Virus

The original vaccine-induced T cell response (via mRNA or J&J) is durable vs Omicronhttps://t.co/ov8dBZjmiG
"current vaccines may provide considerable protection
against severe disease w/ the Omicron variant despite the substantial reduction of neutralizing antibody responses" pic.twitter.com/K7XiEgxO6e

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 3, 2022

And the 2nd one here from @ljiresearch
Vaccination induced T-cells vs Omicron well preserved compared with all variants and with 3 different vaccineshttps://t.co/9uu3pZ8a80 @aetarke @SetteLab pic.twitter.com/KYE8Gdxbua

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 3, 2022

Nine-hour ambulance waits and some maternity units forced to close as NHS grapples with Covid staff shortages

The Royal College of Nursing urged the Government to take a more cautious approach to the spread of Omicron in England
By Emily Ferguson, Molly Blackall
January 3, 2022 6:14 pm(Updated 6:43 pm)


Some maternity units have been forced to temporarily close and patients have been left waiting up to nine hours for ambulances, NHS workers say as the health service continues to grapple with Covid staff shortages.
More than half a dozen NHS trusts have been forced to declare “critical incidents” over staff absences, i understands, with some warning that patient care has been “compromised”.
A critical incident can be used to warn the wider health service that an NHS trust is under acute pressure and may need help from others, such as staff being redeployed from elsewhere.
The NHS is urging people who need care to come forward and get in touch with the health service to get the support they need.
One paramedic working for the East of England Ambulance Service Trust told i that some patients were waiting more than nine hours for ambulances as the service struggled to keep up with demand.
The paramedic warned that a lack of beds and staff shortages was also driving delays for paramedics queuing to bring their patients into hospital.
“On a night shift last week people were waiting for nine hours plus for ambulances and I waited three hours to offload my patient to hospital. Hospitals are seriously strained with no beds,” they said.
Maternity wards are also affected with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) warning that staff shortages over Christmas and New Year meant “women are not receiving a high standard of maternity care that they need and deserve”.
“Too often we are receiving reports of maternity services having to close temporarily, suspend services or divert women to other maternity units because there simply aren’t enough midwives,” said Abbie Aplin, regional head for the south at the RCM’s Services for Members.
“This can’t continue because we know it compromises safety and means women don’t always get the safe positive pregnancy and birth experience that they should.”

‘Government must take a more cautious approach in England’ to protect health service

Dr David Strain, the clinical lead for Covid services at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, said he expected staff absence to keep rising considerably over the coming weeks due to the delayed effect of social mixing over Christmas and New Year.
“I think the worst is going to be in about two week’s time,” he said. “There will be significant impact from New Year because that’s more when you do mix with families and then schools go back.
“It’s almost the perfect storm due to the inter-family spread and then schools going back four days later when the children are at their peak of infectivity.”
He said the staffing issues will soon spill over into other areas of the public and private sector, such as in schools and power plants and warned absences could be much higher in these industries because of lower vaccination rates compared to NHS employees.
With Omicron continuing to infect vaccinated individuals, he urged the Government to introduce further restrictions.
Dr Strain suggested a two-week circuit breaker lockdown could have a “dramatic effect” on curbing the spread of Omicron and limiting the impact of staffing shortages.
He called on the Government to stop “contradicting themselves” and help prevent a staffing crisis from putting severe pressure on hospitals later this month.
The Royal College of Nursing also urged the Government to take a more “cautious approach” to the spread of Omicron in England, warning that the differing approaches taken across the UK nations was “confusing and concerning”.
“Nursing professionals are questioning the level and nature of the variation between governments,” the body said in a letter to the Health Secretary on Monday, urging him to “work with counterparts across government on a more cautious approach for England without further delay.”
The College warned that the NHS could “ill afford” the growing numbers of staff absences caused by the spread of the Omicron variant, with the health and care system in England “already short tens of thousands of professionals”.
They also asked the Health Secretary to improve the PPE given to those working in hospitals to ensure “the highest levels of workplace safety for our members and preventing a postcode lottery from developing.”
It comes as Boris Johnson suggested the high levels of absence within the NHS could be solved by “moving staff around” the country.
Speaking on a visit to a vaccination hub in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, the Prime Minster said moving staff to “those areas that are particularly badly affected” is one option being considered to relieve NHS pressures.

Hospitals declare critical incident due to staffing shortages

Four hospitals in Lincolnshire declared a critical incident at the weekend over “significant staffing pressures” due to Covid-related absences.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust said it was having to take “additional steps to maintain services” as a result of the staff shortages.
In an internal letter leaked to The Sunday Times, Lincolnshire health leaders described the shortages as “extreme and unprecedented” and warned they were resulting in a “compromised care across our hospitals and an inability to maintain a number of key pathways”.
The internal letter said that the trust was considering “standing down some areas of service” to allow healthcare professionals to focus on urgent and emergency care, while redeployment of staff had already begun.
i understands that more than half a dozen hospitals have also declared major incidents but have not yet gone public.
It came after Morriston Hospital in Swansea, Wales, announced on Saturday that its emergency department would treat only patients with life-threatening illness or serious injury over the bank holiday weekend.
Northampton and Kettering hospitals said visiting will be suspended unless it is for a patient’s last days of life or other limited circumstances, while hospitals in South Shields and Sunderland also suspended visitors to adult inpatients.
London has seen the highest rates of coronavirus over recent weeks, with the capital’s ambulance service reporting 14 per cent of its workforce off sick on Boxing Day – the latest available figures. Six per cent were due to Covid.
The service said it had increased access to testing for staff to allow those who test negative to return to work more quickly.
Central and North West London hospital trust said the situation was “very tight and challenging” with 322 staff off work, 4.2 per cent of all staff. Of these, 153 were off for Covid-related reasons.
However, the trust said that it had at least three times as many off in the first wave of coronavirus, partly due to the high number of people shielding, and said that “with a huge effort we are managing”.
An NHS spokesperson said: “While there is no doubt January will be a tough month for NHS staff, the NHS has tried and tested plans in place to handle increased winter and coronavirus pressures – and just as it did through the other waves of coronavirus – the NHS will continue covid and non-covid care. 
“Anybody who needs care should continue to get in touch with the NHS as they usually would so they can get any support they may need.”

BREAKING - China locks down another city due to virus outbreak:

Yuzhou; population 1.17 million.

Yuzhou is 300 miles from Xi'an, where 13 million residents have been locked down since Dec 19 due to a dual-challenge of COVID and hemorrhagic fever cases.https://t.co/ZAVNlylEX7

— ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????? (@BrandonBeckham) January 3, 2022

rumbeando wrote:

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&uniformYAxis=0&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Cases+and+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~OWID_WRL

Cousin Billy wrote:samo da još jednom ponovimo: kada dođemo na 10-12.000, ulazimo u nepoznatu zonu jer mi imamo vrlo limitirane kapacitete za testiranje. ako se zakuca na toj cifri, to je pik testiranja a ne pik talasa.

boomer crook wrote:nikakvih mera nece biti. srecom skole ne rade do kraja meseca.