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COVID-19: Focus should be on new vaccines rather than boosters, says WHO

Giving repeated booster doses of existing CovidD-19 vaccines in developed countries is not a sustainable global strategy for tackling the pandemic, the World Health Organization has said.

Instead, WHO argues that the focus should shift towards producing new vaccines that work better against transmission of emerging variants.

In a statement, published on 11 January, the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition said, “A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable.”

The expert group, which is assessing the performance of Covid-19 vaccines, said that to deal with emerging variants such as omicron, new vaccines needed to be developed that not only protect people against serious illness but against infection. “Covid-19 vaccines that have high impact on prevention of infection and transmission, in addition to the prevention of severe disease and death, are needed and should be developed,” the group said.

Vaccines also need to be more effective at protection against infection, “thus lowering community transmission and the need for stringent and broad reaching public health and social measures,” the group said.

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Source: BMJ, 17 January 2022

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COVID-19: Expedite vaccination or deaths will surge, researchers warn

Deaths from COVID-19 in England in the first half of 2021 could exceed those seen in the whole of 2020 unless the vaccination programme is vastly increased and a national lockdown implemented—with educational settings closed for at least a month—researchers have warned.

In a preprint released on 24 December, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used modelling to compare the effects of varying COVID-19 restrictions on the virus spread, hospital and intensive care admissions, and deaths from 15 December 2020 to 30 June 2021. The model took account of the new variant spreading rapidly in southern England, which it estimated to be 56% more transmissible than non-variant COVID-19.

The study, which has yet to be peer reviewed, said that control measures similar to the November national lockdown would be “unlikely to reduce the effective reproduction number to less than 1, unless primary schools, secondary schools, and universities are also closed.” It added that it would be necessary to “greatly accelerate vaccine rollout to have an appreciable impact in suppressing the resulting disease burden.”

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Source: BMJ, 29 December 2020

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Covid-19: Evusheld protects the most vulnerable patients, analysis shows

The antibody drug Evusheld is effective for protecting clinically extremely vulnerable people from Covid-19, including its omicron variants, a preprint study has reported.

The prophylactic treatment, manufactured by AstraZeneca, is a combination of two long acting antibodies (tixagevimab and cilgavimab). It is given as two separate, sequential intramuscular injections in the same session and can be administered in the community.

A research team, led by the University of Birmingham alongside academics from King’s College London and the UK Health Security Agency, carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine its effectiveness in immunocompromised patients.

The paper examined the outcomes among 24 773 immunocompromised participants across 17 international studies, 10 775 of whom received Evusheld. Overall, it reported that the treatment was 86% effective for preventing covid specific death, 88% effective in preventing intensive care admission, effective in preventing hospital admission, and 40%  effective in preventing Covid-19 infection.

The study’s senior investigator, Lennard Lee, senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham and academic medical oncologist at the University of Oxford, said, “There is strong evidence emerging across the world that this approach of using prophylactic antibody therapies in combination with vaccination is a revolutionary approach to safeguard the most vulnerable patients this winter. The science and data suggest that it would be a successful approach for many cancer and immunocompromised patients at the highest level of risk.”

Evusheld is already being given to immunocompromised patients in countries including the United States, France, and Israel, but the UK government is waiting for more data on the duration of protection it provides against omicron and its subvariants before deciding whether it should be used.

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Source: BMJ, 8 November 2022

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Covid-19: Evusheld is unlikely to prevent infection with current or future variants, NICE concludes

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has decided not to recommend Evusheld for adults who are unlikely to have an adequate immune response or cannot have the vaccine against Covid-19, citing a lack of evidence that it is effective against circulating variants.

However, it is still reviewing whether the antibody drug could be used to prevent covid-19 infection in adults at the highest risk of severe illness, including people with immunodeficiency, people who have had a solid organ transplant, and people with cancer.

NICE’s director of medicines evaluation, Helen Knight, acknowledged that the decision would be “disappointing for the many thousands” of vulnerable people who “continue to significantly modify their behaviour to avoid infection.

