Healthy 32-year-old offered COVID-19 vaccine because doctors had him down as 6.2cm tall with BMI of 28,000 The conflict between imperial and metric reached new heights this week as a man believed by his GP surgery to be 6.2cm tall was invited to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Diminutive Liam Thorp – or should we say Liam Thumb? – was surprised to receive a text from the NHS saying he was next up for immunisation because the 32- …
It's also a possible sign of wider glitches in the system.
According to the anonymous calculators, I am not due for vaccination until June. Even if I say I have an underlying condition (and the 'listed' conditions are dire) in the calculator, it's still end of April.
I'm carer to two elderly parents, late 80s and early 90s. They have had their first shot - but I had to force that myself, spurred on in December by publicity shots of Prue Leith (UK TV celebrity, who is 80) standing in line to get hers. My parents couldn't stand in a queue if they tried thanks to having COPD. I have no issue with Ms Leith being vaccinated, but the prioritisation leaves room for question. My parents finally had theirs in late January (and the loophole I used has now been closed)
Then a friend in Leeds told me his 70-something aunt had been invited (no underlying conditions) in December, when it was care homes, over-80s, and front line workers only, but his mother (slightly older) hadn't. His mother finally had hers early February.
And I still see people younger than me - without any underlying conditions - somehow getting the shot. As evidenced today when my sister - four years younger - told me she'd been invited for hers. Apparently, the system has her down as a carer even though she doesn't live with my parents. She attempted to question it, but gave up because of the bureaucracy and lack of information available on the phone.
These are the ones I am personally familiar with, but I see people on FB groups boasting how they've booked theirs - yet I know their ages, and there is no indication of any underlying conditions (which are all quite dire when you look at the list) being the drivers to how they've managed it.
The media is filled with emphasis on strict priority groups, and warnings to wait for 'the letter' and not to try and queue jump.
Although this El Reg story is an amusing and an extreme case, there really does appear to be some strange information in the system. And some areas of the UK seem worse than others.
I fully agree with you. I was told by a text from my GP surgery on the 12th Feb to register for my vaccination. So I phoned up and booked it for today (20th). I am 66 with no underlying health problems. A friend of mine has an uncle who is 75 and lives only about 10 miles from me (same county, though different GP) who has yet to be contacted at all!
I received a text from my GP surgery at the local medical centre, inviting me to go on line to book a jab (I am 73). I followed the link and jumped through all the hoops, and was assigned to a vaccination centre the other side of Shrewsbury, about 18 miles away, and not my local medical centre, 3 miles away. As it happened, I was going to the medical centre the next day to collect my medication, so I showed the receptionist the text and asked her why Shrewsbury? The practice manager happened to be passing by at that moment, and she grabbed me and towed me into her office, filled out some paperwork, and five minutes later I was in one of the consulting rooms getting the Oxford jab. Practice manager was very concerned that although _they_ had sent me the invitation, the system had assigned me to a different medical centre.
Lower risk groups at the hospital I work in are getting told to attend vaccination points after 4pm as there are no shows and wasted vaccines if we don't come in. It's a shame they aren't mentioning this to people like you who genuinely need it. I went 3 times and had mine that 3rd time, better my arm than the bin. Also what's with people not showing up in the first place.....
There are some vaxx refusers who get phoned by the GP etc and say yes to get them off the phone, but never listened to the reasoned reassurances and never intended to go. I'd also hazard a guess that there are also some who genuinely agreed to go, but then get their ears bent by refuser family members.
"the prioritisation leaves room for question"
Age is a very strong factor, due to the natural (and fairly abrupt) decline in immune response as we age.
Such that even those on multiple immunosuppressive medications are considered lower risk than those who are "just" elderly.
That's the reasoning behind the current priority scheme, it's one of the very few bits of scientific advice which is being followed (but then it's the NHS listening).
Is there room for question? Absolutely, but this isn't really where I'd be questioning...
