The coronabrexit thread. I mean, coronavirus thread

[uttoxram75]

7 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Ah that old chestnut...

I've already pointed out the £40m spent on 800 diversity officers as the sort of area where resources would be better spent elsewhere.

Did you miss that one?

 

Private management consultants took £640m out of the NHS as long ago as 2014, Christ knows how much it is nowadays with the huge increase of privatised companies doing NHS services.

[Crewton]

25 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Ah that old chestnut...

I've already pointed out the £40m spent on 800 diversity officers as the sort of area where resources would be better spent elsewhere.

Did you miss that one?

 

 

That's 0.03% of the NHS budget received from government, and that's if we're to believe the figures you've quoted which are taken from an article by The Sun which is all their own work ?? I'm inclined to be a bit sceptical of their honesty. 

 

[G STAR RAM]

7 hours ago, Crewton said:

 

That's 0.03% of the NHS budget received from government, and that's if we're to believe the figures you've quoted which are taken from an article by The Sun which is all their own work ?? I'm inclined to be a bit sceptical of their honesty. 

 

Out of interest, which media sources are you not sceptical of? Would it happen to be the ones that agree with your point of view by any chance?

The 0.03% is pretty irrelevant though, the relevant number is the extra 1,200 nurses it could pay for.

[Crewton]

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Out of interest, which media sources are you not sceptical of? Would it happen to be the ones that agree with your point of view by any chance?

The 0.03% is pretty irrelevant though, the relevant number is the extra 1,200 nurses it could pay for.

The truly relevant number is the one that the government is offering the nurses as a pay settlement, which will ensure that they won't attract 1,200 new nurses, let alone fill the nigh on 40,000 vacancies there already are. 

Anyhow, now that there has been outrage across the media and social media about the quoted figures, let's see how many the latest Health Secretary gets rid of, as Sajid Javed (or Lady Jane Grey, as he's known in NHS circles) promised when the outrage first emerged during his brief reign. 

 

[Norman]

I have taken a 2nd job. Not really because of cost of living - I could get by, but I want to go on holidays and get a better car, so it kind of is.

Anyway, we have 2 houses full of (new to the) NHS nurses from abroad which stay for 2 weeks whilst bank accounts are opened and other formalities are sorted - such as their standard of work. The rotation is constant. These nurses will work in the East Midlands area only. I'm guessing other areas do the same. We house the overflow, meaning there are more going through this process on hospital grounds housing.  I don't know too much about the process, but they all seem to be from Commonwealth countries. I'm only in charge of their safety whilst they are in some of the houses, so I'm no expert on this, but this is just one town.

Anyway, from what I've seen 1200 new positions would be easily filled. Just my opinion.

[Norman]

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

I believe that the largest single group of any nationality among the new migrant Nurses at the Derby Royal is Phillipino - very good workers and, more importantly for the government, not militant and less likely to complain or go on strike. They need the money to send home to help their families and even the loss of one day's pay hits them hard, hence their compliance. I think that the government would be happy if the majority of British Doctors and Nurses were replaced by foreign staff. So much easier to bring to heel. 

I don't think extrapolating from your experience of filling two houses is totally convincing, but it's interesting that the Brexit promises of more opportunity for British workers and better wages once a bar was put on the importation of cheaper EU labour has turned out to be the steaming puddle of arse-gravy that many of us knew it was at the time. 

Well you obviously can't read. 2 x houses equals 12 nurses....on 2 week rotations for I'd say 40 weeks of the year. Gaps in between for deep cleaning and holiday periods etc.

So that's 20 x 12 = 240. And we are the overflow in a tiny town. I sont even know if we are the only overflow site in this town. The main bulk of the housing is on hospital grounds - you know, those things every single town has - and  i dont have those numbers. If you think 1200 positions cannot be filled, then I think you're deluded.

Brexit was never about skilled workers, as you know...and we can't have that debate.

Your stereotypical views are disgusting too. Compliance? Who the hell are you to state that?

Edited January 16, 2023 by Norman

[GboroRam]

8 minutes ago, Archied said:

imigration and the need for it is complex NOT black and white 

That's the single most funniest thing you've ever written, and I'm sure it was by accident ??

[GboroRam]

Anyway, back to coronavirus. I see Gina Lollobirgida has died suddenly. I wonder if the vaccine was the cause? 

[Gaspode]

18 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

Anyway, back to coronavirus. I see Gina Lollobirgida has died suddenly. I wonder if the vaccine was the cause? 

I suspect her being 95 might have played a part....

[Comrade 86]

3 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

I suspect her being 95 might have played a part....

I suspect that is precisely the point Gboro was making.

[Crewton]

51 minutes ago, Norman said:

Well you obviously can't read. 2 x houses equals 12 nurses....on 2 week rotations for I'd say 40 weeks of the year. Gaps in between for deep cleaning and holiday periods etc.

So that's 20 x 12 = 240. And we are the overflow in a tiny town. I sont even know if we are the only overflow site in this town. The main bulk of the housing is on hospital grounds - you know, those things every single town has - and  i dont have those numbers. If you think 1200 positions cannot be filled, then I think you're deluded.

Brexit was never about skilled workers, as you know...and we can't have that debate.

Your stereotypical views are disgusting too. Compliance? Who the hell are you to state that?

