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Not someone I often nod along with, but he makes a good point:
https://twitter.com/montie/status/1263931762285203457?s=21
The the attacks on kussenberg ive not agreed with
But that Montgomery quote it's is bang on & I think Monty is an absolute dick
A touch of humour to lighten the mood? The superb Dillie Keane is 68 today and has released a new song, a very apt one. (Warning at 68 Ms Keane DGAF and the language can be a bit strong).
Tin Foil on head/
I’m not entirely convinced Short Cummings getting caught out was an accident.
/Tin foil off head
The obvious failure to lead by example might not sound important but it kind of is in the end.
If we remove the panto villain from the story for a moment, now replace with NHS staff. Is it still an obvious failure to lead by example?
A couple working on the frontline in the middle of a global pandemic potentially caught the virus and decided to take their 4 year old to their parents just in case the worst happened.
Yeah, let's burn them we don't want that sort in politics.
I’d have thought taking your child to your parents whilst you have symptoms was pretty much the worst thing you could do. Puts your parents in danger. You’re shedding virus round the country.
Maybe he thinks that’s fine or that we should all be ‘accidentally on purpose’ spreading the virus to the older generation? DIY herd immunity, y’know.
There's a small problem of precedent with Neil Ferguson and the Scottish Health Minister though.
But this will just be swept under the carpet. The metropolitan elites are truly in charge now.
Will be interesting to see what they sneak out under cover of this, or what they are going to focus the outrage machine on to distract.
Will be interesting to see what they sneak out under cover of this, or what they are going to focus the outrage machine on to distract.
#savebrexit
No-deal Brexit 'would overwhelm local emergency teams’
Probably another Tory factions attempt to oust Dom and Jon.
I’m in two minds about Dom he may not actually be the villain in the Covid Crisis.
It's up to the public - us - as much as the journalists to make sure it doesn't get swept under the carpet.
How the hell could that trip not be a multiple breach of guidelines?
Ah but the guidelines change to fit the narrative 🙂
Or the tweet,it’s all about the tweet.
I’m not entirely convinced Short Cummings getting caught out was an accident.
Did cross my mind that it is the ultimate behavioural nudge on a BH weekend.
'If he can do what the **** he likes, I'm off to the beach!'
I’m just glad that most of the population of these islands have been doing what was required to stop us having half a millions deaths, rather than acting like the team of supers spreaders that make up the core of our government. Led by donkeys.
We are 99.9999% certain we have both had the virus.
9 weeks on and my girlfriend still has no sense of smell and taste, mine stopped to but returned after about 5 days.
My girlfriend has been referred to the ENT as she spoke to the GP and he said it should have returned after around 2 weeks, but this was based on NOT having the corona virus.
Anyone else had the loss of taste and smell for a long period of time?
My friend's daughter has been teaching key workers children. She caught C19 in early March and her sense of taste and smell has not returned. Her husband gave her a spoonful of mustard (which she hates) and she couldn't taste it.
Anyone else had the loss of taste and smell for a long period of time?
Probably best asked on the other thread:
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/have-any-of-us-actually-caught-the-coronavirus-yet-then/page/13/
You can now obtain PHE approved anti-body tests from various sources including Superdry online doctor if you want to know for sure btw.
You can now obtain PHE approved anti-body tests from various sources including Superdry online doctor if you want to know for sure btw.
Sorry, Superdrug. I don't know if that was auto-correct gone mad or mental cloudiness 🙁
The link first and foremost cautions against public use because the gloves are a scare resource which should be reserved for the health services. In passing it is noted that glove use by the public may increase the risk of transmission based on an assumption about missed opportunities for hygiene. That latter hypothesis is total speculation and pulled out of nowhere apparently. In academia, the use of ‘may’ indicates the least secure kind of knowledge.
But is that more likely to lead to transmission than if he didn’t wear the gloves.
There is no question that certain practices optimise the benefits of gloves but are gloves by default riskier?
I understand what you are asking but IMHO it's not the correct Q.
I don't think it's possible to separate wearing gloves and practices and separating out cause and effect is complex.
