Dr Richard Totaro, co-director of Intensive Care at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, is talking about the burden of Covid patients in ICU. They’re typically in ICU 3+ weeks rather than 3 or 4 days. #nswcovid19
By the time Dr Totaro sees the patients in his ICU they’re typically too unwell to speak.
He’s not being drawn on what kind of numbers hospitals can sustain.
Gladys chips in: it’s not so much the number of cases we have. It’s the number of cases that aren’t vaccinated because they’re ending up in ICU.
@GladysB: “We are tracking well to hit our 6 million target. We are now in our 40s, in terms of the percentage range, in terms of people with two doses in New South Wales, or at least one dose.”
Umm what?
Pathological inability to answer a question.
So @GladysB is currently arguing that because NSW is in an outbreak that means they can ease restrictions earlier than 60-70% of full adult vax coverage. Bandying around 50% figure today. Talking of counting hospitalisations rather than cases.
Gladys Berejiklian: Oh here in NSW we have the best medical care etc etc etc
Dan Andrews: “If any Victorian is unconvinced and comes to a conclusion that I am fit and healthy and won't get COVID-19: (cont)
“It is not just COVID-19 patients who will struggle to find the machine to breathe or a nurse who isn't furloughed to care for them or a hospital but is open to care for them.
“It will be people who have suffered strokes, people who have had premature babies, people who have cancer and need urgent surgery, people who have heart attacks.
“All of that part of our health system would be compromised as well.
Question: Every day @GladysB downplays the number of Covid-positive people in the community while infectious.
Yesterday, she claimed that 20 of the 97 cases didn’t isolate while infectious.
The actual figure, from NSW Health, is about twice that: (cont)
A further 17 ppl were in the community for ‘some’ of their infectious period, and the isolation status of 7 more positive people was unknown.
Potentiality, that could be 43 roaming around, passing the virus on to others.
The strangest thing is, this misleading figure is (cont)
a key metric for deciding when NSW’s lockdown will end, @gladysb constantly says. She said yesterday’s figure of “20” was a sign things were headed in the right direction.
And the media, from Sky to ABC to Guardian, faithfully reports this 20 figure when it’s likely double.