I have friends who are exactly the same!

You seem to have mistaken me for a conspiracy theorist? I'm not a covid denier, I'm tripple jabbed, wear a mask and fully believe it's happening. But the whole thing from day one has been overhyped in the extreme. In reality, the deaths are mainly from the very vulnerable in society, the people who would have died anyway, but of the next thing they caught or the next fall they had. Every life lost has it's own tragedy attached to it of course and there have unquestionably been some outliers who have died from it way before their time.

But those who fall hook, line and sinker for the doomsday predictions from the scientific community are just on the other end of the same spectrum as the conspiracy theorists. There are still people gleefully filling twitter with 'wait and see' messages, hoping for the 6,000 daily deaths the idiots forecast to come true so they can say 'told you so'. Omicron appears less deadly than flu, if that remains the dominant variant the drama and obsession the country has with covid has to end. Testing, isolation, stat collection, all of it. The NHS staff crisis is the latest dramatised subject. NHS staff who are off with a positive test will be back in work in a week and highly unlikely to be off again. There might be a very short term issue, but it's one they'll cope with. The media have been parasitic and toxic throughout with their fear sells sensationalism. There are people who are genuinely terrified of being outside their house and by being around people. My Mum knows people from her WI group that barely left the house since early 2020 as they believe they'll likely die if they do. It's just not healthy all round.

I'll stand by my point that the epidemiologists and scientists will want to maintain the importance of covid over the next two years however. They are earning vast sums from consultancy, media work and their research funding will be through the roof. They will continue to maintain the medias focus on it for as long as they can and keep the gravy train going.

For clarity, not a conspiracy theorist. Get your jabs and boosters people and wear a mask. But try not to be scared of covid.

What happens for that week though? Say you normally have 3 staff on a ward and that becomes 1 due to positive tests even for a single day. How does that 1 person look after 9 (say) patients on their own?

You get someone in from another ward. There are always people on annual leave, which can be cancelled and trusts can move staff between hospitals and wards to maintain cover as best they can. If it comes to it some ratios will need to be broken. Hospitals are no doubt taking every opportunity to cancel routine surgery and outpatients so it's not like there won't be qualified staff knocking around. Always a good opportunity to promote people too. Worst case you get the military to come in and remove the unnecessary fuss like a few London hospitals have done.You'd be surprised how few qualified people you actually need to run a ward. I've said for a long time they should cancel the whole track and trace setup and spend it on staffing instead. NHS staff should be doing overtime and getting an absolute wedge at the moment, rather than paying consultants £8,000 a day to faff about with a pointless testing system. Spend the money on treating the ill people rather than pointlessly counting positive cases.

That simple is it? Other wards don't have any staffing issues and can let staff move to other wards willy nilly can they?

Well yeah. Hospitals can prioritise and move people around. The high intensity, high dependency wards will have higher ratios than the non-covid wards where people are just recovering but not requiring acute care.

You seem adamant that nothing can be done, the world is ending and everything is collapsing? Woe is us. Lets have another lockdown so the economy and mental health collapses and then at least everyone suffers that way.

Don't know what they're moaning about then

Well he wasn't saying that was he?
He never said nothing can be done
He never said anything was collapsing
He never said anything about another lockdown
He never said anything about mental health.

Your dramatising and exaggerating a point he's made to discredit him

Hes telling you that your over simplyfying what the NHS and its staff can do
Bringing political arguments about consultants etc and their pay and what should have happened 2/5/10 years ago to the NHS is just distracting form the point.

If players, people were vaccinated then the problem would be smaller
Until a higher % are then the problems will continue, albeit they are smaller than 12 months or so ago

The bot in bold tells me a lot about your attitude. 120,000 more people died in the year 2020 than was the average for the years 2010-2019. Yes they were elderly and yes they were going to die, but until someone comes up with another reason, covid caused these deaths prematurely and your shoulder shrug attitude isn't reasonable.
I agree that the media will keep running with it, but medical a scientific experts are own to huge peer scrutiny as well as the htpocratic oath, so its doubtful a cabal of civil servants are in cahoots here.
4% of the NHS are off sick at a time when 1% is too many.....
I agree with your sentiment about fear, but your mum's friends are right....if they are old and want to get older, they need to be careful where they go.
Stay safe blighty pals....this bugger is getting weaker and by this time next year it'll be masks and mingle

Isn't reasonable to you. I have a feeling the worldwide response to covid will be heavily criticised in the future. Here we've destroyed the education of a generation for example, and plunged a million people into what is likely to be permanent poverty. Next year with every consumer industry deliberately profiteering to replace covid loses and the ridiculous fuel/gas/electricity prices, we're likely to see a huge proportion of the country in genuine poverty. What impact will that have long term? The kids taking GCSEs last had a normal school year in year 8 and they're having lateral flow tests and wearing masks in school, over a disease highly unlikely to kill them. It's madness.The vulnerable only should have been restricted, and I'm in that category.



I'm not saying there's a Whatsapp group where they conspire to release terrifying predictions. But if you notice which scientists are getting repeat bookings with the big media groups, it's the ones who make the most outlandish and scary predictions. And they will continue to do so, because they aren't stupid and know what sells. A scientists came out and said we should go back to pre-omicron level restrictions as they are pointless, but his opinion was swamped by wall to wall coverage of Drakeford calling Johnson a murderer again and endless stories about what restrictions we could have and how many NHS staff will be off sick by the end of the month. That guy won't be getting any repeat bookings for interviews.



What % are on annual leave? (It's higher than the % off sick according to the debate caused by the Daily Mail suggesting leave for NHS staff should be cancelled). Surely they could take their leave outside of a wave and get paid extra for that?



They aren't right though, there's a balance surely? I understand those who are particularly vulnerable being very careful, but an otherwise healthy person living as a hermit for three years and missing out on all the things that make life worth living is not a good thing. Take precautions, be more careful than normal, fine. But staying at home for three years and not seeing friends or family or doing anything they used to enjoy?

A novel virus that has killed millions worldwide is “overhyped”?


No wonder everyone hates you on red Vee

And you are really popular? You are on about your 9th troll account and like all the previous ones, it's just terrible and really boring.

Whether it's overhyped depends on your viewpoint. 5.5m people have died 'from' covid in three years. That's about 1/10 of the annual worldwide deaths per year. I'm not saying anything incredible, but because it's tree-hugging leftie like most people on here it's a scandal. We need to get on with life and stop obsessing over covid.

Do you work in the NHS, or are you a qualified health/medical professional. If so you wonder why the NHS is foooooked with these ‘opinions’

Correct
And don't forget the 120,000 excess deaths in 2020