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A frontline doctor fighting Covid in Birmingham believes that coronavirus is not as fatal as at the beginning of the pandemic, and says there is no explanation for worrying for a moment.
Cases are on the rise in the Midlands and Birmingham’s director of public health, Dr Justin Varney, said the city would likely be on the national “watch list” of intervention threats to the fullest in a few days.
But as the number of positive effects of controls increases, hospitals and general practitioners in the city do not see a corresponding increase in the number of serious people.
Even doctors have different perspectives on the importance of statistics and the extent of the risk that coronavirus poses to the city.
Reflecting this diversity of views, Dr. Ron Daniels, an extensive care representative at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield, also founded in Heartlands, said he thought the virus “would get less angry.”
He also said that talking about a wave at the moment was a “publicity stunt” and said, “I don’t need to look like Donald Trump; However, if you look at more people, locate more cases.”
The doctor downplayed fears of a return to the dark days of March, April and May, when admissions to Covid-19 exploded at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which includes Good Hope, Heartlands and Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Dr Daniels, speaking in his capacity, said: “The speech about a wave of moments that is taking a position in Europe lately is an exaggeration.
“We see, as we see here, and we take a look at the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford and the paintings of [Professor] Carl Heneghan, that the overall increase perceived in cases is due to an increase in evidence.
“It is true in the United Kingdom, it is true in France, it is true in Spain.
“What concerns other people is not the number of cases, but the poor health of others.
“What we saw in France and Spain, and saw an increase in the number of cases two weeks before the UK because they were testing before, is that there is no increase in hospital admissions.
“There hasn’t been an increase in deaths, it’s not a momentary wave, it’s just that we’re testing more people and locating more cases.”
While cases have increased, Dr. Daniels believes there is no need to block locally, the city joins the national coronavirus watch list for the first time.
This is a marked change in his May opinion, when he said lifting the blocking restrictions too soon risked a wave.
He said the number of other seriously ill people is now “negligible” and no deaths have been reported “for days.”
He said the number of extensive care sets in UHB hospitals is about a hundred at any time during the height of the pandemic in April, a scenario that said “almost like triage on the battlefield.”
“We were comparing a lot of patients in the ward. We were taking the sickest to intensive care.
“I think the vast majority of the time we made the right decisions about who was venting and who didn’t, with the result that at the University of Birmingham hospitals we did pretty well with Covid-19.”
A spokeswoman for the University of Birmingham Hospitals said she treats a total of 62 positive hospital patients at Covid at all 3 sites: QE, Heartlands and Good Hope.
There are now two with Covid in the Heartlands extensive care sets and there have been two new positives in the last 24 hours, either in QE.
Dr. Daniels said he believes that coronavirus and its related disease, Covid-19, can simply weaken, as can the original viruses that now cause colds.
He said: “There is some degree of suggestion and evidence that the virus simply gets a little less angry.
“This would be the herbal habit of viruses. The coronaviruses that now cause colds were smart enough to cause death thousands of years ago.”
“But they are no longer and that is the herb of viruses.
“This does not give any evolutionary merit to a virus to kill its host and confers all the evolutionary merits of sitting on the host, without leaving them in very poor health but turning them into paints by infecting many other people.”
He said the effects of extensive care had gone from a 50:50 chance of death if a patient was connecting to a ventilator at a 20% mortality rate in some cases.
This is not due to the discovery of drugs such as dexamethasone and remdesivir, he said, but to greater case management.
He said, “What caused this improvement? Are they all drugs? No. Drugs have a small effect, not such a strong effect.”
“Is it because we’ve learned to manage the disease in general? Yes, absolutely.
“The tabloid press loves magic bullets and drugs, yet we’ve just stepped forward in decision-making. We learned more about who wants ventilation, when and when they put it upside down, etc.”
Dr. Daniels also issued a positive note about the return of schools next month.
The 49-year-old said: “There is a lot of knowledge from series from several countries around the world that suggest that children, yes, can get a coronavirus, yes, they would possibly have symptoms of coronavirus, but it is quite rare.
“But it’s an idea that young people have a tenth of the ability to pass it on to other people like an adult does.
“As long as the public continues to behave reasonably, help us get back to normal, help us have fun, help us dine out to help, etc. it’s very likely to be particularly smaller than the first wave.”
Dr. Daniels also cautioned that the accumulation in cases was not due to adolescents and young adults, but that older adults were guilty of the accumulation in cases.
He said, “This is a choice. It’s about being sensible.
“And those are those teenagers – in general, today’s young people are incredibly social and I have a 22-year-old and an 18-year-old and they make more sense than many older adults. Know.
“I’m not saying that everyone has yet behaved since my middle-class bubble in Knowle and the middle-class bubble at Sutton Coldfield, I’ve noticed that other people behave perfectly.
While hospitals saw Covid’s admissions that they had made earlier in the year, they returned to normal.
And Dr. Daniels begged those who had symptoms of other serious conditions.
He said: “Hospitals are still back to normal. UHB is in the process of putting on operational lists for some non-urgent surgeries, but maximum semi-urgent surgeries and operating rooms are returning to normal.”
“We try to establish our outpatient clinics and make sure that as many other people are treated as possible.
“We are still on a scenario where the number of people arriving at the hospital with a general number of cases is low.
“People show up later than usual, so we see a serious pathology.
“Surely we will have to inspire our audience to understand, yes, we will have to be aware of Covid, yes, we will have to continue to comply with the rules about Covid, but if it does not feel good on one condition, the NHS is open to business as usual.
“We’ve noticed expired cancer presentations, expired sepsis presentations, and presentations of expired attacks on the center. You can do much less to other people if you don’t arrive early. This will have a domino effect on mortality.”