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1/31 Lots of media coverage, rightly, on huge NHS pressure. What’s cause of, and how widespread, is pressure? How is NHS responding? How serious is this & what’s impact on patients & staff? What’s likely to happen over next few weeks? Long new explainer thread below in two parts.

 2/31 WHAT'S CAUSE OF, AND HOW WIDESPREAD IS, CURRENT NHS PRESSURE? Remember overall context. Winter always busiest time of NHS year & NHS capacity always at its most stretched. Last five winters show that, despite increases in capacity, NHS at / over its capacity limit...
3/31 ...Whilst overall staff levels improved in 2020, NHS also entered year with 100k vacancies. Covid makes all this much worse. NHS balancing four sets of patients – winter patients; covid patients; planned care cases, incl. delays from first phase; and those needing vaccine.
4/31 Covid cases rising extremely rapidly, driven by new variant. In England yesterday there were 22,700 covid patients in hospital vs 500 at start of Sept and 19k at top of 1st peak. Just since Xmas Day NHS has had 5,000 more covid inpatients, equivalent to filling 10 hospitals.
5/31 Impossible in a thread to capture full range of regional variation. But, at top level, London/SE/E of England trusts under substantial pressure. Northern trusts seen improvements since Oct but worried covid levels not dropped sufficiently to cope with any third surge.
6/31 On capacity, NHS has inescapably fewer beds in use than this time last year because of the need for tight infection control to protect patients and staff. For example, six bed bays have to become four beds, and some wards cannot be used for non covid patients at all.
7/31 As attached chart from @HSJnews shows, over 40 hospitals now have more than 25% of their general and acute beds occupied by covid patients. So, fewer beds & many more occupied by covid patients. Many hospitals London/SE also report they're now v short of critical care beds.
8/31 CEOs equally, if not more, worried about staffing. Areas with high covid load suffering from double whammy of high numbers of covid patients and high levels of staff absence because of covid community infection prevalence and important self isolating rules...
9/31 ...Some in highest areas of covid infection now reporting two to three times normal levels of staff absence. It's not just absolute numbers of staff absence but also absence rates in particular categories of staff. EG London/SE trusts need more critical care specialists.
10/31 WHAT ARE NHS TRUSTS DOING TO RESPOND? Important to understand that all trusts have detailed, well worked, escalation plans in place to meet extra demand. Hospitals used summer to make physical adaptations & upgrade infrastructure to create maximum possible surge capacity.
11/31 Trusts will therefore start by trying to utilise every last ounce of capacity available and create more temporary capacity, at pace, if needed. EG Many in London/SE now creating extra surge critical care capacity for covid patients in real time, complex though this is.
12/31 At same time, trusts are seeking to maximise numbers of patients being safely discharged into community beds and being looked after at home. This is creating significant pressure on community services – a good illustration of pressure all NHS is under, not just hospitals.
13/31 Once a hospital trust has used up all its own capacity it will seek help from its neighbours. This is working well. In larger areas where every hospital is under pressure, small numbers of patients will be moved across regions, where it makes clinical sense to do so…
14/31 ...EG hospitals in SW closer to London/SE already helping out colleagues. Midlands doing same for East of England. Patient transfers over large distances rarer but can help where clinically appropriate. But need to avoid adding pressure to overstretched ambulance services!
15/31 NHS now using Nightingales/readying them for use. Exeter/Manchester in use and London now being readied for use if required. NHS trusts can only undertake all this mutual aid because we have a National Health Service and because we have prepared so carefully for it.
16/31 HOW SERIOUS IS PRESSURE AND WHAT’S IMPACT ON PATIENTS & STAFF? Important to be precise with words. Not right to use "cataclysm”, “collapse” or “overwhelm” as they imply NHS will stop providing care. The NHS task is to keep providing care, whatever the pressure.
17/31 But, where the NHS is currently under extreme pressure, we are seeing some or all of the following in a more prolonged and widespread way than is normal, even at times of very significant winter pressure. Delays in accessing care for non critical patients....
18/31 …Rebooking of planned procedures, ambulance handover delays (v worrying for ambulance trusts), high levels of bed occupancy in some wards, staff stretched to cover growing demand, and pressure on staff/patient ratios. None of this is good for staff or patients.
19/31 It's important to openly acknowledge that these pressures are happening and their potential impact on quality of care/outcomes. Not least so they can be distinguished from "collapse, cataclysm & overwhelm". Which, thanks to amazing work of frontline staff, isn’t happening.
20/31 NHS staff doing what they always do – providing best possible care to all who need it, prioritised by clinical need. EG Currently 20,000 more non-covid/emergency patients in hospital compared to April first peak. Double number of urgent & cancer operations being performed.
21/31 CEOs are very worried, though, about the impact of this much pressure on already tired and exhausted staff who are now being asked to delay leave, work extra shifts and transfer to new roles e.g. help in critical care. See here, for example:
https://t.co/N2xPmllxY6
22/31 CEOs continue to marvel at, and be incredibly grateful for, staff commitment, dedication and professionalism in what many acknowledge are the most difficult circumstances they have seen in their careers. Strong view that this is much more difficult than the first phase.
23/31 WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? ..... This thread continues in a new thread.......