That is if you ask or insist people to wear gloves they will behave differently.
To take the example ... had the shopper been asked to wear gloves and monitored they would be more likely to have removed the gloves before touching the steering wheel and more likely to use hand sanitiser before touching the car and after.
Also as every lab knows what people think they are doing with gloves and masks is often not what they are actually doing, despite the "people" in this case being science graduates. I was one of them as every new hire got a Friday afternoon off in theory..in reality we had UV dust put on gloves and when lunchtime came and we were looking forwards to 1/2d off the HSSE lady walked in with a UV light... we were then told we could go home after we decontaminated the lab and ourselves. I didn't despite handling lots of nasty stuff at grad and postgrad... the main difference being when you do something all day often vs occasionally and having a fume cupboard is a good reminder.
To my knowledge noone ever went home early.
The crux is probably that it's easier to touch something then use sanitiser than remove the outer glove and replace or as is more likely think you'll remember not to touch your face or clothes before you get back to the car/home
For those that want to see what is happening at a local level with new confirmed cases, I have produced this PDF which is from the https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ website.
This analysis is the rate of new confirmed cases per 100,000 on a moving 7 day average.
https://www.scribd.com/document/462698530/Rates-by-Lower-Tier-V1
It is colour coded if you download it 🙂
My sainsbury's has been pushing using the smart shop app - I succumbed a few weeks ago and its actually brilliant. Faster for the individual and as the 1 in 1 out policy is limited by the speed of the checkouts, good for the herd too.
Can you operate a smartphone with latex gloves? including the iphone home button?
My winter biking technique is to use my nose. I feel this is counterproductive in terms of viral transission.
NeilO - very nice! Even better, I'm right at the bottom. Its interesting to see we already have some mini second waves.
exsee
MemberIf we remove the panto villain from the story for a moment, now replace with NHS staff. Is it still an obvious failure to lead by example?
Yes, because NHS staff aren't "leaders" and so are under no expectation of leading by example. Whereas Cummings is one of the people who wrote the rules.
shamelessly stolen off twitter
'All orders were now issued through Squealer or one of the other pigs. Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as once in a fortnight.'
George Orwell, Animal Farm
#wheresBoris
All joking apart he really ought to be doing waaay more of the daily briefings.
There’s not much leadership on display on a time it’s needed.
The Cummings far e is detracting from another excellent analysis of the government's initial.'dither & delau'
https://twitter.com/samjoiner/status/1264458206207713281?s=19
The times article is really worth reading
It lays out how badly Johnson's dithering got things wrong
If u sign up u get free articles
no other large European country allowed infections to sky-rocket to such a high level before finally deciding to go into lockdown. Those 20 days of government delay are the single most important reason why the UK has the second highest number of deaths from the coronavirus in the world.
Looks like CQC has been handed the sticky end of the stick over care homes deaths.
I’m not sure the Times article really helps much at this stage.
First, you have to ask whether an earlier lockdown would have been as effective. Plenty of people now are calling for an end to lockdown even though daily deaths are still higher than they would have been at the point that some people now claim we should have started. Hindsight is always good and although plenty of people were calling for a lockdown earlier, plenty weren’t.
Second, it assumes that the game is over and we can see who did best. Maybe there won’t be further waves and those countries that locked down earlier will have lower overall deaths. But maybe there will be and maybe those countries that did best first time round will do worst next time. Who knows? Personally I’m not sure we’ll get a vaccine any time soon, but we may get better at treating the symptoms, so those countries that suppressed the first wave most effectively will still do better overall, but that’s just a guess at this stage.
I’m not sure the Times article really helps much at this stage.
First, you have to ask whether an earlier lockdown would have been as effective. Plenty of people now are calling for an end to lockdown even though daily deaths are still higher than they would have been at the point that some people now claim we should have started. Hindsight is always good and although plenty of people were calling for a lockdown earlier, plenty weren’t.
Second, it assumes that the game is over and we can see who did best. Maybe there won’t be further waves and those countries that locked down earlier will have lower overall deaths. But maybe there will be and maybe those countries that did best first time round will do worst next time. Who knows?