Commenting on NICE’s decision, Lennard Lee, senior clinical research fellow at the University of Birmingham, said, “While it’s right for NICE to ensure that treatment options are based on the best possible evidence for their safety, efficacy, and cost effectiveness, it must be recognised that those who remain extremely vulnerable to covid need to be prioritised in trials akin to those early days of the pandemic to find treatments fit for them.

“Otherwise, we run the risk of consigning half a million people to continue to live in 2020, stuck in their homes, not able to see their families and friends for fear of infection with no protection.”

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Source: The BMJ, 16 February 2023

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Covid-19: Evusheld is approved in UK for prophylaxis in immunocompromised people

The UK’s drug regulator has approved a combination of two monoclonal antibodies to prevent Covid-19 in people who are unlikely to mount an immune response from vaccination or for whom vaccination is not recommended.

Evusheld, a combination of the two long acting antibodies tixagevimab and cilgavimab, is authorised for Covid-19 prevention by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The government’s independent advisory body, the Commission on Human Medicines, endorsed the approval after independently reviewing the evidence.

Almost 500 000 people in the UK are immunocompromised, including people with blood cancers, those taking immunosuppressive drugs after an organ transplant, or those with conditions such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. The treatment could offer this group of patients, many of whom are still shielding, protection against Covid-19 and help them feel more confident about returning to a normal life.

June Raine, MHRA chief executive, said, “While Covid-19 vaccines continue to be the first line of defence, we know that some people may not respond adequately to these vaccines and for a small number they may not be recommended. For these people, Evusheld could provide effective protection against Covid-19.”

Penny Ward, an independent pharmaceutical physician and visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London, said, “This treatment could be a good way to protect patients who are not able to respond normally to vaccination. Many of these people are continuing to shield while Covid is still circulating in the community and this agent could help them feel more confident to return to a more normal life.”

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Source: BMJ, 17 March 2022

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COVID-19: Early coronavirus symptoms differ between age groups, new research finds

New research has found symptoms in the early days of Covid-19 may differ between men and women. 

The study by King's College London, examined 18 symptoms from data obtained from the ZOE COVID Symptom Study App. Results found men were most likely to experience shortness of breath, fatigue, chills and fever, whereas women were more likely to report loss of smell, chest pain and a persistent cough.

"It's important people know the earliest symptoms are wide-ranging and may look different for each member of a family or household. Testing guidance could be updated to enable cases to be picked up earlier, especially in the face of new variants which are highly transmissible. This could include using widely available lateral flow tests for people with any of these non-core symptoms." Lead author and reader at King's College London, Claire Steves has said. 

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Source: Sky News, 30 July 2021

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Covid-19: Doctors instruct law firm in bid for compensation after developing Long Covid

A group of doctors with Long Covid are preparing to launch a class action for compensation after contracting SARS-CoV-2 at work.

The campaign and advocacy group Long Covid Doctors for Action (LCD4A) has engaged the law firm Bond Turner to bring claims for any physical injuries and financial losses sustained by frontline workers who were not properly protected at work.

On 25 January Bond Turner, which specialises in negligence cases, complex litigation, and group actions, launched a call to action inviting doctors and other healthcare workers in England and Wales to make contact if they believe that they contracted covid-19 as a result of occupational exposure.1

Sara Stanger, the firm’s director and head of clinical negligence and serious injury claims, said that the ultimate aim was to achieve “legal accountability and justice for those injured.”

She told The BMJ, “I’ve spoken to hundreds of doctors with long covid, and many of them have had their lives derailed. Some have lost their jobs and their homes; they are in financial ruin. Their illnesses have had far reaching consequences in all areas of their lives.”

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Source: BMJ, 25 January 2024

Nurses, midwives, and any other healthcare workers who are suffering with Long Covid and which they believe they contracted through their work and who wish to join the action should visit the Bond Turner website here: https://www.bondturner.com/services/covid-group-claim/. Although this action has been initiated by doctors in the first instance, it is not limited to doctors.

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COVID-19: Doctors feel under pressure to work extra shifts unpaid, survey shows

Thousands of doctors feel under pressure from their employers to work extra shifts, often unpaid, to help tackle the backlog of care caused by the covid pandemic, the BMA has warned.

The warning came after results from the BMA’s latest tracker survey showed that more than half its respondents (58%, 2834 of 4876) had worked extra hours in the previous month as part of the response to the pandemic. Almost a third (29%, 1387) said they were not paid for the additional time they worked.

