The Coronavirus Discussion Thread.

Wales closing nightclubs after christmas

Based on the current numbers and doubling rate, are we really going to have enough front line workers to keep the UK ticking over in the next few weeks?

Exactly. So if you know you have flu, rather than what could be a bad cold, you only know that because of your severe symptoms and you’re properly ill (and contagious).

Er yes, I think we’re agreeing. But the point is there are likely many asymptomatic, or mildly symptomatic flu cases. These contribute to the transmission of flu each winter, which you could say is a bad thing. But may also help to maintain a level of immunity in the population.

Yes, we are agreeing. Flu can be spread by people who don’t know they have flu. People who know they have flu rather than a cold are ill enough to be off work (and shouldn’t normally be allowed, never mind made, to work on a hospital ward with patients… that’s all relevant to earlier posts, not yours).

OK thanks. And relevant to this thread, perhaps we’ll eventually get to the same place with COVID. No mass testing, people only ‘isolating’ when they feel ill. A degree of immunity maintained in the population by regular mild infections. No need for regular jabs for low risk groups..

Nighclubs in scotland closing from boxing day in Wales
Pubs to shut daily at 5pm in Ireland

jobs ****ed

perhaps we’ll eventually get to the same place with COVID

That's exactly where we're heading, and Covid can then take its place among other endemic coronaviruses while the next pandemic pathogen brews away silently in some cave in Asia.

some cave in Asia.

It was man made.

Nighclubs in scotland closing from boxing day in Wales
Pubs to shut daily at 5pm in Ireland

jobs ****

Eh?

Yes, we will get there. But not by pretending we’re there already. Vaccines will help us get there faster. Social interventions will help us get there without overwhelming our health systems on the way. The no jabs for low risk groups is a different debate to be had later though… we already get this wrong with flu in the UK in my opinion… although not this winter, we’re jabbing as many for flu as possible alongside the coronavirus boosters. The future may well be yearly flu and coronavirus jabs for the majority, rather than targeting them at the vulnerable. That’s all to come though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-59685864

New rules from 27th in Wales, nightclubs to shut and 2m social distancing in shops/workplaces.

So if things are escalating fast, why wait another week to close nightclubs? Seems odd to allow mass gatherings and partying before Christmas but feel its Important to close them after Christmas??

Run up to Christmas is huge business for hospitality so financial impact would be crippling. Unfortunately closing after might create a last chance to party surge.

Yep. This was covered somewhere up the thread; info on reputable sites seems to indicate that asymptomatic flu is relatively common, perhaps 1 in 3 cases. We don’t test to differentiate between flu and colds. “Man flu” may in fact often actually be flu![

Cheers for that, and pretty much confirms my suspicions. The whole "unless you're on your arse you ain't got flu" position just never seemed credible. Otherwise everyone that picked up Spanish Flu would have died, whereas 98% (something like that) didn't.

I rather suspect that some people actually get Flu fairly regularly due to the way their lives are structured/jobs, but because of regular (annual) infections end up with mild infections miss-diagnosed as a bad cold.

So if things are escalating fast, why wait another week to close nightclubs?

I'm still half-expecting an announcment middle of next week that they have to do more and officially restricting visiting over Christmas. Whether anyone listens is another matter

It was man made.

Proof? Or just your opinion?.......

some cave in Asia.

It was man made.

Sorry that's incorrect. If it was man made it would've been called a "tunnel in Asia", caves are natural phenomena caused by water flow, lava and suchlike.

It was man made.

If you know where the next one is coming from, you should ring up the WHO and let them know.

thepurist made me properly chortle!

GP sending out appointment links for tomorrow morning. So no more waiting for January! I’m in. Happy with that. Booster up folks.

3 days post-booster (3xPhizer now), only a sore arm first two times, kinda like that pain after a really good dead arm off your older brother…only really noticeable when I raised my arm or lifting stuff. This time I barely noticed it at all and if I hadn’t been stretching for Pringles might not have noticed it at all.

Welsh announcement so far ahead of the change seems very odd, their NHS ambulance attendance times have been bad for some time and I thought I read known Omicron levels are still quite low there. Why let things spread for another 10 days and risk increased restrictions?

Why let things spread for another 10 days and risk increased restrictions?

Christmas....

Welsh announcement so far ahead of the change seems very odd, their NHS ambulance attendance times have been bad for some time and I thought I read known Omicron levels are still quite low there. Why let things spread for another 10 days and risk increased restrictions?

Because they recognise people still have lives to live, because it's Christmas and its a crucial period for businesses already damaged by scaremongering, because there's a whole raft of other stuff going on besides covid such as peoples mental health. Which has and continues to be swept under the carpet likes its not as important.

This lockdown mentality, as if its some golden ticket is flawed and I'm amazed people still believe in it. Its creates a huge amount of other issues that don't get the attention they deserve. The main reason the NHS is screwed now is because of the last two lockdowns and because we have a nation of amnesia stricken tory voting morons who are so easily duped its scary.

Oh and on hospitals - they are suffering more now because the genius welsh government got rid of the out of hours doctors service which has been replaced by 'calling 111' - good luck getting through to them. And if you have the patience of a saint to get through you get told to'go to A&E'. So people who don't really need to go to A&E are now being sent there, where before they would get an appointment with an out of hours gp - if they needed it. All parents who call 111 about their kids get sent to a&e regardless because its kids and the person answering won't take any chances. So its no surprise A&E department's are being over run and it ain't because of covid

The reasons we aren't shutting down before Christmas are political - hugely unpopular, obviously- and financial - we haven't got a support package in place.

The financial may be resolved over the weekend now Rishi is back. Given the government's lack of popularity at the moment anyway, they might just say "**** it, let's try and protect the NHS", you never know.

