Coronavirus Part IV - 19 cases in ROI, 7 in NI (as of 7 March) *Read warnings in OP*

Flippyfloppy

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/irish-national-suspected-to-have-coronavirus-flees-from-odisha-hospital/story-85Kdh8TwfBkN9zW9mOBkfI.html


Irish national, suspected to have coronavirus, flees from Odisha hospital

Candamir

banie01 wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, and noting the difference between various categories of high dependency bed such as CC, and enhanced care.

How many of our ICU beds would be taken up by care post elective surgery?

I do get that post op recovery and other areas are high dependency beds and may even have ventilation available.
But
How much ICU capacity can actually be freed up by rejigging elective surgeries?

It really depends on the individual hospitals case mix. So for example almost every cardiothoracic op would have an ICU bed booked, Orthopaedic surgery not so much. So a much greater capacity to free up beds in the major hospitals, not so much in the regional hospitals. As regards absolute numbers I don’t know.

Kermit.de.frog

Maddox Jealous Yard wrote: »

Up until now, they just haven't been testing enough people to get those results.

My point is some posters seem to believe that the crisis in Italy and the insanity in Iran couldn't happen here.

It can.

I'm not optimistic at all on that front to be perfectly honest but they want to defend the HSE and how this country is run.

silver2020

silver2020 wrote: »

maybe add Nice, Munich, Geneva, Innsbruck, Salzburg, vienna, Ljubijana etc etc - all of which are in very easy reach of Northern Italy.

Then how about trains - you can get from Northern Italy to London by train in 12-14 hours including transfers and it's a very popular route.

I don't think that "heath professional" knows much about how travel goes and it typical of the scum media looking to spread fake sh1te - if you look hard enough you can find someone who will claim black is white.

Irresponsible reporting - but sure its the indo.

Still not an excuse to do nothing. Yes, you can't stop people getting here, but you can make it as awkward and expensive as possible to do so, to deter the less determined.

runawaybishop

VinLieger wrote: »

We dont need quarantine if we ban flights.....

Ban flights from where? Italy, China, Korea, France, Germany, UK? It was inevitable the virus would be transferred around Europe, it is daft to shut down the entire country, we wouldn't survive that.

Deleted User wrote: »

Still not an excuse to do nothing. Yes, you can't stop people getting here, but you can make it as awkward and expensive as possible to do so, to deter the less determined.

We arent doing nothing, people with symptoms are being told to lock themselves away and we are tracing all infected cases we can. Its the only realistic thing to do, you cant seriously expect us to quarantine everyone that enters the country for a month.

sydthebeat

Whatever we are hearing in the media and press briefings, they are giving info are days behind the actual situation.

tobefrank321

silver2020 wrote: »

maybe add Nice, Munich, Geneva, Innsbruck, Salzburg, vienna, Ljubijana etc etc - all of which are in very easy reach of Northern Italy.

Then how about trains - you can get from Northern Italy to London by train in 12-14 hours including transfers and it's a very popular route.

I don't think that "heath professional" knows much about how travel goes and it typical of the scum media looking to spread fake sh1te - if you look hard enough you can find someone who will claim black is white.

Irresponsible reporting - but sure its the indo.

Not many people would go for that option. Would you?

The exponential growth in air and international travel is largely related to cheap fares.

Containment and delay means making it difficult for people to travel to and from a highly infected region.

And if they do travel and return without reporting it to authorities, they should be forcefully isolated.

Its time to stop messing around with this. The Chinese got on top of it eventually by being ruthless. Being nice won't cut it in this case.

caveat emptor

quokula wrote: »

There is equal value in giving some perspective and realism to calm the over the top panic and anxiety.

It's a tired metaphor but it's still valid as even in Italy road deaths are still outnumbering coronavirus deaths - what you're describing is like a discussion on road accidents where people were forced to list every single accident, injury and death that happened in the entire world as it happens, and anyone trying to point out that not all journeys end in death get shut down.

The maths of an epidemic aren't comparable to road death statistics.
Image in being drunk was contagious and had a reproduction number of (R0) 2 to 3.

In a very short period of time road deaths would shoot through the roof as the ratio of drunk to non drunk increased.

Take it further and imagine we could just close the road with the drunk town and stop anyone who appears drunk.

We do that to reduce road deaths anyway

Utter Consternation

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Hearing people were exposed at a recording of the Blindboy podcast in Clare last weekend. A dreadfully unfunny evening all round for the audience.

That's no laughing matter. And they might have caught the Corona virus too.

Kermit.de.frog

Banning flights from Italy makes no sense anyway - they fly from anywhere else in Europe or travel to the UK.

You'd have to ban all European flights to achieve a result.

joseywhales

Upside Housing crisis, climate change, pensions.

endainoz

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Hearing people were exposed at a recording of the Blindboy podcast in Clare last weekend. A dreadfully unfunny evening all round for the audience.