More than two fifths (44%) of respondents (2086 of 4719) said they felt under pressure from their employer to do extra hours in the last month. And more than a third (36%, 1759) had either skipped taking full breaks altogether or taken them on rare occasions in the past fortnight.

Nearly six in 10 doctors who responded (57%, 2889 of 5059) reported a higher than normal level of fatigue or exhaustion because of working or studying during the pandemic.

Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA’s chair of council, said, “To learn that an already depleted and now exhausted workforce feels forced into doing more and more hours, with many reporting higher levels of fatigue than ever, is extremely worrying. It is putting them and their patients at risk. Working ‘flat out’ without a change to rest and recuperate is simply unsustainable and unsafe."

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Source: BMJ, 10 May 2021

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Covid-19: Doctors are told not to perform CPR on patients in cardiac arrest

Healthcare staff in the West Midlands have been told not to start chest compressions or ventilation in patients who are in cardiac arrest if they have suspected or diagnosed covid-19 unless they are in the emergency department and staff are wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE).

The guidance from the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust says that patients in cardiac arrest outside the emergency department can be given defibrillator treatment if they have a “shockable” rhythm. But if this fails to restart the heart “further resuscitation is futile,” it says.

If a patient with suspected covid-19 is in cardiac arrest they should be given cardiac compressions and be ventilated only if they are in the emergency department and the person attending them is wearing aerosol generating procedures (AGP) PPE. That means wearing an FFP3 mask, full gown with long sleeves, gloves, and eye protection.

The advice rests on the premise that performing cardiac compressions risks virus particles being released into the air that could infect staff.

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Source: BMJ, 29 March 2020

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COVID-19: Delays in attending emergency departments may have contributed to deaths of nine children

Delays in going to the emergency department because of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown may have been a contributory factor in the deaths of nine children, a snapshot survey of consultant paediatricians in the UK and Ireland has shown.

Three of the reported deaths associated with delayed presentation were due to sepsis, three were due to a new diagnosis of malignancy, in two the cause was not reported, and one was a new diagnosis of metabolic disease.

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Source: BMJ, 30 June 2020

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Covid-19: Countries in the Americas are warned not to lower their guard

Covid-19 is on the retreat across the American continents but it is too early for the region to let its guard down, warned the Pan American Health Organisation, the World Health Organization’s regional office for the Americas, on 9 March.

Reported cases of Covid-19 fell by 26% in the past week and deaths by nearly 19%, as the omicron wave of infections tailed off. But ongoing transmission and future variants could expose the region’s public health priorities once more, said PAHO’s director, Carissa Etienne.

A total of 2.6 million people have died from Covid-19 in the Americas, the highest number of any region of the world and almost half of the global total, despite being home to only 13% of its population. “This is a tragedy of enormous proportions, and its effects will be felt for years to come,” said Etienne on the second anniversary of the pandemic.

Patchy vaccination coverage has left countries vulnerable to current and future variants of SARS-CoV-2. Around 248 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean are yet to receive a single dose of a covid vaccine, with vaccination rates particularly low in hard-to-reach rural areas.

In the first two months of 2022 the Americas accounted for 63% of the world’s new cases. Despite a general fall in incidence across the region, new cases rose by 2.2% in the Caribbean, while Bolivia and Puerto Rico reported an increase in deaths in the past week.

Michael Touchton, head of the University of Miami’s Covid-19 policy observatory for Latin America, said, “Latin America is perhaps the most vulnerable region in the world to the emergence of a new variant. Vaccine delays have a greater impact in Latin America due to concentrated urban populations, chronic disease burden, and low capacity health systems. Taken together, Latin America is likelier to fare worse than other similarly low and middle income regions.”

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Source: BMJ, 14 March 2022

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COVID-19: Coroners call for changes after highlighting avoidable deaths during pandemic

Coroners in England are demanding changes in a series of reports highlighting how the struggling healthcare system’s responses to the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to patients’ deaths.

Coroners are obliged to write a report recommending action in any cases where they believe that this is necessary to prevent future deaths. Reports now emerging suggest that factors in deaths during the pandemic include the move by GPs to telephone consultations, the requirement for vulnerable patients to attend hospital appointments alone, and the lack of safeguards for patients in care homes.

