We are told the clinical trials for two Coronavirus vaccines, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson have shown the jabs offer some protection against variant E484, but less effective against the original COVID-19 strain.
by Victor Cherubim
Wherever we go, whatever we see, we are confronted with an unsettled way of life today. People are tired of COVID-19, in fact LONG COVID. Yet we are warned to save all our outrageous antics for another time. Things need to be kept low key. Ironically, politicians are of the view that subdued response will end up getting us a lot more attention,rather than being boisterous and flashy, both in Parliament and outside.Children out of school do not want Mum to be their teacher, they miss their schooling and mates. Furlough workers are feeling bored not being able to access their office environment. Antivaxxers do not think a vaccine is going to be a way out of the situation, as most viruses become more virulent, but less dangerous as they mutate, as the virus has been genetically modified to do just that and that no vaccine is 100% affective against all mutations.
But the situation we face around us makes us be loud and flamboyant which is our immediate problem. It could give people too much to worry about and cause people to focus on the wrong aspects of our personality, but of enduring this life. We are warned it is our quiet confidence at crisis times like this, that will really help people understand what all this fuss is about and what really, we can achieve by being resilient.
Look at it from another perspective, can we turn a blind eye and not worry about the pandemic and all the things until we need to. However, if you happen to be a nurse or a health worker in an Intensive Care Unit of a hospital where all the ICU beds are fully occupied, this scenario takes on a new dimension.
A Day in the life of an ICU Care Nurse
A shift for an ICU Nurse is both challenging, exciting and nerve wracking. Nurses must know how to keep a Coronavirus patient ventilated and sedated and especially how to keep patients alive.
What then is to go on being a Nurse or Carer in an ICU Ward?
A typical day involves a variety of a usual and essential activities, as well as unusual chores. Thus, the demands of a Nurse are very demanding. Each piece of equipment being used on the patient has a message that it conveys to a Nurse. Patients are both young and old and care is special to each person according to their severity of condition.
The numbers and all the reading on each of their monitors and machines helps to drive care in the right direction. By nature of the environment in an ICU being very technologically driven, some if not many patients may find their stay in the unit very stressful especially at night when trying to get some sleep, with alarm bells going off continuously. As a Nurse it is their responsibility that the patients are made to feel as comfortable as possible. Besides, the number of nurses at any given shift in an ICU Ward is higher compared to a regular ward. This is because staffing is influenced by “the number and patient acuity, “which in many cases is in the ratio of 1:1. Sometimes the number may exceed this ratio depending on the demands that can also add to patients being anxious. Most of all in a COVID-19 ICU, there are no family members present to assist or comfort the patient.
Nurses in ICU do not work in isolation. They must and work as a team in coordination with other departments. Help and assistance from other departments such as radiology, laboratory, theatres, physios, speech and language and dietetics etc. just to mention a few, is often sought depending on the individual needs of a patient.
The responsibility of an ICU Nurse is always to make sure the patient is well prepared having the right equipment for transfer and most importantly checking the patient’s condition is stable to go for any tests, where necessary. All the time this is done in consultation with the medical team with support from the doctor on duty, Consultant’s orders are followed and carried out in a timely manner. This is one of the most exciting areas of work as a Nurse in an ICU.
But one of the most distressing, depressing aspects in this work in a Coronavirus ICU is to hear when coming on shift that the one patient they thought was going to make it, has passed on. Tragically, they must bear the agony and anxiety to feel the loss of patients young and old, who have gone without any farewell or any family present. This takes a lot of strain. To avoid burn out, they need having to take adequate breaks between patient care and nursing care. This is also essential to reduce the risk of error in patient care.
What is currently on order to avoid NHS being overwhelmed in UK?
The need for vaccines is essentially to contain the Coronavirus from transmissibility as well as to keep people having to enter hospitals and ICU’s which are feeling“somewhat overwhelmed”by the pressure to serve all who need incubation in ICU’s.
On the spot “Door to door testing” is beginning in eight areas of England as the government attempts to find every single case of the South African and Kent variant of COVID-19. Eleven cases in Bristol have since been identified as the variant that originally arose in Kent but are now showing the E484 mutation. While the South African variant also shows the mutation is under serious investigation and monitored by Public Health England (PHE) in at least 8 Postcode areas of England.
9.3 million people have received to date the first dose of the vaccine. So far, the vaccine programme is the biggest (some say the only) success during the pandemic. There will be a rush to take credit for that as it reaches more milestones in numbers of those vaccinated, in the hope of normal life resuming after Spring in UK.
Sir Mark Walport, a top Scientist has stated: “Shutting down the country to prevent the arrival of highly transmissible new strains from abroad, is almost impossible”.
We are told the clinical trials for two Coronavirus vaccines, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson have shown the jabs offer some protection against variant E484, but less effective against the original COVID-19 strain.
Nature of viruses
The nature of virus is that it will continue to mutate, as do all viruses. New strains will emerge in many countries of the world at different times until there is herd immunity.
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