Chris Hopson, the Chief Executive of NHS Providers, has said that the country should prepare for “tighter restrictions”, arguing that additional Covid measures may be needed to curb the spread of the Omicron variant in order to save the NHS from being overburdened by Covid patients. The Guardian has the story.
Boris Johnson must be ready to restrict social mixing to stop hospitals being overwhelmed by an Omicron-driven surge in Covid cases, a senior NHS leader has said.
The rapid spread of the new variant means the Prime Minister may have to introduce “tighter restrictions, at real speed” to reduce the number of people falling ill with Covid.
But any new curbs would take two weeks to cut the number of people needing hospital treatment, added Chris Hopson, the Chief Executive of NHS Providers.
His comments came as a leading scientist predicted that the sharp increase in Covid infections seen in recent days means that the NHS will be overwhelmed “quite quickly”.
Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), warned exposure to only “a whiff of infected breath” could lead to catching the Omicron variant.
He also said that mingling during New Year celebrations may well lead to a further increase in those testing positive.
Hopson said that hospital chiefs understood that the Government had set “a high threshold” for how much pressure the NHS would need to be under from Covid before it would tighten the rules.
“Trust leaders can see why the Government is arguing that, in the absence of a surge of a large number of seriously ill older people coming into hospital, that threshold has not yet been crossed,” Hopson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“But we still don’t know if that surge will come. Indeed, the NHS is preparing for it right now,” he added. Eight hospitals in England have begun creating their own “mini-Nightingale” on site to help care for patients at “super-surge” capacity.
Hopson added: “We are therefore in the same place we have been in for the last fortnight. The Government needs to be ready to introduce tighter restrictions, at real speed, should they be needed.”
Worth reading in full.


Discussion
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Hopson was a director of HMRC when I had the misfortune to be an employee. He is one of Mark Higgie’s ‘Shonky Retreads’ and should be ignored.
“Tighter restrictions”. For what? A three day cold? People please wake up, you are being lied to. Why would this government want to destroy lives, businesses, the country with “tighter restrictions”? Think about it, for let’s say a second. Does it make any sense to destroy your citizens, businesses and country, for a cold virus? Something is seriously wrong folks.
Why?
The other thing is you’ll see tests, cases and all other figures fall quickly now that new years passed.
Everybody will stop the mad testing now there’s nothing do for the next 3 months.
Give it a couple of weeks and Boris holding his nerve and we should be ok.
Plus with 99% having had Omicron (Gov figures) infection will now wane reasonably quickly.
I reckon they have worked out when the natural virus progression (the Gompertz curve) inflexion point will be, when it will start naturally declining, and introduce measures just before, so they can claim the measures worked. Thinking people however know the truth.
Unfortunately they might actually believe that their interfering worked which then reinforces it in their compromised minds.
Rain dances were taken seriously for the same reason.
He needs to concentrate on sorting out the covid obsessed NHS instead of politicking for lockdowns and ruining peoples lives.
He’s no mandate for pushing public heath policy anywhere, only the elected politicians have that.
For some reason, the pronouncements of Hopson boil my piss more than anyone else in this shitshow. A career civil servant who’s never missed a payday in his life or used a strange shithouse without getting instructions in triplicate first.
Fuck off and leave us alone.
Is anyone else concerned that the two antivirals we are likely to be prescribed in the UK, Molnupiravir and Paxlovid, both turn out to not be particularly safe – certainly not as safe as ivermectin or fluvoxamine. Molnupiravir (Merck) is dangerously mutagenic, and Paxlovid (Pfizer) is bundled with an HIV/AIDS drug (Ritonavir) that causes life-threatening heart, liver, and pancreas disease.
Reprise:
Dr Peter McCullough December 21 st, 2021 – Medical Care in the Most Severely Ill with COVID-19
https://www.americaoutloud.com/medical-care-in-the-most-severely-ill-with-covid-19/
https://media.blubrry.com/mcculloughreport/ins.blubrry.com/mcculloughreport/Medical_Care_in_the_Most_Severely_Ill_with_COVID-19.mp3
Plenty of discussion especially in last 20 minutes on various treatments including @48:27
His guest Dr. Paul Marik: vitamin D potently reduces risk of getting and dying of COVID-19… it seems that if you get your vitamin D level above 50 [US measure?] your chances of getting COVID are reduced to almost zero (the data suggest)… the problem is that if you take oral vitamin D it takes days … weeks to activate to the active form. So mainly preventive, less effective in the acute setting / hospitalised.
