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Found 2,339 results
  1. Content Article
    We all knew that this couldn’t go on forever—and who would want it to? But, since the start of the “great reopening” in the middle of 2021, it seems the government has conveniently forgotten about the 1.5 million vulnerable people they were so eager to protect back in early 2020. The shielding programme was paused in April 2021, then quietly dropped a few months later. The Department of Health and Social Care said that the clinically extremely vulnerable should follow the same advice as the rest of the population, but with some additional suggested precautions such as avoiding “enclosed crowded spaces.” And last week, Boris Johnson, UK prime minister, told us that the pandemic is essentially over—all restrictions will end very soon, including the need to self-isolate. Except for the vulnerable, the pandemic isn’t over, writes Ceinwen Giles in this BMJ opinion piece. Life hasn’t returned to normal, and what has been a difficult two years now appears to stretch ever further into the future with no real prospect of “normal” life anytime soon. The government’s message that “vaccinations are the best way to protect yourself” is hollow advice for people, she says.
  2. Content Article
    Open letter to the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
  3. Content Article
    A letter to the Chair of the Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee expressing concern that written evidence provided to the Committee's “Coronavirus: Lessons Learned to Date" inquiry was not properly considered and opportunities to protect healthcare workers from disease were missed.
  4. News Article
    The NHS has been accused by a major charity of failing to address the emerging gap in Covid booster vaccine coverage for racialised communities. Blood Cancer UK has told The Independent it has “serious concerns” over what it claims is a “shocking” lack of urgency from the NHS in addressing the gap in booster vaccine doses for immunocompromised people from black and minority ethnic communities. The charity has said NHS England has failed to set out any “concrete” plans since it revealed 84% of immunocompromised people from a white British background had three vaccine doses by mid-December, compared to just 43% of immunocompromised people from a Pakistani background. The news comes after the government announced people over 75 and immunocompromised children would be eligible to receive a fourth Covid vaccine by Spring. According to an analysis published by Open Safely, a team of data scientists at Oxford University, of those who are part of the shielding population, as of the 22 February just 72% of Black people have had their booster does, and 73% of south Asian people. This compares to 89% of white people. NHS England has highlighted a number of actions it is taking to address the situation such as using pop-up sites within communities and providing free transport. Speaking with The Independent chief executive of Blood Cancer UK Gemma Peters, said: “We have serious concerns about how the poor roll-out of third doses for the immunocompromised has left people from some communities much less well-protected than people from a white British background. But while it is deeply troubling that a racial disparity in access to third vaccine doses has been allowed to develop, just as shocking has been NHS England’s apparent lack of urgency in addressing it." Read full story Source: The Independent, 25 February 2022
  5. News Article
    Breast cancer screening uptake fell to its lowest point ever during the pandemic, as the numbers of women seen dropped by more than one third. Just 1.19 million women aged 45 and over were screened for breast cancer in 2020-21, while the numbers of women who actually took up their invitation for screening dropped to 61%. Analysis by Breast Cancer Now, of the new NHS figures published on Thursday, found that uptake during the first year of the pandemic was the lowest it had been since records began. The number of women who had cancer detected through screening decreased by almost 40 per cent, although rates when calculated per 1,000 women were up by 8.4%. The news comes after NHS figures revealed that half of patients in October waited more than two weeks following an urgent breast cancer referral. According to analysis from the Labour Party in January, breast cancer patients faced the longest waits when compared to all other cancer referrals. Breast Cancer Now chief executive Baroness Delyth Morgan said: “Screening uptake has hit its lowest point in history, with less than 62% of women invited being screened, despite NHS staff working tirelessly, in the toughest of circumstances, to restart and continue breast screening services after they needed to be paused in March 2020. “The human cost behind these figures is stark, with an estimated 8,870 women in the UK living with undetected breast cancer as a result of the pandemic – a significant number of which would have been detected at routine screening. Tragically, research suggests that up to an additional 680 women could die from breast cancer in the next decade due to impacts of the pandemic on screening.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 24 February 2022
  6. News Article
    A Covid report by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has highlighted some ‘tragic individual cases’ over the past months. The report analyses cases over the first 18 months of the pandemic which for the majority reveal that councils and care providers weathered the unprecedented pressures they were under fire. However, the report also reveals the ‘serious impact on people’s lives’ when things go wrong. Cases include a woman who died from COVID-19 at a care home with poor infection control procedures which was then compounded by staff trying to cover up the facts. The Ombudsman’s report focuses on the lessons that can be learned from the complaints it has received about the pandemic and welcomes that, in many cases, councils and care providers are already using their experiences from the pandemic to consider how they can make improvements to services. Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “We have investigated some tragic individual cases over the past months. Each represents poor personal experiences where councils and care providers did not get things right. “Our investigations have shown that, while the system did not collapse under the extreme pressures placed on it, Covid-19 has magnified stresses and weaknesses present before the pandemic affecting some councils and providers. “We have always advocated how crucial good complaint handling is in any setting, so I am particularly saddened that, in some authorities, dealing with public concerns and complaints itself became a casualty of the crisis. At a time when listening to public problems was more important than ever, we saw some overstretched and under-resourced complaints teams struggle to cope. “If evidence was needed, this report proves that managing complaints should be considered a frontline service.” Read full story Source: Care Home Professional, 24 February 2022
  7. Content Article
    The COVID-19 pandemic placed unprecedented pressure on councils and care providers. A new report from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman analyses just how those organisations coped.
