Don’t know the answer to that but just wondering if you can take her out for fresh air somewhere away from other people?
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
We’d love to, I can’t as I am still ill and in my isolation period, but my wife has tested negative everyday and we live opposite a park so it would be easy to get her out while maintaining social distancing.
But we don’t want to do it if it is still dangerous to others or not allowed.
I would ignore the lateral flow test (well, strictly speaking, I wouldn’t have done it). You can shed viral debris (dead viruses and bits of viruses) for a while after being infected. Which will give a false positive result. Just follow whatever local guidance you have re duration of self isolation/symptoms etc and pretend the test never happened.
Thank you, I’m surprised more people are not caught out with this, testing to see if she was negative seemed the most obvious thing to do!
No point in testing again. The PCR test only detects Viral RNA and the antigen test detects viral protein both of which can persist for weeks. Doesn't mean that viral RNA is viable or infectious. I've had patients test positive 7 weeks later.
That is why quarantine is recommended based off days since first symptoms and not testing negative.
So once the recommended quarantine period is over, I wouldn't worry.
In Sweden, you’re considered non-contagious if 7 days has passed from onset of symptoms and you’ve been free from fever for two days and are “generally improved” as far as other symptoms go. A positive test doesn’t say anything about the risk of transmitting disease to others. The positive test is from the infection and genomic mass can be present for a while afterwards.
The transmission of disease is based not only on presence of virus but on the viability of the virus itself. Like I read elsewhere, if you perform a PCR test on a steak you’ll find DNA but that doesn’t mean that the cow’s alive
I agree with Pogue, I would’ve gone with local guidelines and not taken the test at all, and pretend it didn’t happen.
If masks/tests are available and if the healthcare system is capable to absorb an increase of patients, then I am just against any form of lockdown
It is not appropriate to punish 5 million people because some individuals happened to have caught a contagious disease, misplaced political hysteria.
Now, if you are saying that everyone in NZ is happy and supportive of the political measures, then I would be just happy to hear that.
Of course not everyone in NZ is happy. There will always be a small proportion of feckwits who value their free dumb over public health measures that keep everyone,, even the idiots, safe.
That’s a weird conception of punishment. What New Zealand have experienced in the last year is much less punishment than France has experienced, precisely because they were able to prevent community transmission through quarantine procedures.
If they had chosen not to impose those procedures on the population, community transmission would have happened, and all of the necessary mitigation procedures would have burdened many more people for a much longer period than what they’re going through now. It’s not about protecting one group’s health by sacrificing the population. Those procedures have obviously protected the entire population from social, economic and medical harm. It’s not even questionable if you assess the evidence.
It’s not about some arbitrary objective of zero covid or some desire for government control. The proof is in the pudding. Their approach produced the best all-round benefits for the largest group of people, and it satisfied the majority of the population.
Of course the system can't.
I'd love to see the healthcare system (and even more so, work in one) that can absorb an influx of patients without affecting elective surgery queues or anything else.
Thanks for your message and happy to read this.
What is happening in France is absolutely disguting with the foundations of a modern dictatorship.
On the other hand, I really like the current approach taken by the UK these days. Very enjoyable and sensible approach that makes sense to me. Think about the TfL: there is a strong guideline "Wear a face covering on public transport" followed by most of the population but it is technically possible not to wear a mask without being assaulted by a policeman or member of staff. There is a real return to a form of normality. Very enjoyable, really.
The same. I also would love to see the heathcare system properly funded, organised and respected.
The elephant in the room is that almost nothing has been done to prevent different healthcare systems from being understaffed, underfunded and mistreated. Burn-out observed among underpaid support staff.
For example, if the UK really wants to "Save the NHS", the only way is to increase wages, hire and support low-paid staff.
https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/nhs-burnout/112353/
Last edited:
Wete seeing another spike in the UK now
Are we?
A very blunt one that looks like a flatline
You said the exact same thing last week. Almost like you’re seeing what you want to see.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Would be so disappointing ffs. A bit simplistic, whats the point in getting people vaccinated, asking them to getting tested regularly with no symptoms and then shitting the bed when numbers go up.
He obviously can’t rule out any restrictions ever again. What happens if a new variant takes off that the vaccines are even less effective against than they are against Delta? And even if Delta is as bad as it gets, what do you do if you get a really massive wave kicking off when schools/colleges reopen and bad weather drives everyone indoors?
Obviously we’re all desperate for this to be over and get back to ‘normal’ life but wanting something to happen isn’t always enough.
My personal opinion is that there’s at least one more big surge on the way and it will be touch and go as to whether the UK can get through it without reversing at least some of the freedoms that came with “Freedom Day”
R now above 1 in NL, going backwards
We will go back to masks soon, and at least 1m social distancing have got to come back into play over the next 2 months, imo
I don't really see the point in not wearing masks now with the minimal hassle it causes and we have just kept wearing them when going somewhere. I think a decent rule would be if you're travelling somewhere wear a mask, when you get there and are in your group take it off.