The replacement of in-person appointments by telephone consultations reduced GPs’ ability to pinpoint patients’ needs, the coroners said, and the absence of family members from consultations with vulnerable patients meant that clinicians were often unable to get a full picture of their needs.

An example is in the Yorkshire and Humber region which saw an increased incidence of children with severe nutritional anaemia in 2020, resulting in two deaths. Maya Zab, who died aged 11 months, was one of the two. Language barriers had caused missed opportunities for primary carers to see Maya, but this was compounded by the pandemic, said Ian Pears, coroner. The “stay at home” message resulted in fewer one-to-one consultations and meant that healthcare professionals were unable to spot signs of her condition, while the limitation of social contact meant that other professionals and friends were unable to report concerns.

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Source: BMJ, 8 December 2021

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COVID-19: Controversial rapid test policy divides doctors and scientists

The UK government’s new policy of distributing rapid coronavirus tests to local authorities in England has divided the medical and scientific community, with some calling for the tests to be halted because they could falsely reassure people and increase the spread of COVID-19.

Critics are also concerned that the policy, announced on Sunday 10 January, was being rolled out without sufficient provision for people who test positive, such as putting them in hotels and compensating them financially. Supporters say the tests are a valuable additional tool in public health interventions to identify new cases and suppress further transmission.

Launching the new testing drive, England’s health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock, said, “With roughly a third of people who have coronavirus not showing symptoms, targeted asymptomatic testing and subsequent isolation is highly effective in breaking chains of transmission. Rapid, regular testing is led by local authorities who design programmes based on their in-depth knowledge of the local populations, so testing can have the greatest impact.”

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Source: BMJ, 12 January 2021

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Covid-19: Commission describes “massive global failures” of pandemic response

The global response to the first two years of the Covid-19 outbreak failed to control a pandemic that has led to an estimated 17.7 million deaths to date, a major review has concluded.

The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the Covid-19 pandemic, produced by 28 world leading experts and 100 contributors, cites widespread failures regarding prevention, transparency, rationality, standard public health practice, operational coordination, and global solidarity. It concludes that multilateral cooperation must improve to end the pandemic and manage future global health threats effectively.

The commission’s chair, Jeffrey Sachs, who is a professor at Columbia University and president of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said, “The staggering human toll of the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic is a profound tragedy and a massive societal failure at multiple levels.”In its report, which used data from the first two years of the pandemic and new epidemiological and financial analyses, the commission concludes that government responses lacked preparedness, were too slow, paid too little attention to vulnerable groups, and were hampered by misinformation.Read full story

Source: BMJ, 14 September 2022

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COVID-19: Colleges publish guidance after patients attend emergency departments with vaccine concerns

A group of royal colleges has produced guidance for doctors seeing patients who have concerns about symptoms after receiving the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Society for Acute Medicine, and the Royal College of Physicians say that anyone who presents with symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 vaccine induced thrombosis and thrombocytopenia (VITT)1 should have a full blood count to check their platelet level. Symptoms of concern include persistent or severe headaches, seizures, or focal neurology; shortness of breath, persistent chest, or abdominal pain; and swelling, redness, pallor, or cold lower limbs.

The advice comes after the HSJ reported that emergency clinicians had raised concerns over a surge in patients attending emergency departments as a result of anxiety over the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Investigations by EU and UK regulators into reports of unusual blood clots after receiving the vaccine concluded that these are a “possible” and “extremely rare” side effect.

Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that following the announcements, patients had been attending emergency departments after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. “I saw 21 patients with concerns in an eight hour shift, so we have to have a way of dealing with this. It was important for us to have a strategy for managing those patients that didn’t mean that they were getting over-investigated but they were getting reassurance. We also need to be aware that if somebody has significant symptoms it is always possible, given the rarity of VITT, that it is something else,” she said.

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Source: BMJ, 13 April 2021

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COVID-19: Children must return to 'normal pre-pandemic experience' in schools, education secretary says

Gavin Williamson, despite the risk of Covid, has insisted children must return to a "normal pre-pandemic" experience in schools. The education secretary said testing could be the key to guarding against infection rates, but refused to rule out a potential rise after experts have warned surges in Covid-19 are linked to classrooms. 

