The audience has changed in Australia, and I am sensitive to that. A lot of people will now be infected, or know someone they love that is infected.
Now it’s about how to survive beyond that… and to do that we still need to #CutDownTransmission
Just because you have had COVID-19 once, and you thought it was mild, it doesn’t mean the next one will be mild, or the one after that. Timing vaccines and waves is not easy, so we need to flatten those waves.
We also need to reduce the amount of organ and systems damage.
Vulnerable people in the community are relying on us to reduce the prevalence of disease. For them, it literally is a matter of life and death.
We can do this… we need to start small. Better ventilate our homes and workplaces. Wear the best mask/respirator we can.
Australia has been thrown, with little preparation, like a non-swimmer into the surf.
We can learn to swim and that swim for survival has only just begun.
We need the government to help, but they are refusing, so we must do what we can until we can elect a leader that has the potential to manage this mess.
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Nearly a year ago I said that the most dangerous thing about acknowledging #COVIDisAirborne, is that governments would give up trying to control disease.
They have given up in many well resourced countries.
This another huge mistake.
Airborne disease CAN be controlled.
Step 1
Stop asking doctors how to fix an environmental problem. Airborne disease is a problem of air flows and stagnant air.
Ask engineers, architects, aerosol scientists…
Step 2
Stop picking only the “easy” thing to do (ie what the individual can do). Airborne disease requires teamwork, competent governments and community efforts.
In general, ED long waits lead to pressure areas from hard chairs and floors (these are anything from red areas on the skin to actual holes deep to the bone), long wait to get anything like bed pans, pain killers, phone… and the worst one… no one to notice deterioration.
This is the omicron story. Not ventilators and dying from COVID-19 as much as before.
Studies overseas show that omicron puts pressure on emergency and ward level care, rather than ICU. Staff are being redeployed from ICU to wards and ED.
So looking at ICU is exactly the wrong place to look.
Please find an advisor that tells you these things.
It’s obvious if you think about it. A disease that causes less respiratory symptoms and shorter stay, but in larger numbers, is going to impact ward level care and emergency the hardest.
Other pressure point to watch is potentially PICU.
#journorequest please focus on the above areas for questioning. Please do not accept “low deaths” and “low ICU” as the end of the story.
Omicron is different, and it is stressing the hospital in different ways.
Also, long COVID. The massive elephant in the room…
2) more people keen to get infected will contribute to the collapse of the healthcare system.
3) it undermines the disease control message to the public which is absolutely needed at this time as rosters are collapsing! amp.theguardian.com/australia-news…
Where is the advocacy from @NSWHealth to the office of @Dom_Perrottet to control disease in order to re-establish the delivery of safe care?
Persistence of widespread COVID-19 circulation is not compatible with that.
On @abc730 he is now talking about the death rate being low… the last lagging indicator of trouble.
@Dom_Perrottet is literally going to wait until the bodies pile high… then he will still do nothing… just wait for Mother Nature and eventual boosters to bend the curve.
Businesses stressed by no staff, food supply lines interrupted, healthcare now unsafe as close contact staff caring for the vulnerable…
and he is smiling.
Normal people failing so spectacularly would show some sign of stress.