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Some good news on mortality rates
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/02/covid-mortality-down-dramatically-since-start-of-pandemic-study-finds?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1612262165
Edit, double post.
Have you tried it on other people’s digits?
Certainly have! The rest of the family (wife who has a recurrent chest problem, and 3 healthy daughters) have a normal range. I've also tried it on various of my digits, in case it didn't like the guitar fretting callouses.
And this has been over several weeks, not just once.
my readings over the past 18 months range from 97% to 88%, they routinely drop down to 88% at points during night.
Out of interest, has anyone ever told you you snore heavily or appear to stop breathing temporarily during sleep?
I can understand that a wrist pulse oximeter might not be super-reliable, but drops which happen in a predictable way rather than all the time would still interest me.
My wife is a teacher, we’ve got lots of teacher friends and two kids at school.
There are very few, if any kids thriving in this situation – a small percentage are ‘hanging on’ but most are stagnating or going backwards at a rapid rate.
It’s not just school age kids, I think this is having a huge impact on “the young” in general. Those who are a touch older, say 18-24, in the latter stages of their education or early in their career are really finding it hard. Many live in shared houses with little or no outdoor space and no dedicated work space, or with parents and the associated lack of privacy. They can’t meet others and build friendships/networks, they’re being left behind with professional development, and that’s ignore the many who work in the service industry and have been in furlough for nearly 12 months or made redundant into a dead job market.
They’re being asked to sacrifice a hell of a lot for something that, purely on an individual level, will have minimal impact on the vast majority of them. I hope this is remembered when government policy is set in future years. They need to be prioritised.
On oxygen levels. I've found my Garmin reads between 93% and 96% but the dedicated pulse ox meter does 95% to 98%. Readings dont correlate if I use both at the same time with the pulse ox being higher by a couple of percent.
Out of interest, has anyone ever told you you snore heavily or appear to stop breathing temporarily during sleep?
no - no complaints about snoring from the wife anyway.
A friend who also has a fenix 6, says he gets similar readings - dropping to high 80s % during the night, I suspect its just an inaccurate device. I think my oxygen levels are dropping during sleep but not to the levels indicated by the watch, which if they were accurate would be significant cause for concern.
I think as long as you know what normal for you and the device you are using, you dont need absolute accuracy, just look for a deviation from the norm.
just looked in garmin connect and the average over the last 4 weeks was 93%
@Lunge - you make an interesting point which i'd not really considered..
Most of the younger guys at work (early/mid 20s - still live at home) have been going into the office everyday (we're supposed to WFH unless we absolutely have to go into the office) as they are going stir-crazy stuck at home with parents and sometimes younger siblings.
Gyms/pubs/etc all closed, work or running/cycling is their only escape..
"None of us were able to predict" coronavirus would mutate or variants would emerge - Dido Harding, head of the National Institute for Health Protection
i'm not really sure are getting value for money here...
you make an interesting point which i’d not really considered.
Most of the younger guys at work (early/mid 20s – still live at home) have been going into the office everyday (we’re supposed to WFH unless we absolutely have to go into the office) as they are going stir-crazy stuck at home with parents and sometimes younger siblings.
Gyms/pubs/etc all closed, work or running/cycling is their only escape.
Yep.
We've got people working from their beds, from dining rooms shared with parents/siblings, from kitchens. Work from home is great if you have dedicated space, but many younger folk don't. Their work (if they have any) suffers, their health suffers and many are struggling because of it.
And as you say, all their outlets are now closed. Meet friends after work for a beer? No. Go to the gym to work off some steam? No. Touch of retail therapy? No. Cinema or a gig? No. Many people meet their partners at this time in life, that's not happening either. The things that are left available, a trip to the garden centre or a walk feel like the kind of things that older folk want and don't take into account the needs of younger people.
There are a lot of people in that age group, late teens to mid twenties, who feel completely ignored, be with with the university fiasco, the service industry or just their early careers.
I understand why the focus has been on the older generations as they are most vulnerable, but the longer this goes on, and certainly as more are vaccinated, we really need to turn focus to the younger groups. They may not need as much protection from the virus, but they arguably need more support from the wider damage being done.
Many people meet their partners at this time in life, that’s not happening either.
here's a whole new fish kettle to discuss.
the currently cohabiting/married couple that want kids have possibly had more chance at conception for the 2021 births, but are we going to see a big slow down in the, say, next 5 years as the mid 20s demographic have had their lives put on hold and their finances present and future hit the hardest?
now half the population go to uni rather than starting work at 14 the window of opportunity for women to have planned families is not that large, and we have taken 1 year out of it already.
All possibly partly balanced out by the wave of pregnancies 9 months after nightclubs reopen
All possibly partly balanced out by the wave of pregnancies 9 months after nightclubs reopen
Someone I know said the best way to get rich after Covid is to invest in sexual health clinics now. There will be a lot of horny people out there!
But joking aside, I really feel that age of people need to be in the discussion, as right now they really aren't.
@lunge - i've felt for a long-time that the impact of COVID-19 will be felt long after the pubs re-open..
this little exchange has reinforced my thoughts on the subject..
