The Covid-19 serious chat thread

[Dolphin Ziggler]

First topic message reminder :

I will edit misinformation that I consider disrespectful and insulting. If you can’t respect that, they’ll be changed more firmly.

Such censorship is disappointing, but unsurprising given the often over-zealous moderating on here. Little wonder so many posters have drifted away when fair discussion is discouraged and alternative points of view are policed.

Over such a sensitive subject, and with people on here likely to have known people who have died, I stand by it on this issue and find your need to make a dig at the site disappointing.

Any further complaints can be directed to my inbox. Further comments will be moderated. Dangerous misinformation, especially presented as fact, will be moderated. If you feel your liberties unjustly compromised, go shout out a window or something.

[king_carlos]

the issue for me is they're trying to state it's extremely dangerous with the infection rate but refusing to follow how it played out last time.

I know people that are ignoring it all because 'if it was that bad we'd be in lockdown'.

Sadly Bojo is playing to the audience so for the minute we're knackered.

Interesting read
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/omicron-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus-who-data-people-b1976071.html

That doesn't marry with my experience in Edinburgh just now I've got to say, Derby.

I run a small hospitality business that relies in large part on lunch trade from office workers. It had been steadily picking up again until the latest restrictions but has fallen off a cliff now.

To supplement my income after a proverbial storm in hospitality for nearly 2 years I've been doing a few shifts at a city centre restaurant that I trained at as a young chef. Cancellation emails are flowing in once again.

[WELL-PAST-IT]

I suspect last nights mauling might make BJ think again, nothing to lose now, the electorate have seen him for what he is, so he needs to do something that will earn him some brownie points with the public if not his MPs.

[lostinwales]

I have read a few times that one of the biggest issues all the way through the pandemic is that the government have treated it as a political problem not the public health issue it most surely is.

So more crap in an attempt to shore up Johnson's political future which not enough people care about because they don't believe him.

[WELL-PAST-IT]

I want to work at No. 10, getting paid for standing around chatting eating what I am sure is good cheese and drinking again probably good wine, and getting paid for it BECAUSE IT IS WORK!

Not a laptop being used, no note pads for minutes, must have perfect memories these No.10 staffers.

BJ says it was work, Raab says it was after a hard days work, it was just after Hancock had told everybody to keep their distance and minimise all social meets. AFTER WORK IS A SOCIAL MEET. Not illegal but against everything that the general public were being told to do.

[Luckless Pedestrian]

It only damages their credibility even further. The question for the Conservatives is how much longer they're prepared to let this man's administration harm the brand. He's done what they needed him to do, they've got their majority.

[lostinwales]

It only damages their credibility even further. The question for the Conservatives is how much longer they're prepared to let this man's administration harm the brand. He's done what they needed him to do, they've got their majority.

And this here is the fundamental problem. All that matters is the politics and the presentation, not the actual job they were elected to do. The main problem they are dealing with is their electability and their internal divisions not the health of the population.

[WELL-PAST-IT]

Very good article in The Atlantic about BJ, giving some insights to how other PMs and Presidents (de Gaulle) have fared in comparable (just) situations

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/12/boris-johnson-has-lost-his-mojo/620957/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

[doctor_grey]

At least for now, most of the civilised world is trying to put Covid-19 behind them.  I think this has shown humanity at its best and worst.  There is no good way to summarise what this has meant to societies as a whole or down to people losing loved ones, the people who struggled on ventilators alone, or most people simply trying to get through.  Watching people slowly die, suffocating a little more day by day, has been heart wrenching.  It has left even a guy like me with another appreciation about life and, if I have to admit, a simmering anger which is not going away.  

For me, the saddest part was seeing how politicised this became.  People with no shame, values, ethincs, anything, making something out of a worldwide tragedy.  I don't believe this is entirely out of order:  I remember my first visit to Dachau, the embodiment of the worst of mankind, hell if it exists, and coming unglued when I saw the ironwork simply saying 'Never Again'.  That shaped my entire life and guided me through everything I have ever done including my little bit during the worst of Covid.

So, to you, my invisible friends, I wish strength, family, and health.  And for most of you, a Rugby season to never forget.

