I've long suspected that "those who know best" don't. The debate over covid XIX has been hijacked and used as a political gambit to shore up an economy that was never fixed from the 2008 debacle (the one where Gordon Brown saved the world, that one).
What better excuse for those who nearly wrecked the world's economy back then (and never fixed it) than to blame a virus for their ineptitude? Dig deep enough and the mistruths we've been force fed are soon exposed:
I used to attend a leading cancer hospital as a patient. This was closed for some months due to Covid 19. During that period I learned of 7 people who had died needlessly of non treatment because of cancelled appointments. I know of no one succumbing to covid 19. So please don't lecture me about seeing things differently.
When I was in hospital last month the Sister told me that they had been using the same amount of oxygen in a day that they usually use in a fortnight. I believe in Covid 19
I am NOT saying covid 19 does not exist. What I am saying is that the statistics are not being compiled or interpreted incorrectly. As I say to all, you are entitled to your beliefs as, so far, we live in a seemingly free society.
During this "crisis" I have had several appointments cancelled all pertaining to my various ailments. I have COPD/Pulmonary hypertension and Prostate cancer and have personally known 7 people who have died of untreated cancers. Unlike your Hospital Sister I do not deal in usage of oxygen stats for one hospital, but in readily available and verifiable facts (many of them UK government facts).
Tens of thousands of people will die needlessly because a flu like illness, with a fatality rate of 0.02% , has taken precedence over other all other fatal diseases...for example Cancer deaths 2016/17 were 156,901. When they're next published cancer stats will be similar to those dates.
Covid 19 deaths so far this year in the UK are 41,554. Covid is the 8th cause of death in the UK! Alzheimer's (hugely prevalent among the elderly) is, I believe, the leading cause. Couple this with elderly patients being discharged back into care homes. which is tantamount to criminal neglect!
There is a realistic fear being voiced that there will be an avalanche of needless cancer (and other) deaths in the coming years because of official over reaction to covid:
Look at the covid stats for where you live and then divide that by the population. In most cases you are more likely to be hit by a bus than be a covid victim! Are you going to stop crossing roads?
I am surprised you have had so few replies! But I guess all we vulnerable people on this site just think you are being a stirring a888888e! Never mind, you take care and I hope Karma doesn't bite you on the bum! xx
Hi, WatTyler. Thanks for joining. It’s usual to introduce yourself and whatever lung condition brought you to our happy corner of the internet before launching into provocative and quite sensitive topics. Fancy giving it a go? You might actually get a response if you did.
Having spent 4 weeks in a specialist hospital with my daughter during lockdown, watching exhausted and traumatised play specialists do 12 hour shifts assisting medical staff don and doff to treat the wall to wall adult, covid intensive care patients taking up the entire paediatric ICU because there was nowhere else to put them, knowing that the children’s ward was the only covid free area in the entire hospital, knowing that they cancelled dozens of cardiac surgeries for poorly babies and children purely so that the paediatricians could work to treat and hopefully save adults, I’m pretty confident in the reality of covid. That’s without getting into the sheer ludicracy of the idea of Russia and North Korea et al. co-operating to perpetuate some kind of mass conspiracy alongside 192 other countries, at least half of which they wouldn’t pee on if on fire. Even if I doubted absolutely everything else, that alone would be conclusive enough for me. Might be worth thinking about, unless of course you just signed up to stir?
I am NOT, and never have, denied the existence of covid 19. What I am saying is that the statistics and official line must be queried. I have never denied that most cases are ADULT. That is your misguided misinterpretation of my comment.
You have instantly made a nonsense of your argument by stating, and I quote verbatim from your post:
"knowing that they cancelled dozens of cardiac surgeries for poorly babies and children purely so that the paediatricians (sic) could work to treat and hopefully save adults"
So you actually go along with sacrificing babies do you? That to me is a horrifying comment and, if factually correct, must be reported to the appropriate authorities. If you would care to provide me with details/times/hospitals and pediatricians names I will be delighted to report those details.
Use your critical thinking skills and query everything. I have, until this covid thing, been attending a cancer hospital where I have personally known 7 people die of untreated cancer because the hospital was closed for treatment during this scare. Many, many, more will die because of this abrogation of responsibility for a disease with an (at the most) 0.26% fatality rate. Again, I ask you "are "you willing to sacrifice babies to save older people?"
Having watched both my parents die of cancer I could post graphic and heartrending stories such as yours. However, I chose not to. I prefer to use verifiable facts rather than emotional hyperbole.
I do not cause mischief as you erroneously implied. I simply state the available statistical evidence which is easily and readily available, this to make people question the rationale of this debate. There does seem to be an awful lot of xenophobia emanating about RT. Did you actually read the articles I posted? Or did you simply think commie b****s? Look, I was once stationed in Germany when Russia had been deemed our foe. Every day we were told 30,000 Russian tanks could attack right now! Pure bs. Now, they are saying they are our foes again. Most people are easily swayed by government/press propaganda.