"This is why we're doing the testing programme and we're encouraging children to take part in it, parents, and of course teachers and support staff as well. This is a way of rooting out Covid. We're trying to strike that constant, sensible balance of actually giving children as normal experience in the classroom as possible, but also recognising we're still dealing with a global pandemic." He told Niall Paterson. 

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Source: Sky News, 02 September 2021

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Covid-19: children at extremely low risk

New data looking at the pandemic from the past 12 months has found children are at extremely low risk of becoming very ill or dying from Covid-19. 

Those who were living with disabilities or chronic illness were also found to have a very low risk, despite being considered at most risk. 

Scientists from four different universities (UCL, York, Bristol and Liverpool) have said their studies on children are the most comprehensive yet, finding hospital stays a rarity. 

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Source: BBC News, 08 July 2021

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COVID-19: Build on success of vaccination programme in reaching ethnic minority groups, report recommends

Lessons learnt in relation to increasing uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine among ethnic minority groups should now be applied to the booster programme, a government progress report recommends.

This includes continuing to use respected local voices to build trust and to help tackle misinformation, the report from the government’s Race Disparity Unit says. Such approaches should also be carried over to the winter flu and childhood immunisation programmes and be applied to the work to tackle longer standing health disparities.

In June 2020 the minister for equalities was asked to look at why COVID-19 was having a disproportionate impact on ethnic minority groups and to consider how the government response to this could be improved. This latest report is the final one of four.

Taken together the reports identified that the main factors behind the higher risk of COVIDd-19 infection for ethnic minority groups include occupation, living in multigenerational households, and living in densely populated urban areas with poor air quality and high levels of deprivations.

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Source: BMJ, 3 December 2021

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COVID-19: Antibody testing programme to be rolled out across the UK for COVID positive people

A new antibody testing programme has been launched where participants will be sent two finger-prick tests to complete at home and then inform the UK Health Security Agency of the antibody response to different coronavirus variants.

The new programme was created in order to generate new data on antibody protections for people following infection by different coronavirus variants, and from Tuesday, anyone over the age of 18 in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, will be able to opt into the programme.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has said "Our new national antibody testing will be quick and easy to take part in [and by] doing so you'll be helping strengthen our understanding of COVID-19 as we cautiously return to a more normal life. I'm proud to see all parts of the UK uniting around this new initiative and working together to arm ourselves with even more valuable insights into how COVID-19 vaccines are protecting people up and down the UK."

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Source: Sky News, 22 August 2021

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Covid-19: Allow pharmacists to dispense controlled drugs without prescription, urge specialists

Revised legislation allowing pharmacists to supply some controlled drugs without prescription must be enacted “without delay” to protect patients and to support clinicians, experts have said.

Last week (28 April) the UK home secretary, Priti Patel, laid legislation before parliament that allows for a relaxation of the regulations for prescribing controlled drugs, to ensure access is not delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The relaxation would allow pharmacists, in a pandemic situation, to supply some drugs that were previously only supplied to a patient by doctors on prescription. It would also allow pharmacists, in cases of shortages, to alter dosages or substitute drugs without having to go back to the prescribing doctor to seek a new prescription.

But the changes can be triggered only with the express permission of the home secretary, who has so far not given this despite the legislation being tabled to be used in situations of crisis.

Ian Hamilton, an academic at the University of York with an interest in addiction and mental health, who coordinated the letter, told The BMJ that although it was positive that the home secretary laid the legislation before parliament, it needed to be activated now.

He said, “Each day there’s a delay our concern is that the potential for suffering just goes on.”

“The problem with this is that if somebody is in a lot of pain and they’re really severely short of breath, that in itself is problematic because it can trigger a cardiac arrest. A worst case scenario is that someone could actually die because of a two or three hour delay in getting morphine. So this is something that I think is essential for healthcare workers to have.”

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Source: The BMJ, 7 March 2020

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COVID-19: 338 patients with the virus were discharged from Scottish hospitals to care homes

A total of 338 patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 were discharged from Scottish hospitals into care homes in the three months from March this year, says a report from Public Health Scotland.

