NHS laid low by flu as 18,000 staff call in sick in worst outbreak for a decade

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344144/Flu-NHS-laid-low-18-000-staff-sick.html

NHS laid low by flu as 18,000 staff call in sick in worst outbreak for a decade
By Sophie Borland
Last updated at 11:58 PM on 4th January 2011

More than 18,000 National Health Service staff were off sick with flu yesterday as hospitals and GPs? surgeries battle one of the worst outbreaks of the virus in more than a decade...

...Figures show that almost one in every 65 NHS workers called in sick yesterday with flu symptoms.

The figures, compiled by FirstCare, which monitors absence rates for the public and private sector, suggest that 2,000 more NHS staff were off work yesterday than at the same time last year...

 

[NS1]

Re: NHS laid low by flu as 18,000 staff call in sick in worst outbreak for a decade

The excess increase of illness in National Health Services employees is another very valid signal that the virus circulating in the UK has substantially increased ability to infect even those who have been previously exposed AND vaccinated.

"Low Reactors" to the vaccine target of A/California/07/2009 have been recorded during most months since emergence of the Pandemic Strain. The Ukraine flashfire in late 2009 was fueled in part by an early very concerning Vaccine Escape strain that later came to elucidate HA 158E and 225G on a cross-linked background.

"In positions where this flu is revising the pandemic gene code, the ΣPF11 reservoir (pH1N1) presently exhibits a strong pattern of alliance with serotypes normally infecting birds, horses and dogs.

100% of the Hemagglutinin positions between 186 and 248, including antigenic areas of the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD/RBS), are on record as polymorphic. No position in that range is stable. Many positions rate multiple changes. Protein revision is documented at 60 of the 63 positions (95%), engaging the potential for antibody resistance (natural immune escape and vaccine escape)."

The UK sequences on file demonstrate a propensity toward those same genetic changes from the Ukraine upon a background patterned to various sub-clades emerging from late season Australia.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: NHS laid low by flu as 18,000 staff call in sick in worst outbreak for a decade

The excess increase of illness in National Health Services employees is another very valid signal that the virus circulating in the UK has substantially increased ability to infect even those who have been previously exposed AND vaccinated.

"Low Reactors" to the vaccine target of A/California/07/2009 have been recorded during most months since emergence of the Pandemic Strain. The Ukraine flashfire in late 2009 was fueled in part by an early very concerning Vaccine Escape strain that later came to elucidate HA 158E and 225G on a cross-linked background.

"In positions where this flu is revising the pandemic gene code, the ΣPF11 reservoir (pH1N1) presently exhibits a strong pattern of alliance with serotypes normally infecting birds, horses and dogs.

100% of the Hemagglutinin positions between 186 and 248, including antigenic areas of the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD/RBS), are on record as polymorphic. No position in that range is stable. Many positions rate multiple changes. Protein revision is documented at 60 of the 63 positions (95%), engaging the potential for antibody resistance (natural immune escape and vaccine escape)."

The UK sequences on file demonstrate a propensity toward those same genetic changes from the Ukraine upon a background patterned to various sub-clades emerging from late season Australia.

I do not think we can assume that health care workers are vaccinated for flu. Many choose not to vaccinate. I visited a friend several times in the fall of 2009 who was hospitalized for a non-flu problem. I casually asked every health care worker in the proximity of my friend if they had received the flu shot. This included 2 emergency room visits and several visits on the ward.

100% said "No".

100%, and not one was planning to get it either.

"Last January, a CDC survey found that just 37% of health care workers received swine flu vaccine and 35% received both seasonal and swine flu shots."

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=370374&postcount=3

 

[NS1]

Data Wants to Be Freed

Data Wants to Be Freed

I do not think we can assume that health care workers are vaccinated for flu. Many choose not to vaccinate. I visited a friend several times in the fall of 2009 who was hospitalized for a non-flu problem. I casually asked every health care worker in the proximity of my friend if they had received the flu shot. This included 2 emergency room visits and several visits on the ward.

100% said "No".

100%, and not one was planning to get it either.

"Last January, a CDC survey found that just 37% of health care workers received swine flu vaccine and 35% received both seasonal and swine flu shots."

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=370374&postcount=3

Was your visit across the Atlantic or here in the US?

Most certainly the statistics show that US Healthcare Workers were very unwilling to subject themselves to the same risk that they were vehemently recommending for their patients. With their keen knowledge of medical issues, we'd have to recognise their behaviour as being calculated against some known risk / reward ratio.

When the experimenters aren't willing to participate in the experiment, notes should be taken by the volunteer subjects.

On the other hand, 35% is a lot of people and we would conjecture that a certain number of those will fall ill in the US this year as they did last year. Vaccine breakthrough (vaccinated with later illness) was reported last year and is being reported throughout the world this year (vaccinated with later fatality in multiple countries).

We are not claiming that all NHS ill employees have been vaccinated. However, a large section of them working in any patient-facing setting would have been naturally exposed and a particular subset was certainly vaccinated AND exposed. Let's define that group and investigate what happened and how. They're science workers. They have all the tools and should be pleased to help solve the problem.

We're asking for an open records discussion without all of their normal, "when records were kept . . ." disclaimers. More data generally equates to a higher wattage bulb shining light into the corners so all can see what was previously unknown. Data defies the dreamer's charisma and empowers the frontline worker's labour.

And data wants to be freed.

Gather & Solve.

 

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: NHS laid low by flu as 18,000 staff call in sick in worst outbreak for a decade

For comparison's sake, 16,000 called in sick on the same day last year.

 

[JJackson]

Re: NHS laid low by flu as 18,000 staff call in sick in worst outbreak for a decade

For comparison's sake, 16,000 called in sick on the same day last year.

Also last year the pandemic moved the flu season's peak much earlier in the year leaving the first few weeks of the new year reasonably quite.

This season looks as if we - in the UK - will have a fairly high flu incidence in the 'traditional' flu season and the pressure on the NHS will be even greater as H1N1(2009) is the dominant strain. The reason this is problematical is its different age profile (causing severe illness in groups that have not traditionally had flu shots) and its nasty habit of causing ARDS and so a very targeted hit on ICU beds with MV and ECMO - for the hardest hit.