• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

COVID 19 Good News Stories

Status
Not open for further replies.

kristiang85

Established Member
Joined
23 Jan 2018
Messages
2,650
2020 started off well, in the West at least. The first approx. 20% of the year was normal.

I remember the Australian fires, Trump nearly starting a war with Iran, the various storms in the UK... it wasn't a great start to the year before COVID hit.

Although indeed none of those stories affected most our day to day lives. Certainly had you told me in early 2020 that soon I would be banned from going to the pub and the goverment would dictate who I was allowed to socialise with, I'd have applied for a sectioning order for you!
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

C J Snarzell

Established Member
Joined
11 Apr 2019
Messages
1,506
I remember the Australian fires, Trump nearly starting a war with Iran, the various storms in the UK... it wasn't a great start to the year before COVID hit.

Although indeed none of those stories affected most our day to day lives. Certainly had you told me in early 2020 that soon I would be banned from going to the pub and the goverment would dictate who I was allowed to socialise with, I'd have applied for a sectioning order for you!

Another forthcoming good news story is Donald Trump's departure from office on the 20th January 2021. Any wars he will be having post presidency will be with the IRS.

CJ
 

MikeWM

Established Member
Joined
26 Mar 2010
Messages
4,382
Location
Ely
Another forthcoming good news story is Donald Trump's departure from office on the 20th January 2021. Any wars he will be having post presidency will be with the IRS.

CJ

I'm way off-topic pointing this out - but for all his idiotic bellicose rhetoric, Trump is the first US president since Carter to have not started any new wars.

A quick look at the hawks Biden has picked for his Cabinet shows that it is unlikely we'll be able to say the same about him.
 

brad465

Established Member
Joined
11 Aug 2010
Messages
6,968
Location
Taunton or Kent
We've got more drug treatments:


Two more life-saving drugs have been found that can cut deaths by a quarter in patients who are sickest with Covid.

The anti-inflammatory medications, given via a drip, save an extra life for every 12 treated, say researchers who have carried out a trial in NHS intensive care units.

Supplies are already available across the UK so they can be used immediately to save hundreds of lives, say experts.

There are over 30,000 Covid patients in UK hospitals - 39% more than in April.

The UK government is working closely with the manufacturer, to ensure the drugs - tocilizumab and sarilumab - continue to be available to UK patients.

As well as saving more lives, the treatments speed up patients' recovery and reduce the length of time that critically-ill patients need to spend in intensive care by about a week.

Both appear to work equally well and add to the benefit already found with a cheap steroid drug called dexamethasone.
 

Yew

Established Member
Joined
12 Mar 2011
Messages
6,538
Location
UK
That seems to suggest a reduction in time in ICU between 7 and 10 days, that is something that's incredibly useful.
 

MikeWM

Established Member
Joined
26 Mar 2010
Messages
4,382
Location
Ely
We've got more drug treatments:


Which is indeed good news, but the focus continues to baffle me. It seems there are three things you can do when faced with a disease like this:

1. Try to stop people getting it
2. Try to stop people who get it from getting seriously ill
3. Try to stop people who are seriously ill from dying

We've gone to extreme lengths on 1, and made decent progress on 3. But we seem to have ignored 2 entirely, which given the emphasis is on NHS capacity is really, really odd.

Why did it take so long for the government to suggest taking Vitamin D? The evidence on that seemed very clear from very early on - I've been taking a vitamin D supplement daily since April because I found it so convincing.

Where are the proper studies on hydroxychloroquine? Where are the proper studies on ivermectin, which had looked to be even more promising for months now?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ised-Covid-patients-dying-80-study-finds.html
A drug used to treat head lice could cut the risk of death for hospitalised Covid patients by up to 80 per cent, a study suggests.

Ivermectin, a prescription-only drug that can cost as little as £1.50 for a course of treatment, was also found to potentially halve the time critically-ill patients needed care for.

The attitude all along seems to have been 'if you get it, cross your fingers and hope it doesn't get bad'. What sense does that make? A proper focus on effective treatments would probably lead to fantastic news.
 

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
38,818
Location
Yorks
Which is indeed good news, but the focus continues to baffle me. It seems there are three things you can do when faced with a disease like this:

1. Try to stop people getting it
2. Try to stop people who get it from getting seriously ill
3. Try to stop people who are seriously ill from dying

We've gone to extreme lengths on 1, and made decent progress on 3. But we seem to have ignored 2 entirely, which given the emphasis is on NHS capacity is really, really odd.

Why did it take so long for the government to suggest taking Vitamin D? The evidence on that seemed very clear from very early on - I've been taking a vitamin D supplement daily since April because I found it so convincing.

Where are the proper studies on hydroxychloroquine? Where are the proper studies on ivermectin, which had looked to be even more promising for months now?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ised-Covid-patients-dying-80-study-finds.html


The attitude all along seems to have been 'if you get it, cross your fingers and hope it doesn't get bad'. What sense does that make? A proper focus on effective treatments would probably lead to fantastic news.

That would be good news if a common-or-garden headlice treatment cuts covid deaths by 80%.

Nitty Nora will become a key worker !

I agree though, there needs to be more emphasis on treatments.
 

brad465

Established Member
Joined
11 Aug 2010
Messages
6,968
Location
Taunton or Kent
I'd take this story to be a good news one, of Europe's oldest person surviving Covid at 116, soon to turn 117:


A French nun who is Europe's oldest person has survived Covid-19, just days before her 117th birthday.

Lucile Randon, who took the name of Sister Andre in 1944, tested positive for coronavirus on 16 January but didn't develop any symptoms.

She told local media she "didn't even realise I had it".