Official statistics will eventually show whether or not recruiting 1,200 new Nurses, or the 40,000 actually required. was possible, and where they have been recruited from. It's a fact that migrant workers are less likely to join a Union and therefore less likely to join in any collective action or protest, quite handy for the government.

The comment about compliance (and about the quality of their work) actually came directly from an experienced Nurse who was telling me about the new Nurses that had been recruited for her hospital, and a specific comment about Filipino Nurses. It matched my own experience of Filipino workers in my industry and those of people I know in the maritime sector. It's not derogatory in any way, it's simply the truth that they don't tend to rock the boat, though no doubt there are exceptions (I just haven't heard of any as yet). 

Anyhow, one organisation which has better access to the available data, and with no particular political axe to grind, the King's Fund, looked at this very issue in a couple of articles last year. They suggest that the net result of the government's efforts are not going to solve the recruitment issue:

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2022/10/nhs-nursing-workforce#:~:text=The last year's data (June,under 45 years of age.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2022/04/nhs-recruit-50000-more-nurses

Quote

The headline data suggests that this [the Government's] approach is delivering positive results in that the number of nurses working in the NHS has been increasing. However, when we look beyond this, at the impact increased recruitment is having on number of vacancies we find a more concerning trend; recruitment is having no clear impact on actual vacancy numbers or on the shortfall of nurses in the NHS.   

 

[Archied]

1 hour ago, GboroRam said:

That's the single most funniest thing you've ever written, and I'm sure it was by accident ??

No , I was aware as soon as I typed it but dismissed it as it was the best way to put it and immigration covers people of all different skin shades ??‍♂️

[Archied]

1 hour ago, GboroRam said:

Anyway, back to coronavirus. I see Gina Lollobirgida has died suddenly. I wonder if the vaccine was the cause? 

Or covid , perhaps even long covid ?

Edited January 16, 2023 by Archied

[Rev]

14 minutes ago, Archied said:

That’s not my post 

Yeah, don't know how that happened.

[G STAR RAM]

Awaits 'Its in the Daily Mail' responses...

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

Awaits 'Its in the Daily Mail' responses...

It's a bit hard to know what to make of it when you've only provided a screenshot, but does the study indicate how many people were damaged by having to wear a mask? 

[Crewton]

As a comparison, here's a scientific study of 20m users across 6 continents:-

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2119266119

The conclusions here are that N95 masks when used properly and comprehensively reduced the spread of infection by 65-70%, but it acknowledges that comprehensive mask-wearing is almost impossible to achieve in a public setting because of "human behavioural factors". 

It's only ever been about reducing the viral load that people are exposed to and masks are more effective at stopping the user spreading the load around than stopping all the load from a non-mask user getting through. 

 

[G STAR RAM]

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

It's a bit hard to know what to make of it when you've only provided a screenshot, but does the study indicate how many people were damaged by having to wear a mask? 

Results indicated that surgical masks reduced the risk of catching 'Covid or a flu-like illness' by just five percent - a figure so low it may not be statistically significant.

The researchers said harms caused by masks - including hampering children's schooling - were poorly measured in the studies, meaning any small benefit on infection rates may be outweighed.

[G STAR RAM]

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

As a comparison, here's a scientific study of 20m users across 6 continents:-

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2119266119

The conclusions here are that N95 masks when used properly and comprehensively reduced the spread of infection by 65-70%, but it acknowledges that comprehensive mask-wearing is almost impossible to achieve in a public setting because of "human behavioural factors". 

It's only ever been about reducing the viral load that people are exposed to and masks are more effective at stopping the user spreading the load around than stopping all the load from a non-mask user getting through. 

 

I think the prevalence of illness and the excess deaths since Covid are interesting. 

Personal life experience, my daughters head of year at school said they are so far behind mentally and socially compared to pre Covid.

Think there will be many who think that was a big price to pay to stop the spread by 5%.

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

I think the prevalence of illness and the excess deaths since Covid are interesting. 

Personal life experience, my daughters head of year at school said they are so far behind mentally and socially compared to pre Covid.

Think there will be many who think that was a big price to pay to stop the spread by 5%.

Yes, I thought you'd prefer the 5% figure quoted from a "Gold Standard" study of a range of research reports that covered 1M people as reported in the Daily Mail to the peer-reviewed article in the scientific journal that studied 20M people and reported much higher figures of infection reduction depending on specific scenarios and mitigating factors. There have also been other comprehensive studies that showed that wearing masks in Covid infected households reduced further transmission by 70%, so the "conclusive study" that the Mail are trumpeting is a dubious claim. Before getting fully behind the Mail's conclusions, you may also want to read the qualifying note from the Cochrane Institute's own website report on their study : 

Quote

What are the limitations of the evidence?
Our confidence in these results is generally low to moderate for the subjective outcomes related to respiratory illness, but moderate for the more precisely defined laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infection, related to masks and N95/P2 respirators. The results might change when further evidence becomes available. Relatively low numbers of people followed the guidance about wearing masks or about hand hygiene, which may have affected the results of the studies. 

The effectiveness or otherwise of masks is a different issue though, surely, to the impact of the pandemic on childrens development, because that would have happened in one way or another regardless of whether school been closed and children been required to wear masks, unless you believe that teacher shortages through more and longer sickness absences etc, and possibly greater numbers of fatalities amongst their family, friends and teachers, would have had little impact.