Why have we trashed our economy, messed with children's education, set brother against brother, for something with the fatality rate of a bad dose of the common flu. Stop spreading nonsensical scare stories about babies being ignored over adults.
I’ll be honest, as soon as I saw the tone, I skimmed a lot of your reply. I did read the articles, though, and if you look through any of my posts you’ll see I employ critical thinking on a regular basis. I don’t just accept the information given to me by anybody, because if I had, both myself and my daughter would be dead by now, probably several times over, but the articles still don’t change my view: covid is a pandemic disease that kills. So is the flu, the primary difference is that we have a vaccine. The annual fatality rate worldwide for influenza is anything from 290k to 650k, C-19 has already surpassed the upper limit by 200k plus with no promise of a vaccine in sight and once more rapidly increasing case numbers in spite of sweeping, global measures designed to reduce spread. With a death toll rising towards a million, just for a second stop to think what that figure might have been had we treated it like flu and effectively done nothing. Had we not contained the virus, or attempted to, those figures would be significantly higher. Add in that we’re finding some people are still actively sick and really struggling months after first contracting the virus, which is therefore a very different disease profile to flu, and that for me is what makes it a risk warranting the measures being taken.
You may feel like I don’t appreciate your viewpoint, but you’ve also completely misinterpreted my reply: there was no scare story. You were implying that covid is not a real threat, or perhaps even a real illness in the way so many deniers do, so what I gave you were things I actively witnessed for myself. A 300 bed, specialist heart and lung hospital, 90% full of the sickest adult covid patients in the country, with so many that needed to be ventilated they had to stop accepting paediatric patients to fill every bed in the PICU with adults. Fact. As fast as they moved one out, either because they started to improve or they died, the bed space was cleaned and filled again. Elective operations on children were cancelled as a result, fact. Some couldn’t be admitted to that hospital simply because it wasn’t safe to, also fact. Even now, they’re providing more home IV treatment for respiratory patients than they’ve ever done before, purely because the kids are safer at home than in the only green area of the entire hospital, still surrounded by covid as it is. Not scaremongering, but the reality of a health service swamped by legitimately sick and infectious patients that so many people seem to so adamantly want to believe wasn’t - and still isn’t - true.
I’m not going to get into this particular topic with you any further as we’re never going to agree, and I don’t think you’re actually looking for rational discourse or debate, but you won’t garner friends or support here - which is usually why people seek out and join this site - with the attitude you currently have. As stated previously, to leap in with an incendiary post and then respond so angrily to anyone querying your motives when you haven’t even indicated why you’re here, is not the norm, and was never going to go down well. With the current climate, and your lack of post history, suspicion as to your motives would be a legitimate and entirely justifiable response from all of us. Had you framed your post differently, you would have got a very different reply. I for one would have just carried on by.
The last thing I am going to say to you is that I do find the suggestion that I might approve of children not being treated extremely offensive when the only reason I’m even on this forum is because my 12 yo is life limited by a respiratory disease, but it says an awful lot about your personal headspace right now. I’m sorry if your care has suffered, and I know that telling you you’re far from the only one is of little help or comfort, but emotional suffering stems from the refusal to accept reality, and the reality is that covid is here and this is how it’s being responded to. Whether you agree with what’s happening or not is actually irrelevant, and acceptance should not be confused with approval. I hope that things improve for you in the near future, and you find support here if it’s genuinely support that you’re seeking.
Well said, this is all inappropriate on a well being site for people who are ALL vulnerable andtrying to get through life as best they can with positivity
Hi WatTyler, I don’t agree with regards Covid-19, but I do think they should have used the white elephant Nightingale hospital’s for treating Cancer and other serious conditions, particularly the London one which can hold 4000 patients, they could quite easily have used that for that purpose.
If they had needed this hospital for Covid-19 patients, they could have sectioned parts off, but it was quite clear from the start they didn’t have enough properly trained ICU staff for the hospital.
The reason they gave for not treating Cancer and other seriously ill patients was, the risk of them catching Covid-19, but if you are seriously ill with Cancer and where given the choice of life saving treatment or certain death if you don’t have it done, I know which one I would choose.
That is a bit like asking "If you could sacrifice one city to prevent Covid 19, which one would you choose? And why Bradford?" All opinions are, essentially, subjective!
As I say continuously, your opinion is as valid as the next persons. However, question everything. Do not take anything at face value. We are lied to every day. I'm glad you're questioning my opinion.
I used to live (many years ago) in Custom House (where a Nightingale Hospital has been constructed).