She isolated separately from other residents in her retirement home in Toulon, southern France, but is now considered fully recovered.

Sister Andre, who is blind and uses a wheelchair, is now looking forward to celebrating her birthday on Thursday - although she is going to mark the occasion with a smaller group of residents than usual.

"She has been very lucky," David Tavella, spokesman for the Sainte Catherine Labouré retirement home, said.

Another drug treatment to the mix:


A drug normally used to treat arthritis can be a life-saver for some of the sickest hospital patients with Covid, new research shows.

For every 25 patients treated with tocilizumab, along with a cheap steroid already routinely given, an additional life would be saved, the experts say.

Some hospitals are now doing this.

As well as improving survival and recovery time, it can avoid patients needing to be moved to intensive care, say the NHS doctors.

Wendy Coleman, 62, received the treatment last year when she was admitted to Chesterfield Royal Hospital with severe Covid-19.
 
Last edited:

brad465

Established Member
Joined
11 Aug 2010
Messages
6,968
Location
Taunton or Kent
Record numbers have applied to become student nurses, suggesting this has inspired more than put off:


Record numbers have applied to study nursing at UK universities during the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of people applying for nursing courses has risen by almost a third (32%), according to statistics from the university admissions service.

"Inspiring stories" from wards over the past year has led to the surge, says Ucas chief executive Clare Marchant.

The government says it is "another step closer" to delivering 50,000 more nurses for the NHS.

There were 60,130 applicants for nursing by the main 29 January application deadline, the Ucas figures show.

The number of UK school-leavers opting for nursing increased by 27% from last year to a record 16,560.

And more than 10,000 people aged 35 or over have applied to study nursing for the first time this year - a rise of 39% on 2020.
 

greyman42

Established Member
Joined
14 Aug 2017
Messages
4,894
Record numbers have applied to become student nurses, suggesting this has inspired more than put off:

I don't know about inspired or put off, it may just be the case that there is going to be less choice of jobs out there after Covid and nursing may seem a reasonably well paid job with a decent pension and little chance of being made redundant.
 

brad465

Established Member
Joined
11 Aug 2010
Messages
6,968
Location
Taunton or Kent
I don't know about inspired or put off, it may just be the case that there is going to be less choice of jobs out there after Covid and nursing may seem a reasonably well paid job with a decent pension and little chance of being made redundant.
Perhaps, however whatever the case we had a major nursing vacancy problem pre-Covid and were that not in place the NHS would have been in a far better place to manage this, so if we can actually go about fixing that issue it's no bad thing.
 

scotrail158713

Established Member
Joined
30 Jan 2019
Messages
1,797
Location
Dundee
I don't know about inspired or put off, it may just be the case that there is going to be less choice of jobs out there after Covid and nursing may seem a reasonably well paid job with a decent pension and little chance of being made redundant.
It’s probably a bit of both.

Apparently numbers on teacher training courses have been higher this year as well, presumably for reasons similar to those you have outlined above.
 

nedchester

Established Member
Joined
28 May 2008
Messages
2,093
It’s probably a bit of both.

Apparently numbers on teacher training courses have been higher this year as well, presumably for reasons similar to those you have outlined above.
Until they find out how awful teaching is these days. Excessive hours, continuous scrutiny and bullying headteachers.

Most NQTs leave after 5 years.....
 

Bikeman78

Established Member
Joined
26 Apr 2018
Messages
4,493
Government have backed down and accepted that boarding school arrangements for management of (potentially) infectious pupils is better than what they have recently devised.

Original position: Quarantine hotels 'unsafe' for returning pupils

Revised position: Quarantine rule change welcomed by boarding schools
I've often wondered what will happen with boarding schools. The nature of the lesson timetable means that pupils mix from lesson to lesson. Then they go back to boarding houses with 50 other people. On the plus side, pupils won't be likely to meet people outside school much. At my school, most of the teachers lived on or just outside the school grounds.
 

3rd rail land

Member
Joined
30 Jan 2019
Messages
623
Location
Where the 3rd rail powers the trains
I've often wondered what will happen with boarding schools. The nature of the lesson timetable means that pupils mix from lesson to lesson. Then they go back to boarding houses with 50 other people. On the plus side, pupils won't be likely to meet people outside school much. At my school, most of the teachers lived on or just outside the school grounds.
At the boarding school I went to there wouldn't be any means of allowing a pupil to quarantine. Even if you confine them a single person room they will inevitably mix with others when they are i the corridor or using the bathroom, kitchen etc... Schools don't have rooms with all these facilities and even if they had a very small number of them but probably wouldn't be enough for all the overseas pupils a typical boarding school will have. Separate accommodation for quarantining pupils would be a non starter as boarding schools almost certainly don't have anywhere they could use for this purpose.
 

Peter Mugridge

Veteran Member
Joined
8 Apr 2010
Messages
14,751
Location
Epsom
At the boarding school I went to there wouldn't be any means of allowing a pupil to quarantine. Even if you confine them a single person room they will inevitably mix with others when they are i the corridor or using the bathroom, kitchen etc... Schools don't have rooms with all these facilities and even if they had a very small number of them but probably wouldn't be enough for all the overseas pupils a typical boarding school will have. Separate accommodation for quarantining pupils would be a non starter as boarding schools almost certainly don't have anywhere they could use for this purpose.

Do they not have a dedicated sick bay wing somewhere?

The one I attended certainly did - although there was one drawback in that the "summon assistance" bell, it turned out, did not go to the staff quarters but rang in another room occupied by another pupil*... who put up with it for nearly an hour before deciding to investigate...


*Not me, I hasten to add!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top