The discharges were necessary to free up space in hospitals for COVID-19 patients but some care home owners have claimed that it introduced the virus into their premises, causing almost 2000 deaths across Scotland.2

Public Health Scotland says that most of the 3599 discharges that took place in the busiest month of March were among people who had never been tested. Of the 650 who were tested, 78 were positive, but the discharges still went ahead.

Scotland has been found to have the highest rate of COVID-19 related deaths in care homes of any part of the UK.

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Source: BMJ, 29 October 2020

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Covid-19: “Illogical” lack of testing is causing healthy staff to self-isolate, BMA chief warns

The absence of COVID-19 testing for NHS staff is causing huge workforce shortages by forcing doctors to self-isolate even if they do not have the virus, the head of the BMA has warned.

The government’s advice is for people with COVID-19 symptoms to stay at home for seven days, but for all other household members who remain well to isolate for 14 days. The BMA council chairman, Chaand Nagpaul, said that the lack of testing for staff was “counter-intuitive” as it was likely to be forcing more staff than necessary to stay away from hospitals and GP surgeries because they do not know if they are infected.

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Source: BMJ, 27 March 2020

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Covid-19: “Huge rise” in deaths at home is not fully explained by virus, say experts

Deaths resulting from COVID-19 infection account for only half of the number of excess deaths taking place in private homes, expert analysis of latest data suggests.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics from the seven weeks to 15 May show that more than 40 000 COVID-19 deaths have now taken place in hospitals, care homes, and private homes in England and Wales. The figures also show 14 418 excess non-covid deaths.

Although COVID-19 was mentioned on death certificates 13 500 times in care homes and private homes over the past seven weeks, some 23 500 more non-covid deaths have taken place in the community than would be expected.

Discussing the data, David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said that “as soon as the pandemic started we saw a huge immediate spike in non-covid deaths in [private] homes that occurred close to the time hospitals were minimising the service they were providing."

“Over the seven weeks up to 15 May, as the NHS focused on covid, around 8800 fewer non-covid deaths than normal occurred in hospitals.”

He added that these had not been “exported” to care homes, since fairly few care home residents normally died in hospitals. Instead, he said, it seemed that these deaths had contributed to the huge rise in extra deaths in private homes during this period.

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Source: BMJ, 27 May 2020

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COVID-19: 'Traumatised' hospital staff need time to recover

"Traumatised" and "exhausted" medical staff need time to recover before tackling an NHS backlog, says the group representing hospitals in England.

Many staff could resign if their wellbeing is not factored into plans to cut waiting lists, NHS Providers said.

The number of people waiting more than a year for surgery rose 1,613 to 192,000 during the Covid pandemic. NHS Providers said demand for hospital beds is easing, but the pressure on intensive care units is still intense.

NHS Providers estimates that it is going to be at least a month before the NHS gets back to normal winter pressures, and trusts are concerned about the transition into the next phase of the pandemic.

Critical work that has been postponed, including a small number of urgent cancer cases, will be a priority, but there remains a need to tackle a wider backlog of routine operations alongside the vaccination programme.

NHS Providers said trusts will work as fast as possible to tackle the backlog, but leaders cannot do so at the expense of staff burnout.

Last month, a study suggested that many hospital staff treating the sickest patients during the first wave of the pandemic were left traumatised by the experience. Nearly half reported symptoms of severe anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or problem drinking. One in seven had thoughts of self-harming or being "better off dead".

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Source: BBC News, 1 February 2021

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Covid-19 vaccinators facing abuse by people seeking second jab early

NHS staff have faced abuse by members of the public after demanding their second dose of the jab earlier than 8 weeks so they can go on holiday. 

A doctors has said covid-19 vaccinators are experiencing aggression and threats from people and after one incident, police had to be called over fears for safety.

Chair of the Royal College of GPs, Professor Martin Marshall has said: “It is understandable that people want to be fully vaccinated as soon as possible. But it is entirely unacceptable for anybody working on the Covid vaccination programme, be it in GP-led sites, mass vaccination centres or hospital centres, to be at the receiving end of verbal abuse and intimidation.

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Source: The Guardian, 10 July 2021

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