  8. Content Article
    Evidence submitted outlining the issues relating to the protection of health and care workers. It explains how surgical masks are not 'protective' against airborne disease and represent a breach of COSHH Regulations.
  9. Content Article
    Letter outlining potential legal non-compliance by persons involved in issuing Infection Prevention and Control Guidance.
  10. News Article
    Five months after being infected with the coronavirus, Nicole Murphy’s pulse rate is going berserk. Normally in the 70s, which is ideal, it has been jumping to 160, 170 and sometimes 210 beats per minute even when she is at rest — putting her at risk of a heart attack, heart failure or stroke. No one seems to be able to pinpoint why. She’s only 44, never had heart issues, and when a cardiologist near her hometown of Wellsville, Ohio, USA, ran all of the standard tests, “he literally threw up his hands when he saw the results,” she recalled. Her blood pressure was perfect, there were no signs of clogged arteries, and her heart was expanding and contracting well. Murphy’s boomeranging heart rate is one of a number of mysterious conditions afflicting Americans weeks or months after coronavirus infections that suggest the potential of a looming cardiac crisis. A pivotal study that looked at health records of more than 153,000 U.S. veterans published this month in Nature Medicine found that their risk of cardiovascular disease of all types increased substantially in the year following infection, even when they had mild cases. The population studied was mostly White and male, but the patterns held even when the researchers analyzed women and people of color separately. When experts factor in the heart damage probably suffered by people who put off medical care, more sedentary lifestyles and eating changes, not to mention the stress of the pandemic, they estimate there may be millions of new onset cardiac cases related to the virus, plus a worsening of disease for many already affected. “We are expecting a tidal wave of cardiovascular events in the coming years from direct and indirect causes of covid,” said Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association. Read full story (paywalled) Source: Washington Post, 21 February 2022
  11. Content Article
    UK experts have issued an update on the timing of elective surgery and risk assessment after COVID-19 infection. Your operation may be delayed if you test positive for Covid-19. Studies of people who had COVID-19 just before or after their surgery show that they had more complications and an increased risk of dying. The risks of chest problems, blood clots or death are about 3 or 4 times greater for a full 7 weeks following COVID-19. These risks are increased even if the patient had no symptoms from COVID-19 (i.e. just a positive test).
  12. News Article
    Despite a backlog of routine operations, NHS hospitals are being advised to delay elective surgical procedures by at least seven weeks if a patient has just had Omicron. UK experts say it is a precaution since the first couple of months following infection is a riskier period, linked to poorer post-operative recovery. In some circumstances the surgery may be urgent enough to go ahead, however. Patients should ideally have had all of their Covid vaccines too. The advice has been issued by surgery and anaesthesia experts, including two Royal Colleges representing those professions. The experts who drew up the recommendations say the desire to tackle waiting lists and backlogs must be balanced with delivering the safest care possible. The latest expert guidance on routine operations recommends: Elective surgery should not take place within 10 days of a confirmed Covid infection, mainly because the patient may be infectious which is a risk to staff and other patients. Operations that happen in the six-week period after an infection - even an asymptomatic one - carry a higher risk of serious complications for the patient, experience suggests. Dr Mike Nathanson, president of the Association of Anaesthetists, said: "The frustration felt by patients is immense and we - the healthcare professionals - want to do our jobs and provide these services when it is safe to do so and with the risks clear to all involved." Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 February 2022
  13. News Article
    Patient care may suffer as a result of cuts to the NHS budget to fund the continuing costs of Covid, NHS leaders and Labour have said, after Sajid Javid refused to say where the axe would fall. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is trying to make savings from its budget to fund free lateral flow tests for elderly people, Covid surveillance studies and genomic sequencing, after the Treasury refused its request for £5bn in extra funding. Although the government announced an end to most free mass testing and contract tracing on Monday, remaining Covid measures are expected to cost more than £1bn. The Treasury and the DHSC refused to say exactly how much cash would be needed or which services would have to be cut back, prompting fears that the NHS could have to find savings at a time of a huge waiting list backlog. It is understood that DHSC officials are working on identifying savings in the department’s £178.5bn budget for 2022-23, to fund the measures agreed on Monday, including maintaining a “baseline” testing capability that can be scaled up if necessary. They have ruled out hitting Javid’s plan for tackling waiting lists, but a government source would not rule out any other areas being affected, saying a “significant amount of money” would have to be found by “reprioritising”. Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, warned the government against abandoning its commitment to give the NHS “whatever it needs” to tackle Covid and called for transparency about “where the impact of these extra costs will fall”. “Trust leaders are understandably anxious over reports that the ongoing and significant costs of living with Covid will be met by ‘reprioritising’ the NHS’s existing budget,” she said. “There is a very real risk of trade-offs affecting the quality of patient care – something no one wants to see.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 February 2022
  14. News Article
    The government of Mexico City handed out nearly 200 000 “ivermectin based kits” last year to people who had tested positive for Covid-19, without telling them they were subjects in an experiment on the drug’s effectiveness. The results of that experiment were then written up by public officials in an article placed on popular US preprint server SocArXiv. It became one of site’s most viewed articles, claiming that ivermectin had reduced hospital admissions by 52-76%. But those officials have been under fire at home since SocArXiv withdrew the paper earlier this month, calling it “either very poor quality or else deliberately false and misleading.” Opposition deputies in Mexico City’s Congress demanded hearings and said they would bring legal action against the paper’s lead author, José Merino, head of the city’s Digital Agency for Public Innovation. Explaining the decision to withdraw the article—the first to be taken down by SocArXiv—the site’s steering committee wrote that it had responded “to a community groundswell beseeching us to act” in order “to prevent the paper from causing additional harm.” The committee wrote, “The paper is spreading misinformation, promoting an unproved medical treatment in the midst of a global pandemic. The paper is part of, and justification for, a government programme that unethically dispenses (or did dispense) unproven medication apparently without proper consent or appropriate ethical protections.” Read full story Source: BMJ, 22 February 2022
  15. News Article
    Medically vulnerable people say the decision to end Covid restrictions means their freedoms being eroded. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that legal requirements, including the need to self-isolate if you test positive, will end on Thursday. Two clinically vulnerable women in the West say not knowing who is infected means it is now more dangerous for them to leave their homes. "It doesn't feel safe," said Chloe Ball-Hopkins, from Gloucestershire. "My friends and family will continue to try and keep me safe, my partner will keep me safe, they'll continue to test before they meet me," said the 25-year-old from Wotton-under-Edge. Miss Ball-Hopkins has already had her fourth vaccine dose as she is considered extremely clinically vulnerable. She has a rare form of muscular dystrophy called nemaline myopathy which affects her respiratory system, and contracted sepsis in 2019 which undermined her immune system further. Miss Ball-Hopkins said that while the easing of restrictions would feel like freedom to much of the population, it meant the opposite for her. "I'm supposed to go out and live my life normally yet now I won't know if someone next to me in a supermarket is literally breathing Covid down on me, as I'm in a wheelchair. "I was actually probably safer in January when everyone was wearing masks than I will be in a week's time. That makes no sense," she said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 22 February 2022
  16. News Article
    Having Covid-19 puts people at a significantly increased chance of developing new mental health conditions, potentially adding to existing crises of suicide and overdoses, according to new research looking at millions of health records in the US over the course of a year. The long-term effects of having Covid are still being discovered, and among them is an increased chance of being diagnosed with mental health disorders. They include depression, anxiety, stress and an increased risk of substance use disorders, cognitive decline, and sleep problems – a marked difference from others who also endured the stress of the pandemic but weren’t diagnosed with the virus. “This is basically telling us that millions and millions of people in the US infected with Covid are developing mental health problems,” said Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St Louis Healthcare System and senior author of the paper. “That makes us a nation in distress.” The higher risk of mental health disorders, including suicidal ideation and opioid use, is particularly concerning, he said. “This is really almost a perfect storm that is brewing in front of our eyes – for another opioid epidemic two or three years down the road, for another suicide crisis two or three years down the road,” Al-Aly added. These unfolding crises are “quite a big concern”, said James Jackson, director of behavioural health at Vanderbilt University’s ICU Recovery Center, who was not involved with this study. He is also seeing patients whose previous conditions, including anxiety, depression and opioid use disorder, worsened during the pandemic. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 18 February 2022