This raised a smile today:
If the vaccines are showing large reductions in rates of infection / transmission:
Should we be vaccinating school age kids?
To reduce their likelihood of getting and passing on etc etc.
@ eddiebaby "vial behaviour", fantastic
If the vaccines are showing large reductions in rates of infection / transmission:
Should we be vaccinating school age kids?
Doesn't this go back to the old argument of if you vaccinate the vulnerable/elderly first to protect them or vaccinate the young/economically active first (whilst likely shielding the vulnerable) to enable a quicker return to normality?
The government has chosen the first path and so I expect it'll continue to cascade down by age.
The government has chosen the first path and so I expect it’ll continue to cascade down by age.
If it doesn't I'll be goosed as a 45 year old with asthma!
re pulse ox devices. They all have a about a 2 % margin for error. I have 2. One will always read around 95, sometimes dropping below, one around 97/98.
I read the ones on the garmin watches are hopeless. Certainly, if it's as accurate as the hr monitor on my fenix 5 then it'll be pretty inaccurate
The trials haven't yet focused on the school age groups or younger.
Until that happens i can't see any regulator approving any of the vaccines.
I believe the pfizer vaccine is recruiting young adults in the latest set of trials
I worry about the kids missing school, not so much losing ground on learning 'facts' but becoming desocialised by just sitting around playing video games all day. I wouldn't be surprised if for every week out of school they 'go backwards' by two weeks.
Re all the clamouring for a vaccination with "my group first", it's probably not surprising this would happen, but Labour was wrong to look for cheap political points by championing teachers, not least because it legitimised this politicisation of vaccine roll-out when we should be keeping it evidence-based and a clinical decision. On that note, arguments for prioritisation by race/ethnicity is to my mind, reductive and crude, for example, when clearly the risks are to do with occupation and housing-conditions manifestly.
Doesn’t this go back to the old argument of if you vaccinate the vulnerable/elderly first to protect them or vaccinate the young/economically active first (whilst likely shielding the vulnerable) to enable a quicker return to normality?
Kind of
But maybe it could mean adding 16-21 as a priority group onto the end of the existing priority group list.
It's (at this point) idle speculation, I'll admit.
We have ordered enough vaccine to vaccinate everyone, and (leaving aside the needs of poorer nations for a minute) I can't see why we shouldn't use it, to enable more people to return to a more normal routine here in the UK. Travelling abroad and bringing back new variants may still have to require proper quarantine for a bit longer maybe.
It certainly seems an option to vaccinate uni students if they go back to more normal mixing in September, given how asymptomatic rates spiked last autumn.
The social services nightmare resulting from Covid will be huge. BASW released a report on this a few days ago that the BBC picked up on. MrsMC was frontline child protection at the start of the pandemic, and it was grim then, even by her usual standards. Especially as she ended up doing some tasks the police wouldn't do as it breached the police Covid H&S guidance.
She's now moved authorities and is at the adoption end of the process, but there is talk of them needing to be pulled over back to child protection when things kick off as anticipated.
but Labour was wrong to look for cheap political points by championing teachers, not least because it legitimised this politicisation of vaccine roll-out when we should be keeping it evidence-based and a clinical decision.
More than half of the teachers in my other half's school have now tested positive. Some are now off long term sick because of it. Others have left the profession completely, as they couldn't be kept safe from the virus, and shared their homes with vulnerable or old people. Those saying teachers shouldn't be vaccinated as a priority should invite 30 kids from different households to live with them for a week. It's about exposure. The same goes for bus drivers, front of shop staff, etc. After the most at risk groups in terms of hospitalisation and death are vaccinated, we should then vaccinate those who can not avoid exposure to large numbers of people indoors as part of their work, if we as a society decide that work is essential and are saying we are giving it priority over other kinds of work.
On that note, arguments for prioritisation by race/ethnicity is to my mind, reductive and crude, for example, when clearly the risks are to do with occupation and housing-conditions manifestly.
The risks may well be to do with occupation or housing conditions. It's a reasonable guess. But it's a guess. If you want an evidence based rollout... the evidence is that race/ethnicity strongly correlates with medical outcomes. So should we prioritise the ethnic groups that are showing higher mobility and morbidity than others...? I think the case to do so is strong, personally. Politically very difficult though... both in terms of encouraging vaccine take up, and other groups feeling fairly dealt with.
If you want an evidence based rollout… the evidence is that race/ethnicity strongly correlates with medical outcomes.
It's not good evidence because race/ethnicity is clearly confounded by variables for occupation, for example, meaning that it isn't a proximal causal factor, and we know that exposure (and risk) varies by occupation. If correlations were themselves evidence of causation then we would be paying pirates to sail the high seas to combat climate change.
Have you tried it on other people’s digits?
Mine reads 97-98. But when I went to the GP, I took it with me to test against his and they agree. So when mine tanks, he's confident that it's likely to be real. I have a consultation a year after my infection this April (clearly I'm not at death's door despite feeling rubbish!). It's been down to 94 again since COVID, but not stayed low.
