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Physiology & Medicine / Re: What ideas are being implemented to curb the NHS winter crisis?
« on: 19/02/2020 10:36:59 »
It's been done a thousand times before, and AFAIK even trialled in Scotland where health and social services are better integrated. IIRC my wife was a district nurse attached to an NHS GP surgery but closely integrated with the local SS team. Great idea, as long as HM Govt ring-fences local government budget provision for social services, and imposes reasonable service standards for home delivery. Said wife later became a hospital-based discharge coordinator: same problem - it all depends on social service funding.
Unfortunately successive governments have thought it preferable to give taxpayers' money to incompetent bankers and railway "consultants", ignoring Rule 1 for survival: don't feed the sharks!
The joy of being a virus is that you can mutate and evolve at random, so this week's vaccine is for last week's epidemic. Sensibly, viruses don't kill all of their hosts (having more intelligence than humans, who happily shoot buffalo and pigeons to extinction and turn prairies into dustbowls). The way to contain a viral epidemic is, surely, home nursing. Have I mentioned that before?
One way to prevent long-distance transmission of airborne disease is to reintroduce smoking in public transport. Not sure what the figures are for trains and boats, but a non-smoking airliner only requires 3 air changes per hour, which saves a lot of fuel compared with 5 - 7 cph if smoking is permitted. AFAIK Air Malta was one of the last majors to permit smoking - worth checking their heath records! Also bring back "slam door" trains with compartments (you can't infect more than 7 others on a given journey) and fresh air ventilation. Judging from current experience on Diamond Princess, and previous fun with norovirus on ships and Legionella in hospitals, recirculating air conditioning is not merely "green" but a neat way of rebalancing the ecology by reducing the human population.
Unfortunately successive governments have thought it preferable to give taxpayers' money to incompetent bankers and railway "consultants", ignoring Rule 1 for survival: don't feed the sharks!
The joy of being a virus is that you can mutate and evolve at random, so this week's vaccine is for last week's epidemic. Sensibly, viruses don't kill all of their hosts (having more intelligence than humans, who happily shoot buffalo and pigeons to extinction and turn prairies into dustbowls). The way to contain a viral epidemic is, surely, home nursing. Have I mentioned that before?
One way to prevent long-distance transmission of airborne disease is to reintroduce smoking in public transport. Not sure what the figures are for trains and boats, but a non-smoking airliner only requires 3 air changes per hour, which saves a lot of fuel compared with 5 - 7 cph if smoking is permitted. AFAIK Air Malta was one of the last majors to permit smoking - worth checking their heath records! Also bring back "slam door" trains with compartments (you can't infect more than 7 others on a given journey) and fresh air ventilation. Judging from current experience on Diamond Princess, and previous fun with norovirus on ships and Legionella in hospitals, recirculating air conditioning is not merely "green" but a neat way of rebalancing the ecology by reducing the human population.
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