You can always unlock/relock in a 2nd wave etc. but what you can never do is roll back and bring back the dead.
The problem is our government has at every point possible taken a decision that precludes options.
Personally I’m not sure we’ll get a vaccine any time soon, but we may get better at treating the symptoms, so those countries that suppressed the first wave most effectively will still do better overall, but that’s just a guess at this stage.
I agree...and we also understand more, who is vulnerable and not and how different people may require different treatments. We don't know HOW MUCH more or how useful knowing more is but it would be nice to have options like NZ.
The CEO of AZ on the Marr show was very confident that:
1. The vaccine works. It certainly stops people getting Pneumonia, even if they catch a small dose.
2. It will be ready for mass vacc in uk from Sept.
The Oxford teams worry was about lAck of cases to test efficacy. He said they are also testing it in Brazil & Russia where the case levels are higher.
The reason we aren’t unlocking now is because we failed to act earlier. Too bad. Once cases are down to, say, 100’s/day, we can have some. Unlocking and a slow burn with R close to 1. That’s what Sweden have achieved. The choices taken by other countries have put them in a better position. That’s what decisive action looks like. Fast up, slow down. Earlier action means you don’t go up so high. I’m surprised that this is not obvious.
I have very little confidence in an efficacious vaccine. I’d love one to be found, but there are issues with protection vs worsening the infection. The preclinical monkey study did not protect against SARS-COV2 infection, but did reduce morbidity.
In the meantime, I’ve done my bit for therapeutic agents this morning for the NHS convalescing plasma trial. One day antibodies will come from inanimate bioreactors instead.
Thanks for the donation TiRed!
I wonder if it would be feasible a bit further down the line to use convalescent plasma to protect a decent proportion of the most vulnerable demographics? Would take a lot of donors, but with enough testing out in the wild, it might be feasible, right?
Thanks Tired.
Fast up, slow down. Earlier action means you don’t go up so high. I’m surprised that this is not obvious.
It is obvious. And it was obvious months ago, when government inaction was decried by many, but defended by the very people now complaining loudest that we are going to have to be slower out of “lock down” than other countries because of that inaction early on.
TiRed, looking at that sample you definitely need to drink more water!
In all seriousness, thanks for taking the time to post on here. More appreciated than a lot of us anxious numpties can express in words.
It is obvious. And it was obvious months ago, when government inaction was decried by many, but defended by the very people now complaining loudest that we are going to have to be slower out of “lock down” than other countries because of that inaction early on.
Precisely. It's not a matter of whether it is obvious now, it's whether it was obvious enough then for enough people to have gone along with a lockdown As you've just pointed out, there were plenty of people then who were arguing against it. It's all academic now though.
It's interesting that Sweden are being held up as a country that has achieved the slow burn as I've heard the experts there claim that their strategy is basically what the UK was trying before it was spooked by the UCL study into a full lockdown. Not sure that's really true though and not convinced that their strategy will look all that good when this is finally over, but time will tell.
Changing the subject a bit, have those that are following the data from other countries detected any evidence for a second wave yet?
Seemed fairly clear to me that the country was well ahead of the govt. Football and rugby were already off on the 13th, care homes locked down. I had a race cancelled on the 11th and events were being cancelled all over the place. It was the govt that had to be persuaded, not the people.
Fair point @thecaptain and my memory of events is far from perfect. It did seem to me that events moved quite quickly and the government were only a few days behind the majority. Of course a few days would have helped at that point (exponential growth and all that), but I'm not sure that we could have gone as early as some folk now claim that we should have. It's a largely pointless argument though, so I'll shut up about it.
I guess we will never know if it would have worked, but we can be certain that they should have tried.
"Dither and delay" rings a bell - wasn't that the Tories' slogan at the time?
If we'd gone into 'lockdown' three or four days earlier surely that could have stopped infections doubling at that point - on 16th March we were advised to avoid non-essential travel and not to go to pubs, gyms etc. but that meant those businesses were still open (albeit losing money). It took til 20th March before those businesses were ordered to close and the public instructed to stay at home.
