According to the BBC, nearly seven million patients are on National Health Service (NHS) waiting lists for care in England. The data came from a recent NHS report, which found 6.84 million people waiting for some type of care. These figures are up from 4.2 million before the Covid pandemic. Also keep in mind the population of England is about 56 million people so approximately 1 out of every 8 people living in England are on an NHS waiting list.
Category: Direct Primary Care
White House: Covid is Here to Stay, as are Annual Boosters
Covid boosters are here to stay according to White House officials. They will likely be similar to annual flu shots, with a new booster to defend against a new variant every year. There were discussions a year ago that suggested drug makers were looking for a common denominator that would be present in all Covid variants, but I doubt that will happen. First of all it’s not easy or it would have been done already for flu shots and Covid boosters. Second, why would drug makers make a universal vaccine when they can sell boosters for new variants every year?
Tuesday Links
- Why Jackson Miss. doesn’t have water: they gave too much of it away for free.
- Why the prohibition on consuming raw milk from your own cow really matters.
- The latest fertility numbers. It takes 2.1 births per woman of child bearing age to replace a country’s population. Most developed countries are well below that.
- The downside of capping the price of insulin: it will encourage its use over newer, better, and more expensive alternative treatments. ”That will mean more disease, more disability, and more death from diabetes.”
Jackson’s Water Crisis; Krugman Off the Rails
Jackson, the state capital and largest Mississippi city, is run by Democrats. Its mayor and most of the city council members are Black. You may have read that the entire city is without safe drinking water, with no end in sight. The reason is well understood locally. The city is poorly run.