I am not concerned because I won’t be fuckin having them.
Instead of the NHS Chief feeling utterly ashamed and falling on his sword for the whole diabolical mess, he sounds as if he is revelling in it
Once again the ‘scientists’ make calls above their pay grade. They can fυck off and expect attempts to restrict my freedoms to be met with violence.
They are all fucking commies
There is an interesting nexus point between a health service and increased longevity in a population. They have already dramatically reduced life expectancy. If you were born between 1945 and 1965 then you need to pay particular attention to global affairs. In their minds the liabilities simply cannot be met the assets were removed long ago..
They will get that needle into you one way or another even if it means setting fire to everything.Their desire to inject is powerful and they will do so by any means necessary.
I am looking forward to the knock on the door!
I agree all of that avid watching of ‘video nasties’ in the 1980s finally come to fruition. In a few weeks time barely anyone is going to feel healthy enough to do anything. The drop off in energy of all kinds will be remarkable. Pure blood semen will be worth its weight in gold.
I fear you are quite right. The regime will continue to control the masses with fear, aided substantially with the fatality rate of the “boosters”. It can then efficiently pick off the remainder of us, in its own time.
This is why we need to break away, rather sharpish.
https://ourdecisiontoo.com/Issue/there-s-nothing-left-to-do-but-go-our-separate-ways/320/
The purpose of the NHS is to serve the people. It’s not the other way round. If the NHS can’t do that, it’s not fit for purpose and ought to be dismantled. I’m not paying taxes in the UK to enable Chris Hopson & NHS Providers to boss me around as they see fit for their own convenience. Actually, no one who pays into the NHS budget does that because a National House Arrest Service would be needed for anything.
It’s time the nhs was scrapped. Everyone should then have a reduction in income tax and use the saving to buy very good private healthcare with the added benefit of not having to be locked down forevermore just do that the hospitals staff can avoid doing any work.
They have that in the USA and the situation there isn’t generally better. Health services provided by multinational megacorp brings all the drawbacks of an overarching, largely self-serving bureacaracy plus the added issue of profiteering explicitly being the only goal.
The principle behind the NHS is sound and it has worked well for a long time. It’s just the new-age lifestyle consultants, PR professionals, management experts and woke politicians who have to be driven out.
You should never tell someone to brace if you mean them well. Bracing generally has a very negative effect. Far better to absorb. Just the way they try to manipulate consciousness with their words.
Step one, get those who are at home without symptoms (ie, don’t have the disease just the virus).
Remember the days when the fleckless UK regime scorned other countries on their lack of democratic process? I wonder what they would have said about a nation being coerced, bullied and literally murdered/injured by the medical service they all pay for.
Exactly what I’ve said about the Dutch government. If there were ever a country that was symbolised by the wagging finger of disapproval, it’s NL, always lecturing other countries about human rights, big song and dance every May, never forget and all that.
And now we have a minister of health engaging in hate speech against the unvaxxed, a caretaker government hiding critical documents regarding the apartheid app from parliament (being ‘careful’ with the truth is the whole reason the cabinet had to resign last January), violating the constitution and human rights treaties numerous times, bullying dissenting voices and in essence in all cases hounding them out of the party/parliament/advisory roles. Disgusted by the lot of them – and am thoroughly enjoying the rather inordinate amount of fireworks being set off right this moment – even though the government prohibited them for the second year running. Law enforcement said they weren’t going to be doing very much enforcing tonight 🙂
Very good. All the best for the new year – let’s hope the non-compliance spills over to such an extent that the authorities across the whole of Europe can not cope and are forced to give up this scam.
Hope and non-compliance are our strongest assets.
No we, collectively, are our greatest asset, but we need to sweat that asset by acting collectively. We don’t, I fear, own even half of the country, but we own more than enough to get by very nicely.