Can confirm

timmyntc

spiritcrusher wrote: »

Hang on, how did you work that out? My interpretation of that is 244 are in ICU, 1169 are recovered and 364 are isolated at home. Giving a total of 1777 positive cases. So 13% are in hospital...

First column is 1169 hospitalised with symptoms. Not clear if theres overlap between these and those in ICU. Assume not.

Recoveries are green column, 376.

nthclare

The HSE are tge most gombeen practitioners at the present time.

I got a snap shot of a letter they sent to a primary school in Co Galway

Supposedly they want all the 6th class kids to stay at home and everyone else to come in...
Due to a scare.
Ffs

The ineptitude of the system which is supposed to be EXECUTIVE EXECUTIVE EXECUTIVE

Sounds so professional and as if you're dealing with a high class health service.
5 star like

HEALTH SERVICE EXECUTIVE
The ultimate in new age health care, we are executives in our core values.

We know how to wrap the system up in red tape, lacking awareness and we shoot the breeze and anyone who challenges our team will be crushed...

Executive

Canonfan

cherryghost wrote: »

Wut

Because of the 5000+ Italian tourists expected this weekend I heard.

Mic 1972

dan786 wrote: »

Vatican joins the party.

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1235859262850523136?s=20

who is going to track down all the boys who were in "close contact" with the infected priests??

Pseudonym121

banie01 wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, and noting the difference between various categories of high dependency bed such as CC, and enhanced care.

How many of our ICU beds would be taken up by care post elective surgery?

I do get that post op recovery and other areas are high dependency beds and may even have ventilation available.
But
How much ICU capacity can actually be freed up by rejigging elective surgeries?

Well, and I’m cautious here because there are people looking to nitpick everything for their own agendas and less interested in facts than selective abstraction of data to fit their preconceived viewpoints, but if you imagine the following:

1. All elective cardiac surgery cancelled.

2. All elective orthopaedic surgery cancelled - a lot of those people are old and even if the surgery isn’t that invasive the might need a high dependency bed for a few days - but they won’t die without the knee/hip replacement.


3. More focus on chemo and radiotherapy for cancer patients and prolonging chemo and radiotherapy courses to “smooth out” the usage of high dependency beds. It is likely that delaying surgery for a month or more with prolonged chemo would result in fewer deaths over time than simply not having that high dependency bed available for someone with COVID19.

You can see how that would free a lot of ordinary beds and high dependency beds I’m sure.

I accept that the cancer example is on the extreme end of what would be done but:
A. Cancelling elective surgery which might require some ventilation/high dependency care would free up a lot of capacity.

B. Aggressively discharging patients earlier than we currently do - all hospitals have policies for this. Hell one Saturday I needed to make beds because we had run out and I discharged just under 20% of the in-patients under my care. Needs must when resources are tight. That frees a lot of capacity - even reducing average length of stay from 10 days to 5 with aggressive discharge policies would free up a lot of ordinary beds.

C. If this got really bad then you’d start seeing almost all elective surgery cancelled whether or not it was at high risk of needing high levels of care afterward - this would free up ordinary beds.

D. And if it got even worse then it would escalate and things like cancer surgery being delayed with longer chemo/radio courses would start to happen. And lots of other things you wouldn’t even consider. That would result in deaths but if things got to that stage it would be about making the choice which would result in fewer deaths. Hopefully it won’t get to that stage


TLDR: there is a lot of scope for reducing bed usage depending on how aggressive we need to be. Far more than you might currently imagine but at the extreme ends of that the beds will be freed at some cost in lives - but doctors make those kinds of decisions every day so if it needs be it needs be.

ThePopehimself

UPDATE: Six people with coronavirus currently in isolation in University Hospital Limerick

THE NUMBER of confirmed cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus) in University Hospital Limerick has increased to six, it was confirmed this Friday morning.

The latest two confirmed cases of the virus are linked to the original outbreak in the West of Ireland earlier this week involving a family of two adults and two children.

https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/523140/update-six-cases-of-coronavirus-currently-in-isolation-university-hospital-limerick.html

amber2

https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/Coronavirus-latest-Deadly-virus-in-Cork-Patient-spent-days-in-emergency-department-before-diagnosis--0608fdbd-7e91-4440-bccf-f182dd8b1d6a-ds

Not too sure if this has been posted already Cork patient spent days in A&E.

Loafing Oaf

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Banning flights to Italy makes no sense anyway - they fly from anywhere else in Europe or travel to the UK.

You'd have to ban all European flights to achieve a result.

