The isolation advised by a doctor is voluntary?
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
What's this based on?
It will. Just not enough most likely.
I also find it a bit weird how little clue we still have about how long immunity or resistance to covid lasts. I know I had it at the start of March. I presume I can now get it again but this is literally an assumption based on the fact if I had a cold in March I'd be able to get it again now.
There's little info on covid immunity and what there is seems quite inconsistent. I'd have thought they'd be monitering people who've had it very closely so they can get an accurate idea what's going on.
There's little info on covid immunity and what there is seems quite inconsistent. I'd have thought they'd be monitering people who've had it very closely so they can get an accurate idea what's going on.
I can only assume they don't trust test results enough to offer a serious opinion on this yet.
Given how many vaccines are in stage 3 testing, with zero failures to date and mass manufacturing plans well advanced, now seems like an odd time to assune failure and quit trying to stop the spread of the virus.
Maybe yeah but isn't it considered that homes are key drivers in transmission? At least a pub has some semblance of order.
Really, there should be more focus on people not going out to get absolutely pissed during a fecking pandemic. Alas, a man can dream.
I've not followed this thread for a good few months now, but how close are we to being in a similar situation compared to March when it was rising quickly?
When your jobs on the line you'll go to work.
This.
Coronaviruses in general - and this coronavirus in particular - are nowhere near as much of a moving target as the influenza virus. Which is one of the very few lucky breaks we’ve had in this pandemic.
It's been long enough that you would expect them to have a better idea than what are basically guesses based on an individual scenario.
The tricky part I'm guessing is not knowing enough about the virus yet to know how it is likely to mutate and how that would affect the antibodies ability to fight it, but that would surely create more uncertainty in terms of going forwards rather than currently, and they certainly know a bit about it. Most of what I've read seems fairly sure for example it is less tricky than flu.
I understand it from individuals persperctive, but here if somebody has been in close contact with infected, they are ordered to quarantine. Breaking it is against the law. They are paid the 2 weeks wages for the duration of the quarantine.
Ta. That website looks dodgy as feck but it does appear to be an identical copy and paste from the Uni website's piece.
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It hasn’t been long enough though. If we discover that immunity only lasts an average of 10 months that’s a big problem with a seasonal virus. This time 10 months ago the virus was barely even a tickle in a bat’s throat. In terms of properly understanding how we are going to live with this virus it will take years of research, not months.
You are supposed to get sick pay here in the UK but some employers take the stance if you've tested negative you can work, from what I've gathered
Hasn't there just been a pretty grim setback on the Oxford vaccine with people getting ill? I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing what we can to slow the spread, but a balance between slowing Covid and not consinging millions to poverty should be the aim until a vaccine is a 100% sure thing, well in my opinion anyway.
If you have had Covid you may have immunity although there is the potential that your body fought it off without producing an immune response, particulatly if you had very mild or no symptoms.
Some studies show when there are antibodies they tend to.decline quite quickly (as fast as 3 montgs)although the Icelandic study I linked to earlier showed antibodies hadn't declined 4 months after infection. And t-cell memory often remains long after antibodies are no longer detectable.
So unless you are immune compromised your chances of getting it again are very low I'd assume. The fact that very few reinfections have been identified strengthens this assumption.
Sadly to have better, long term data, we will need to wait.
Been on night shifts this weekend. Saturday we had 6 confirmed COVIDs get admitted, two went to ITU, one died.
Please don't let the fear-factor of it disappear guys. In my 5th year of working as a doctor, I've not seen anything else that deteriorates people so quickly as this.
The guidelines are muffled and some don't appear to make much sense, but follow them as much as you can. Winter is always a shitshow for the NHS, I genuinely can't even comprehend how horrendous it'll be this year.
Please don't let the fear-factor of it disappear guys. In my 5th year of working as a doctor, I've not seen anything else that deteriorates people so quickly as this.
The guidelines are muffled and some don't appear to make much sense, but follow them as much as you can. Winter is always a shitshow for the NHS, I genuinely can't even comprehend how horrendous it'll be this year.
Isn’t that balance the goal of every government on the planet? Fecking tricky to get it right though.
I couldn't see that behind the pay wall (odd - now I can) but found the source article. Very good news.
Is it really very difficult to get a test in the UK? I can get a test within 24 hours if I want to and have results the following day, no restrictions (in fact I've done so already).
I find it shocking if this is not possible in a developed country like the UK.
I find it shocking if this is not possible in a developed country like the UK.