Now, after goodness knows how much money was thrown at it, it looks like closing, mainly because the patients were never there (41 treated in total in a huge aircraft hanger of a building), not because of staffing problems. The "white" elephant Nightingale was never set up as a cancer hospital, to do so would have cost billions more and would have stripped specialist cancer hospitals of their resources.
If you look at Florence Nightingale's achievements in nursing they were for number crunching, not just the famed lady with the lamp:
This whole affair has been mishandled from the start by public school boys now ruining the country thinking it's all a jolly jape.
I have a large extended family in Sweden who have not had to endure the lock-down we in the UK have gone through. I'm in regular touch with them and they seem to be doing fine:
And before anyone says the above is a right wing site (which it is, however, I've been accused of posting left wing stuff too, xenophobia is rampant on here) I could have posted the same report except in Swedish. Trouble is, I don't think many people on here read Swedish!
First of all, who are you and why are you here? You come across as extremely angry and aggressive. We don't do either here. So if you want to air your grievances, I'd suggest you do so in a manner that will encourage others to share their opinions on your post, rather than alienate them by sounding irrational and hostile.
I am very sorry to read you are unwell and have had appointments cancelled. There are people here who are in the exact same position. People with cancer and tumours that need removing, but are unable to do so in the current circumstances. Some are going without the medication they need and vital testing . So, unfortunately your situation is not isolated nor are you the only one suffering.
If you are hoping to stir up some kind of rebellion by stating this site it , what did you call it? A "commercial data harvesting site " then they can harvest all my data if they wish, of which I'm afraid they have not too much to gain . For many of us, this is more than a site. It is a community, OUR community. It has helped us in the darkest of moments in our lives and it will continue to help many.
I am truly sorry you are suffering, your hurt, fear and frustration shows so clearly through your anger. I hope things improve for you. And you know you are welcome here, if you should ever need a caring community.
I could ask the same of you? Who are you and why are you here? So let's agree to disagree. If you don't like what I have to say, skip to something that is more pleasing to your sensibilities.
One poster wrote this in reply to me and obviously looking for the sympathy vote:
"knowing that they cancelled dozens of cardiac surgeries for poorly babies and children purely so that the paediatricians (sic) could work to treat and hopefully save adults"
Which is arrant nonsense and he should be ashamed of himself for spreading stories like the above. I've asked him to provide verifiable details, but am not too hopeful that he will. If he does, I will willingly retract, apologise and donate £1,000 pounds to a charity of his choice and delete all my posts.
I never said I was the only one. Point to one comment that I have made that says "woe is me". No, I'm not angry. Disillusioned perhaps by the way ordinary people have been lied to, and who have willingly accepted those lies. Certainly not angry.
I am sorry if I have spoiled OUR perfect little community. In reality it's no ones community. It's an open forum. That means anyone may comment, not just the regulars. However, it's only be questioning the norm that communities may grow. Without questioning things one shrivels mentally. I am afraid that my adopted country (England) is unquestioningly taking the path to mental shrinkage.
Too many people are accepting the so called new normal. Life is not just about cuddly pets, glorious sunsets, and gardens. If only it was, how boring life would be.
You may not, as you aver, be angry, but you certainly sound it. You say the Government is full of ‘public schoolboys who think it is a jolly jape’. Neither the Welsh government nor the Scottish government an be described like that, but the Welsh government shut down far more than the U.K government (I.e English). You have made some sensible points, but very rudely, even if unintentionally. If you don’t want to be a statistic why are you here? For your information I have restrictive and obstructive lung diseases as well as very severe heart disease and am on oxygen 24/7. And why do you use the internet if you don’t want to be counted?
I can only reitterate what Caspiana put so well,we are a caring community and we can see your obvious pain and frustration with the way the government have handled this situation.
I agree that many people with serious and life threatening conditions have been neglected and will in effect have their lives shortened due to the inability of the system to cope with it,but negating it to nothing more serious than the common flu is to ignore the thousands and potentially millions of deaths that will eventually come about due to it's existence.
Rather than fume about the situation join us as a body in appealing to the authorities to reorganise their priorities,and use existing health care institutuions more wisely so that we can accommodate the health and wellbeing of all in our small society as well as those succumbing to the virus.
I do not think you realise just how much you may possibly be upsetting to quite a few members here, the ones that actually have cancer or impending diagnosis of cancer. The large majority here are COPD sufferers which also make them prime candidates for lung cancer too, which is a worry in itself. You say you have prostrate cancer, surely you know of the stress and uncertainty that is caused by a cancer diagnosis.
You are lucky, the chances of a cure and the survival rate with prostrate cancer is very high compared to lung cancer. You spout about a conspiracy theory with Covid-19, obviously you have not had it yourself.........yet. You have not feared the chance of dying from it, because of comorbidities after being infected.
