Very scarily, this looks like a "Don't Look Up!"...


Concern over flu and winter viruses but Covid levels unchanged
wrote:

... The flu season has started early and some children under five are ending up in hospital, health officials say.

They are also reminding parents that all two and three-year-olds can have a flu nasal spray vaccine...

... Hospital admission rates for flu are highest in children under four, and people aged 85 and over.

In a bad winter, like 2017, flu caused a large spike in hospital admissions, so people are being urged to have their flu and Covid vaccines to avoid a 'twindemic' - waves of both viruses at the same time...

Meanwhile, our hospitals are already at breaking point and look more like the desperate mess of a third world country (not for lack of superhuman dedicated work by completely overwhelmed staff):

'I wouldn't bring a member of my family to this hospital,' says medic
wrote:

Steve Barclay is back as England's health secretary, just as the NHS prepares for what its chief executive Amanda Pritchard says could be a "very, very challenging winter".

The government has said "intensive work" is under way in the 15 most under-pressure hospital trusts in England, to speed up ambulance delays, free up beds and reduce waiting times in A&E.

The BBC has been looking at one of those trusts...

... "I really feel for the doctors and nurses because they are literally run off their feet. I don't know who is to blame but it's an [overwhelmed] absolute shambles,"...

... "I wouldn't bring a member of my family to this hospital. And winter is going to be worse unless something changes fast."...

... When paramedics try to unload those patients they are often told it is too busy and have to queue outside - a so-called handover delay. Almost two-thirds of ambulances which arrived in Gloucester and Cheltenham last winter were stuck outside for at least half an hour, the second worst performance in England, according to NHS statistics.

Board papers show the situation did not improve over the summer.

"It's so demoralising when you're sat there waiting, hearing the calls coming in, and there are no ambulances available because they're all in your queue," said one paramedic, who wanted to remain anonymous. "A couple of months ago, we had 30 ambulances outside the hospital, and we don't even have 30 ambulances in the whole of Gloucestershire."

Those delays mean paramedics cannot quickly get back on the road to the next patient...

... "stretched beyond breaking point". The result is a bottleneck - and then a backlog - that moves right through the hospital until A&E starts to fill up and those ambulances need to be held outside...

... The NHS is having problems recruiting enough doctors, nurses and support staff.

In April, 11% of positions in Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust were unfilled, a rate which had more than doubled in a year...

... The anonymous medic said there was a sense of "denial and complacency" about the problems. "I can't wait to leave this place," they said...

... "It's just nuts and and it's going to get worse."...

And no surprises here:

Biggest NHS union ballots staff over strike action
wrote:

... Unison is not the only health union taking action. The other major ones, including the Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives, GMB and Unite, have all started to, or are planning to, ballot members...

... "Striking is the last thing dedicated health workers want to do. But with services in such a dire state and staff struggling to deliver for patients with fewer colleagues than ever, many feel like the end of the road has been reached.

"The NHS is losing experienced staff at alarming rates. Health workers are leaving for work that pays better and doesn't take such a toll on them and their families.

"If this continues, the health service will never conquer the backlog and treat the millions desperately awaiting care."...

How much further are going to abuse the NHS into destruction?

How come our MPs are seemingly doing nothing useful about this?...

Undoubtedly, people are dying unnecessarily.


Stay healthy folks!
Martin

---

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And we have...


NHS boss Amanda Pritchard says patients not always getting care they deserve
wrote:

... Ms Pritchard told the King's Fund annual conference in London that demand was rising more quickly than the NHS could cope with.

"I thought that the pandemic would be the hardest thing any of us ever had to do," she said. "Over the last year, I've become really clear.... it's the months and years ahead that will bring the most ... challenges."...

... And the solution is?

And there is also the question of why the NHS is suffering yet increasingly more unhealthy people?...


Stay healthy folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
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"Watching the river flood and being swept away just the same..."


NHS disruption driving rise in heart deaths...
wrote:

Extreme disruption to NHS services has been driving a sharp spike in heart disease deaths since the start of the pandemic...

... 30,000 excess cardiac deaths in England...

... Doctors and groups representing patients have become increasingly concerned about the high number of deaths of any cause recorded this year. Data from the Office for National Statistics suggests the overall number was 17% higher in England than would have been expected...

... Some of that rise can still be explained by Covid, which was mentioned on 523 death certificates in England over the week of 14 October...

... the average ambulance response time for a suspected heart attack has risen to 48 minutes in England against a target of 18 minutes...

Yet this has long ago been foreseen:

23 August 2022 - ONS: Why is the number of deaths higher than expected?
wrote:

The threat from Covid may have receded, but renewed concerns are being raised about the high number of total deaths being recorded...