Hope will fade, coincident with non-compliance becoming ever harder cracked down upon, as the masses are subdued by fear.
https://ourdecisiontoo.com/Issue/there-s-nothing-left-to-do-but-go-our-separate-ways/320/
Efficiency is an interesting god, You run your system on the bare minimum for the sake of efficiency knowing that the slightest external pressure would send it over the edge. This is insane in my view. There was a study conducted in the 1980s which considered the impact of a thermonuclear device on one British city and it concluded that such an event would overwhelm the health service, and back then it was more adequately resourced. You can’t run a society this way for long.
Self Certification: If employees are off work for 28 days or less, they do not need to give their employer a fit note or other proof of sickness from a medical professional.Gov.UK Maybe this has caused the ‘shortage’ of staff
Nation-wrecking for the common cold:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/southern-rail-cancels-all-services-london-victoria-covid-isolation-b974307.html
There is a danger that discourse in a group like this one becomes a feedback loop whereby the same tropes are met with the same astonishment over and over again. I think there comes a point where it is safe to acknowledge that the discussion has moved on. That there are the opinions of some of the most accomplished people in the world and there is the view of the corporations. Is it really impossible to admit this truth? The University of Basel published a report which identified an entity that they called ‘the network of corporate control’. Has control of approximately 50 percent of the world’s assets and operates on a centralised basis.
Peter Philips’ 2018 Book ‘Giants, the Global Power Elite’ is quite good at documenting who owns and runs the world. The usual suspects, basically.
I’ve just had a conversation with a friend who thinks jab mandates won’t succeed in the UK because we’re more libertarian than most other countries. Also he says 10% of the population, especially lower-income groups, wouldn’t be able to use a smartphone constantly in the way the WEF anticipates.
In my view 5% of the population may give up a smartphone to thwart such a system. Or else, in my case they’ve had a large screen on their desk for 35-40 years, and can’t see the value in a pathetically small screen … hence they use a basic-type mobile to make calls when away from the house/office.
And where are we going to get the staff for the Nightingales? We are struggling at the moment because of the crazy testing regime. Please note that most people isolating are triple jabbed. Not to worry though, unjabbed workers like myself will continue to do the best we can as long as we are allowed.
If you persist in following this narrative then you will be manipulated in accordajnce with the vicissitudes of the system. This is a real problem with British consciousness, the goldfish bowl mentality. If you follow this situation closely on an international level then you can clearly see that we are on the right side and that it won’t be long before this is widely acknowledged. Don’t get sucked into the despair of an island nation where the fuckwits are in charge. This is a very superficial reality. For fucks sake they don’t even believe their own bollocks and we have had this shown to us many times.
Event 201 was the rehearsal for the means to the end.
Hopson says the NHS is preparing for a surge “right now.” Given that they have been doom-mongering this BS for twelve months, at least, the only correct conclusion is that this useless twat should be sacked. If we accept his reasoning he has failed to do his job.
Accepting his logic I would go further and he should be in court for malfeasance in public office.
For most on here though this wind up has FA to do with rNHS only about further eroding the health of the nation and stirring misery.
He can rot in hell.
Forever
This is a panic over tests – medics were overwhelmed by a pseudo epidemic of whooping cough way back in 2007. If only they ha d listened to Kary Mullis.
https://silview.media/2020/12/26/nyt-2007-faith-in-quick-test-leads-to-epidemic-that-wasnt/
F*** off!
Every year we have this bullshit from the NHS! How about managing it properly instead of restricting our lives. It’s like a fucking religion!
Why is there never any consideration of anomalous data. For example some remote Antactic research station has an outbreak despite no contact with the outside world. Why were the initial major outbreaks in China and Italy and Iran on similar latitudes. The very fact that these things are occluded tells you that scientists really ought to study the philosophy of science as a prerequisite. In Norway a philosophy component forms part of the foundation of a degree course.
Random musings from my sick bed. What do we think of the assertion that is now being touted that ‘you don’t have a right to infect other people – therefore you must get tested before meeting up’?
It concerns me greatly that what used to be an accepted risk of being part of human society is no longer accepted or acceptable. Insisting on healthy people testing themselves before joining a night out smacks to me of mental illness.
Didn’t it used to be called Munchausen’s syndrome?