From a purely personal viewpoint, I'd have rather my wife had the vaccine before me, since she is actually having to go out occasionally, whereas I haven't been to anywhere with people (a few very distanced visits to very open spaces) in a year (except getting the vaccine, that was genuinely anxiety inducing, and I'm not normally prone to anxiety). There is also no evidence to show how my (heavily compromised) immune system will respond to the vaccine...
I read that twitter thread yesterday morning and what is notable is the number of people reporting similar types of errors on their medical records or during interactions with healthcare workers. One person was told by someone literally standing next to her that she was a foot shorter than she actually was.
I first saw it on Twitter, then on the BBC and now on El Reg. Is it possible this guy is having a laugh at our expense, and making himself a bit Twitter famous at the same time? Can the NHS really be that inept? (OK, at this point perhaps I should just not bother hitting submit - of course they can). LOL
Yes, it can and does happen, as you acknowledge. For multiple data types.
The smart move would be to query the systems across the whole for all patients with a BMI >50 to then sense-check the data. Only a few will be real.
Of course the clinical systems could be set up with limits to stop this but that would be sensible.
Even "smarter" would be a check for values shifting >15% for some physiological variables.
Not holding my breath
Not COVID vaccine related... but having reached 66 this week, I got my DWP pension details information come through a few days ago. There was one glaring error on them - they said my date of marriage was 3rd March 2004 and my divorce was 4th March 2004. That was one HECK of a long day - felt more like well over a decade! As it seems they don't want to talk on the phone for such "trivial" details and finding an email address to send the correction through is totally impossible it looks like I will have to sharpen up a quill to compose a written missive and post it to the idiots instead!
>Nah, she definitely signed all those rights away as part of the divorce.
So you'll probably find the actual date of the divorce etc. in the notes (probably paper-file).
Given the age of many pension systems, it makes sense (from a pension calculation viewpoint) for the divorce date to have been set to the day after the marriage, given they probably couldn't delete the marriage date.
At least they handled it well.
Here in the US, Nutjob trump had ZERO vaccine distribution plan, so it's been left to the states. (Biden is supposed to be working on it; but, he expected a disorganized national distribution plan to fix, not "no plan whatsoever".) Some states have reasonable plans; some none at all. Florida was using vaccines to increase tourism(!), they said anybody over 65 could get vaccines, and the Florida travel board encouraged people to travel to Florida to get them.
As a result, here if this had happened, if you'd get the notice saying you're getting a vaccine... that's it. People here are (in most states) not doing any common-sense verification of info like this, if they did catch an error, just as likely or not it'd be like "Well, the appointment is already made"; if you decided you didn't want it so someone more deserving gets it, some states actually prohibit giving the shot to someone else and it'd be thrown out(!), others it's like at the end of the day the extra vaccines are injected into randos that are standing around waiting for "spare" vaccines. (If you get a call cancelling an appointment here, it'll probably be because you're in one of the less-organized states, and they handed out appointments in excess of their actual supply of vaccine, they're cancelling because they don't actually have any vaccine for you, not because you're 30 and healthy. That said, most is going to elderly, health care workers, etc. like it should -- just not anywhere near fast enough.)
> she might have to stay in her car for hours
I guess if she wasn't elderly she would have to camp on the sidewalk: You have to teach the peons some discipline!
Besides candidate elimination increases for free the amount of vaccine available: You won't need to spend money you could put into your own pocket. Win-win.
Here in the US
And since you posted that, this happened.
They'd apparently managed to get their first jabs, but were prevented from having the second.
Liam Thorp at 6'2'' is only 5 inches shorter 1 Osman, the standard unit of (Covid-19) Social Distancing at 6'7''.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/27/reg_standards_soviet_social_distancing_measure/
Long ago I had a contract in a hospital trust where the Accident & Emergency computer system demanded a postcode before allowing an admission to be recorded. For occasions where an emergency patient didn't know or couldn't provide a postcode the staff had defined informally a standard dummy postcode to allow the admission to be processed. Consequently there were numerous people called John Smith (or other equivalents) with the same postcode but different medical histories. Surprisingly there hadn't been any misadventures by the time my contract ended, but my attempts to get the system amended fell dead as, so I was told, it was a centralised product for the health service at the time.