[doctor_grey]

After two plus years of ducking and dodging Covid, it finally broke through our defenses and got into our house.  My wife and I both infected.  Everyone else is on high mask alert.  Now we will see what two vaccinations plus two boosters can do to keep it mostly under control.  

My wife tested positive initially on Sunday (that's my birthday - Hey honey, happy birthday!  I now have the disease which has killed more people than anything since WW2 and can give to you as a present.).  Thanks, love.  
My wife
I tested positive on Tuesday.  My wife had one bad day but looks great now.  Me?  I always look like sh!t but in context, not too bad overall.  Just a heavy cold for now.  

And where did it come from?  A woman who works with my wife who - knowingly - came into work with Covid after a flight home from Florida, also after testing positive.  Some people are effing braindead.  Some are worse.  Since she didn't give a tuppence about anyone else, what would have happened if she gave it to someone older and not in very good baseline health?

[jimbopip]

Hey Doc, chin up :at least covid won't make you look like Poopie. Erm... that's all I've got.

Mrs Pip and I are both double vaccinated and boosted: we recently tested positive and if it hadn't been for herself losing sense of taste and smell we would never have known.
Yes people are selfish and stupid. Get well soon.

[alfie]

Glad to hear your symptoms are mild , Doc. Get well soon...the Rugby board needs you at your best

[doctor_grey]

Hey Doc, chin up :at least covid won't make you look like Poopie. Erm... that's all I've got.

Mrs Pip and I are both double vaccinated and boosted: we recently tested positive and if it hadn't been for herself losing sense of taste and smell we would never have known.
Yes people are selfish and stupid. Get well soon.

That's all you've got????? I am home drooling all over everything, my nose running like a rip current, and coughing up orange-green things out of my lungs never previously observed by medical science. And that's all you got?

OK, it worked. Got it on the run, methinks.

[doctor_grey]

Glad to hear your symptoms are mild , Doc. Get well soon...the Rugby board needs you at your best  

Your bar is exceedingly low.....

[lostinwales]

Covid really is a bitch. Almost made it to 2.5 years after the start of the pandemic, but noooo. Wife tested positive Saturday, I tested positive Sunday and I have no idea about the boys yet but they are more tired than normal.

Oh joy. Not.

[doctor_grey]

Covid really is a bitch. Almost made it to 2.5 years after the start of the pandemic, but noooo. Wife tested positive Saturday, I tested positive Sunday and I have no idea about the boys yet but they are more tired than normal.Oh joy. Not.

You just summed up Covid from start to finish! Covid is coming for all of us. I think the positivity rate numbers are much higher than officially reported since most people are now using at-home tests and positive (and negative) results not making it into any type of national database. Hope you and the family get through it without anything remotely severe.

[lostinwales]

Covid really is a bitch. Almost made it to 2.5 years after the start of the pandemic, but noooo. Wife tested positive Saturday, I tested positive Sunday and I have no idea about the boys yet but they are more tired than normal.Oh joy. Not.

You just summed up Covid from start to finish!  Covid is coming for all of us.  I think the positivity rate numbers are much higher than officially reported since most people are now using at-home tests and positive (and negative) results not making it into any type of national database.  Hope you and the family get through it without anything remotely severe.  

Cheers. It is going OK overall, like a heavy cold with some extras but you just get enough to see what it could be like if it was not for the vaccines, and that view is not pretty at all. We have tests left over from when they were free, but paying a couple of quid for a test is going to stop people doing it, and not making it easy to record positives is just a recipie for under reporting the infection rates, which, anecdotally, sound like they are getting bad again.

[doctor_grey]

Here is something which happened yesterday which points up the ramifications of Covid are not going away:  Right around the end of the England game I get called into work.  A kid had a compound fracture in his left leg, broke the skin, had serious blood loss and was close to respiratory failure.  I was not on call, but hadn't had a drink in over 24 hours, and was able to go in.  This was complicated and timing was everything.  

We had only the bare minimum legally allowed number of people in the OR for a procedure of this type:  Me, the anesthesiologist, and two overworked nurses at the end of their 12 hour shifts (became 15 hour shift yesterday).  We were damn lucky.  The kid was damn lucky.  

