The latest infection data from the UK’s Office of National Statistics (published 15th July 2022) shows that the percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 continued to increase in all UK countries in the week ending 6 July 2022 (7 July 2022 for Scotland).
The number of people in each country in the UK testing positive for Covid is as follows:
- England: 1 in 19
- Scotland: 1 in 16
- Wales: 1 in 17
- Northern Ireland: 1 in 17
Estimated percentage of the population testing positive for COVID-19 on nose and throat swabs, 11 July 2021 to 7 July 2022.
Official reported estimates of the rate of COVID-19 infections in private households in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Deaths related to Covid also increased with the UK total now reaching 200,000. #Covid Related Deaths in Scotland: 14th July 2022
The proportion of people estimated to have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes coronavirus (COVID-19),, remains high at the 179 ng per millilitre (ng/ml) level
Hospital admissions due to Covid have also continued to increase putting more and more pressure on our NHS staff.
A total of 4,262 patients were admitted to critical care with confirmed COVID-19 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland between January 2022 and June 2022. Of these, around two-thirds (67%) were discharged, almost one in four (24%) died in critical care and 9% are still in critical care.
In Scotland in the week ending 10 July 2022, there were 19 new admissions to Intensive Care Units (ICUs) with a laboratory confirmed test of COVID-19. There were on average 1,669 patients in hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 15% from the previous week ending 03 July 2022 (1,451).
see also:
- get your vaccine when offered to ensure you are fully protected
- stay at home if you’re unwell with symptoms or have a fever
- open windows when socialising indoors
- wear a face covering in indoor public places and on public transport
- wash your hands to protect yourself
Care for yourself and others to help slow down the spread of the virus and reduce pressure on our health services.
Categories: Uncategorized
Well… if this does not dampen one’s spirits, I do not know what does.
Covid is very much with us and it is continuing to cause harms, physically, mentally, socially and economically. We could limit those harms… by applying reason, logic and common sense… but we just behave as it they all had gone out of fashion or fell victim to social media influencers.
The current approach of “Living with Covid” is based on a misconception of the relationship between harms and promoting harms in (yet open ended) perpetuity.
Imagine your neighbour kept a really dangerous animal, is not bothered when this animal strays into your garden and just shrugs their shoulders when you ask them to keep it confined in their own space or on a lead. This would not be deemed acceptable.
Another example: smoking has been banned in so many shared and/public spaces. This was certainly not done to protect the smokers, in fact it was done to protect others. Funny though, although this is in fact a restriction (and despite being a smoker myself I have to admit that it is a sensible one), people do not complain about this restriction.
We are legally prevented from exercising polygamy, from carrying weapons around in public, from going shopping naked, driving drunk or in excess of speed limits…hence we do face many restrictions in our daily life, many of them for very good reasons, and we just accept them as part of a framework of rules, laws or social conventions.
But how can masks be called a “restriction”? They are not. Business closures are restrictions, staff shortages (due to Covid absences) result in restrictions (of availability of goods or services), an overwhelmed NHS workforce leads to restricted services (for everybody!) and so forth.
What a confusing mix of double standards. Public health measures have been politicised, mainly by a blonde man without access to a hairdresser (he has time now to look for one), and it is time to end this.
The ones who take a cavalier approach to others’ health by not observing some simple common sense precautions (such as masks) exercise antisocial behaviour, no matter whether this happens with the permission of a (UK) government or not. We know now that the (UK) government’s behaviour didn’t stand up to scrutiny, and that they ignored, instead of followed, the science… we – the public – can certainly do better.
Dampening spirits: Today’s IndieSage briefing on youtube has my recommendation… as an eye opener on which path we currently are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRMRCx8JYos
Listen to the numbers of hospital acquired infections (dropping the mask mandate in healthcare was a driver), rising death numbers and the effects on children…
And some last words about masks: the endless disputes about their efficacy… they are effective if the right type is used and it they are used correctly.
We had a campaign about hand washing earlier in the pandemic, TV adverts etc., and one could dispute whether the public really had a knowledge deficit in hand washing… personally I doubt it.
We should have had an education campaign about masks. To this day many have not detected the little metal strip to adjust the masks correctly over the nose; huge gaps to the sides and the top very much limit the filtering capacity of masks because air flows in and out where there is the least resistance (where the gaps are). Logic tells us that any virus which is as easily transmitted as the current variants, will simply escape the mask, at least in part.
You wouldn’t put a safety belt on incorrectly… we should follow the same approach with masks.
Some very good points there — thank you!