[Bored chemist]

Interestingly, post brexit we have a similar plan

national health service would charge the full cost of treatment to anyone

[alancalverd]

How interesting to note that we joined the European Union in 1948 (when Churchill said we should) and that free comprehensive health services is mandatory in all EU states (which it never was).

History may be bunk, but it's not a good idea to pretend that bunk is history.

[Bored chemist]

Again, Alan is mistaking the past for a plan.

The UK govt, desperate for a trade deal with the US (who are in a position to wait) will end up selling the NHS to the US healthcare industry.

[alancalverd]

....and I don't treat speculation as news, either. 

[Bored chemist]

What about news?
Do you close your eyes to that as well?
https://www.nhsforsale.info/private-providers/virgin-care-ltd-new/#:~:text=Virgin%20Care%20was%20acquired%20by,the%20healthcare%20market%20in%202010.

[alancalverd]

I have been a private provider to the NHS for the last 25 years. Nothing new about that.

AFAIK there is no nationalised industry making pharmaceuticals or medical devices in the UK. Most new hospitals are privately owned and rented to the NHS under PPI arrangements. Many staff are employed by private agencies. "Hotel" services have been privatised  since the glorious days of St Thatcher. The only fully public sector involvement is in the massively redundant managerial sector..

[sceptic-eng]

Yes, the research appears to be a joint effort with pharma and universities sharing the costs of running the laboratory experiments.   So if the costs are shared then so also should be the patent rights.  Enough of pharma financial director and market manager running around in Ferrari's and overcharging the public for a third injection and unnecessary additional testings that only confuse everyone into believing they need an extra jab.
 To most double vaccinated people Omicron is just like a common cold and disappears after a week.

[alancalverd]

 To most double vaccinated people Omicron is just like a common cold and disappears after a week.

Thank you for that valuable insight. I will pass it on to  my 40-year-old son who usually walks 10 miles a day but is currently unable to stand up for more than 10 minutes thanks to your common cold. Worse still, his pet guinea pig is now suffering too.

[Bored chemist]

Yes, the research appears to be a joint effort with pharma and universities sharing the costs of running the laboratory experiments.   So if the costs are shared then so also should be the patent rights.  Enough of pharma financial director and market manager running around in Ferrari's and overcharging the public for a third injection and unnecessary additional testings that only confuse everyone into believing they need an extra jab.
 To most double vaccinated people Omicron is just like a common cold and disappears after a week.

Would you like to remind us what your medical qualifications are?

[sceptic-eng]

Australia has a real problem with Omicron as it spreads so fast that another tactic other than tract and trace must be used to avoid high R rates.
Well, if you are feeling flu'y then go to bed immediately and inform nearest and dearest of your plight. Do not go to a test centre as you may then be infecting around 6 or 7 other people or if you test negative you will yourself probably have caught it from them.
Its a numbers game so if everyone in the world is to catch Omicron this year then Australia with 25 million people will have 25,000,000/365 =68,000 per day.    Well, luckily most people have been vaccinated and will not even know they have the Omicron variant; so what then is the point of testing if it will cause them to isolate causing unnecessarily disruption?.

[evan_au]

It's a tradeoff:
- Testing & Tracing contacts and having them isolate means that a fraction of the workforce has to isolate, over a period of several months until everyone has caught it. This assumes that you can get a test (very hard), and that contact tracers (people or computers) are able to keep up (they can't), but it will limit peak numbers in hospital.
- A "Let it Rip" philosophy means that a lot of people will catch it all together, since exposed individuals will pass it on to others asymptomatically. It is likely that people will die because hospitals are overloaded, but the disruption will be fairly short (perhaps a month or so).
- Australia is currently trying to take a middle path, where contacts can still go to work provided they test negative on a RAT. This assumes that people can find a RAT - but it appears that someone is commandeering the supplies (whether that be the government or criminal gangs)...

Leaders of countries like the USA & Brazil (and to a lesser extent, UK) who took a "Let it Rip" approach with Wuhan and Alpha variants experienced a high death rate. "Let it Rip" may well be a slightly more feasible philosophy with Omicron, as it appears less lethal.

Either way, I smell a RAT...

[evan_au]

I saw some interesting parallels between Australia's handling of the 1919 Spanish flu and the 2019 COVID-19 pandemics..