That was a pivotal week and the half-hearted message on the 16th was the worst of both worlds in some respects.
Changing the subject a bit, have those that are following the data from other countries detected any evidence for a second wave yet?
Localised flare ups in most countries (Germany & France spring to mind first), followed by localised action (closing schools in areas with new cases etc).
That’s what we need to be ready for before ‘opening up’ more.
That was a pivotal week and the half-hearted message on the 16th was the worst of both worlds in some respects.
It was one pivotal week, FFS NZ was isolating riders at Crankworx on the 1st March.
TiRed, looking at that sample you definitely need to drink more water!
I was thinking it looks like he has gravy in his veins. Perhaps you don't plasma the way I thought.
I think there is room for debate over how quite soon we could have clamped down, and what the endgame would be (and will be). I don't think there is any room to disagree that the govt could have at least tried to provide some leadership and that if it had managed to suppress the epidemic a mere week sooner than it did (by which time many major organisations had already acted), that would have prevented a large majority of the deaths to date. Somewhere between 70-90% in fact, meaning that instead of being the embarrassing sick man of Europe, we'd have been up there with Germany as one of the best.
But if people vote for a work-shy fraud who lies as easily as most people breathe, together with a government full of half-witted jingoistic zealots whose only visible talent is waving a flag while chanting three word slogans, I'm afraid competent leadership isn't really on the cards.
I'm sure everyone can find someone else to blame, so that's alright then.
Would take a lot of donors, but with enough testing out in the wild, it might be feasible, right?
Not as silly as you might think. What biotechnology is doing, is finding good antibodies from humans, cloning the DNA from the cells that made it, then putting that DNA into other mammalian cells to be grown in bioreactors. The only difference being my antibodies are not all the same (polyclonal). In biotechnology, we pick the best one or two (Monoclonal) and just make lots of those. And when we find the right one, we’ll be using BIG (20000L+) reactors and making kilos of antibody at a time. My day job is designing some of these trials.
That’s what I mean by “passive” vaccination. It works for Anthrax, Ebola and maybe COVID19.
As for drinking - I had a pint of jasmine tea before bed, a pint of water and tea in the morning and 500ml of isotonic drink before donation. Two trips to the loo before and another after. That’s what my plasma looks like! And it’s fat free as I declined a fatty dinner and fasted this morning. If I’m positive, I’ll donate again.
I think there is room for debate over how quite soon we could have clamped down, and what the endgame would be (and will be).
We definitely had a whole week. That was two doubling times. We could have been Germany. They were not testing either at the time we could have closed shop. Even the Friday would have helped (one doubling time).
The (admittedly very limited) additional restrictions advised by ScotGov in advance of Westminster don't appear to have had any significant effect on infection rates north of the border, but then Jason Leitch was also parroting the Herd Immunity line for a while too.
Some good news on Vaccines from an American Lab:
Loving this guy's vids on CV, explaining the detail in layman's terms, quotes all his sources.
Obvs I'm interested if people want to provide better sources for that kind of thing.
I used to work with the Chief Medical Officer of Moderna (Tal Zaks). There about 70 vaccine candidates in the running. The question is really whether Coronaviruses are vaccinable at all. Maybe, but maybe not. Also it is possible that efficacy studies may not be possible if the epidemic has really closed down. That will be interesting from a drug and vaccine development perspective, because we will definitely have to develop something this time. Previous SARS died away along with the development of vaccines.
We won’t need a vaccine at this rate!
There about 70 vaccine candidates in the running.
90 according to the ITV Corona Virus podcast.
The question is really whether Coronaviruses are vaccinable at all. Maybe, but maybe not.
According to the vid above two studies from Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical indicate pretty strongly it is in primates:
https://www.bidmc.org/about-bidmc/news/2020/05/covid-19-vaccine
(The 'oxford' vaccine didn't work so well, but still reduced the symptoms which might be enough.)
90
Yes. I thought 90 but couldn’t be bothered to check on my phone. Apologies. I think there about as many antibodies too.
