The Week in Numbers (to Jan 4th)
We’ve Learnt Nothing.
In the Week in Numbers to the 20th of October, we predicted that Winter was Coming. You know what, we were right - winter has arrived.
We let you know that influenza positivity was slightly on the rise. 93% of available beds were occupied, and as you correctly guessed, there wasn’t much spare capacity—winter was coming. We also said we had learnt nothing.
The BBC reports that there are ‘five times more patients in hospitals with flu’ across the East of England than last year. However, don’t get us started on how using the F Word creates a vague monster.
Health services are ‘under growing pressure because of a spike in seasonal viruses. It seems the BBC do not understand the meaning of seasonal.
It's worth reminding them that seasonal infections are more likely to occur at specific times of the year, usually due to changes in the weather or environment.
This seasonal effect also seems to bamboozle the NHS Chiefs, who consider the number of people with ‘flu’ in hospitals is rising "at a very concerning rate."
Prof Julian Redhead, NHS national clinical director for urgent and emergency care, said: "The pressure from flu was nowhere near letting up before we headed into the new year, skyrocketing to over 5,000 cases a day in hospital as of the end of last week and rising at a very concerning rate".
For once - to the amazement of the TTE office - the UKHSA’ doesn’t seem to be losing the plot.
The ‘Latest data from the UK Health Security Agency shows the anticipated increase in flu activity over the festive season.’
This week's surveillance bulletin reports influenza is circulating at high levels. Positivity increased to 29.5% in week 52, compared to 26.4% the previous week and 21.7% in week 50.
Yet the National flu and COVID-19 surveillance report shows that Influenza positivity aligns with 22/23 data. An issue that is lost on the BBC.
It also seems that Wes Streeting has learnt nothing about his party’s policies.
Wes Streeting urged households to ‘turn their heating on this weekend’ despite the Government’s cuts to the winter fuel allowance.
Reporting in the Telegraph, Dennis Reed, the director of Silver Voices, said that the “chickens are coming home to roost” on the winter fuel cuts.
Watch out, Dennis, we say: Any reference to chickens means the bird flu will soon be back on the agenda - It's also a shame the chickens this year are frozen.
As the TTE office has previously said, the winter crises are predictable—but not to everyone. Those in charge must be held accountable, as they seem unable to see what everyone else can see.
One thing’s for sure: now that the media is onto the story, the pathogen will be on the wane in the community.
Two old geezers wrote this post, and they remember when warnings weren't needed to wrap up warm.
"Wes Streeting urged households to ‘turn their heating on this weekend’"
Staggering, but not surprising. It's confusing for a "middle-aged geezer" like me. Did I actually spend most of my life in a world where people weren't constantly, repetitively, patronisingly informed of the bleeding ****ing obvious? Or is that just the beginnings of "old geezer syndrome" - the conviction that everything used to be better?
Yesterday I passed an advert-screen showing the revelatory headline "Arctic Blast Chills Britain"; complete with a picture of a snow-bound landscape, in case anyone is illiterate. Yeah. I know it's cold. I'm walking through it. But perhaps I didn't "know it", in some technical epistemological sense, until I was _told_ it.
("Good Morning Vietnam": Robin Williams, as the radio DJ, trying to get a weather report from his "weather correspondent" (also Robin Williams, of course), who's too busy "getting it on" to report:
- You got a window? Open it!
)
But people actually seem to _love_ being told what is the case. So many mediagenous (I just made up that word) "cases" of "whooping cough" recently in people I know (Narrator: of course they didn't have whooping cough - that was just the Media Thing a few weeks ago).
"It's worth reminding them that seasonal infections are more likely to occur at specific times of the year, usually due to changes in the weather or environment."
Sentences like this are why I keep coming back to read TTE.
Can't we all club together and buy Hugh Pym, BBC health correspondent, a subscription to TTE because the poor chap is stuck in an ever-repeating episode of annual quad/flu/bird hospitals are full groove? He is either not very well informed or someone has written his script..........