(11-06-2021, 11:46 PM)DJC link Wrote:The Age reporter should have looked more closely at the figures.  The 64 (not 67) ICU patients are not listed as COVID cases because they are no longer infectious.  That's how COVID cases have always been reported and there is no under-reporting of ICU cases or the fact that the 64 patients are in ICU because they had COVID.  The critical figure is that 98% of Victorian COVID ICU cases are unvaccinated.

But that's missing the point that all jurisdictions carry basically the same information about COVID, the same FAQs, etc.  Go to any State, Territory or Commonwealth COVID website and you'll get the same information.

(11-06-2021, 09:13 PM)kruddler link Wrote:I think the majority of the issues are people worrying about family members who can not get vaccinated for health reasons.....or even young kids who cannot get vaccinated.

The more unvaccinated adults there are, the more chance of the 'weaker' population getting it who can not get vaccinated.

Not specifically directed at you but there is a pretty clear division between anti-vaxers and everyone else. Anti-vaxers talk about the whole pandemic from their point of view. I, I, I, me, me, me. The other side of the fence usually bring friends and family into the discussion.

(11-07-2021, 01:06 AM)ElwoodBlues1 link Wrote:I'll disagree and go with what was reported in the Age and what the medical staff know to be the truth, how many are in the beds has nothing to do with the vaccination rates. The critical issue is the misrepresentation of figures by a corrupt government....

Quote:Dr Holley said while he did not believe there was any deliberate intention by the Victorian government to mislead the public, the administrative discrepancies between states highlighted the need for a nationally consistent standard on how coronavirus cases in ICUs were recorded.

“It would be very preferential at a national level that we are unified in our reporting, so there is no confusion,” he said.

A Victorian Health Department spokesman confirmed that the daily COVID-19 data released by state officials only reflected infectious patients.

“This is consistent with reporting COVID-19 in the community,” he said, adding the number of people in ICU – infectious with COVID-19 or otherwise – is monitored closely and factored into hospital planning.
...

Melbourne intensive care doctor David Pilcher said the system of only publicly reporting “active” coronavirus cases first emerged last year as it was the easiest way to record the daily numbers.

He said it initially didn’t make much of a difference to the official count because most patients last year were typically treated as infectious as it wasn’t obvious when they could be safely considered cleared of the virus.

Earlier this week, Professor Pilcher confirmed there were more than 60 patients who were in Victorian intensive care units due to COVID-19 who weren’t included in the “active” figures, including many of the most seriously ill, placed on a heart and lung machine.

The researcher was concerned the public would have a false impression about the workload being created by COVID-19 patients, especially when these dozens of beds might be needed due to demand created by Victorians needing beds after critical surgery or after accidents during the festive season.

However, Professor Pilcher said he didn’t believe there was “malicious intent” on behalf of the Victorian Health Department in its reporting of the COVID-related intensive care admissions - rather it had just become hard to change.

(11-07-2021, 06:13 AM)DJC link Wrote:From the Age article:

So, the system of recording active cases that Victoria has used throughout the pandemic is now "misrepresentation by a corrupt government".  I'd rather go with the opinion of the ICU practitioners quoted in the Age article.

The number of folk in the ICU beds has everything to do with the vaccination rates. 98% of COVID ICU cases are unvaccinated.  If they were vaccinated, the probability of them getting COVID and requiring an ICU bed would be significantly lower.  Practically, it's the unvaccinated 5% (25% in some municipalities) that are putting our ICUs under pressure.

Quote:Others come to the realisation too late that the deadly virus is real, begging for a vaccine before being hooked up to a ventilator, unsure whether they will regain consciousness.

“It has been incredibly challenging and distressing,” Western Health intensive care director Craig French said.

There is a tiny resuscitation table for newborn babies in the corner of the ward following a surge in pregnant, unvaccinated women being admitted, putting them and their unborn babies in heightened danger of severe outcomes.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/in-the-icu-where-only-maria-is-vaccinated-others-die-in-disbelief-20211105-p596gc.html

Quote:‘Superspreaders’ vow to return
The latest figures come as organisers of protests against vaccine mandates and proposed pandemic laws threaten to march every week until their demands are met.

A crowd of self-proclaimed superspreaders marched through Melbourne’s CBD on Saturday in a bid to “kill the bill” which will go before the Victorian Upper House that would give the government specific powers in a pandemic.

These would be used as an alternative to state of emergency declarations that need to be renewed every four weeks.

Protesters cheered as a man took to the stage to “thank” his “fellow superspreaders”.

“Tomorrow the hospitals will be full,” he said.

(11-07-2021, 07:35 AM)ElwoodBlues1 link Wrote:The senior intensive care physician, who spoke to The Age on the condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly, said despite a decline being reported in the official daily hospital numbers last month, the true number of COVID-19 patients in ICU had been hovering near 190 every day for weeks.

“You’ve got a system in Victoria that’s so close to being overwhelmed it has just skated by over the last few weeks,” the doctor, who works at a large Melbourne hospital, said.

I'll agree to disagree  and like I said I'll go with the ICU Dr's and staff working in the Melbourne Hospitals who are on the front line and the article confirms what I have been told by people who know staff at those hospitals. Staff have been deterred from speaking  so it must be serious when senior physicians are speaking off the record to the media like "the Age"
There needs to be an Australian standard in reporting cases and I find it confusing how the states report differently especially the two largest and main affected in NSW and Victoria.

Quote:Increasingly, the vast majority filling the [Sunshine Hospital's Intensive Care Unit] are severely ill unvaccinated people, some who remain adamant that COVID-19 does not exist even when they are succumbing to the virus.

Others come to the realisation too late that the deadly virus is real, begging for a vaccine before being hooked up to a ventilator, unsure whether they will regain consciousness.

“It has been incredibly challenging and distressing,” Western Health intensive care director Craig French said.

“Patients and their families have expressed the belief that they don’t have COVID, it’s not real to them, even though they are critically ill or somebody they love is very, very sick.”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/in-the-icu-where-only-maria-is-vaccinated-others-die-in-disbelief-20211105-p596gc.html

(11-07-2021, 12:25 PM)DJC link Wrote:So, a senior intensive care physician at one hospital has a better take on the overall COVID numbers in ICUs than the Health Department?  Give me a break!

For a start, public and private hospital employees may only speak to the media with permission.  To do otherwise requires anonymity.  That's not Government deterring staff from speaking out, it's standard media management that dates back to the Kennett years when it comes to public hospitals, and even longer in the case of private hospitals;

I have family and friends in the public and private health systems and half of the folk in my neighbourhood are surgeons working in Geelong and Melbourne.  They consistently state that, while our health system is under-funded and under stress, it is coping very well with the additional burden of COVID cases taking up ICU beds.

And for a first hand account of what it's like in an ICU with COVID patients:

In July this year, opposition health spokesperson, Georgie Crozier, criticised the Victorian Government for increasing ICU and critical care beds from 499 (ICU) beds in July 2020 to 1606, arguing that we would never need that many.  Aren't you glad that the LNP aren't in charge of our health system?