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Inside: Planet Money on HP's myriad ripoffs; Strength in numbers; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/esjoT3u5Gr

#Pluralistic

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Strength in numbers: The crisis in accounting.

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#15yrsago Bad Samaritan family won’t return found expensive camera https://t.co/Rn9E5R1gtV

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After the 9/11 attacks, airlines and public buildings adopted a flurry of "security" measures, like taking away pen-knives from fliers or requiring visitors to office buildings to be photographed or present a driver's license.

1/


Bruce Schneier's seminal 2003 "Beyond Fear" called these measures: #securitytheater.

Schneier pointed out that these measures would be easy to circumvent, and were thus providing only the comforting appearance of security - not security

Security theater is worse than nothing. Security theater gives people the false impression that their risks have been mitigated, when actually things are just as dangerous.

After al, if you know that danger exists, you can take some steps to mitigate or avoid it.

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But if you have the false impression that you've been made safer, you might unwittingly engage in risky behavior.

4/

Like, if you know your car's brakes are flaky, you might nurse the car along to the mechanic at low speed on side-streets.

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sexnotgender.info
sexnotgender.info
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Hi @EdinburghUni @EHRC @EHRCChair @KishwerFalkner @RJHilsenrath @trussliz @GEOgovuk

The DIVERSITY INFORMATION section in yr job application mentions 'legal equality duties'. You then ask "What is your gender identity?" with options

Female
Male
Non-binary
Not-listed
Other

1/13


'Gender identity' is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and is not defined in the Act.

https://t.co/qisFhCiV1u

2/13


Sex is the protected characteristic and the only two possible options for sex are 'Female' and 'Male' as defined in the Act and consistent with biology - 'non-binary' and 'other' are not valid options.

https://t.co/CEJ0gkr6nF

'Gender identity' is not a synonym for sex.

3/13


You then ask "Does your gender identity match your sex registered at birth?"

4/13


Again, 'gender identity' is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and is not defined in the Act.

https://t.co/qisFhCiV1u

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JefimVogel
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LEEDS LEADS CLIMATE BREAKDOWN

8 hours and 1000 flawed arguments and biased procedures later, Leeds City Plans Panel voted 9-5 for airport expansion and the false promises of economic growth.
For “what Leeds needs is a premier-league football club and a premier-league airport”
🧵


1/ There was a lot of "I do care about climate change, BUT" – followed by a lot of blah blah. Blah blah economic growth. Blah blah connectivity. Blah blah competitiveness. Blah blah Manchester. Blah blah Westminster. Blah blah offsetting. Blah blah electric planes. Blah blah blah

2/ Also a lot of "I do have sympathy for residents suffering from planes flying over their roofs at night, BUT” - followed by more blah blah.
One councillor kindly offered his advice: “the way to less noise is more planes”. Right, Sherlock. Want to try that in your backyard?🤦‍♂️

3/ The true sympathies were revealed at the end. The Panel's priority was not the well-being of those living under the flight path, nor the lives and livelihoods of threatened by climate breakdown. Their priority was a bigger, noisier airport, with a terminal in bronze-champagne.

4/ First declaring your sympathy for people’s suffering and then supporting a development that directly aggravates their suffering, is a proper kick in the face for those suffering the consequences. Like first declaring a climate emergency and then aggravating climate breakdown.
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1/ All I keep thinking about in this moment are all the horrible things that Rush Limbaugh did and said. Just flashes of them.

