Rise in patients at Bolton Hospital as Indian variant spreads

[JohnD]

Bolton hospital - 18 people 13 not vaccinated. Of the other 5 one had both jabs to which Hancock said was fragile. No more details.

"In Bolton there are 18 people in hospital with coronavirus, with the majority of those not having the jab despite being eligible, the health secretary said.

He added that five people had ended up in hospital having had one jab, while there was one there who had received both doses but was "frail"."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57134181

 

[JohnD]

Why was India not on the red list sooner?

"Why were Pakistan and Bangladesh put on the red list before India?
Bangladesh had the South Africa but not the Brazil variant and Pakistan had neither when they were added to the red list on 9 April.

India had both, as well as a new variant, but was not added for another two weeks.

On 9 April:

• Pakistan had a seven-day average of 21 cases per million people
• Bangladesh had twice as many
• India had four times as many"

In unrelated news, in April Prime Minister Johnson was very keen to announce a post-Brexit trade deal with India.

 

[JohnD]

Nothing to see here.

No, sir.

Everythings under control. Doing fine. No problems. Keep people happy until the May Elections. Just a coincidence.



"Could more have been done to prevent this new iteration of the virus – officially categorised as a “variant of concern” – from gaining a toehold in the UK? And was Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary, right when he said on Saturday morning that Boris Johnson showed a “reckless failure to protect our borders”?

To answer those crucial questions, attention has now turned to a three week period in April when, not for the first time, government dither and delay may yet prove to result in devastating consequences.

It was on the second day of that month that both Pakistan and Bangladesh were added to the government’s “red list” – meaning that only British nationals are allowed to travel from both countries and that even they would have to quarantine on arrival for 10 days in managed hotels.
Yet strangely perhaps, India – which neighbours both nations and where infection rates were already rapidly rising – was not included on this list.

On Friday, Boris Johnson defended this decision by saying that no variant of concern had yet been identified in India at that point.

But the numbers alone, many epidemiologists have said, should have been sounding alarm bells.

In that first week of April, the country was seeing more than 100,000 new cases every day, a figure that was soon dwarfed when it became 250,000 a day by the middle of the month. India was, epidemiologists agreed, now the global epicentre of the pandemic. Grim reports began trickling in of the health system collapsing; of a shortage of wood because so many funeral pyres were being built.

Still, it remained off the UK’s red list and would stay that way until 19 April. Only then, as people there were filmed dying in hospital car parks, did Matt Hancock announce that the country would be recatagorised to recognise the danger.

Yet even then, there was further delay. The red list status, the health secretary announced, would only be implemented four days later.

It meant that, for almost 96 hours flights continued to arrive here from virus-ridden cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai. They were packed with people wanting to avoid the incoming ban. Thousands who landed here got off planes and took public transport into towns, like Bolton and Blackburn. At least 122 of them, we now know from Public Health England data, were carrying the new virus variant B1.617.2. Under the rules in place at the time, they would have been asked to self-isolate but undergone no monitoring. From there, it was inevitable the new iteration would be seeded into UK communities.
This raises the question as to why this travel was allowed to continue. The fact that no variants in India had at that point been labelled “of concern” seems an insufficient reason given the sheer numbers of infections and the sheer rate of deaths.

Was, some are now wondering, the government’s desire to pursue an international trade deal with India actually at the heart of the decision? Could the prime minister have been reluctant to place restrictions on travel because it coincided with his own attempts to woo the country in the hopes of winning a quick post-Brexit trade agreement?

Mr Johnson has made no secret of his desire to get moving on sealing such a deal with the 1.3 billion person Commonwealth country: it would be both be worth billions and help power the UK’s post-Brexit economy. He was due to make a major state visit there in late April, which it was widely hoped would grease the wheels of talks that were set to begin in the autumn. The trip was only postponed at the last minute as infection rates grew."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/covid-indian-variant-surge-coronavirus-b1848069.html

 

[ajohn]

"In Bolton there are 18 people in hospital with coronavirus, with the majority of those not having the jab despite being eligible, the health secretary said.

He added that five people had ended up in hospital having had one jab, while there was one there who had received both doses but was "frail"."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57134181

LOL That's what I posted. It came from the BBC including Hancock's comment about the 1 who had received 2 jabs. He may have looked surprised when the report mentioned that one person. So dead pan I suspect he was.

 

[JohnD]

LOL That's what I posted.

I thought you might have mistyped it.

 

[JohnD]

Really good news that the India trade deal was publicised just before the elections. I hear the Cons did well in the North.

@Mottie was dead chuffed.

 

[fillyboy]

I hear the Cons did well in the North.

North, south, east and west John.

 

[ajohn]

Cummins will be spouting soon. He already has on some aspects of handling the virus. It could prove interesting. While I think the guys ideas are misguided I have noticed that he sometimes does state facts clearly with no regard to others feelings etc.

 

[EFLImpudence]

"Why were Pakistan and Bangladesh put on the red list before India?

Because India has lots and lots and lots of people which makes for huge great big numbers that dumbos can't put in perspective.

 

[IT Minion]

Also the Indian variant. It's a may be more infective but by how much - that aspect really does worry them. They can try to control it's spread but ...................

Controlling it's spread sound like an excellent idea. Shame we've decided to take a fire that's spreading fast and are now going to dump petrol on it.

But like Boris said, Dates not data.

 

[JohnD]

Because India has lots and lots and lots of people which makes for huge great big numbers that dumbos can't put in perspective.

and how does the size of population affect cases per million?

Dumbo.

• Pakistan had a seven-day average of 21 cases per million people
• Bangladesh had twice as many
• India had four times as many"

 

[transam]

.

 

[Notch7]

all governed by fruit cakes as well

 

[transam]

well he is low down on the list of fruit cakes compared to others

blimey some of these leaders should be in a lunatic asylum imo

 

[ajohn]

But like Boris said, Dates not data

The problem with controlling it's spread is that there will be more cases than they are aware of. People travel so areas grow. I suspect that this leaves them feeling that yes they can try but they aren't likely to be successful. Cummins wisdom - obviously travel restrictions should have been put in place. They tried an area restriction just before this wave but a lot of people in it regularly travelled out of it so then went to much larger areas but all it did was flatten the curve for a while.

Then to find out the characteristics of the variant people need to be infected with it. A few doesn't tell them much at all. So say they retain the lockdown for another month. Nothing changes. They still wont really know or how effective the vaccinations really are.