Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[BlueToff]

I had them last week. But I put it down to a hot week and not drinking enough water.. Ive done a home test this morning and been negative..

Sensible approach.

I have the tests at home due to my friend's job so do one a week and have yet to test positive.

I do however have a very sore throat, runny nose and on Saturday had a very bad headache, because I got leathered on Friday and also happen to have awful hayfever.

If I was calling up with those symptoms I'd feel like a tit, and deservedly so.

 

[BlueToff]

9284 cases, 6 deaths, something's up with UK reporting. Some said deaths may be lagging but it's not issue, it's like this for months.

For comparison, GER had yesterday +558 cases, and 13 deaths. With that small amount of deaths, you gotta have 3 digit cases.

Why is something up?

There's lag, we know that, and it's over a 28-day cut off, but people - loads and loads of people - are vaccinated.

You can still get covid when vaccinated so they'd still count among the cases. But they'd be very unlikely to die.

Surely it just shows the vaccines and general immunity are kicking in?

 

[navidson]

9284 cases, 6 deaths, something's up with UK reporting. Some said deaths may be lagging but it's not issue, it's like this for months.

For comparison, GER had yesterday +558 cases, and 13 deaths. With that small amount of deaths, you gotta have 3 digit cases.

Vaccines, Vaccines, Vaccines

 

[Deleted member 48881]

Why is something up?

There's lag, we know that, and it's over a 28-day cut off, but people - loads and loads of people - are vaccinated.

You can still get covid when vaccinated so they'd still count among the cases. But they'd be very unlikely to die.

Surely it just shows the vaccines and general immunity are kicking in?

Then why's the panic over the cases? So this was all expected and desired?

 

[BlueToff]

Vaccines, Vaccines, Vaccines

Really not rocket science is it.

We've got 73m people in the UK with at least one dose, and 31m of them are fully vaccinated.

Germany won't be far behind (65m is the estimate from the other day), but there's clearly still some lag.

 

[navidson]

Then why's the panic over the cases? So this was all expected and desired?

Because the media and the government love nothing more than a terrified general public

 

[BlueToff]

Then why's the panic over the cases? So this was all expected and desired?

Because the government are hopeless and are trying to hedge their bets, it's panic fuelled by the media and random SAGE experts (of which there appear to be 1000s) saying different things every day.

The panic was seemingly because of a sharp rise in hospitalisations in certain areas where the Indian/Delta variant was dominant (and what that could subsequently lead to if it grows exponentially across the country while a lot of younger people were still unvaccinated - but we're onto the final groups of adults now). Those areas also happened to coincide with places where, for whatever reason, vaccine uptake hadn't been as strong initially, though efforts have been made to change that.

 

[tsubaki]

Understand that.

But no, I don't agree that the threshold can be that low, I'm sorry.

If you have people phoning up and having to isolate (whether that's for a few hours or a few days) because they have a runny nose or a tickly throat in the middle of hayfever season, then we're going the wrong way around it. You also aren't going to get people to do it, either, and not just for financial reasons.

The alternative is vaccinating and then getting on with life, and accepting that yes, some people will keep getting ill and will keep dying from COVID from now until forever more, probably.

We're going to have everybody over 18 offered the first dose at least by the middle of July. Which will mean, in theory, everyone who has taken up the offer fully vaccinated by late September.

The problem with this, as been serially pointed out, is that it only works whilst the vaccines do. It also does nothing to prevent any other disease.

We cannot afford to ever go back to a situation where we don’t have a defence against these sorts of things.

If having a defence means people get into the habit of reporting illness and getting tested to find out what they’ve got, I’d have thought everyone who has lived through this past 18 months would be in favour of it. After all, it’s a remarkably minor change in everyone’s lives that we know would by itself prevent many flu deaths and COVID deaths and would protect this country when the next thing rears its ugly head.

 

[grandjoeblue]

The problem with this, as been serially pointed out, is that it only works whilst the vaccines do. It also does nothing to prevent any other disease.

We cannot afford to ever go back to a situation where we don’t have a defence against these sorts of things.

If having a defence means people get into the habit of reporting illness and getting tested to find out what they’ve got, I’d have thought everyone who has lived through this past 18 months would be in favour of it. After all, it’s a remarkably minor change in everyone’s lives that we know would by itself prevent many flu deaths and COVID deaths and would protect this country when the next thing rears its ugly head.

This process only works whilst there is a significant number of deaths. How much longer are people going to isolate for 10 days because they've briefly walked past a covid positive individual?