... One theory is that people have been left more frail because of a previous Covid infection - research suggests an infection can lead to a higher risk of heart problems subsequently. The pandemic has also led to people becoming unhealthier, with alcohol consumption and physical-inactivity levels increasing...

... There are no signs of cancer deaths increasing yet - these could take some years to filter through. But Macmillan Cancer Support estimates there are still more than 30,000 missing cancer cases - people who have not yet been diagnosed and whose survival chances will be put at risk...

... [The NHS] Performance was deteriorating before the pandemic, following a decade of squeezed funding, but the pandemic has exacerbated the situation with demand and waits both rising...

... Earlier this month, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine warned the system was experiencing a "sharp demise" in performance and that patients were being harmed. It said it dreaded to imagine what would happen this winter, when pressures typically get worse, and urged ministers to take more action...

Stay healthy?!!...
Martin

---

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A listeria outbreak is about in the U.S..

1 dead, over a dozen sick from outbreak tied to deli meat.

A food poisoning outbreak tied to deli meat and cheese has sickened 16 people, including one who died, U.S. health officials said Wednesday.

Most were hospitalized and one illness resulted in the loss of a pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Many reported eating meat or cheese from deli counters where investigators detected listeria in open packages of sliced meats and in the environment. The bacteria was found at two NetCost Market locations in New York, but health officials said that's not likely the only source of the listeria outbreak because some sick people didn't shop at the store.

NetCost did not immediately respond to an email for comment.

Those sickened were from New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey and California. The death was reported in Maryland, the CDC said.

Eleven of those who fell ill are of Eastern European background or speak Russian and investigators are trying to figure out why.

Listeria is a persistent germ that can be hard to get rid of from surfaces and equipment. Symptoms of listeria poisoning include fever, muscle aches, nausea and diarrhea. It is especially dangerous for the elderly, pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems.

Oh dear, this is nasty and senseless:


Measles outbreak erupts among unvaccinated children in Ohio daycare wrote:

... “Measles is both highly contagious and preventable,” Joe Mazzola, Franklin County health commissioner, said in the release. “It can be a severe illness, so we strongly encourage anyone who has not been vaccinated to get vaccinated to prevent further spread.”

I knew a girl who was very athletic and attractive. Unfortunately she had suffered measles as a child before having been vaccinated, and was left with some lifelong damage that was occasionally very disabling and disruptive.


Very definitely a nasty one to avoid!

Stay healthy folks!
Martin

---

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Oh these cruise ships are a health problem.

Cruise ship Majestic Princess with hundreds of COVID-infected passengers docks in Sydney.

Health authorities are working with the operators of the Majestic Princess cruise ship that has docked in Sydney Harbour with hundreds of people infected with COVID on board.

New South Wales Health has confirmed the cruise ship is at the highest COVID alert possible for those on board with a Tier Three warning.

That means at least 20 per cent of people who were on board for the cruise have COVID.

The ship has more than 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew, with several hundred believed to be infected.

Many passengers disembarked from the ship on Saturday after testing negative to the virus.

The president of cruise operator Carnival Australia, Marguerite Fitzgerald, said there were about 800 people infected, who were mostly passengers....

Mmmmm...

The problem is with covid, is that you can test negative showing no present infectious spread, yet still be infected to start spewing out virus a few days later...

All of those passengers should be quarantined in isolation for a three or four days and retested to keep with reality.


I wonder if this is why we have a continuing pandemic?...

We really need more to be vaccinated to stop this ongoing deadly silliness...


Stay safe folks...
Martin

---

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Opinions and evidence differ...

Indeed, the present vaccines for covid do not guarantee that you are somehow invulnerable and can never get infected.

However:

The vaccines do usefully prime your immune system to avoid the infection progressing further... That aspect is significant to reduce the viral load that is spewed out.

Less virus means fewer other people around you get subsequently infected from you (unknowingly, or otherwise...).

Hence the continuing official advice to get vaccinated.

However, if only people were better aware and better prepared to stay vaccinated...

For our very human culture, vaccination is the quickest way out of the continuing pandemic.


Stay safe folks!
Martin

---

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You are correctly back peddling from your previous all encomassing statement.

---

Not at all.

If we can reach a critical threshold of people being vaccinated, the reduced viral load pulls the infection rate down to then bring the pandemic to an end.

To reduce the "Replication Rate" 'R' down to less than 1.00 (so that an infected person infects no more than one other person to then have the pandemic die out), we can isolate everyone, enforce wearing good masks, or vaccinate.

Of those options, the vaccination route is the least likely to cause riots...


Or we just suffer a much degraded way of life until Darwin catches up... Note how (the consequences of) the Black Death, hundreds of years later, still affects most of us even today...