My collection of health problems far exceeds yours, as it does with many members here. Again you are lucky with yours. I have a partner that has spent night after night in tears after losing residents to Covid-19 at the nursing home where she works. Other members here have lost family and friends to Covid-19.
You have my sympathy, to the fact that life has made you so angry and has distorted your reasoning towards such thoughts of conspiracy and your stats are not right at all. I can assure you it is nothing like the flu, in fact pneumonia was a walk in the park in comparison.
This is not the place to air such thoughts.
Now that I have made a comment of disagreement, no doubt Admin will delete the thread now, which seems to be their want lately. Not that I would disagree with it on this occasion.
You have certainly caused consternation but I am interested in the articles you highlighted. I agree with you the a vast number of people have been let down & allowed to die in this pandemic because of our underfunded, understaffed NHS & also the elderly in care homes have been treated abysmally.
Yes covid is very scary, especially for those of us with underling health issues or of a certain age, but steps could have & should have been taken to continue with healthcare in other areas eg cancer treatments/diagnosis, as well as treating the virus. The Nightingale hospitals were not used not due to success but because they didn't have enough specialised nurses or kidney dialysis machines.
Now we don't have a viable Test, track & trace set up in place I am fearful of what the future holds under this regime.
I see young people are now being blamed for the surge in cases after they've been encouraged to go & eat out, frequent pubs & shops. A lot of hogwash & distraction from the real culprits :those who sit in Government, the ones who held a meeting the other day with over 50 people in attendance! Against the rules I might add.. But seemingly rules don't apply to them!
Excuse me butting in but I'm curious as you said over 50 people attending the meeting and as far as you're concerned, thats breaking the rules. I'm thinking that 50 people wouldn't in any way be able to sit in the Parliament rooms , so no social distancing and probably at a vuess, no face masks worn either.😠😡.......... 🐿🌈
m.facebook.com/story.php?st..... Hope you can see this. Its from Andrew Gwynne, MP(who has had Covid & now long covid). Just in case... Over 50 in a room meant for 29 capacity. Doesn't mention face asks & most definitely not Social Distancing. 😡
I have seen 2 family members hospitalised and die from Covid. One was in her early 70s, the other in his 40s - neither had any health issues otherwise. On top of this, I have had two friends (in their 50s, both healthy) hospitalised and recover, slowly. Another two friends did not require hospitalisation, but felt very ill for a few weeks. I absolutely believe that Covid 19 is the health threat it is portrayed to be, in fact I believe that there is too much complacence in the population around this virus. Economic strength is impossible without the health of the nation being assured. The delay in treatment for other conditions is of course regrettable, but in my view it was correct to do this, to reduce the risk of the most vulnerable contracting the virus. The management of this situation has been flawed, the worst decision being the discharge of elderly covid positive patients to care homes, I am sure nobody would argue otherwise.
Why do people like WatTyler write with such certainty that everything they say is correct and everyone else is wrong? I was quite interested in what he had to say until the comment about 'public school boys in a jolly jape". At that point he became yet another conspiracy theorist with a social chip on his shoulder. How anyone can seriously offer articles in Russia Today in support of their argument against our democratically elected government is beyond me.
I'm encouraged that other members have sought to turn an overtly political message into a discussion about health. The negativity in the post, and some of the responses, was almost overwhelming, but this seems largely due to an emphasis on what has happened in the past (and a lot has undoubtedly gone wrong) rather than looking to how we might address the COVID issue in the coming weeks and months.
None of us would have wished to "start from here", but here is where we are, so I guess we just have to make the best of it. However, the post (and the accompanying links) did raise an important issue for me because I always favoured a more nuanced lockdown. I don't imagine I was alone in seeing the lockdown coming (although some amongst our leadership apparently didn't!), and started to adjust my behaviour accordingly (early social distancing, semi-isolation, etc). It occurred to me that, if the vulnerable had been advised to take the "lockdown precautions" at an earlier stage, it may not have been necessary to lockdown practically everything and everyone, and allow some controlled activity by the vast majority who are likely to be least affected by COVID-19 (guidance on face coverings would have been useful at that point, too, but then that is also "water under the bridge").
This argument has implications for the easing of lockdown, as I cannot see this being successful unless the vulnerable continue to be protected; I don't for one moment doubt that this would be difficult for many, but I think it is necessary in the absence of successful treatment or vaccine. And given the basic precautions which are widely known, and the more prevalent use of face coverings, even the vulnerable should be able to have some sort of social life, without necessarily having to completely self-isolate.
Just a thought, really, and I accept that it does smack of "herd immunity" amongst the young, but perhaps that is a realistic proposition considering that the young are seemingly the least compliant when it comes to COVID rules. I'll just have to keep my kids at a distance!
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Post Covid/Long Covid with Bronchiectasis
Cancer and COVID and COPD.
