Interested in your take- what is young(ish) age range?
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Depends on how healthy you are. An obese, sedentary 40 year old would have more to worry about than a very fit and active 50 year old.
If you’re vaccinated, boosted and under 50 I would say omicron poses very little threat. Push that out to 60 for the very fit and healthy.
Not a great bunch of lads after all.
Fathers got a very high fever - 102f, cough and tiredness. Booked a test for tomorrow. He’s 70 years old. Oxygen levels normal. I should just wait right?
he’s had two doses of Az, second dose 9 months ago.
he’s had two doses of Az, second dose 9 months ago.
Keep monitoring the Oxy Sat level and keep some hospital options in mind.
#Oleout ?This thread hasn't changed in about 2 years has it, despite all the lessons learned
Omicron does have some individual brilliance as a mutation tbf.
Some NYC students protested their city's dysfunctional response which is encouraging case spread. They are now in detention, in a closed space with other students.
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This is interesting and goes against the slightly hysterical obsession about ventilation and HEPA filters that groups like Sage have moved on to now they’re finally admitting defeat over zero covid.
Omicron is very infectious but apparently loses 90% of its ability to infect within 5 mins in the air. So distancing and masks are even more important than ever.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ty-to-infect-within-five-minutes-in-air-study Edit: just noticed that Pogue on line linked to this article in the post above.
I've also switched from cloth/surgical masks to P2 ones as it looks like they give far better protection in both directions.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ian-guide-to-face-masks-in-the-age-of-omicron
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ty-to-infect-within-five-minutes-in-air-study Edit: just noticed that Pogue on line linked to this article in the post above.
I've also switched from cloth/surgical masks to P2 ones as it looks like they give far better protection in both directions.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ian-guide-to-face-masks-in-the-age-of-omicron
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The beginning of the end of omicron? It has to be said, apart from the delayed initial lockdown history will show that the UK got most of the big calls about restrictions more or less spot on. Not to say that what worked for them would have worked everywhere else but they certainly got more criticism (including from me!) than they deserved, after navigating recent waves pretty well.
Yeah I think its hard to look past the delta wave legacy which was devastating. And the tiered system too. Plus wider questions around government behavious in that time, strain on health services in a non-covid context too etc. But that's more public perception and I think its hard to quantify the exact barometers of doing "well" during this pandemic.
But mostly focus on vaccine drives - both procurement and delivery - I think with a bit of luck surrounding omicron, population immunity, possibly extended intervals between the mRNAs in terms of immunity wanes helped massively.
We're not ones for the precautionary principle thats for sure. I think in the aftermath though we'll probably judge countries on balances of mortality, morbidity vs economic damage sustained and there's this axiomatic belief surrounding the countries being on the zero-covid end of spectrum/philosophy sustaining more economic damage, which I think is true for some but not all maybe. And also economic damage suffered by ourself and the States for example despite being a bit more lax than say Australia, New Zealand in addition to the deaths maybe muddies the waters legacy-wise
Yeah, it’s going to be extremely complicated unpicking all the details about who did “best”. Especially with each country being unique in lots of important and relevant ways. My main point is that the UK seems to have done better than most at maintaining relative normality for the (wo)man on the street while also avoiding the health service getting overwhelmed. And as someone who incorrectly predicted that this wasn’t possible (with delta, anyway) I have to hold my hand up.
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I know Tories are beating boys and so they should be, the cnuts, but is it fair to say they have sort of followed medical advice nearly all the way through? Obviously with their economical impact hat on?
They went for forced herd immunity during alpha stage and got it horribly wrong, but tried to keep the medical experts on side and this thing was new for everybody. It didn't work so they held the experts even closer, going greedily full in for a variety of vaccines. They learned some lessons and tried to get on top of delta. Finally, they continued listening-ish to the experts and chanced their hand that Omicron was perfect for herd immunity - their holy grail.
I just don't see how that can be said.
- Most cases in Europe - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
- Most deaths in Europe - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Yet:
- One of the youngest populations in Europe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age
- One of the lowest percentages of OAPs in Europe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_age_structure
And:
- Slowest recovery from Covid in the G7 - https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/11/business/uk-gdp-growth-g7/index.html
They did keep restrictions light touch, despite a lot of flip flopping, but compared to the other major nations there were more cases, more deaths, and at the end it hasn't paid off with a lighter economic impact. I don't see how that can be considered successful.
Welcome to the dark side
I have a lot of complaints about the 2020 approach and complained a lot - mostly about things I still moan about, from taking action too late, to pointless travel restrictions, to poor sick pay etc. The tiers were ill conceived and more or less irrelevant - as demonstrated when London was reopened just as Alpha was kicking off and cases were rising.
On the broad approach in 2021, I didn't see much wrong with it. Life does have to go on, even for school kids and young adults. It's an ugly truth but once we put all the eggs in the (extremely effective) vaccine basket, we basically define a level of deaths and hospitalisations that was deemed acceptable to society, despite being agony for the people involved.
We could have waited for better antivirals - now expected mid 2022 in useful quantity, but still anyone's guess when Delta hit. We could wait for a variant specific vaccine - maybe Q3 2022, but of what variant?
Reopening is a tough game. Harder for some countries than others. Miserable for those who remain clinically vulnerable, who see the world moving on without them. But yeah, if the UK gets away with it, without crashing the NHS for months - I reckon we'll have done ok - even if it cheers up our neighbours (including those with similar death rates and hospitalisations) to think we're plague Island.
Thanks for the apology.