- 1919 Flu: about 15,000 Australians died out of 2,000,000 infected (40% of the population), or 0.8%.
- COVID (Up to Delta, in mid-Nov 2021): 74 deaths/million vs 7478 infected per million, or 1% (with only 5% of the population infected so far, but heading towards 40%)*
*I exclude the December Omicron outbreak, as this has not had time to progress to deaths, and the testing system fell apart when Omicron hit; but Omicron looks a lot less lethal than Delta.

- Arguments between states and Federal government were also frequent in 1919...

- In both cases, Australia's island status and aggressive quarantine actions helped delay import of the virus until a less lethal strain appeared.
- Western Australia  managed to contain it better than other states (an island within an island).

- Despite not isolating the Flu pathogen until the 1930s, in 1919 they managed to produce and distribute a vaccine against (some variants of) pneumonia, the most common cause of death from Flu infection.
- But today's vaccines are much more effective, and today's ICU much more sophisticated.

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/influenza-pandemic

Background
It is said that in WW1, more people died of pandemic flu than all the bombs, bullets and poison gas.
- This information was withheld from public view as it was feared that it might demoralize the war effort (only neutral Spain published the news in real time, so it became known as the "Spanish Flu").
Despite the censorship, wartime Australia held Spanish flu at bay by the same public health measures as used for COVID-19  - quarantine, lockdowns, masks and even rapid vaccine development. The death rate was much higher in other countries which were more exposed to earlier waves.
With Spanish flu, 40% of the Australian population were infected, and 0.7% of the infected patients died.

[sceptic-eng]

It is a numbers game really.  Spanish flu appears to have killed 0.3% Aussies or 3,000 per million which is still extremely high as Covid is only killing 107 per million due to better vaccines.  Looking at world stats     https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ [nofollow]   the world population is still increasing at over 1% per year which results in more CO2 in the air and could be linked to climate change.  Maybe a "let it rip" approach may be better for the planet in the long run.

[Bored chemist]

Maybe a "let it rip" approach may be better for the planet in the long run.

Possibly, but which of your friends and family are you prepared to sacrifice, and would you accept the judgement of someone who nominated you for death?

[sceptic-eng]

I am afraid we will not have any choice in the matter of who will survive as the omicron variant will now rapidly affect everyone.  Everyone will test positive at some stage although 99-9% will not even know.
Anyway, health and critical service workers cannot be allowed to isolate when they meet someone who is positive, as they are required to continue looking after hospital patients who will otherwise die of starvation.   

[Bored chemist]

I am afraid we will not have any choice in the matter of who will survive

About 90% of us (in the UK) exercised our choice to get at least one vaccination, thereby reducing the severity of infection etc.

Anyway, health and critical service workers cannot be allowed to isolate when they meet someone who is positive, as they are required to continue looking after hospital patients who will otherwise die of starvation.

So, you think they shouldn't isolate, but should go about their work and spread the virus to other patients?
Well... it's one viewpoint.
A more sensible viewpoint would be
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier_nursing

[evan_au]

Omicron infection mostly protects you against Omicron.
I am concerned that there may still be some Delta around, and after the Omicron peak has passed, the more deadly (but less infectious) Delta variant may still persist in the unvaccinated.

[sceptic-eng]

It appears that the UK is about to do a U turn on their insistence that all NHS staff must be vaccinated due to staff shortages.
Boris needs to go further and revise the policy that recommends that NHS staff and critical workers need to self isolate if they have been in contact with a person with a positive Omicron Covid result as that is like telling the tide to stop coming in or banning the common cold..
 Only new delta variant patients should be counted as Covid19 cases and probably not people over 80 that die within 28 days who have other more obvious reasons for dying.

[alancalverd]

The suggestion that Boris Johnson is actually in charge of anything is ludicrous. His job is to apologise for the fact that the public feels upset, and assure us that he wasn't informed. Lessons will be learned; it's time to draw a line under it and move on.

[sceptic-eng]

Yes, it is time to draw a line under Covid19 and move on.
Lets face it if our queen can catch Omicron variant and just carry on working as usual then so can everyone.  The quicker we stop testing and assume everyone has already had covid and survived the better.  Only doctors in hospitals should be allowed to authorize a Covid test and certainly no death should be recorded as a Covid death unless the coroner is absolutely sure that it was the only reason for death.