NHS hospitals are telling patients, visitors and staff to wear face masks due to rising levels of winter bugs and low vaccine take-up, despite the lack of good evidence that they work. The Telegraph has more.
An early flu season has piled pressure on the health service, with the number of patients in hospital with influenza more than tripling in two weeks.
The rate of hospitalisations from flu increased from 1.8 per 100,000 toward the end of November to 5.53 in the week ending December 8th, data from the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA) show.
Combined with high rates of Covid, vomiting-bug norovirus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in children, some NHS hospitals have ushered in a return to face masks.
Hospitals across Lincolnshire introduced mandatory face masks for patients and visitors across some areas on Friday.
The United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: “The additional infection prevention and control measure is being re-introduced in some high-risk areas due to an increase in respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19, Influenza A and RSV in the county’s hospitals and community settings.”
The trust said all visitors would be asked to wear “a hospital-provided type II R surgical face mask when visiting our wards and departments” including in A&Es, urgent treatment centres and in cancer and paediatric units.
Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust warned that its A&E was “extremely busy” and urged parents to “only attend if your child is seriously unwell”.
“We are seeing a high number of patients with flu currently,” it added. “If you do need to attend our emergency department with your child, please do wear a face mask to protect yourself, other families and our teams caring for patients.”
South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust has said it was “encouraging visitors to wear masks when entering, especially patients entering the emergency department”.
It said it was to provide protection “from increasing numbers of COVID-19, flu, RSV, and norovirus cases in our hospital” and reminded the public to wash their hands regularly with soap, warning that “alcohol hand gels do not kill norovirus”.
University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust also warned that visitors “may be asked to wear a mask if you are able to”.
In the Humber and Yorkshire, staff are being told to wear face masks.
The Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has asked staff to wear the coverings in all patient-facing areas in response to a “low uptake of the flu vaccine” in the local area.
Amanda Stanford, group Chief Nurse, said it was because of rising cases of the virus over the last fortnight and that “all measures will be kept under constant review by our senior nursing and infection control teams”.
Humber Health Partnership told staff: “It is now mandatory for all staff, clinical and non-clinical, in all patient-facing areas to wear face masks because of the increase in cases of flu.”
Worth reading in full.
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Johnson was elected on the promise to Get Brexit done! but instead, he became the Keep COVID going! prime minister, always wax in the hand of his so-called advisors who were really running the (shit) show. Had he stuck to his guns in 2020, he would be a national hero now, at least for the thinking segment of the population. What he did instead shall not be forgiven.
Totally agree. He always reminded me a bit of Colonel K from Danger Mouse. However, it quickly became apparent that beneath that bumbling, chummy veneer he was more Baron Greenback.
Uptick for Dangermouse reference
Agree 100%. He had his chance at a Thatcher Moment, and he fluffed it, wilted like a wet lettuce, moulded over the form presented for him like damp toilet paper. He’s dried out now, but the form he flopped upon remains.
Question is, should we forgive him?
Maybe, but I’ll never forget his behaviour over a not-terribly-bad flu virus, whilst knowing The Coronavirus Act 2020 was all total BS.
Forgiveness is fine but should follow repentance. I don’t believe he has repented – at least not publicly.
He did screw it up in 2020, and it’s a shame that he wasn’t well enough at the time, and ended up temporarily in hospital. I seem to remember that one of the workers there “accidentally” let out some info about his weight; not good (the figures themselves). If he’d been more “normal” then, and it was a real case of C-19, he could have chucked out the scaremongers.
It’s possible he may have been close to “doing the right thing” with regard to covid, but either he’s simply not a conservative or he is but doesn’t care that much about anything and just wants power. Either way it’s clear he’s not worthy of respect or confidence.
Perhaps it is a case of one down, an indefinite number to go. Also, what is “the Blob”?
The blob is the name given to the faceless, unelected bureaucratic civil service that seems to be running the show and which usurps (so called) democracy.
The Civil Service is not running the show. Some senior elements might possibly be in a position to issue orders but those orders are emanating from the Davos Deviants, or branches thereof.
Glad you asked that because I didn’t have a clue either. Not sure we needed somebody to invent new terminology for something that isn’t actually new but there you go. How did we get by pre-‘Blob’? Actually, and more importantly, how did we get by pre-‘selfie’??