As for “lasting”, one cyno study of acute challenge does now make a summer. We will see, but the coronavirus track record is particularly poor. And that’s not including issues such as making people worse (see RSV vaccine trials).
Everyone will be chasing COVID19 patients. One idea is “platform trials” where multiple new treatments are tested against a single placebo (or standard of case). Those are ongoing now.
Is anyone looking at longer term issues arising from Covid? The number of people who seem to take months to get better or have potential long term lung damage, ME type disorders or damage from blood clots?
Whilst the death rates among the younger / healthier cohort imply we should (try) not to worry too much, I can’t find the rates for longer term impacts. Is this going to be like polio or TB for our generation?
May I ask a question of the maths fans in here ? (you may feel it's related to another thread but I suspect the better answer may lie here - I think I "know" but I only really do sums, not maffs)
I realise there'll be some confidence intervally stuff but:
What are the chances of BOTH partners in a marriage becoming incapacitated (let's call that ill to the point of requiring hospitalisation) by COVID-19?
Let's assume that they both have it and they're simultaneously infected
They can be, ooooh, white and in their 40s and for simplicity let's say they have no relevant comorbidities
Speaking as a mathematician, I’d say it’s ... oooh, about the square root of **** all.
Women tend to get it much less seriously than men.
Isn't that the point of the Spectator article that's now been withdrawn. From that, it sounds like Dom's wife was fine.
The lack of cases to prove a vaccine works is an interesting one and I read articles about challenge studies, of directly infecting patients to see if it works.
If the whole point of signing up to a vaccine trial is to see that you don't get infected (as well as seeing if the vaccine doesn't kill you), surely the challenge trial is the best way now and as those as individuals who signed up to the trials in the first place, it had to have already been accepted that they're willing to try and get Covid19.
So what's the problem, why aren't we doing that. You know like on Contagion where the scientist was a hero and injected herself with the disease!
Previous SARS died away along with the development of vaccines.
Back in mid 2000's, the lab I was working in was contracted to make several intermediate compounds for one of the Big Pharma companies who were then doing further in-house reactions to create a potential vaccine for SARS. Normal process for pharma was to outsource one intermediate per company to minimise the risk of industrial espionage but the speed required meant they threw it all our way along with several dozen NDAs.
And then out of the blue after the initial "we need this urgently", the work just stopped. End of project as SARS died off / was contained fairly dramatically, there was no longer a need for a vaccine.
not sure if the data is real or not but...
https://twitter.com/kmqkatie/status/1264562690908921860?s=19
daily deaths are still higher than they would have been at the point that some people now claim we should have started.
Deaths lag infection by about a month. We're objectively in a much better situation than when the lockdown was imposed. Infection rate is lower, active cases is lower, hospitals have adequate capacity and society has learned new tricks that mean we infect each other less.
Is anyone looking at longer term issues arising from Covid? The number of people who seem to take months to get better or have potential long term lung damage, ME type disorders or damage from blood clots?
Whilst the death rates among the younger / healthier cohort imply we should (try) not to worry too much, I can’t find the rates for longer term impacts. Is this going to be like polio or TB for our generation?
I think it's probably too early for any definite conclusions and mostly the focus has been on prevention and treatment, but it is beginning to be raised as an issue, at least in the media and is being picked up by the ZOE Covid-19 tracker app as a significant issue.
This blog by an tropical diseases specialist at Liverpool University sparked a couple of Guardian articles:
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/05/05/paul-garner-people-who-have-a-more-protracted-illness-need-help-to-understand-and-cope-with-the-constantly-shifting-bizarre-symptoms/
Like this:
Also, the 'other' covid thread on here, now has quite a few covid-19 sufferers who are recovering very, very slowly.
On a personal level, I've had what seems likely to have been covid - anti-body test sample in the post to the lab - and am in my 11th week of getting over what started with mild gastric stuff on Friday 13 March. I've had a bewildering carousel of odd symptoms, but am now pretty much left with fatigue and a still elevated HR, though it's 20bpm less than it was two weeks ago. The shortness of breath, mad tingling finges, chest pain, numb left arm, weird numb toes, deep muscle pain, odd metallic taste in mouth and more have all mostly gone. I still get weird random adrenaline surges, which seem to be triggered by sugar, but I'm much better than I was two weeks ago, which was being checked at A&E in case of blood clotting / stroke / cardiac potential. ECG bloods, chest x-ray all fine.
