Day: 4 August 2020

Latest News

Deaths Below Five-Year Average for Sixth Week in a Row – ONS Blower's cartoon in today's Telegraph Today's ONS release has deaths from novel coronavirus in England and Wales continuing to fall. Here's PA's summary: There were a total of 8,891 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week to July 24th, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 161 fewer than the five-year average of 9,052, PA reports.This is the sixth week in a row that deaths have been below the five-year average.Of the deaths registered in the week to July 24th, 217 mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate – the lowest number of deaths involving COVID-19 since the week ending March 20th, when there was 103 deaths. What was all that about a "second wave" Boris? The ONS has published a chart showing, among other things, that the number of people dying from influenza and pneumonia has been below the five-year average (the dotted lines) since mid-April. Could it be that deaths from respiratory failure that would normally be attributed to influenza and pneumonia are being falsely attributed to COVID-19? Dr John Lee warned of that risk in his first article for the Spectator. "It might appear far more of a killer than flu, simply because of the way deaths are recorded," he wrote. Postcard From ...

COVID-19 as a Workplace Hazard (Part 3)

If you're assessed as having a high "covid age", chances are you won't be allowed to return to work What are the prospects for older workers in 'the new normal'? Employers are seeking to return staff from shielding, but can only do this where they can demonstrate that the role is "Covid-secure". Some employers are requesting their occupational health providers assess staff and advise of their "Covid-age". Covid-age is a scheme that has been developed by occupational health doctors to stratify employees based on their risk of experiencing severe illness or death as a result of COVID-19. You're supposed to start with the person's actual age and then add additional years for various reasons, e.g. high BMI, ethnicity, gender, medical conditions. This then results in the individual's Covid-age. There is then a 'traffic light system' that applies to you depending on your Covid-age – green, yellow, orange, red It is immediately apparent that the higher your age, the more likely you are to fall into a higher risk category. With any workplace hazard, the employer decides if they are prepared to allow an employee to be exposed. Let's look at an example of another hazard – flour dust. Flour dust can cause occupational asthma (the development of asthma in an individual who did not previously have any asthma). If an ...

Postcard from Melbourne – a PS

A watchtower on the outskirts of the Melbourne metropolitan area Well they say twenty-four hours is a long time in politics. In Melbourne it feels like someone has slipped something hallucinogenic into your soy latte and you have entered a parallel universe. But when you come around you discover you weren't hallucinating – it really did happen. A beautiful winter Sunday afternoon was ruined by our hapless (or is that hopeless?) state Premier announcing in his gravest tones that Lockdown 2.0 and mandatory face nappies just aren't doing the trick. We are all being very naughty and not doing as we're told and so the 'State of Emergency' is being upgraded to a 'State of Disaster'. This involves a near total shutdown of non-essential businesses, an 8pm-5am curfew, no travel further than 5km from your home and you're only allowed out for one hour of exercise per day. Schools are closed, weddings banned and numbers at funerals are limited. Welcome to Lockdown 3.0. Within minutes of the announcement, queues were forming outside supermarkets and by the end of the day the shelves had been stripped of fruit, veg and fresh meat by panic buying locusts. They obviously stopped listening to Kim Jong Dan's doom-mongering before he got to the bit where he said supermarkets would remain open. There are quite ...

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