kwlf wrote:
I hope that we will move away from prolonging life at all costs and spend our healthcare money more wisely.
Totally agree, @kwlf. However, there is something we all can do right now – have a living will (or advanced decision, or whatever it’s called in your country). I have one and so has my – very, very – old mother. It took a personal tragedy to convince my parents, but in the end they did it.
kwlf wrote:
The question is whether there will be some economically and socially bearable level of restrictions, sufficient to either slow the rate of infections to a manageable level, or even keep R0 (the number of new cases each infected person infects) below 1. If so then we are likely to be subject to them for many months. If not, then I expect we may just need to take Silvaire’s approach and let everybody take their chances. But it will take a while to find out.
It is sort of Silvaire’s approach that is being taken. China isolated all the cases, literally, putting a lid on it as you said. We (most countries in Europe) are not doing that. We are simply letting the virus do it’s course, although in a slowish fashion rather than letting it spread wildly. At least that is the plan, and it is a deliberate plan from the government, based on experience from China and Italy. This is an experiment. It has never been done before. It basically means school lock-down, shut down of everything where people gather (theaters, sport events and so on). In all other respects it is up to each individual to do as little “contamination” as possible. About 1/3 to 1/2 of the population will get sick (will get the virus), lots of people will die, more than in China when looking at per million numbers.
The planned slow down of the virus will hopefully prevent a complete bog down of health care as seen in Italy, but it will be strained to the absolute limit. Then, after a month or two? (something like that) the worst storm is over, and life can go on as usual. The whole idea is simply to spread the disease over a long enough time span for the health care system to cope. I agree with this plan (not that I have any choice, but still), and I will do my share in doing as little contamination activity as possible, because that piece (done by everyone) is vital in making the plan work.
EuroFlyer wrote:
Is it possible to single out a specific condition as cause of death (if patients die), i.e. viral pneumonia ? Which cannot be treated, only with general care and intubation ?
Yes, that is possible. We have to do it all the time when we declare somebody dead, we have to give the single leading cause of death, although it is possible to add contributing factors. The accuracy of this depends on the individual circumstances, of course.
LeSving wrote:
Then, after a month or two? (something like that) the worst storm is over, and life can go on as usual.
Seeing that some experts now talk of September… I somehow don’t think that is going to happen. If the economy is shut down till then, huge chunks of it won’t exist anymore and the result will put the Great Depression to shame. For starters, the airline and travel industry will be totally wiped out by possible bans like that, not to speak of the stock market which has imploded totally. Very solid companies now will be take over targets due to the low price of their shares while others will be wiped out. I
LeSving wrote:China isolated all the cases, literally, putting a lid on it as you said. We (most countries in Europe) are not doing that.
China is responsible for this virus getting out of control and uncontained. If they had planned it as a war game they could not have done much better to cripple the world economy totally. I feel they should be held responsible for that. Yes their eventual response did work but if they had attacked this thing the moment they knew they had a new SARS virus, we would have ended up with ONE isolated city, not most of the world.
We in Europe are not doing it because a) when there still was time nobody had the balls to impose lockdowns like would have been needed when the very first cases came up and b) now it is totally pointless, the critical mass has been surpassed. You know what the shout in the streets will be? Get rid of the whimps and get REAL leaders in charge. Yea, well, the 1920ties were also no fun and if you remember what kind of leaders that produced we can all hold our breath. Oh wait, some of that kind are already in power and I bet a wet noodle there will be a lot more by the time this is over.
I somehow think we are seeing an event here which will fundamentally change a lot of things we took for granted.
Maoraigh wrote:
He claims the nurse manager told his mum that “all general anaesthetic surgery at Raigmore had been cancelled”
In Germany, the Chancellor and the Minister Presidents of the federal states just made a similar decision to recommend that all hospitals postpone all elective surgery from next monday onward. Due to Germany’s complex legal framework/ federalism, this is, as of now, just a “recommendation”. I haven’t heard how they will finance this, as the hospitals depend on such operations for their budgets…
MedEwok wrote:
In Germany, the Chancellor and the Minister Presidents of the federal states just made a similar decision to recommend that all hospitals postpone all elective surgery from next monday onward.
What’s the point? If hospitals have resources to do elective surgery, why not do it? If resources are bound up with Covid-19 patients, you just don’t cancel such surgery. What am I missing?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I somehow think we are seeing an event here which will fundamentally change a lot of things we took for granted.
And if you are into conspiracy theories that was the end result the few global controllers wanted. Global mass hysteria is upon us. As with most elements of human nature countries now attempting to outdo each other as to the severity of restrictions they can impose on the population. It will be a changed landscape most definitely when this blows over. Freedoms, liberties, finances will be decimated. Not once have I heard Africa mentioned. Does it still exist?
Airborne_Again wrote:
What am I missing?
A sense of hysteria..
Airborne_Again wrote:
What’s the point? If hospitals have resources to do elective surgery, why not do it? If resources are bound up with Covid-19 patients, you just don’t cancel such surgery. What am I missing?
Right now I fully agree with you. There is no point in this measure while we still have sufficient capacity. My 1500 bed hospital is treating a single Covid-19 case as of today.
The only reason I can imagine is that they want us to create spare capacity in case of a sudden influx of lots of patients. If you operate someone on Monday they might occupy a hospital bed until Friday or even later, depending on the operation. So if you expect lots of Covid-19 patients by the next weekend, it makes sense not to block lots of beds with elective surgical patients.
Another reason would be if they expect a massive shortage of equipment soon, such as protective clothing, airway devices or sedatives. All of these are required both for anaesthesia/ operations and intensive care patients requiring artificial ventilation.
Usually you stay in the hospital for a while afterwards which means that 1) you are using a bed and 2) you may pick it up.
