Over the past few days I’ve been speaking to several frontline NHS staff working in hospitals in London and surrounding areas and it seems that the situation is incredibly dire

-- THREAD --

One doctor in a London hospital tells me that following a huge spike in cases their hospital is struggling to cope and they now have no choice but to ration Oxygen: “No beds, no space, minimal Oxygen supplies. We’re having to ration Oxygen.”
A senior doctor at one of the biggest London hospitals tells me that all elective surgery has now been cancelled and that roughly 80-85% of beds are currently being used for COVID patients.
At one hospital in London a specific team has been set purely to aid with the patient discharge process. Why? Simply to free up as much bed space as possible because demand is higher than it has ever been.
One medic tells me that the number ITU beds has increased at their hospital as they try and deal with extra demand but they only have staff to cover half of them: “Yes we have extra beds but what is the point if we don’t have any staff to actually work on them?”
Another tells me that so many members of staff are off because they are isolating: “The hospital has no idea what to do with deployment or staffing we’ve all been asked to cancel annual leave and any days off we had because there are so many people who can't come to work”.
I’ve also been told by several members of staff across multiple hospitals that many of their colleagues have signed off due to stress or mental health issues after working flat out this year. Many are saying that they are being drastically overworked and need extra support.
One tells me they have already been working flat out to cover surgeries that had been cancelled “some of us stay after our shifts, we work extra weekends, there’s a huge backlog, so we haven't stopped working.”

Now the latest spike means there will be more to deal with.
Another healthcare professional tells me the different departments at their hospital are being turned into a critical care overflow units and those who have no intensive care training are being asked to help to try and make up the numbers.
If you're a frontline healthcare professional working in hospitals in the UK at the moment, my DMs are open and I really want to hear from you.

Anything you tell me will be dealt with with the strictest of confidence.

More from Health

Now you know I love to sh-t in Harvard. But I also like accuracy. So I decided to go look at Harvard’s catalog to see its lack of military history that this article describes (they only teach history of pets it claims) and what I found shocked me! Shocked me! A thread: 1/


First off, Harvard students literally have multiple sections of military history that they can take listed. (It appears these ones are taught at MIT, so they might have to walk down the street for these) but... 2/


Say they want to stay on campus...they can only take numerous classes on war and diplomacy...3/


They have an entire class on Yalta. That’s right. An entire class on Yalta. 4/


But wait! There is more! They can take the British Empire, The Fall of the Roman Empire for those wanting traditional topics... 5/
1/16
Why do B12 and folate deficiencies lead to HUGE red blood cells?

And, if the issue is DNA synthesis, why are red blood cells (which don't have DNA) the key cell line affected?

For answers, we'll have to go back a few billion years.


2/
RNA came first. Then, ~3-4 billion years ago, DNA emerged.

Among their differences:
🔹RNA contains uracil
🔹DNA contains thymine

But why does DNA contains thymine (T) instead of uracil (U)?

https://t.co/XlxT6cLLXg


3/
🔑Cytosine (C) can undergo spontaneous deamination to uracil (U).

In the RNA world, this meant that U could appear intensionally or unintentionally. This is clearly problematic. How can you repair RNA when you can't tell if something is an error?

https://t.co/bIZGviHBUc


4/
DNA's use of T instead of U means that spontaneous C → U deamination can be corrected without worry that an intentional U is being removed.

DNA requires greater stability than RNA so the transition to a thymine-based structure was beneficial.

https://t.co/bIZGviHBUc


5/
Let's return to megaloblastic anemia secondary to B12 or folate deficiency.

When either is severely deficient deoxythymidine monophosphate (dTMP*) production is hindered. With less dTMP, DNA synthesis is abnormal.

[*Note: thymine is the base in dTMP]

https://t.co/AnDUtKkbZh

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