Obviously, keep it on in supermarkets, shops and places like that.
I'm seeing a definite rise in cases just like last week. I can't see it bei g mentioned that's why I've said it twice. (Going by the worldometer site for the uk)??
Thread appreciateive of how NZ has taken care of their latest outbreak.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
The UK is definitely experiencing a spike in deaths at the moment. Cases seem relatively steady at around the 30k mark daily.
Anyone following Israel recently? Lots of new cases, what's the situation like, aren't they all pretty much vaccinated with two doses so far?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/
Decent article about what’s going on on Israel here.
Every rise in cases doesn’t represent a spike. Certainly not one worth mentioning.
If this chap is right, then they have a significant number of unvaxxed over 70s (the group most likely to be hospitalised) and despite their quick start they've not really hit the overall take-up rates we've seen in the UK.
Basically what that means is that they've not reduced their hospitalisation rates as much as they'd hoped, so once case rates rose, hospitalisations rose dramatically. They're trying to fix it by boosting the immunity of the already vaxxed, because there's not much they can do for the unvaxxed except advise them to get the vax or stay at home.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
What that basically means is that the UK is "only" experiencing a tenth of the hospitalisations it would have seen pre-vaccine. For Israel is a fifth (so twice as many proportionately as the UK). For the US it's a quarter of the pre-vaccine situation, which is high enough to push their hospitalisations back to pandemic peak levels in some states.
The UK has bad case rate numbers (and isn't vaxxing under 16s) so they don't really expect them to fall. They can live with that as long as the hospitals don't fill up. Which is a "balanced on a knife edge" sort of calculation. If vaccination levels and/or prior infection levels weren't so high in the UK - no way we can cope.
As it is, this is a picture of vaccines working really hard and doing a really good job in the UK:
No one knows for sure what that will look like in the autumn/winter though.Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
It's not a spike, it's a rise in cases running at about 10% per week, as people start doing more normal mixing etc. There have been spikes in some areas (most dramatic an extra 5k cases from the Boardmasters festival in Cornwall) and Scotland has seen a distinct jump as kids go back to school (and start doing LFTs again).
Basically, across the UK as a whole we're seeing an R rate of about 1.1, but with local spikes visible against a high background rate. The only reason it's currently being ignored in the UK (apart from people being bored) is that the vaccine has stopped hospitals collapsing under the weight of admissions. That can change, hospitalisations are rising - but so is immunity due to vaccination and immunity due to infection. It's a race.
OK maybe not a spike but cases are definitely on the up. Schools open in a week or so and winters around the corner. Can't but help be concerned with it.
Thanks, that's a good explanation there. We are fecked with Covid for good, aren't we?
Hopefully there will be more effective vaccines available soon enough, immunity of just 5-6 after two shots of best available vaccine doesn't give lot confidence, especially with so many anti vaxxers around, it seems like we aren't yet anywhere near close to long term solution.
In my town people just went full free for all mode, ignoring signs on doors of objects, wear masks, dont wear its same shit, nobody says a word to them. Worst part is, went to pharmacy and even mask is required to enter, 2 behind gave me the look like i am the idiot one for having one on.
I read posts like this and fear you’re right. It feels like every bit of good news is suddenly hit with two lots of bad. I try not to spiral into depression with just how bleak the future is.
Start coughing everywhere you’ll soon see panic
I am personally very optimistic about the future due to the vaccines. The anti-vaxxers are a problem, particularly here in USA but otherwise the vaccines have been amazing. They are the long-term solution. If everyone was vaccinated COVID would really be like flu.
I don't think we'll get rid of it. It looks like we'll be able to turn it into something manageable like flu. In time, as our immunity builds, there's a fair chance we'll be thinking of it as another entry in that list of viruses that are dangerous to some people (like flu or RSV) but which the rest of us can cope with.
We'll see better vaccines, maybe some that can help build sterilising immunity (so the vaxxed can't infect other people) - but we could be waiting years for those. Better to assume that we'll find a way to live with it, rather than viewing it we're fecked for the indefinite future.
I'd love to think "live with it" will mean better mitigations - better tests, better sick pay if infected, better ventilation indoors, better treatments if infected etc - but that may just be wishful thinking, as it requires political action.
That shit crossed my mind, not gonna lie, to go all out and just fake the shit out of it.
Interesting that Victorian students just topped the NAPLAN (literacy and numeracy standardised tests) despite that being the state most impacted by lockdown and remote teaching. Of course the main point of school isn't really education (as you learn so slowly you can catch up a suboptimal few months/year relatively easily if your school is decent) but social which has been lost. https://www.theage.com.au/national/...onths-of-remote-learning-20210824-p58lcs.html
Last edited:
@Solius did you get your results back? I'm not sure if I just missed your post