to have spread more rapidly. Time will tell, but I strongly believe that it will show that, like many other aspects of our response to Covid, the cure will be much worse than the disease.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    I see, sorry for the misunderstanding. I don't know enough about the UK response to make a well-reasoned reply, except it sounds like a very strange decision to me. I suppose it could have been a form of pre-emptive triage to avoid hospital overload? It's always been my view that lockdown was the only response sufficiently effective to actually stop the spread in its tracks, and that's been proven in countries that locked down earlier, like Norway(at least in the first wave). The problem is that stopping the pandemic globally would more or less require a globally coordinated lockdown, which was never going to happen because we're just not at that level of internation cooperation in general, and it only takes one reckless government like Trump's or Bolsonaro's so ruin it for everyone. And it would probably be untenable for economic reasons as well.
    - katkatkatkatket 4y ago
      >it sounds like a very strange decision to me. I suppose it could have been a form of pre-emptive triage to avoid hospital overload? Yes, it is very strange. In March 2020, we were promised a global pandemic the like of which had never been seen before, with the young and old alike dropping dead in the street. Despite it very quickly becoming apparent that this was not the case, the general response, public messaging, and state of mind for many continues as if that were true. >would more or less require a globally coordinated lockdown It would also require borders to be sealed shut to allcomers, which is not something that most Western countries are used to enforcing.
  - __alexs 4y ago
    Why does the complexity of the care matter? There are only so many beds in the hospital.
    - devilbunny 4y ago
      Nurse (and respiratory care, and physical/occupational therapy, and everyone else):patient ratios. 1:4 is usual; 1:6 is rough, 1:8 is almost undoable. Low-complexity patients ease the per-patient workload, allowing the same number of nurses to cover more patients. In ICU/ITU, typical nursing ratio is 1:2, but some flexed to 1:3 and even 1:4, which is getting into danger territory. Many hospitals in the US closed wards during COVID because they didn't have the staff, not because they physically lacked space.
sputr 4y ago
You did save the NHS. Barely. What you're missing is that without the lockdown it would be much, MUCH worse. They stopped treating other conditions BECAUSE of Covid. I was in the hospital (not UK, my own country) for a very dangerous, non-covid, pneumonia in December 2020 during the height of cases. I needed intensive care, but it took 4 days for them to find me a bed and a ventilator. Why? Because the hospital was full of covid patients. There just wasn't any room for me. Covid may kill granny, as it almost killed me. Just not the covid in our systems but the covid in the systems of other people. If I died of my PCP pneumonia I would have been a victim of covid, even tho covid never entered my system.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  You had a condition that directly competed for scarce resources with another respiratory disease. Routine cardiac, cancer, and other diagnostic screenings do not exhibit the same resource conflict and yet were also stopped or sharply curtailed in many places.
  - sputr 4y ago
    At lest in my country, it was an issue of manpower - other departments were stopped or slowed down because employees were moved to covid departments.
- katkatkatkatket 4y ago
  >You did save the NHS. Barely. I have a very different opinion. I believe that, like many other aspects of life and culture, our response to Covid ripped open any cracks and accelerated ongoing problems. I think we are currently seeing an accelerated and terminal decline of fully-public healthcare in the UK. It's hard to call it "saved", when people going into cardiac arrest are literally dying waiting hours for ambulances, and routine care is largely unavailable.
  - sputr 4y ago
    It's the same here. "Saved" in this context, for me, means "saved from immediate" collapse.
macinjosh 4y ago
Socialized medicine sounds so wonderful. /s

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago

So you're saying NHS was overloaded due to the pandemic. Not sure how you're disagreeing with me, unless you're claiming that letting the pandemic run wild would somehow lead to less overload, which on the face of it seems absurd.