Would likely discourage some casual visitors though. How many Italians are that determined to come to Ireland they'd pay extra for connecting flights? But you are right travel restrictions would need to be done on a Europe-wide basis to be seriously effective

Kermit.de.frog

ThePopehimself wrote: »

UPDATE: Six people with coronavirus currently in isolation in University Hospital Limerick

THE NUMBER of confirmed cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus) in University Hospital Limerick has increased to six, it was confirmed this Friday morning.

The latest two confirmed cases of the virus are linked to the original outbreak in the West of Ireland earlier this week involving a family of two adults and two children.

https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/523140/update-six-cases-of-coronavirus-currently-in-isolation-university-hospital-limerick.html

Are they yesterday's confirmations or new?

banie01

Pseudonym121 wrote: »

Well, and I’m cautious here because there are people looking to nitpick everything for their own agendas and less interested in facts than selective abstraction of data to fit their preconceived viewpoints, but if you imagine the following:

Thanks for that, appreciate the structural overview.
It does give more scope for freeing space than I had expected.

Kermit.de.frog

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Would likely discourage some casual visitors though. How many Italians are that determined to come to Ireland they'd pay extra for connecting flights? But you are right travel restrictions would need to be done on a Europe-wide basis to be seriously effective

True. Can't argue with that.

pwurple

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

I'm not optimistic at all on that front to be perfectly honest but they want to defend the HSE and how this country is run.

Not everything is a stick to beat the government with either. We're not doing too badly with 13 cases, compared with other countries anyway.

Iceland is an example. Far smaller population (~360k people), more remote, they're up at 34 cases.

Switzerland, 8 million. 120 cases, and one death.

Norway, 5 million, pretty remote... 91 cases.

Woke Hogan

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

I wouldn't never wish ill will on anyone. I hope that no one actually got infected. But if I had to pick one "comedian" for something like this to happen to, it would definitely be blindboy.

I would disagree with that emphatically. Blindboy fans are typically very weedy, pale, weak weak men from what I have observed, probably riddled with all manner of undiagnosed ailments and maladies. It would tear through them like tinfoil.

Tacitus Kilgore

joseywhales wrote: »

Upside Housing crisis, climate change, pensions.

Alright edgelord

RocketRaccoon

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Hearing people were exposed at a recording of the Blindboy podcast in Clare last weekend. A dreadfully unfunny evening all round for the audience.

Any link to that? A friend/work colleague was at it.

thebaz

skepticalme wrote: »

For all who question why flights are not stopped. EU law apparantly. Lecturer on EU law talking to Ivan Yates on the hard shoulder yesterday. The relevant part is at the start of the interview.

https://www.newstalk.com/listen-back

Thought as much, EU law seams moire imprtant that containg the outbreak - North Italy has a serious outbreak , and most of the cases in rest of Eurpoe , can be traced to Italy - but keep the planes coming in , while preaching self-isolation/closing schools / wrecking the econmy etc just to satisfy EU law - Everyone is preaching the public to be vigilant , and yet we keep planes flying from area of high risk - This weekend with all the Italian rugby fans , who mainly come from North Italy is beyond ricdicous - bureacracy at its worst- would you stay in a hotel in Dublin city this weeked - given what happened in Canaries ?

ChikiChiki

sydthebeat wrote: »

Whatever we are hearing in the media and press briefings, they are giving info are days behind the actual situation.

Crisis management. Its a fine balance to keep the economy going and widespread panic.

I do agree that the 8.30 timing at night is a good time as it gives people time to digest in their homes.

flynnlives

For those of you suggesting we cant do anything about flights and quarantine i give you the example of Taiwan.

Only 42 cases and right next door to Korea and mainland china.

https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/why-taiwan-has-just-42-coronavirus-cases-while-neighbors-report

In response, the Centers for Disease Control started onboard quarantine of all direct flights from Wuhan on December 31. The centers said on its website that by January 9 it had “inspected” 14 flights with 1,317 passengers and attendants.

Officials in Taiwan took a “more proactive” approach compared to other parts of Asia by stopping flights from China, lawmaker Lo Chih-cheng said. Hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese live in China and a lot of them return in the first two months of each year for holidays, a pattern that increased Taiwan’s exposure to the disease.

The Centers for Disease Control's daily announcements include details on how new patients might have gotten sick and whether anyone else might be infected. The island’s only death, for example, was described as a taxi driver in his 60s with two existing medical conditions.

Taiwanese citizens, Lo said, consider transparency “very important.” The government hopes to release information that keeps people on guard without inciting any panic, analysts believe.

and yet here we are one week on from the first case and we already have community transmission.
I turn on the news and see the "experts", whose sole job, extremely well paid i might ad, is to prepare for this crisis drawing stick figures on a whiteboard. ffs!

We are still dithering over St, patrick's day. In 2001 foot and mouth cancelled St. patrick's day with no objection from anyone from what i remember. There is zero leadership on this crisis in Gov. The HSE's transparency and decision making has been woeful.

I fear this is going to hit Ireland bad.