This leads to a an issue that frequently ends in steam issuing from my ears.
The compulsory ( but non-essential) data input. Filling in an online form that requires some piece of information before it will accept a "submit" even though it's something that can be added later/just not needed, for example to ask a general question. They don't need the serial number of my fridge for me to ask whether they repair that make/model or what their working hours are, that sort of thing. Sure, if the answer is they only repair that model with certain serial numbers they might have to tell/ ask me ( sounds improbable), but otherwise, do I really have to go downstairs, empty half of the fridge, stick my head in sideways and transcribe a long sequence of digits and letters onto a piece of paper held out of sight somewhere around my waist just so that I can press the (previously greyed out) "submit" button?
If it's just something simple like my not wanting to give them my mobile number (maybe out of stubbornness, but mostly because I know perfectly well that if I do they'll phone that instead of the number I've told them to) I'll fake one.
A couple of years ago our GP surgery changed their software supplier and introduced a different online system for booking appointments, ordering prescriptions etc.
They didn’t port the previous patient database so you had to register all over again.
I found out why when I tried to re-register, they wouldn’t allow a hyphen in your last name.
SQL injection defence? I don’t think so.
Data validation technique a la 1981 4GL language standards? I don’t know.
Anyway, I now do everything by phone or face to face.
Sometimes it can be taken to monumentally stupid levels.
Calls bank."Can you tell what time you're open".
"Do you have an account with us?"
"Yes" (dumb mistake)
"Can I take your account details?"
"No, I just wan't to know when the branch is open" (I've been caught out in recent times by their useless web page)
"Sorry, I need to validate your identity first".
[ Long discussion ensues, ends up with ]
Because: "Data protection"
I'd like to think the conversation really was being recorded for training purposes, but I very much doubt it - they never learn.
"If it's just something simple like my not wanting to give them my mobile number (maybe out of stubbornness, but mostly because I know perfectly well that if I do they'll phone that instead of the number I've told them to) I'll fake one."
I've not had a problem with me giving out my "absolutely necessary" but non-existent land line number. Area code 01234, number 567 890. Even directly over the phone - just get the cadence right, and I've never been questioned over it. They will even repeat it back to me without any sign of recognition.
I wonder whether there actually is some poor person in Bedford (01234) who gets everyone else's unsolicited calls, however? I'm sure you are not the first person to have thought of that number for annoying forms, but definite kudos for getting away with it when actually talking to a human.
Although sadly not as easy to remember as US "555" numbers, there are a few UK number ranges that are reserved for fictictious use.
> Even directly over the phone - just get the cadence right, and I've never been questioned over it.
Of course. Don't forget, you're not speaking to the evil mastermind who devised the Kafkaesque bureaucracy highlight you're dealing with, but just to some uninterested college student working for peanuts: (S)he just follows instructions, and at no point (s)he was told to validate input.
I'd say this is a case of crappy programming.
Clearly anyone hired by the NHS is not going to be in the "idiot" range on the IQ score and would pick this up right away.
Obviously what happened is ... software.
Whoever coded that software never thought "Hmm, perhaps it would be a good idea to write some unit tests around the minimum and maximum possible heights in different age ranges."
... I mean, really, why would you ... erm, do something so incredibly obvious.
So, yeah, this entire event was an automation fubar - because lazy & shit coders.
Anyone is capable of being lazy and shit, residually with hindsight. I'm currently reading "humble pi" by the mathematician Matt Parker. One of the early chapters is all about data and databases. It's got stories like the man called Steve Null, whose company's HR database kept deleting him overnight. Or Brian Test who had the same issue. He then goes on to SQL injection attacks.
The coding is the easy part. I discovered during my first job writing programs that the data validation code occupied at least as many lines of code and a lot more brainpower than coding to the algorithm.
Later, when doing support, I discovered plenty of examples of gaps (even in my own perfect code). I then immensely enjoyed testing code to destruction, especially common in edge-effect tests. Divide-by-zero exception anybody?