Stay healthy folks...
Martin

---

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Martin is correct; there is scientifically accepted, peer-reviewed data showing that COVID-19 vaccines among others prevent exposure to an infectious agent from resulting in infection with signs/symptoms, as well as reducing severity.

Scientific Citation: Kelly M Hatfield, James Baggs, Hannah Wolford, Michael Fang, Ammarah A Sattar, Kelsey S Montgomery, Steven Jin, John Jernigan, Tamara Pilishvili, Effectiveness of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Vaccination Against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Infection Among Residents of US Nursing Homes Before and During the Delta Variant Predominance, December 2020–November 2021, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 75, Issue Supplement_2, 1 October 2022, Pages S147–S154

For adults: 58% overall, without prior infection
67% < 150 days of receipt of the 2nd dose of Pfizer-BioNTech, pre-Delta period
75% <150 days of receipt of the 2nd dose of Moderna, pre-Delta period
33% >150 days of receipt of the 2nd dose of Pfizer-BioNTech, Delta period
77% >150 days of receipt of the 2nd dose of Moderna, Delta period
(This is only for one adult mRNA study. There are dozens of others supporting it.)

As this is not a matter of opinion, posts to the contrary will be handled as spreading of false medical info.

(Note: I had to change the less-than-or-equal signs to less-than as the forum choked on them and threw an error.)

---

For yet another example:


Have I dodged Covid and what does it mean?
wrote:

... The virus has swept the world since it emerged in China nearly three years ago. Fresh variants have become better and better at infecting us. Even vaccines make Covid milder rather than being an impenetrable shield.

Yet I worked in the office throughout, even in lockdowns, and the virus ripped through the rest of my family and I didn't get sick ... One estimate in the summer suggested around one-in-10 people in the UK still hadn't been infected.

So what's going on?...

... There are three broad possibilities if you think you've dodged the virus:

• You're wrong - you have actually been infected, but never realised
  
  
• You've never come into contact with it
  
  
• Or your body has some extra defence that has repelled it
  

"There are a lot of people saying, 'I've never had 'Covid-the-disease'. Most probably aren't right, they may have been infected and it just didn't result in any symptoms," ... of people being regularly tested found half of those catching the Omicron variant remained blissfully unaware or put their mild symptoms down to something else...

... The idea of an abortive infection is you are exposed to the virus, it even gets into the right places to start an infection, but the body gets on top of it before it takes off...

... "It could just be that the vaccines worked well for you and have given you very good protection,"...

... Even before the first cases arrived in the UK, some people had these anti-Covid soldiers in their bodies. They are probably the result of catching other common cold coronaviruses, which are closely related to the Covid virus. "If you have young children at school, it's very likely that you would have been exposed to these in the preceding years," Prof Maini tells me. "If you've got these pre-existing [immune system] T-cells ready and waiting then they can act much more quickly and bring down the infection...

... My gut feeling is that the torrent of bugs every toddler brings home from nursery to plague their already weary parents helped me dodge Covid...

... having had the virus and the vaccine - known as hybrid immunity - gives the strongest immune response...

... Dr Broadbent agrees: "If you don't think you've had it up to now, it does not mean resistance… chances are you're lucky."...

Personally, I'd rather not chance my good health to just "luck", or to "tempting fate"...

Instead... Improve your chances?

Especially so for what is now an extremely well tested family of vaccines...


Stay healthy folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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There are multiple levels of painful consequences:


Solve worker shortages with immigration - CBI boss
wrote:

... "First, we have lost hundreds of thousands of people to economic inactivity post Covid," he said. "And anyone who thinks they'll all be back any day now - with the NHS under the pressure it is - is kidding themselves.

"Secondly, we don't have enough [able] Brits to go round for the vacancies that exist, and there's a skills mismatch in any case. And third, believing automation can step in to do the job in most cases is unrealistic."...

IIRC, here in the UK we have over Two Million people suffering long term sickness from covid. And that's before you start counting those unable to work due to waiting for NHS treatment...

So... The 'Russian Solution' is that we import people in to hide the gaps?


Stay healthy folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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There are consequences...


The puzzle of UK’s half a million missing workers
wrote:

For the first time, more than 2.5 million people in the UK are out of work because of a long-term health problem...

... Something strange seems to be affecting the UK workforce.

The country is in its fourth year of sharply rising chronic illness.

The highest rates are among 50- to 64-year-olds - but there have also been significant increases in some younger groups...

... Some of the largest increases are in people reporting mobility difficulties, such as leg and back problems, or heart and blood-pressure problems.

More younger people, in particular, say they are not in work because of different forms of mental illness.

And separate NHS waiting-list data for England paints a similar picture - with lengthy delays for knee and hip replacements, cardiac surgery and community mental-health care.