The number of flu deaths in this country is fine. We need to move away from the obsession of trying to prevent all deaths. The reality is the life expectancy in this country (and most of the developed world) is already extremely high.

 

[BlueToff]

The problem with this, as been serially pointed out, is that it only works whilst the vaccines do. It also does nothing to prevent any other disease.

We cannot afford to ever go back to a situation where we don’t have a defence against these sorts of things.

If having a defence means people get into the habit of reporting illness and getting tested to find out what they’ve got, I’d have thought everyone who has lived through this past 18 months would be in favour of it. After all, it’s a remarkably minor change in everyone’s lives that we know would by itself prevent many flu deaths and COVID deaths and would protect this country when the next thing rears its ugly head.

People get ill and as you yourself have pointed out, viruses adapt and change.

You are not going to get people voluntarily risking isolation even if they feel fine other than a bit of a head cold. It also means it isn't sustainable for places/events that rely on public gatherings to open as people aren't going to want to risk quarantine.

Also, we have other ways of preventing diseases - you know, we have the flu jab that millions of people get every year so that they have that bit of extra protection. Yes, flu kills people, because their bodies are unfortunately not strong enough to fight it off even with the extra booster of the flu jab. But such is life. There's a trade off we have. People get ill and that's part of life and death. We already have massively ageing and overwhelmed populations as it is. Surely the answer is better treatment, more money into health systems, rather than getting people to ring up if they have a cough.

 

[tsubaki]

This process only works whilst there is a significant number of deaths. How much longer are people going to isolate for 10 days because they've briefly walked past a covid positive individual?

The number of flu deaths in this country is fine. We need to move away from the obsession of trying to prevent all deaths. The reality is the life expectancy in this country (and most of the developed world) is already extremely high.

Can you stop making things up please?

People would only have to isolate when they test positive. The idea is to get them to take a test. If they don’t test positive, they don’t. If they do that quickly enough, less people get the disease (which means less deaths, less economic damage etc).

Also the number of flu deaths is not “fine”; it’s hundreds / thousands of people dying in agony when they do not have to.

 

[bluelife]

9284 cases, 6 deaths, something's up with UK reporting. Some said deaths may be lagging but it's not issue, it's like this for months.

For comparison, GER had yesterday +558 cases, and 13 deaths. With that small amount of deaths, you gotta have 3 digit cases.

Only been up in 2500+ cases for around three weeks. Hospitalisations beginning to reflect that, and likely deaths in another week. Hopefully numbers will remain low though with the vaccinations.
We also do a lot of tests, so capturing many asymptomatic cases which other countries are missing.

 

[grandjoeblue]

Can you stop making things up please?

People would only have to isolate when they test positive. The idea is to get them to take a test. If they don’t test positive, they don’t. If they do that quickly enough, less people get the disease (which means less deaths, less economic damage etc).

Also the number of flu deaths is not “fine”; it’s hundreds / thousands of people dying in agony when they do not have to.

That's not how the process works at the moment though is it? You have to isolate if you're in contact with anyone with covid? What am I making up?

It is sad when anyone dies but the reality is we cannot live forever.

 

[COYBL25]

Well, yes, surely.

The point is, the symptoms are remarkably identical to common everyday symptoms of anything else, and not actually the same as symptoms for COVID that we've known for the last 18 months (persistent cough, loss of taste/smell, fever etc).

Those are genuinely hayfever symptoms and symptoms of a general cold. Loads of people have them at this time of year. So I don't think saying those are the symptoms is in any way helpful.

And if they are the symptoms, then how is it even the same bloody virus? Must be completely different in nearly every way, surely? And the idea that people should be isolating or testing because of those symptoms is surely madness?

Nobody is being hospitalised with covid because of a runny nose or headache or even a sore throat. You get hospitalised if you're struggling to breathe, extremely feverous etc.

I think it`s not being communicated very well mate.

My understanding, is that it`s like hay fever symptoms in people who`ve never had hay fever.

A few of my lads mates, who live out Formby way, had it a few weeks ago, when it was doing the rounds in Sefton - irritable eyes, runny nose and a sore throat. Non got sick.

Non of them suffer from hay fever.

 

[tsubaki]

That's not how the process works at the moment though is it? You have to isolate if you're in contact with anyone with covid? What am I making up?

It is sad when anyone dies but the reality is we cannot live forever.

No, you don’t have to isolate unless the nature of the contact is serious enough that they tell you that you have to. If you clear it with a test (or tests) I think you don’t have to do the ten days either.