A healthcare assistant made a colossal conversion error, in his head, and told me I was just short of 20 Stone. It was actually 16; now 12. I suppose the miscalculation could be deliberate. I know the way they inform patients or their cholesterol level can be very misleading... They just add the good cholesterol figure to the bad cholesterol figure and tell you death is imminent. Thanks to that I discovered Quorn chilli ( and recommend it to meat eaters, like myself, and vegetarians alike).
But beware! If you suffer from Gout (like me) you will find that Quorn is higher in Purines even than Fatty Bacon. I was prompted by my vegetarian daughter to try a meat free week, so I bought two packs of Quorn Sausages and two of Quorn Burgers. That evening I had Bangers and Mash for dinner. Next morning I was in agony and had to resort to taking Colchicene to quell the pain. I gave the remaining sausages and all the burgers to my sister in law, who does not suffer the same, and she enjoyed them. Back to eating meat thanks, but nothing Pork related. I could kill for a bacon sandwich, but would regret it in the morning.
In a general local population BMI is probably a good first indicator for the majority of patients.
I have an Omron set of bathroom scales. It not only tells you your personalised weight and BMI - but also the amount of muscle and fat it has measured by presumably conductivity. How it distinguishes between body fat and the more important visceral fat is an interesting question.
A friend tried it. IIRC at 5'2" and 15 stone she was deemed to have a BMI of 36 - and body fat of 50%. No doubt in her younger scuba diving days a lot of that fat might have been muscle.
A good first indicator for most patients is looking into a mirror and admitting they are fat. A good second indicator is running out of breath halfway up the second flight of stairs. The BMI is just a crutch, and a poorly designed one, at that.
I suspect your scale is better at separating you from a few quid than it is at accurately measuring your body fat percentage, as indicated by your friend's results.
"[...] than it is at accurately measuring your body fat percentage, as indicated by your friend's results."
No reason to doubt the scales ballpark figures. My friend really is obese. She puts being a "foodie" above her doctor's repeated warnings that she needs serious weight loss. She is now clinically pre-diabetic - but dropped out of the relevant management group sessions as "boring".
I was, a decade or so ago, an inpatient at a major London hospital. My condition was one where my body weight was a major factor, both for medication dosage and monitoring of treatment.
Therefore, each morning, I was carefully weighed - so, each morning, I would get up and hop on the scales myself to see how I was doing. Having more than a passing command of the metric system I was somewhat irked when sometimes the digital scales were set to read st/lb and would switch them to metric.
One morning, a (different, presumably bank) nurse came in for the weighing routine
I hopped on the scales (having previously switched them to metric). She tut-tutted and said “Someone’s been playing with these”, made me sit on the bed whilst she fiddled and got them to read good old imperial units, then weighed me old-school, wrote the numbers down and went about her day.
Couple of hours later one of my medical team came in “We just need to weigh you”
“That’s already been done - 68.4 Kg” says I.
“No, you were 62 Kg”
“Err, no - I did it myself.”
Then the penny dropped. Turns out this particular nurse was weighing everyone in old-school units, just like she was taught to do back in the dark ages or whenever, then *manually* performing the conversions back at the nurse’s station before updating the observations. Not surprisingly she had made an error that caused a bit of a crisis when my team thought I’d lost 6 kilos overnight.
My annual diabetes Type 2 review involves being weighed at the clinic. I always make sure to wear the same clothes each time - and stand in my stocking feet. Not sure if the nurse notes the displayed value - or makes some mental adjustment for how heavy my clothes might be.
With my normal BMI of 22 - she wanted me to lose at least 2kg. Seeing the doctor 6 months later - he considered sending me for a cancer scan because of the 3kg weight loss.
Its been suggested by someone who cranked the math that this sort of density (ie a fully grown adult shrunk to 6.2cm high) would be in the realms of a neutron star but in fact it looks like they'd be approximately 26.22 times the density of uranium.
In fact no element on the periodic table has anywhere close to this.
Maybe if there were undiscovered elements somewhere on the Island of Stability ie doubly magic 121-124 if the quantum spin calculations are correct for nested proton and neutron shells but again this is probably beyone most people's abilities to calculate.
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