katkatkatkatket 4y ago
No, I'm saying that the NHS stopped treating other conditions. Whether it was actually overloaded from March 2020 onwards is another question - the publicly-available patient data shows that the total patient occupancy was at about 70% of normal levels during the Covid years. It was also found (and relatively quickly) that Covid patients didn't need complex care - bed rest and low-flow oxygen was the best treatment, for those who didn't need forced ventilation (and there's a whole lot of discussion about how much damage that may to do a Covid patient anyway). The argument that follows is that "we couldn't treat other conditions because that would have caused Covid to spread more widely", with the assumption that it's better to have this many untreated patients than for Covid to have spread more rapidly. Time will tell, but I strongly believe that it will show that, like many other aspects of our response to Covid, the cure will be much worse than the disease.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  I see, sorry for the misunderstanding. I don't know enough about the UK response to make a well-reasoned reply, except it sounds like a very strange decision to me. I suppose it could have been a form of pre-emptive triage to avoid hospital overload? It's always been my view that lockdown was the only response sufficiently effective to actually stop the spread in its tracks, and that's been proven in countries that locked down earlier, like Norway(at least in the first wave). The problem is that stopping the pandemic globally would more or less require a globally coordinated lockdown, which was never going to happen because we're just not at that level of internation cooperation in general, and it only takes one reckless government like Trump's or Bolsonaro's so ruin it for everyone. And it would probably be untenable for economic reasons as well.
  - katkatkatkatket 4y ago
    >it sounds like a very strange decision to me. I suppose it could have been a form of pre-emptive triage to avoid hospital overload? Yes, it is very strange. In March 2020, we were promised a global pandemic the like of which had never been seen before, with the young and old alike dropping dead in the street. Despite it very quickly becoming apparent that this was not the case, the general response, public messaging, and state of mind for many continues as if that were true. >would more or less require a globally coordinated lockdown It would also require borders to be sealed shut to allcomers, which is not something that most Western countries are used to enforcing.
- __alexs 4y ago
  Why does the complexity of the care matter? There are only so many beds in the hospital.
  - devilbunny 4y ago
    Nurse (and respiratory care, and physical/occupational therapy, and everyone else):patient ratios. 1:4 is usual; 1:6 is rough, 1:8 is almost undoable. Low-complexity patients ease the per-patient workload, allowing the same number of nurses to cover more patients. In ICU/ITU, typical nursing ratio is 1:2, but some flexed to 1:3 and even 1:4, which is getting into danger territory. Many hospitals in the US closed wards during COVID because they didn't have the staff, not because they physically lacked space.

sputr 4y ago

You did save the NHS. Barely. What you're missing is that without the lockdown it would be much, MUCH worse. They stopped treating other conditions BECAUSE of Covid. I was in the hospital (not UK, my own country) for a very dangerous, non-covid, pneumonia in December 2020 during the height of cases. I needed intensive care, but it took 4 days for them to find me a bed and a ventilator. Why? Because the hospital was full of covid patients. There just wasn't any room for me. Covid may kill granny, as it almost killed me. Just not the covid in our systems but the covid in the systems of other people. If I died of my PCP pneumonia I would have been a victim of covid, even tho covid never entered my system.

sokoloff 4y ago
You had a condition that directly competed for scarce resources with another respiratory disease. Routine cardiac, cancer, and other diagnostic screenings do not exhibit the same resource conflict and yet were also stopped or sharply curtailed in many places.
- sputr 4y ago
  At lest in my country, it was an issue of manpower - other departments were stopped or slowed down because employees were moved to covid departments.
katkatkatkatket 4y ago
>You did save the NHS. Barely. I have a very different opinion. I believe that, like many other aspects of life and culture, our response to Covid ripped open any cracks and accelerated ongoing problems. I think we are currently seeing an accelerated and terminal decline of fully-public healthcare in the UK. It's hard to call it "saved", when people going into cardiac arrest are literally dying waiting hours for ambulances, and routine care is largely unavailable.
- sputr 4y ago
  It's the same here. "Saved" in this context, for me, means "saved from immediate" collapse.

macinjosh 4y ago

Socialized medicine sounds so wonderful. /s