I monitor resting HR with my Apple watch 3. It's been very helpful and now in daily use for the exercise recording.
I'm just frustrated that despite being in 'lockdown' our area and health board daily numbers refuse to go down in a meaningful way.
How, how are so many people infecting each other?
Are some people just getting on with life and ignoring cv19?
Are some people just getting on with life and ignoring cv19?
Some are. And always have been. From my experience, the majority are following the majority of the guidance. However, remember when last spring you couldn't find hand cleanser anywhere? Now I hardly see anyone bothering with it. If it's also the case that the newer strains are faster spreading then it obviously doesn't take as much for it to jump from person to person and we're still not at the level of "lockdown" we had last spring. I judge that on the number of retail/food outlets open, the amount of work going on and the amount of traffic still on the roads.
Those are low numbers in your area though?
and we know that exposure (and risk) varies by occupation
So, you think it’s wrong to propose prioritising based on exposure and occupation (teachers), but see exposure and occupation as the key reason for higher levels of poor health outcomes in some ethnic groups?
How, how are so many people infecting each other?
1) a lot of adults are meeting up at work
2) a lot of children and meeting up at school
3) contacts are not being identified and isolating
4) a small minority are socialising in secret
So, you think it’s wrong to propose prioritising based on exposure and occupation (teachers), but see exposure and occupation as the key reason for higher levels of poor health outcomes in some ethnic groups?
Not if you can show that teachers are one of several high-risk occupations which include taxi drivers, security guards, bus drivers, shop workers, etc.
High risk as in exposed to multiple people indoors? They are. High risk as in more likely to die or be hospitalised? They are not.
I don't think that anyone is saying that Teachers' face no risk, just whether they deserve to go to the front of the queue, especially in the context of Labour not nominating any other occupational groups.
It’s not about “deserving”, it is about staffing. Schools need staff. Having half your teachers isolating or ill isn’t practical. If we are to prioritise ‘opening’ of schools, we should also prioritising vaccines for staff.
High risk as in more likely to die or be hospitalised? They are not.
The latest data i saw that tried to convince me of this ran from march to december, you know when schools were closed for over half the time!
Those are low numbers in your area though?
But not low compared to other areas.
Not low enough to see an end to lockdown.
Not low enough to reduce stress on NHS/carers.
Meh, i guess I'm just frustrated after a month of lockdown that we are still seeing transmission and infections...
Not if you can show that teachers are one of several high-risk occupations
I'm interested to see the statistics when they start testing Scottish teachers twice weekly.
It will either confirm teachers fears. Or prove that the kids are not infecting teachers.
If you knock out one teacher then you have a class of potentially 30 children needing an alternative when schools are fully open.
The impact of one teacher being off sick has to be bigger than a huge number of professions probably only short of anyone patient facing in the nhs.
There was quite a few of my teachers I'd like to have knocked out, and one that I still would, 30 years later.🤣
matt_outandabout
Full MemberI’m interested to see the statistics when they start testing Scottish teachers twice weekly.
It will either confirm teachers fears. Or prove that the kids are not infecting teachers.
Or perhaps suggest that a lot of them have already been infected.
If we are to prioritise ‘opening’ of schools
With respect to what? The lives of taxi drivers?
Or perhaps suggest that a lot of them have already been infected.
Indeed.
Whilst every one bangs on about teachers at greater risk, not one of the 6 teachers I know have caught it yet.
Are they genuinely at any more risk of contracting it than the parents? Maybe we should prioritise anyone with kids next?
But then what about all the singletons living alone, who are suffering severe mental hardships from lack of contact with pretty much any one?
Basically an argument can be made for any group of individuals to be vaccinated after the first 9. They should stick by doing it by age.
I'd personally be really pissed if a healthy 25 year-old shop worker got a vaccine before myself.
Are they genuinely at any more risk of contracting it than the parents? Maybe we should prioritise anyone with kids next?
The simplest summary is "we are not sure" - and so Government say "no evidence, and we're not going to look" and teachers say "thanks for gambling with my health"....
Whilst every one bangs on about teachers at greater risk, not one of the 6 teachers I know have caught it yet.
Well, that’s conclusive then.
Hmm, with this much support, who’d be a teacher?
I’d personally be really pissed if a healthy 25 year-old shop worker got a vaccine before myself.
I wouldn’t. I don’t have a parade of random people passing through my workspace every day.
Whilst every one bangs on about teachers at greater risk, not one of the 6 teachers I know have caught it yet.
I know loads including myself and my partner and we didnt catch it of each other as she had it in september I had it in Jan.
Are they genuinely at any more risk of contracting it than the parents? Maybe we should prioritise anyone with kids next?
Probability would suggest yes, unless you have 250 kids. Although it should be balanced with length of exposure I guess.
I’d personally be really pissed if a healthy 25 year-old shop worker got a vaccine before myself.
why? if said shop work has spent the whole pandemic being told they are "essential" ie works at your local bike shop, supermarket or even coffee shop why shouldn't they get it before you? Want kids in school, want pubs, and restaurants open the people that run these things need protection.