(I jest, it probably would've been a shitshow with the HSE)
We can basically ignore economic comparisons because of the spectacular act of self-harm that was Brexit, mid-pandemic.
They have fewer deaths/cases per million than Italy, who you seem to think handled the pandemic pretty well.
Highest cases per capita in the world. And that’s with relatively strict restrictions (although not as strict as a number of other EU countries) Don’t think the HSE would bear sole responsibility if we’d had a shitshow. Plus they deserve at least some credit for our vaccine/booster rollout going much better than most other countries.
I know, I know, but a lot of that should be (and has been) offset by close to the highest vaccination rate in the world! I'd hazard a guess that despite that case count we are nowhere near the highest in hospital/ICU per capita? We also have a relatively young population by western standards.
Not quite. Cases per capita are far above and the way it's going they're a few days away from overtaking on the deaths front too. All whilst having a far more favourable population demographic.
Anyway, when you have to compare yourself to the most disorganised country in Europe to try and look good, you know things are not going well.
Yeah, we’ve got through this current wave incredibly lightly, all things considered. While the UK’s decision to crack on basically as normal has been vindicated, our 8pm closing will probably look overly cautious with hindsight. Even though it didn’t seem particularly crazy at the time (due to uncertainties about how nasty omicron would turn out)
A closing hour for pubs and restaurants is not an effective or proportional measure imo. It's 11pm here in Belgium but I barely see anyone actually going home when the pubs close. People just go to someone's home where there is less control on their behaviour as well (I'm guilty of that myself as well so definitely not judging). I get the line of thinking that boundaries disappear and behaviour changes when you're drunk but in the grand scheme of things it's just one of those measures that doesn't make a difference (or not enough of a difference to be reasonably upheld for a long period of time).
It wasn't cautious, it was stupid (imo). I doubt it had any real effect. Seriously, people just went to house parties instead, or went to the pub earlier. My local is absolutely rammed all day at the weekends and then people cram out of it at 8pm and straight into the off license beside it. Was there even any tangible science behind the move? Hopefully they remove the rule soon because it's pointless keeping it now.
It is not a particularly surprising result given that tiny (water) droplets evaporate quickly in air. Indeed, for this reason, you may add glycerol to increase their lifetime.
Also, ventilation will give two affects: Dispersion of particulates and influencing in some way the evaporation rate of liquid content in the droplets [ref, quote below]. It is likely to be a complex interplay of different physics so saying one or the other is significantly more or less important is probably not a good approach for any group to take.
A better approach is to carry out a risk assessment for each room of a given building and determine solutions appropriate for the room. For example, if there is a meeting room where the meetings are held for sustained periods of time (> 1hr), masks become less effective [ref] and ventilation or air conditioning with appropriate filtration is appropriate. For this reason I did not understand the hysteria from a recent BBC article where children were cold in school with the windows left open. It is an unenviable task to have to make decisions like this.
Not demonstrated just yet. From the article:
In fairness, case numbers has very little meaning. And as for deaths, you can't go off those nonsense "official" figures on worldometres, you must go from the current "gold standard" which is excess mortality..... https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
The UK are way behind Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania, Poland, Latvia, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech.
And they are also behind Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia.
This daft feck was back in the limelight today, managing to contradict himself at several points.
Has no response to the notion he is putting those he is supposed to be protecting at risk through his actions, and seems to believe having 90% of people disagreeing with you doesn't put you in the minority
His argument is all over the place. Seems like a weirdo tbh. Pity he’s getting so much air time. Fair play to Dr Hilary for going in hard on his responsibility to his patients.
This daft feck was back in the limelight today, managing to contradict himself at several points.
Has no response to the notion he is putting those he is supposed to be protecting at risk through his actions, and seems to believe having 90% of people disagreeing with you doesn't put you in the minority
What a plonker. What about the voices of those elderly people that risked death because of his idiotic voice and those of the 1 out of 10 other plonkers? Surely the government needs to reach out to commonwealth countries to start replacing these twats ASAP.
I don't see the point in having any restrictions anymore. Cases are exploding despite lockdown, let nature take its course.
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Can confirm i haven't caught it yet thats enough proof for me!
I can't find anything saying Snoop Dogg has ever tested positive so this must true.
Can I book a fast PCR or antigen test at Manchester airport when I visit Manchester in february? Can't seem to find anything for foreigners. Only people leaving the UK. It's called a Day 2 test but as i read it, you don't have to take it on day 2 and it can even be a self test now? How do they check the results or am i misreading?
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Worth mentioning that aerosols can travel a fair distance in 5 minutes, and lots of stuffy rooms can have relatively high humidity allowing for greater survival. It is encouraging though, and probably helps explain why it doesn't seem to regularly spread room-to-room.
https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/coronavirus/arrivals-testing/
It'll give you two providers to book with (Collinson or Randox) and how to do that.
Cheers!
Father is positive but after 24 hours his symptoms have subsided. Now my mother has symptoms for half a day and seems fine. What is the appropriate time to isolate for us after this please? I’ve been exposed to both of them but no symptoms yet. Google throws up mixed results.. assuming the caf would have the best known answer..
Poland have done quite amazing on COVID front in that we've managed to keep death toll at 400 per day for the last 6 weeks with hospitals completely overwhelmed with nobody really giving a feck. Our politicians have done great job at shifting the blame to medical personnel who are possibly the most hated group in Poland now (my uncle works in a COVID hospital and he's basically getting death threats every week now for being part of conspiracy).