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Comment by matthewmacleod | Hacker News Reader

This is a consistent taking point among the more egregious parts of the “lockdown skeptic” crew and it is, of course, absolute bullshit - it’s based on shallow comparisons of numbers that are not comparable.

If you do decide to promote this talking point anyway, flag it with the appropriate disclaimer from the NHS:

…caution should be exercised in comparing overall occupancy rates between this year and previous years. In general hospitals will experience capacity pressures at lower overall occupancy rates than would previously have been the case.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...

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>it is, of course, absolute bullshit

I'm sorry that I briefly lowered the tone by linking to data, thanks for your help.

>In general hospitals will experience capacity pressures at lower overall occupancy rates than would previously have been the case.

Why?

Hospital capacity has had to be organised in new ways as a result of the pandemic to treat COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients separately and safely in meeting the enhanced Infection Prevention Control measures. This results in beds and staff being deployed differently from in previous years in both emergency and elective settings within the hospital.

Literally from the link.

Do we know how effective those measures have actually been in practice? There's been some reporting that large numbers of people have caught it in hospital (and indeed I have a personal interest here as a close relative of mine caught it in hospital just before Christmas, though a very minor case and now fully recovered).

It makes sense to try to stop spread in hospitals but unless I've missed something there seems to have been very limited work done on if any of the protocols as actually implemented (ie not just in a theoretical world where they were designed) - and especially the costlier ones in terms of bed space - have worked, or at least worked enough to offset their cost in health terms.

Does anyone know if there's any data on this?

The NHS depends on the government and is therefore not a neutral source.

Well but the NHS is the source of the data to begin with. And they communicate limitations along with the data. You can't just ignore those and use their data. You'd have to find another source that offers actually comparable numbers.

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