Yeah but at the moment we are also trying to devise a strategy about how to get through now/this winter, for which short term information is actually quite useful even if it might not necessarily apply across to next year, or six months down the line...and it's the lack of any consistent information at all I find weird. Enough people have had it and enough people have had anti body tests that there should at least be patterns.
It’s certainly fallen apart in the last few weeks, when I had my test at the end of July they gave me a slot 45 mins later 5 miles away and I had the results the next day. Last week my girlfriends dad was sent nearly 100 miles away for one
No. It is perfectly normal that trials are paused for investigation if a participant is hospitalised. The first pause was for someone with pre-existing undiagnosed MS. The second for a neurological condition which occurs naturally. So unless they get more occurances of the same condition all is well so far. And it is far from the only vaccine in stage 3 trials.
Nothing is guaranteed but at the moment a vaccine is looking far more likely than not.
I do think a lot of people were just getting tests because they were available and they wanted reassurance to go about doing what they want, rather than due to symptoms, and I also think the problem has been grabbed by the media and turned into a much bigger monster. I can get a test same day through work if I want. They have spare capacity at our work as well for schools, care workers, etc. I think they are just reluctant to use up that spare capacity so some idiot can get a test before flying off to Croatia and infecting themselves.
This is a developed country but it's full of idiots. There was no toilet role in the supermarket again today, and a queue to the tills that was literally backing down four isles and then almost back out of the store. I mean, not only is this stupid in itself, but we've literally already had a lockdown and realised once that panic buying toilet role is a completely pointless thing to do. I don't understand how anyone is this dumb but apparently enough people are just in my area to form a line of idiots as far as the eye can see.
Increased demand, piss poor logistics, and a back up in labs. Certainly not a world class system that Boris said, but more a first class failure towards preparation.
Current volume of tests being turned around in 24hrs is 14%, down from 32% only a fortnight ago.
I realise the specific time isn't your point but I'd take 10 months with an annual booster. Get a decent takeup (unlike flu) and that would get us above the HIT most likely as long as the vaccine produces antibodies/T-cells in a high percentage of those who get it.
Just like how if I knock on to my mate's terrace house and chat to him on the pavement outside, we're immune, but if we get out of people's way and go into the back yard, it's becomes dangerously infectious.
I feel like what would make a difference is if pubs/bars/restaurants actually enforced 2m(or 1m+ or whatever the feck it is supposed to be) social distancing and were fined if they didn't. I don't think I've been in a single establishment where people were sitting any further away than about 50cm from each other and most seem to have taken social distancing to mean 'well if we're not touching then I guess it's fine'. Mostly I've seen people shoving themselves in six a table on to picnic benches which can't be much wider than 2m total.
But nah, I'm sure trimming two hours off of closing time will make pubs safe.
But nah, I'm sure trimming two hours off of closing time will make pubs safe.
It will reduce exposure time and thus the number of infection occurances. It also reduces risky behaviour that occurs more often later in the night no doubt. No panacea of course. Far from it.
In Australia you need to book to get in to a pub and register on entry and apply hand sanitiser. Some pubs also take your temperature before you are allowed in. Social distancing is enforced with tables closed/removed. You can only sit (no standing in groups), each pub must have a covid marshal to enforce the rules and regular inspections by the authorities are conducted. Non-complying venues are given huge fines and can be closed. Seems to be working well.
That's exactly what a couple of posters on here think it is. That 'living with it' can somehow mean everything can go back to normal and nobody dies any more because the virus presumably agrees to take it easy for a bit. A bit like how a small child thinks that covering their eyes makes them invisible.
It's a question that ends up getting a strange answer. We definitely saw less presentations of other medical problems. I recall seems much less heart attacks, strokes, surgical issues etc. We all found this quite bizarre because these medical/surgical emergencies are ticking time-bombs for everyone - they shouldn't have "paused" or had a low incidences of these. For that reason, the hospital didn't really have many non-COVID related issues. For example, my hospital would normally have 4 wards for General Surgical, Orthopaedic and Trauma and Gynaecological patients. During COVID, all patients managed to fit into 1 ward - which goes to show how little acute emergencies we saw in these specialities. Obviously, the lack of elective surgeries played a role, but the actual amount of surgical "emergencies' that presented via the Emergency Department definitely dropped.
Long winded answer to basically say - most of the hospital was COVID, COVID, COVID. My hospital didn't get particularly overwhelmed, because it practically turned into a COVID hospital without even meaning to. I can't say for sure what it was like in April because in all honesty, the last 7 months have genuinely blended into each other. Was it overwhelmed? Not in the sense as it was in Italy - but that was because we had the benefit of foresight and opened up more areas in the hospital that could become an intensive care area.