I’ve always wondered what was the best thing BEFORE sliced bread…
I’ve often wondered who this Gordon Bennett was.
But seriously, what did we used to call selfies before the word ‘selfie’ became a thing? 
Prima donnas.
What’s a selfie?
Whatever anyone thinks of Boris Johnson, at least he was elected Prime Minister. This Sunak government was never elected.
Liz Truss was at least elected Prime Minister by the members of the Conservative Party, according to the rules. Sunak wasn’t.
Too true.
There is no such thing as an elected prime minister in the UK, at least none elected by the so-called electorate. Voters elect MPs. MPs can then organize a government in whichever ways suits them (as determined by MP votes in parliament). Even this is technically still wrong as the prime minister is appointed by the king and the king is free to appoint whomever he desires to appoint. But no prime minister can actually rule against a parliamentary majority.
Everybody who voted Conservative at the last General Election was in practice voting for Johnson to be PM, and the idea that there was the slightest possibility that QE2 might have appointed someone else is ridiculous.
That was the sales pitch of Johnson’s party at that time. However, anyone with at least a passing familiarity with the tories-in-parliament will have known that this absolutely didn’t mean he was going to remain prime minister until his nominal term of office was over. And a sales pitch is just that, a sales pitch. People may have believed (or may have been fooled into believing) that they were voting for Johnson to become PM but this doesn’t change the fact that they actually didn’t.
The first pure tourist attraction on the British throne would certainly never have done anything than what she always did, do whatever she was asked to do and open the other hand to receive her payment for that (or rather, let a bunch of her servants open the huge sack it was supposed to be put into). But that was specialty of this lady and she was by no means required to exercise her prerogative in this way.
Because of this, the statement that Johnson was elected PM is wrong. The tory faction in parliament has chosen to suggest his appointment to the monarch and the monarch has chosen to accept that. Exactly like all of his predecessors (for some time) and all of his successors (so far).
Correct. However, General Elections do appear to be pseudo-presidential in reality, even though there is no such position on paper.
The sad/ unfortunate reality is that people vote for frontmen and not for policies.
“The temptation is for Johnson’s Rightward critics to cut him loose. But this would be a mistake.”
Well, he’s not a conservative so he can get stuffed as far as I’m concerned.
“Rishi Sunak’s Government is based on a simple idea: probity and ‘fitness for office’ to end the conflict with Whitehall. ”
The appearance of probity and fitness for office. Not getting caught. Globalism, socialism, crony capitalism, technocracy, safetyism. State interference in everything.
“Of those who have had any success in centralising power in Parliament there are exactly three: Nigel Farage, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson. ”
Cummings pushed stuff through against the will of Whitehall, but he also pushed for lockdowns without being elected (and then ignored them, of course).
Bozo is guilty of crimes against humanity.
Never forget. Never forgive.
He certainly was the figure head of the political, civil servant, public services face that withdrew most if not all of our basic human rights. As an individual I would not have wanted any part of his job at the time. For those who rejoice in his demise should remember the regime that initiated, controlled and enforced the human rights removal are still in place, and digging in.
Obviously. When faced with decision of governing for the people or for the bureaucratic establishment with its global ties to NGOs and big business, Johnson chose the latter. He was then kept in his somewhat influenceless position for as long as he was still useful — the final nail in the coffin was daring to dump the mask mandate — and then, let fallen onto a sword preprared for this purpose. He has none but himself to blame for that and certainly doesn’t deserve any sympathy.
There’s a German proverb, Die Kleinen hängt man und die Großen läßt man laufen, English Minor mobsters get hanged, big mobsters go free, which neatly describes the situation. But the solution to this problem is not Let the other’s go free as well. They’re still guilty.
I agree with what you say. I liked the German proverb, Aesop also said something like, We hang petty thieves but the great ones we elect to public office; or something like it. It seems the underlying opinion of politicians has not changed much in the thousands of years of political activity.
If we accept this ‘Blob Rule’ on the basis that Boris is a consumate arse and deserves no better, then we have lost our democracy completely. Pop it in a box and stick it in the attic, that our children can one day find like a time capsule and marvel at a time when the people had a say in choosing the government of the day, and could get rid of it if they so choose to do.