  17. News Article
    Abolishing free Covid tests for those who look after the vulnerable will amount to a “tax on caring” that would cost them more than £500 a year, ministers have been warned. All remaining domestic Covid regulations that restrict public freedoms are ending, with Boris Johnson announing a move away from government intervention to “personal responsibility”. However, the scale of free testing to be retained is still being thrashed out within government. Current data suggests that nearly 4 million people take regular Covid tests, including those who visit and help vulnerable relatives. That number also includes vulnerable people who work in settings that could put them at greater risk, where they have face-to-face contact with others. Research based on the average cost of tests internationally, compiled by the Liberal Democrats, suggests that people who take two tests a week face an average bill of £534 a year. It comes after the government’s own scientific advisers have warned that removing free testing will “increase anxiety” and limit the “social participation outside the home” of those who are clinically vulnerable or who live with someone in that position. “Charging people for the tests they need to safely see vulnerable loved ones is a tax on caring that risks leaving millions of people in lockdown by stealth,” said Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader. “It means vulnerable people will see fewer loved ones and will be able to enjoy less of their lives. It is unfair and unjust. Ministers need to scrap these plans to stop a ‘cost of living with Covid’ crisis. Throughout the pandemic, people have been trying hard to do the right thing and keep others safe. The government should not be making that harder.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 February 2022
  18. News Article
    Today the Government is expected to announce the end to all Covid restrictions, including ending self-isolation and free testing in the country. However, in an open letter to the UK's Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Officer, the UK science and medical communities say this is a "HUGE mistake". The open letter expresses concern about the Government plans to end testing, surveillance surveys and legal isolation of Covid-19 cases and asks the Government to clarify the scientific advice underpinning these policy decisions as they do not believe there is a solid scientific basis for the policy. "It is almost certain to increase the circulation of the virus and remove the visibility of emerging variants of concern." "The emergence of new variants and a resultant wave of infections can occur very quickly, potentially within just several weeks. The ability to rapidly detect and characterise new variants and to scale up necessary responses (such as TTI and vaccinations) quickly will be very important. Considerations for future response preparedness and surveillance infrastructure should take this into account." "We believe humanity is in a race against the virus." The letter goes on to say that some form of surveillance must be continued to ensure the situation is well understood and new variants of concern identified. Lack of testing is not only detrimental to controlling the spread of SARSCoV2 and detecting new variants, it also puts people who develop Long Covid at a great disadvantage by not having a confirmation of their infection, which is integral to the diagnosis, support and care they need to receive. For the 1 in 4 people in the UK who are clinically vulnerable, the current approach appears a perilous and politicised pandemic response. The authors of the letter are asking members of the UK science and medical communities to sign the open letter. Read the letter in full and sign here
  19. Content Article
    On 1 February the UK Health Security Agency warned that coverage of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine’s first dose had dropped below 90% in 2 year olds. By age 5, uptake of two doses had dropped to 85.5%—well below the World Health Organization’s 95% target needed for elimination of measles. The latest quarterly vaccination figures show very small drops in uptake in England from July to September 2020, and uptake continued to decline over the next year. And it’s not just MMR: small decreases have been seen in coverage of other childhood vaccines including the combined diphtheria, hepatitis B, Hib, polio, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccine, as well as those for rotavirus and meningitis B. But MMR is the one that public health officials worry about most because of historically lower uptake and the risks of outbreaks. With uptake of the MMR vaccine falling in the UK, Emma Wilkinson examines whether anti-vaccination sentiment around Covid-19 has played a part.
  20. Content Article
    An author turned junior doctor’s account of the chaos at work and anguish at home as Covid-19 arrived in the UK.