There's a FB group referenced in that initial link with some 5000 members many of whom have slow recovery issues. Also, apparently, a community Slack group which is attracting attention from researchers.
Sorry, that was quite long. But I think the short answer is that yes, it looks like a potential problem, but it's too early to be very specific. It's a very weird virus and I think it's still relatively early days in terms of understanding what its long term impacts might be.
And going back to that Times article. Yes, it matters that the government dithered for two weeks because there are a shed-load of people out there who were infected as a result of Boris's failed herd immunity experiment who've not only had a really unpleasant illness unnecessarily, but may end up with chronic long-terms problems as a result. Personally I'm cautiously optimistic, I'm recovering at glacial pace, but I am improving. But of course, because our testing regime was so crap, right now I don't even know whether I had covid or not. That's what incompetent government looks like.
So what’s the problem, why aren’t we doing that.
It's not seen as acceptable in clinical trials to actually deliberately expose patients to disease. Over the years I've been involved in them there has also been a growing questioning of whether it's even ethical to use placebos on patients who have disease. I'm sure there probably would be people willing to go into a challenge trial but you've got the whole "first, do no harm" principal in the way
It’s not seen as acceptable in clinical trials to actually deliberately expose patients to disease
That makes sense on an ethical level but how is a study of this kind proven it works without direct intention to infect?
Sheer luck could be that all the individuals injected with trial vaccines (even in their thousands) could end up not getting infected through non contact, how do they quantify without purposeful infection that a vaccine has actually worked?
Those on the trial are they expected to still follow government rules to try and limit infection, basically purposefully avoiding getting it?
if the vaccine doesn’t kill you), surely the challenge trial is the best way now and as those as individuals who signed up to the trials in the first place, it had to have already been accepted that they’re willing to try and get Covid19.
There are challenge studies for rhinovirus, influenza and malaria (vivax only). There are no challenge studies for HIV. Why might that be? Any infection must be well-understood, self-limiting and ideally treatable in the absence of nonclearance of pathogen.
COVID19 fails on all three counts. In an efficacy trial you do not sign up to catch the disease, you accept population risk and test whether this risk was modified by the vaccine compared with a placebo. You need thousands of subjects, which helpfully contribute to a big safety database (typically tens of thousands). Vaccines have a safety database about 10x bigger than new drugs because they are given to healthy not diseased patients, so benefit/risk ratio is very different
As for viral challenge - recall the healthcare workers dying early on. Most likely due to viral dose. What dose do you challenge with? Who is going to volunteer for the dose ranging part of the trial? How will dose mimic population exposure? Would such a challenge be predictive of fifteen minutes standing on the tube at 8am?
If an effective treatment becomes available, then we can talk about challenge studies. Not until. Such studies would not get past the first hurdle at an ethics committee meeting.
I’m 2 weeks out of hospital after 11 days in ICU - good way to lose 2 stone in 3 weeks!
Still struggling with much extertion -5000 steps max is best I’ve done- biking seems an age away
I would welcome any feedback on recovery from people who have had a serious dose (not willy waving here but it seems to affect people differently) about recovery etc
Cheers
The (admittedly very limited) additional restrictions advised by ScotGov in advance of Westminster don’t appear to have had any significant effect on infection rates north of the border, but then Jason Leitch was also parroting the Herd Immunity line for a while too.
Still the same basic issues tho - too little too late.
How many people are going to get vaccinated even if there's a vaccine? The current uptake on the annual flu vaccine is pretty low despite a significant risk each year.
By the time a vaccine is available infection rates will probably be so low there will be little incentive. People need to feel personally threatened to act.
There are all the people who think they (may) have had it. Madame and I wouldn't have the vaccine without a reliable antibody test first, and we still haven't been called by the doc for an antibody test, will the antibodies (if we have them) last until a pre-vaccine test?
