Coronavirus shambles

[Cunninghamismagic]

From The Spectator:
To prepare for the predicted surge in Covid-19 cases, NHS hospitals discharged patients en masse and emptied beds. But the Covid-19 models were wrong: the ICU surge never happened in the way that was predicted. Not only is the NHS not overwhelmed, it now has some 37,500 empty beds, an astonishing figure: four times more than is normal for this time of year, according to figures obtained by the Health Service Journal.

This is why the Spectator are a bunch of odious twats, the gall that they have to publish this tripe is astonishing and I sincerely hope the author who wrote that doesn't believe what he wrote.

The models used to predict needed capacity have been used in multiple areas for both reaction and mitigation procedures. The point of migitagation procedures, like the lockdown, are to reduce the strain on the system as much as possible. Reaction measures are designed to assess what level of slack is required to help the system manage if the mitigation procedures didn't work as intended. The models were not "wrong", they were used in different ways for different purposes.

Imagine how much shit we'd have been in if the reaction measures went for the "best-case" scenario and didn't account for those 37,500 extra beds while the mitigation procedures failed. We'd be up shit creek without a paddle, the system would collapse and there would be an unprecedented level of unnecessary deaths.

You can’t fit all that on a bus though. CIM is waiting for something more pithy, perhaps something like Get Covid19 Done.

Keep taking your stories from the Guardian editorial DH