Another massive factoid in trying to avoid overwhelming the hospital was to change our threshold for admitting a patient into hospital. This felt incredibly uncomfortable at the start and we'd normally have to tell people who'd normally require further investigations or more intense treatment for non-COVID related issues to go home with advice on how to manage at home, (with a prescription of course). For example, we'd send people home with horrible cellulitis, that would typically need 48 hours or so of intravenous antibiotics, with oral antibiotics with advice to return if they basically develop sepsis. It was a dangerous time and ethically it felt very discomforting that people were not being treated properly - but at the end of the day, the hospital was a riskier place to be in than their home.
The days were 700+ would die daily - we're fortunate that those days haven't been seen for a while. But it's unfortunate in the sense that people have lost the fear-factor of it now.
There is so many selfish people in the world who now seem to think that we've got this all under control and that it isn't half as bad at what it's reported to be.
If people are more relaxed about it, more people will catch it - and when more people catch it, the difficult decisions on who deserves an ITU bed becomes an issue again.
I'll always remember a 50-odd year old gentleman who was probably one of the first few COVID patients that I had. He was able to tolerate just high-flow oxygen on the ward for a couple of days after coming in. But decisions had to be made early, no matter what state they were in, on what their ceiling of care would be. Do they go to ITU? If not, do we even try to resuscitate them if their heart stops? I had to write a "Do-not-resuscitate" form for this guy without even discussing it with him because we were told that we didn't have to have these discussions with patients at this stage of COVID if they were deemed not appropriate for ITU.
Slightly off tangent to what was asked, but these last months have been incredibly hard and I haven't really reflected on much of it until recently. I've had severe bouts of depression during the last few months and I've had to stomach it all up because I've felt as if i've had to. It's very easy to ignore how COVID indirectly affects people. As I said in my post from earlier, it's horrendous seeing how quickly people can deteriorate in front of your eyes - and sometimes, there is literally nothing that can be done apart from chuck the kitchen sink at them and hope that it works.
Let’s just eliminate all the heathens. I think Boris and his mates would get right behind that policy.
Downside is though, that the sales of WKD would plummet drastically.
Downside is though, that the sales of WKD would plummet drastically.
Some of that is happening, some of it isn't. I don't think I've ever seen a group of people sitting 2m from each other (which I'm sure is the rule unless they're in the same household or wearing facemasks/divided by plastic etc). There's no enforcement so pubs are incentivized (especially as they all knew this was coming) to pack as many people in as they can before that whilst making enough of a token effort to adhere to the rules so they don't get shamed in the national news.
Of course, the whole country measuring 2m in dick inches doesn't help. I just feel that rather than tokenistic gestures proper enforcement of the actual rules that already exist would solve the problem. Of course, there are probably more pubs who can't operate under those circumstances than can.
I think your reality is escaping many people as are the real effects on real people. I also worry that if you don't control the infection rate and then winter arrives (assuming it accelerates things) that you can overwhelm a health system quite quickly by not planning ahead. Hope you can manage your own mental health until this shit show is under control.
To me this makes sense. Like I’m seeing a lot of mocking of the government for reducing household meetings to six but still letting people go pub, gym, use transport etc.
Doesn’t this thing mainly spread in peoples homes? People tend to spend longer in homes, they are less hygienic in homes, they’re touching more things in homes and they don’t wear any protective equipment in homes.
In gyms it’s a constant cleaning process and your time is limited. On public transport you’re wearing a mask and again for a shorter period of time.
Its like the eat in to help out thing, the government was again mocked but again there was a method to it. Financially I’d imagine that had a considerable impact on bars, pubs and restaurants.
I'd just like to add that "getting it" can mean two different things; getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus) and getting COVID-19 (the disease). It may be that people can get reinfected with the virus and not develop the disease due to immunity. We don't know how frequently this happens for SARS-CoV-2 but it seems to be the norm for seasonal coronaviruses. We also don't know to what extent you are infectious upon reinfection, which is actually a very important question because it has huge implications for a protective rather than sterilising vaccine.
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pure poetryGood point. Or rather points.
Do you know what the features of/the difference between a non-sterilising and sterilising vaccine are? My limited reading seems to suggest that the strength of the immune response is important as is the mechanism (if that is the right term) that the vaccine uses to deal with the virus. Am I right in thinking that the end result is that a sterilising vaccine kills the virus before it enters our cells and a non-sterilising vaccine attacks the virus once we are infected (possibly again) even if in some cases that is quick and very effective?
Apologies for expecting you to have the answers.
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