Then there's all the anti-vaccine propaganda. Some people will objectively decide getting vaccinated is pointless; any fit healthy person under 25 and a lot of slim, O blood group people even if they are older. Some will follow the anti-vaccine line even if they are objectively more at risk.
I went for the H1N1 jab a few years back, this time around I want an antibody test first and even if it's negative the odds of 1/ being exposed the virus 2/ catching it 3/ being seriously ill... are so low there's really not a lot driving me - apart from some sense of civic duty.
I predict insufficient vaccine uptake for herd immunity.
I would welcome any feedback on recovery from people who have had a serious dose (not willy waving here but it seems to affect people differently) about recovery etc
Glad you are back. 30% of people who went to hospital have not returned.
Seven weeks post infection. It’s taken a longer time to recover than previous influenza (thats normally been a month), I’m expecting about three months.
Wear a HR monitor. My Apple Watch has shown steady progress in falling HR with walking. Resting HR has recovered (although 55 says I’m a long way from race fitness). Saturday was my first proper walk (three Miles). And have not ridden a bike in ten weeks (had a groin strain three weeks before infection). The pain at the bottom of my lungs is gradually diminishing.
Rest.
I would welcome any feedback on recovery from people who have had a serious dose (not willy waving here but it seems to affect people differently) about recovery etc
Glad you survived ICU and are back in the land of the living, that sounds harrowing. For some feedback, there's a half-decent FB group with quite a lot of posts about recovery. A lot of noise, but also some useful links and personal experiences:
There seems to be a significant proportion of people who've had even a relatively moderate experience of covid-19 who are having a very slow recovery. The consensus seems to be that it's very much a cautious, slow-burn process and even moderate exertion is knocking folk back, but as you say everyone's different. Lots of rest is working for me.
Edit: as per Tired above, I'm monitoring my HR carefully. Still having some weird adrenaline rush stuff with HR spikes. Yesterday my RHR was up in the 90s for a couple of hours. Two hours later, sat on the sofa, it had dropped to 54bpm, which is somewhere closer to normal.
I'm guessing you have two issues: one is going to be the specific impacts of the virus, the other the physical and emotional impact of being in ICU with associated weight loss, muscle wastage etc. Are you getting any help from NHS physio etc?
Frank Sinatra of this parish was also hospitalised, though not for as long as you, and may have some thoughts. He's posted on the other thread on here:
Thanks for the info and reading, BadlyWiredDog. Hope your recovery continues too.
Thanks for the info and reading, BadlyWiredDog. Hope your recovery continues too.
No problem. The FB group I linked to is interesting. A lot of people suffering very similar prolonged symptoms and, in many cases, just looking for reassurance that they're not alone in this. A practitioner I spoke to on NHS 111 the other week said that in her opinion, the initial 'it's like the flu and you'll be over it in seven days' thing isn't helping either from the patient or medics' point of view. The expectation is that people will simply bounce back as per flu or a bad cold, the reality for a significant number of people is that it's not like that at all and relatively little is yet understood about what's happening - how much is standard issue post-viral stuff and how much is specific to covid-19.
Thanks for the input- I was a day away from a ventilator they reckoned which is when the odds dwindle in my eyes but wasn’t showing massive breathlessness etc it was only when they tested my blood oxygen they rushed me into hospital and that was thanks to me ace doctor who I have rewarded with a nice bottle
I’ve got a few issues with the biggest pain being waking up throughout the nights with pains in my sides which wakes me up - this pain seems to ease after I have got up and coughed a few times
The rubbish seems to be coming up fairly naturally - at first I was trying to hard to cough stuff up and ended up coughing up blood but that forces me to throttle back as I crapped myself and as I say it seems just to be working it’s way out naturally
Breathlessness is the other I have a crackle when breathing and even having a shower leaves me in bits for a short time straight after
I’m resigned to a long haul - not helped by the fact that the week before I’d sourced a ti Jones frame and fork😡 but it could have been so much worse
On the physio point I asked several times and there is no guidance - possibly because from the limited feedback I have seen very seems a little different
Thanks for the fb link I had applied to joining this morning but then thought I would try the real experts😂
Enough for now I’m going to sit in the sun doing nowt which while big sounds great is staring to really pi55 me off and making my arse sore!!