  21. News Article
    When the coronavirus pandemic began, Emily Landon thought about her own risk only in rare quiet moments. An infectious-disease doctor at the University of Chicago Medicine, she was cramming months of work into days, preparing her institution for the virus’s arrival in the United States. But Landon had also recently developed rheumatoid arthritis—a disease in which a person’s immune system attacks their own joints—and was taking two drugs that, by suppressing said immune system, made her more vulnerable to pathogens. Normally, she’d be confident about avoiding infections, even in a hospital setting. This felt different. “We didn’t have enough tests, it was probably around us everywhere, and I’m walking around every day with insufficient antibodies and hamstrung T-cells,” she said. Two years later, Covid-19 is still all around us, everywhere, and millions of people like Landon are walking around with a compromised immune system. A significant proportion of them don’t respond to Covid vaccines, so despite being vaccinated, many are still unsure whether they’re actually protected—and some know that they aren’t. Much of the United States dropped COVID restrictions long ago; many more cities and states are now following. That means policies that protected Landon and other immunocompromised people, including mask mandates and vaccination requirements, are disappearing, while accommodations that benefited them, such as flexible working options, are being rolled back. This isn’t a small group. Close to 3% of US adults take immunosuppressive drugs, either to treat cancers or autoimmune disorders or to stop their body from rejecting transplanted organs or stem cells. That makes at least 7 million immunocompromised people. In the past, immunocompromised people lived with their higher risk of infection, but COVID represents a new threat that, for many, has further jeopardised their ability to be part of the world. From the very start of the pandemic, some commentators have floated the idea “that we can protect the vulnerable and everyone else can go on with their lives.” Seth Trueger, who is on immunosuppressants for an autoimmune complication of cancer, said. “How’s that supposed to work?” He is an emergency doctor at Northwestern Medicine; he can neither work from home nor protect himself by avoiding public spaces. “How am I supposed to provide for my family or live my life if there’s a pandemic raging?” he said. Read full story Source: The Atlantic, 16 February 2022 Further reading Read further Covid-19 blogs and stories from staff on the frontline
  22. Content Article
    Persistent Covid-19 illness following an acute infection with SARS-CoV-2 can have both a physical and psychological impact. Pharmacists in community and primary care should be able to provide patients with appropriate advice and support to manage their symptoms.
  23. News Article
    Children aged between five and 11 in England will be offered a low-dose Covid vaccine, the government says. Official scientific advice concludes the move would help protect the "very small" number of children who become seriously ill with Covid. Health Secretary Sajid Javid says the rollout will be "non-urgent", with an emphasis on parental choice. Northern Ireland also said on Wednesday it will be following Wales and Scotland in offering young children the vaccine. Children are at a much lower risk of becoming severely ill from a Covid infection, so the health benefits of vaccinating them are smaller than in other age-groups. Also, many will have some protection from already having caught the virus. So the scientists on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises governments across the UK, have been weighing up the evidence for immunising five to 11-year-olds. It concluded vaccination should go ahead to prevent a "very small number of children from serious illness and hospitalisation" in a future wave of Covid. Prof Wei Shen Lim, from the JCVI, said: "We're offering this to five to 11-year-olds now in order to future-proof their defences against a future wave of infection." He suggested parents consider getting their children vaccinated during school holidays to minimise disruption to their education from any flu-like side effects of the jab. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 February 2022
  24. News Article
    As surges of COVID-19 cases driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant recede, parts of the United States, Canada, and Europe are moving swiftly to lift constraints on a pandemic-fatigued public. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have abolished nearly all ­COVID-19–related restrictions in recent weeks, and the United Kingdom announced it would do the same this month, dropping even the legal requirement that people quarantine after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. In the United States, despite persistently high numbers of COVID-19–related deaths and busy hospitals, 10 governors, many known for being cautious in their pandemic response, last week announced immediate or impending ends to their states’ indoor or school mask mandates. Some of those moves came with assertions that it’s time to “live with the disease” and treat the coronavirus as endemic—a stable, enduring figure in the panoply of human pathogens, alongside cold viruses and influenza. That suggestion troubles many scientists, who warn it is eroding governments’ commitment to tracking and responding to the pandemic—which could leave countries flying blind and unprepared for any new variant. “Endemic delusion is probably what captures it the best,” says Kristian Andersen, an infectious disease researcher at Scripps Research who has been especially critical of recent moves by his home country of Denmark, which include an announcement that as of this month COVID-19 would no longer be categorised as a “socially critical disease” even though related death and hospitalisation rates were still climbing there. In the United States, governors cited various metrics to justify recent decisions to lift or let expire indoor mask mandates. California Governor Gavin Newsom noted stable hospitalisation rates and a 65% reduction in cases since Omicron’s peak in announcing the state’s mandate would end this week. But leaders also face political and economic pressures. States’ moves may be driven largely by the public’s impatience with restrictions, says epidemiologist Dustin Duncan of Columbia University. “Even people who recognize the importance of masking, social distancing, all that stuff, may be more amenable to take more risk,” he says. “At the same time, to me, going maskless just seems egregious.” Read full story Source: Science, 15 February 2022
  25. Content Article
    In this blog, Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive, Helen Hughes, reflects on participating in a recent Health Service Journal (HSJ) Patient Safety Congress webinar, held in association with BD, which considered some of the key emerging patient safety issues for 2022. 
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