I was not on call and if I had a beer the night before, I would not be allowed to work.  The next trauma doc lives 30 minutes further away.  We had insufficient staff to do what we did.  Staff numbers are way down because of Covid.  And everyone else is still working crazy schedules.  We are close to a breaking point.  Yesterday we all got lucky.  Next time, maybe not.

[lostinwales]

A month on from a positive test and actually its fine, kind of. I can go on a 2 hour hike with no problems but 2 days later will be coughing my lungs out.

It is an odd beast. I was never particularly ill in a collapsed in bed and can't move kind of way, but the after effects do linger.

[geoff999rugby]

There was a stats expert on Radio 4 a week or so back said they estimate just over 70% of the population had had Covid at the turn of the year but Omicron has scooped up those who had avoided it so far and now 95% or so have had it.

Certainly my personnel experience matches that.
All of my family and friends, including myself, who had previously avoided it  have had it this year.

Another common factor I have noticed is that LFT don't seem to pick it up in the first few days.
A number of us have tested negative a few days after showing symptoms and then tested positive around day 6 or 7.
Trouble being the early days are the most infectious.

[lostinwales]

There was a stats expert on Radio 4 a week or so back said they estimate just over 70% of the population had had Covid at the turn of the year but Omicron has scooped up those who had avoided it so far and now 95% or so have had it.

Certainly my personnel experience matches that.
All of my family and friends, including myself, who had previously avoided it  have had it this year.

Another common factor I have noticed is that LFT don't seem to pick it up in the first few days.
A number of us have tested negative a few days after showing symptoms and then tested positive around day 6 or 7.
Trouble being the early days are the most infectious.

On the LFT's that, more or less, seems to match what we have been through at home, down to youngest son who never tested positive, and never really got sick, but did show a couple of symptoms for a few days.

[doctor_grey]

Good read from NJ.com (New Jersey's news web site) showing the real impact of Covid on med staff and, is this article, the focus and pov is the Nursing staff. And, here is more impact from Covid - the numbers of people leaving nursing.  

The article is NJ, but this story is world wide.

“After a year and a half of watching people die, I couldn’t do it anymore,” she told NJ Advance Media.  They stay with her. The faces of dying patients.  “I took them all home with me,”
“It was a very overwhelming feeling. Am I going to drown in this?”
“I was going home every day crying. I was crying on the way to work.”

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2022/07/the-exodus.html

[doctor_grey]

So, here we are with what we all hope is Covid getting more-or-less behind us.  At least for now.  

Just want to say we currently have 18 Covid patients in my hospital as of yesterday's update.  Only a few are on ventilators, but a few still quite sick. and in real jeopardy  So it really isn't behind us and who knows how it will evolve.  

I think it's an incredible shame people and the media are almost gleefully saying we generally took the wrong approach to Covid-19 and that it was really not so bad.  And we could have toughed it out.  To me, it was not nearly as bad as it could have been simply because we aggressively took the best steps we could at that moment.  And that was still bad.

[sensisball]

D_grey
Of the 18 patients you had in hospital, how many have one or more comorbitities?

Obesity appears to have been strongly correlated with poor COVID outcomes. As indeed does darker skin.

Both categories of patients often exhibit low or extremely low levels of vitamin D.

I know, I know, most people think I wear a tinfoil hat at this point.

However, I believe that the large number of studies examining vitamin D3 deficiency and poor COVID outcomes have largely been ignored by both medical authorities and governments.
I can understand why institutions would be reluctant to reflect on not providing a cheap intervention to the general population, but I can't help but feel that a huge opportunity to mitigate the effects of the pandemic were missed.
As a teacher I also reflect on the massive damage both educationally and mentally to young people around the world caused by successive lockdowns.

[lostinwales]

It's back. Yes I know it never actually went away, but there does seem to be a significant uptick in cases, and I am one of them.

As ever very glad to be vaccinated because although my experience is relatively mild you do get an idea of how bad it could get.

[super_realist]

Is it not about time to delete this entire bunch of threads?

[lostinwales]

Nobody is forcing you to read them. Do you have an agenda when it comes to Covid?

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