Enough for now I’m going to sit in the sun doing nowt which while big sounds great is staring to really pi55 me off and making my arse sore!!
I bought a hammock - an 18-quid, less than half price Therm-a-rest one from Rock and Run and have slung it across the back yard so I can bask in the sun like some sort of recuperating walrus. Doing nothing is frustrating, but hey, it's a chance to read the books you never quite got round to, take up meditation - which has kind of unexpectedly saved me from madness - and argue with erm, talk to people on the internet. I'm trying, not always successfully, to reframe it as an opportunity 😉
Hope you get better soon!
In other news Weston super mare general A&E is closed due to rise in COVID patients. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-uk-hospital-weston-super-mare-nhs-general-ae-patients-a9531116.html
Is this their first peak or a VE Day / back to work peak?
Is this their first peak or a VE Day / back to work peak?
That's my guess. Also all the people who flocked to beaches last week.
I assume the "walkers" rescued by MR were simply doing what they thought best for their children?
this time around I want an antibody test first and even if it’s negative the odds of 1/ being exposed the virus 2/ catching it 3/ being seriously ill…
Why? Are you worried about 5G antibodies or something?
Because there's no point getting vaccinated if you've already got antibodies.
1. Having antibodies is no guarantee of immunity.
2. The test(s) have a specificity of about 99%. This means that you could take the test and get a false confidence that you haven't had Covid-19 (one in every hundred people will be told they've had it incorrectly). It follows that you could then catch it, and require unnecessary medical care, or infect others.
I have no time for people who hold irrational fears over vaccines.
Either you're trolling me which is highly likely as you often do, Flaperon, or you're taking this to nth degree which I'm most definitely not. I'm being pragmatic.
One in a hundred for the test. Then there's the combination of symptoms and the contacts.
If you have antibodies you've fought it off once and are likely to fight it off again.
There a difference between irrational fears and risk evaluation. I've got as complete a vacciantion card as you can get - I worked with sewage and was vaccinated against all sorts of tropical diseases. I'm not anti-vaccine, you'll also note "I'd consider it just as a civic gesture" as already stated.
My personal evaluation is that if two people who share the same bed test positive for antibodies there is no point getting vaccinated. That's highly rational.
often
I think I've pissed you off exactly once before, apologised for it, but call it "often" if you want.
I’m not anti-vaccine, you’ll also note “I’d consider it just as a civic gesture” as already stated.
Yet you'd repeatedly placed conditions on having a vaccine. I'm not trolling, just pointing out the obvious hypocrisy. The obvious caveat to this, of course, is if it's proven that the vaccine has a negative effect in people who've already had Covid-19.
My memory must be better than yours.
I'm vaccinated against hepatitis B, and so is junior. Are you and your kids, Flaperon (as you're getting personal I assume Im allowed to too). About a thousand deaths a year in France yet the vaccination rate is only about 40% for the young population most affected.
There are lots of vaccines and people make choices, judgements. I see resistance to a Covid vaccine if ever there is one, that's an intellectual judgement based on the take up of other vaccines and young people's attitudes to this virus. They're rightly pissed off that their jobs, businesses, careers and leisure have been ****ed up to save the rich old codgers on fat pensions who don't have to go outside if they don't want to. Junior's generation rushing to get vaccinated, I don't see it. If 60% aren't vaccinated against Hepatitis B that kills a thousand or so of them why would they bother with a vaccine against something that has only killed a handful of fit healthy young people. The ferquency with which they get themselves AIDs tested says that protection against viruses isn't their priority.
I’m not trolling, just pointing out the obvious hypocrisy.
That's trolling and provocation. Hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another. I'm saying one thing and intend to do it. Have serological tests and base whether or not to get vaccinated (if ever there's a vaccine) on the result (two results in fact).