But the largest increase in long-term sickness is in the catch-all "other health problems" category, likely to include some of those with "long Covid"...

The puzzle is why that all might be some sort of puzzle...

All very unhealthy.


Stay healthy?!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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"Watching the river flood and being swept away just the same..."

Patients dying as ambulances face crippling delays in England
wrote:

Ambulance crews are facing crippling delays when they arrive at A&E with sick patients, NHS bosses are warning.

Over the past week, nearly three in 10 ambulances were caught queuing outside hospitals in England.

It is the worst start to winter since records began...

... Ambulance chiefs said the problems were leading to patients dying and being harmed on a daily basis...

... "The life-saving safety net that NHS ambulance services provide is being severely compromised by these unnecessary delays, and patients are dying and coming to harm as a result on a daily basis." AACE said its own analysis of the delays seen during October suggested about 44,000 patients may have come to harm because of delays...

... And yet?...


Stay healthy folks!!!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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There's hope yet.

A drug to beat dementia and slow memory-robbing Alzheimer’s has been proven to work for the first time.

A drug to beat dementia has been proven to work for the first time. Tests found the treatment, called lecanemab, slows memory-robbing Alzheimer’s.

It acts by clearing out proteins which build up in the brain and cause the disease, The Sun reports.

There are currently no treatments for the condition and dozens of studies have failed.

Japanese drug firm Eisai and Biogen, in the US, say their jab helps stave off nerve damage and buys sufferers extra time.

In tests 900 people given the drug over 18 months recorded brain scores 27 per cent higher....

OKAY, this makes NO SENSE...

“As European countries battle to limit the spread of the virus, Verein Sterbehilfe – the German Euthanasia Association – has issued a new directive, declaring it will now only help those who have been vaccinated or recovered from the disease,” The Spectator explains.

Have they found the answer?

Moderna mRNA melanoma vaccine may be 'the penicillin moment' in cancer treatment, researchers say.

A world-first melanoma vaccine which personalises treatments for patients may put an end to melanoma as a "death sentence", according to Australian experts.

Results of an early trial by Biotech company Moderna indicate the personalised treatment reduces the risk of recurrence or death from melanoma by 44 per cent, compared with results from its immunotherapy drug alone.

The vaccine calls on the same technology used in certain mRNA COVID vaccines, and relies on the vaccine being administered in conjunction with Moderna's immunotherapy drug, Keytruda.

The trial is the first to make use of personalised vaccines in cancer treatment, and to show that combining mRNA technology with Keytruda delivers better results for melanoma patients — and possibly patients with other cancers too....

"Watching the river flood and being swept away just the same..."

There are consequences:

Largest nursing strike in NHS history starts
wrote:

Nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have started a nationwide strike in the largest action of its kind in NHS history.

Staff will continue to provide "life-preserving" and some urgent care but routine surgery and other planned treatment is likely to be disrupted.

The Royal College of Nursing said staff had been given no choice after ministers refused to reopen pay talks...

Except...

Is not the primary issue that of the quality of life for the NHS staff, undoing all the management incompetence, profiteering, and the Government neglect that is destroying the service? ... And unnecessarily killing people?...


... And yet?...


Stay healthy folks!!!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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Read all about it...

In the very recent news, we have quite a mixed list...


Large, real-world study finds COVID-19 vaccination more effective than natural immunity
wrote:

In one of the first large, real-world studies comparing the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines versus natural immunity in protecting against death, hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits for any cause, including COVID, research-scientists ... report that people of all age groups benefited significantly more from vaccination than natural immunity acquired from a previous COVID infection. The lower death rate of vaccinated individuals was especially impressive for adults ages 60 years or older...

Pandemic's two-year global death toll may be close to 15 million
wrote:

Almost 15 million people likely died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, nearly three times more than previously reported...

... the COVID-19 pandemic caused about 4.5 million more deaths than would have been expected in 2020, and 10.4 million more in 2021...

... By comparison, heart disease was the leading worldwide cause of death in 2019 with nearly 9 million deaths. Based on these numbers, "we would expect COVID-19 to be among the leading causes of death in 2020 and the leading cause of death in 2021,"...

More exercise linked to less-severe COVID-19 outcomes
wrote:

... study of nearly 200,000 adults showed an association between physical activity and improved COVID-19 outcomes across major demographic groups regardless of whether patients had chronic medical conditions. Black, Hispanic, and Asian patients had a greater risk of adverse outcomes compared with white patients, in line with prior research. However, within each racial and ethnic group, more exercise was still associated with less severe COVID-19 outcomes.

"The main message is that every little bit of physical activity counts,"...

... "The more exercise the better, no matter a person's race, ethnicity, age, sex, or chronic conditions."...

Stay healthy folks!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)