Unfortunately people often hear what they want to hear - and most of us want to hear that Covid19 is, "Getting better now". Add to this the idea that many people (including NHS workers and politicians) believe that "It won't affect me" and "It won't matter if I stretch the rules a little bit" on a background of fear-induced behaviour which produces variable and short-lived responses, coupled with vague and confusing messages from Government - the overall effect is more of a CANCELLING than an easing of lockdown for many and an inevitable second spike.
Patients who were too frightened to access healthcare from Primary and Secondary Care are now being told to come forward, and the NHS is starting to re-instate some elective services and return Covid wards to their original generic purposes.
I think it is inevitable that we will have a second spike of Covid19 in the UK and this will coincide with repurposing of our NHS services back to their original functions. This will make for the perfect storm on our already tired and diminished workforce. I believe we need to re-enforce partial lockdown in order to allow us to catch up with the elective services that have been postponed. Otherwise some elective concerns may become urgent or emergency problems and we will not have the wherewithal to deal with them on top of a second spike.
Rapid Response:
Re: Covid-19: It’s too soon to lift lockdown
Dear Editor,
Unfortunately people often hear what they want to hear - and most of us want to hear that Covid19 is, "Getting better now". Add to this the idea that many people (including NHS workers and politicians) believe that "It won't affect me" and "It won't matter if I stretch the rules a little bit" on a background of fear-induced behaviour which produces variable and short-lived responses, coupled with vague and confusing messages from Government - the overall effect is more of a CANCELLING than an easing of lockdown for many and an inevitable second spike.
Patients who were too frightened to access healthcare from Primary and Secondary Care are now being told to come forward, and the NHS is starting to re-instate some elective services and return Covid wards to their original generic purposes.
I think it is inevitable that we will have a second spike of Covid19 in the UK and this will coincide with repurposing of our NHS services back to their original functions. This will make for the perfect storm on our already tired and diminished workforce. I believe we need to re-enforce partial lockdown in order to allow us to catch up with the elective services that have been postponed. Otherwise some elective concerns may become urgent or emergency problems and we will not have the wherewithal to deal with them on top of a second spike.
Yours,
Dr Nicky Wright
Competing interests: No competing interests