Being actually ill this week has meant that I have swerved one of these gatherings of the mentally infirm this evening!
That is one of many principles that have been flipped in the last 2 years.
Before, you used to be healthy unless it was demonstrated otherwise. Now you are sick unless you demonstrate otherwise.
Before, masks had no utility as a public health measure. Now, they are vital to containing the spread of disease.
Before, you chose if you had a medical treatment, Now, you can be forced and if not discriminated for not submitting to a medical treatment.
Before, you didn’t need to prove to anyone whether you were healthy or sick, it was your business. Now, you may be asked to prove you are healthy.
Before, even if you were sick you could carry on with your life if you so chose. Now, if you are sick the government can force you into house arrest.
These changes are essentially a shift from a free society to a totalitarian one. And it literally happened overnight, on 19th March 2020 when Johnson put the entire population under house arrest. From that moment onwards, anything they wanted to do with us was going to be accepted. And here we are.
SPI-B has been steadily “nudging” a majority into the “new normal”.
As a (significant) minority, those of us, who still retain the previously common ideals of liberty, need to separate from the new majority, before this becomes any harder.
https://ourdecisiontoo.com/Issue/there-s-nothing-left-to-do-but-go-our-separate-ways/320/
‘you don’t have a right to infect other people – therefore you must get tested before meeting up’?
it’s related to the evolution of so-called ‘hate-speech laws’ isn’t it?
All my life, it’s been a generally-accepted part of normal society to frown on people being offensive (or hateful) for the sake of it. The same for people who are knowingly contagious doing things that will likely infect others.
but for the crypto-fascists this was/is not enough. Moral opprobrium therefor makes way to having the state crush behavior it deems improper, and there is no good way for that to end.
“What do we think of the assertion that is now being touted that ‘you don’t have a right to infect other people – therefore you must get tested before meeting up’?”
I have heard this recently from an acquaintance – I said if that was his logic, he best never, ever ever go near another human being again, after all, he might be killing somebody with asymptomatic tuberculosis, or asymptomatic norovirus.
I also pointed out – so on the one hand, we’re supposed to believe that ‘ICU’s are filling with covid patients… NHS on the verge of being overwhelmed… tsunami of unvaccinated covid patients fighting for their lives…’ while on the other hand, we’re also simultaneously supposed to believe that covid is so silent and nondescript that you won’t have the slightest idea you are on the verge of death with it, & therefore have to take a test every time you go more than 15 paces. well, which is it?
That’s one of the very strange features of the illness called COVID-19: It’s the first illness on this planet which is extremely dangerous to everyone except those who get it.
Brilliant.
Like everything-corona, it’s inherently bullshit. People don’t infect people, viruses infect people and there’s nothing people can do about that. Their bodies become infected without their consent or knowledge. And viruses replicating in their bodies might infect others without them having any power to control it.
Someone who tests negative now could test positive the next second. There are no security guarantees associated with past test results. The only guaranteed effect is that a positive test result will contribute to driving the pandemic machinery.
Whilst everybody has been distracted by the scamdemic and the latest scariant, along with all the associated nonsense that sums up this self inflicted disaster, certain things have been going somewhat unnoticed by most…
The sale of petrol cars banned in 8 years time… from next year, new cars to be sold with speed controllers and covered in surveillance devices, and ultimately able to report where people go and how they drove (the way to extract tax from travel that does not involve purchasing petrol, and easily extract fines for misbehaviour), and a government minister recently having the nerve to talk about the need to move away from private vehicles.
One of the last bastions of freedom we still have and really brings the prospect of total, centralised control. All under a tory government. We are governed by pseudo religious nutters who believe there are too many people, that the end is nigh, and that white people, especially males, are vermin. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Ask yourself this: in history, what sort of action was required to deal with such scum?
There are two answers.
Either a sufficient majority recognises what’s going on, and robustly rejects it, or those, who do, separate. Both have historical precedence. However, we’ve been working to achieve the first, for almost two years, and still cannot be confident of succeeding in time. The second, accordingly, is now crying out for our attention.
https://ourdecisiontoo.com/Issue/there-s-nothing-left-to-do-but-go-our-separate-ways/320/
“We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it.” – John Adams