As PM, Johnson could have prevented the Lockdown Destruction.
He could have dropped the Net Zero lunacy.
He could have told Schwab and the WEF that their Agenda to Build Back Better was being ditched.
He could have closed the immigration floodgates.
He did none of them.
I don’t give a 4X what happens to him.
100%. All this nonsense about Brexit revenge seems to me to play to the very same entitlement caricature of Boris that let the idiot achieve the highest office possible in the first place! I voted Remain, but would now vote Leave, solely on the basis of how the states of the E.U. behaved during “pandemic”.
Lockdowns, the mask mandates, the idiotic NPI’s and the vaccine mandates knock the Brexit dilemma into a hat when it comes to liberty, human rights & dignity, and freedom of speech; anyone bringing up it up as to why Boris was done in is creating a massive straw man.
I much appreciate your blunt an comprehensive appraisal of the treasonous Johnson. Short memory syndrome is clearly alive and well even here on DS. Remarkable.
It is difficult not to conclude that we are being set up for a pre-election soap opera with the cruelly wronged Bozo ‘fighting to clear his name’ over the grave injustice he has suffered from Harridan Harman’s committee.
Bozo battles to have his – admittedly appalling- reputation restored and as Fishy is forced to let go of the reins Bozo gallantly gallops in to save the country from the Satanic Kneel and his partner in crime, Ranting.
Only once Bozo is elected the real carnage can begin and if he loses the Reset is safe with Kneel.
For the months up to the election the electorate can be kept happily distracted as the pantomime plays out while in the background our digital prison is firmly constructed.
Just the ticket.
‘Boris’ was a jellybelly. He thought he could coast along, letting his appointed loyalists get an ultra-soft, BRINO Brexit sorted while he took the credit for it. Then COVID-19 came along. Rather than stick to the pandemic plan, telling the authoritarian Macron to get shafted, and being bold by ‘doing a Sweden’, he panicked and threw us into the worst lockdown of anyone outside China: ‘worst’ not so much for the level of restrictions, but because it was one with no rules except what police officers and politicians made up on the hoof, while keeping an incompetent psychopath (who thinks malaria is a virus) in office as Health Secretary.
I have some concerns about the way Johnson was ejected: he should have been ejected as the most vicious dictator this country has seen since Cromwell and put on trial for crimes against humanity, not for scoffing a load of cake and champers. Then again, I suppose, Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion.
And this is personal too: my Dad had to wait six months for eye surgery, because the hospitals here had shut down all ophthalmology operations as ‘non-essential’. By the time he had the surgery, his eye was too far gone and it failed. He got confirmation yesterday that the second – and final – attempt had also failed. He now has about 20 per cent vision. We’re paying £1,000 for laser treatment for the other eye next month in the hope that he can be boosted to maybe 35 per cent vision. The NHS wait would be six months to a year, by which time the vision in that eye would be non-existent.
My Mum has sarcoidosis on her lungs. She had a big scan and treatment was sorted about the time the lockdown started. In between regular scans, she had the first Pfizer booster shot (jab 3) and was very ill. Next time she was scanned, the hospital discovered a serious heart condition that wasn’t there before. Her specialist was gobsmacked. She’s now on steroids and might be starting immunosuppressants. Her heart is working at about 50 per cent what it should be. She asked the specialist if she should have the offered fourth jab. The response was an unequivocal ‘NO!’
I wish nothing but ill on the people who ran the lockdown in the Government and wider country: I want full-on ‘Wrath of God’, Black Death and Ebola all rolled into one scenario for them. My level of hatred is such that I don’t want them harmed by anyone: I hope to see them live and suffer. My Dad is in despair. My Mum’s life is going to be shorter and more restricted than it would have been. For that matter, at 48, my foreseeable life is very restricted: I now have two elderly, infirm parents I absolutely have to live with, because Dad, at 86, has several other serious problems and my Mum struggles even to put washing on the line without having to lie down on the bed to sleep afterwards. I’m fine with doing this because I love them, but it means the next ten years of my life will be tough and by then I’ll be pushing 60 myself. Don’t want to sound ‘Woe is me!’ What makes me angry is that I’m reading stories about this happening to people all over the country.
It shouldn’t have been this way.
The old adage “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” springs to mind.