Like how following Trayvon Martin's death, he tried to convince people it was okay to say "n word" now as long as you ended with an "a" (and said it).

2/ Or how, one of his "undeniable truths" was that "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of pop culture."

3/ Or how if a prominent woman would publicly defend another woman, he would refer to it as "solidarity of the vaginas."

4/ How he absolutely hated Michelle Obama...and used to refer to has as "moo-chelle." He really liked this because it both attacked her for mooching off system as he claimed and because it was his way of calling her a cow (he thought she was fat).

5/ He had this one song called "Barack the Magic Negro." The lyrics were even more racist than the name. And he played it all the time. He was still playing that song during his show a few months ago.
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4) He then handed me a thick stack of EVERY SINGLE MARVEL COMIC COMING OUT THE NEXT MONTH. “Here you go. Keep reading Marvel comics” he said and then walked off. I left in a daze and about 15 minutes later it hit me “Gray around the temples, mustache... That was Stan Lee!”

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one of the things i like about Batman is that it's fundamentally about being orphaned, and being an orphan — how this guy stays tethered to the world in his own weird, abstract, extrajudicial way when he feels that his link to it has been violently severed

Batman does this by permanently recapitulating his own trauma: solving crimes for other people, protecting them. But that's actually just the beginning; he also recapitulates his own experience of orphanness by essentially raising several orphans

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Arya Samaj Exposed ( A Thread)


Today I'm going to expose these so called reviver of Sanatan dharma.

Arya samaj's main book which they treat as their bible is Satyarth Prakasha. Which was written by "Maharishi" Dayanand Saraswati.

Dayanand Condemned Idol worship and blamed it on jains . like really??


The book peddles hate against several Hindu sects.

here is hate against Vaishnavas
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WORLD OF SANATAN DHARMA
WORLD OF SANATAN DHARM...
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WHY BABUR NEVER TRIED TO ATTACK SRI KRISHNADEVARAYA ?

A🧵u must read

It is very well known that Babur considered Krishna Dev Raya as the strongest ruler of the entire subcontinent, and Vijayanagar empire the strongest during that time in India.

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The Vijayanagar empire reached its peak during 1509-1529 around the reign of Krishna Dev Raya.

Vijayanagar’s famed elephant brigade 👇

2/10


At his command there were over 50000 elite troops with a regiment of Portuguese gunners and 3200 cavalry with 600 elephants.

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Along with that more than four hundred thousand ( four lakh) peasant levies and irregular military made this empire one of the largest in all of South Asia.

A typical Vijayanagar levie soldier 👇

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During Baburs invasion, Krishna Dev Raya ruled supreme in all of deccan.

In fact, in an all our brawl, Krisha Dev Raya will beat Babur fair and square.

Babur could muster at max 50000 troops with 50 canons.

While Krishna Dev Raya had these numbers in Hampi alone

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SK
SK
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#sculpture #story -

Chandesha-Anugraha Murti - One of the Sculpture in Brihadeshwara Temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram - built by Raja Rajendra Chola I

This Sculpture depicts Bhagwan Shiva along with Devi Paravathi blessing Chandeshwara - one of the 63 Nayanmars.

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Chandeshwara/Chandikeshwara is regarded as custodian of Shiva Temple's wealth&most of Shiva temples in South India has separate sannathi for him.

His bhakti for Bhagwan Shiva elevated him as one of foremost among Nayanmars.
He gave importance to Shiva Pooja&protection of cows.


There are series of paintings, illustrating the #story of Chandikeshwar in the premises of
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Chandikeshwara's birth name
is Vichara sarman.He was born in the village of Senganur on the banks of River Manni.


His Parent names were Yajnathatan and Pavithrai.
Vichara Sarman was a gifted child and he learnt Vedas and Agamas at a very young age.
He was very devout and would always think about Bhagwan Shiva.

One day he saw a cowherd man brutally assaulting a cow,Vichara Sarman could not tolerate this. He spoke to cowherd: ‘Do you not know that the cow is worshipful & divine? All gods & Devas reside in https://t.co/ElLcI5ppsK it is our duty to protect cows &we should not to harm them.
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