Loads of people will ignore the rules, hopefully enough will take notice.

Given the government’s lack of popularity at the moment anyway, they might just say “**** it, let’s try and protect the NHS”, you never know.

This seems somewhat...optimistic...

The tories had a 100-MP rebellion over the mildest of restrictions this week.

I'll apologise in advance if this question has been discussed before on this thread.

Wife, daughter and myself all tested positive (Delta variant) on PCR tests at the end of November and we all finished our self isolation around the 9 of December and none of us are showing symptoms any more.

We are planning to meet up with my elderly folks at Christmas, they are both double jabbed and have had their boosters. My daughter has had zero jabs, wife and I are double jabbed and can't get our boosters until after Christmas.

So my question is about the LFT. Is that still going to be picking up the antibodies from the COVID infection?

So my question is about the LFT. Is that still going to be picking up the antibodies from the COVID infection?

Edit - misread. As you were.

The LF test doesn’t pick up antibodies, but reacts to the virus itself. As I understand it, it is still possible, but the LF test is much less likely to return a positive from a historic infection.

If someone had no cause to frequently take LFTs, and had an assymptomatic infection of which there was no record, could they then get stuck if a foreign travel PCR picked up their antibodies and they didnt have the recently recovered exemption?

The NHS guidelines did say that for 90 days post +'ve PCR you shouldn't LFD test as it could pick up the old infection. Only seek a PCR if you have symptoms. However I've been testing since my positive case back in October and haven't had a positive LFD again yet.
If you've got the NHS app it'll do a covid passport without requiring a -'ve LFD accordingly.

The NHS guidelines did say that for 90 days post +’ve PCR you shouldn’t LFD test as it could pick up the old infection. Only seek a PCR if you have symptoms. However I’ve been testing since my positive case back in October and haven’t had a positive LFD again yet.
If you’ve got the NHS app it’ll do a covid passport without requiring a -‘ve LFD accordingly.

so does a covid passport remove the need for foreign travel PCR?

My hypothetical thought process is this:
My GF wont be going to the office at all for a few months. We've no big events planned over the winter. She could easily go weeks without doing a LFT.
Her genetically closest living relative managed to sleep in the same bed as someone who got covid very badly and was entirely assymptomatic (spring 2020 so no tests).
So could possibly get through an infection oblivious to it.
If we were to go abroad springtime, are we going to be stuck in some foreign airport with a positive PCR picking up an infection from the winter just gone?

 So its no surprise A&E department’s are being over run and it ain’t because of covid

I'll channel my inner Proff. Whitty and say that only people outside of primary healthcare say things like this

She could easily go weeks without doing a LFT.

Why not just do LFTs regardless? It'll solve the potential problem you're describing, with the added benefit of stopping you spreading it around if you get an asymptomatic infection.

Why not just do LFTs regardless?

Fair shout in our case. I wonder how to best advertise this fact to the large number of people this issue could potentially affect.

What about residents of countries that don't give out infinite free lateral flow tests

Why not just do LFTs regardless?

How does this help though? Do you mean it just gives you the chance to cancel your holiday if you get a +ve LFT within the X months prior to travel? Urgh.

EDIT - I think this example highlights something I'm getting increasingly uneasy about.... we seem to be in this world of trying to second-guess and completely minimise future risks. At some point we're going to have to break out of this mode.

How does this help though? Do you mean it just gives you the chance to cancel your holiday if you get a +ve LFT within the X months prior to travel? Urgh.

I guess it depends if the place you're travelling too accepts recent prior infection as an exemption from their testing, and visa versa for testing on the way home. I don't know if that is a thing. But if it's not I'd rather be in a position to make an informed choice about whether to gabble my holiday on the required tests picking up a recent infection.

So its no surprise A&E department’s are being over run and it ain’t because of covid

I’ll channel my inner Proff. Whitty and say that only people outside of primary healthcare say things like this

Because Prof Whitty would possibly recognise that A&E and ambulances were under massive pressure, and often at point of collapse, for at least a decade before Covid, I'd guess? ;D

Covid has only added to pathetic position these services have been in for some time, as any unfortunate user would recognise.

I’ll channel my inner Proff. Whitty

That has been the highlight of a pretty grim week on the pandemic front, I have to say

(The original, not your channeling, sorry)

The not PCR testing for 90 days is going to cause a lot of problems/confusion.

There must be a lot of people that fall into the bracket of recent Delta infection (<90 days), and then potentially re-infected with Omnicron.

I'm not even 4 weeks post infection, there's numerous people - work and friends that are going down with Covid!

I guess it depends if the place you’re travelling too accepts recent prior infection as an exemption from their testing, and visa versa for testing on the way home. I don’t know if that is a thing

Rules differ by country, but for the ones I've looked into a "COVID recovery certificate" is only a substitute for vaccination, not any pre-entry test.

thepurist made me properly chortle!

@thepurist made me chuckle too. chapeau

Still too early to know, but please don’t act on the assumption that Omicron is much milder and will not result in hospitalisations. Get your booster. Reduce your contacts.

Imperial College study finds Omicron could be just as severe as Delta

Oliver Barnes and John Burn-Murdoch in London

The Omicron coronavirus variant could be just as severe as the Delta strain, according to early findings from researchers at Imperial College London, in a study which also highlighted the elevated risk of reinfection posed by the new variant and the need for booster shots to combat it.

“The study finds no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection,” said the research team, led by Professor Neil Ferguson, an infectious disease modeller and government science adviser.

However, they cautioned that hospitalisation data “remains very limited at this time”. The study said data suggested “at most limited changes in severity compared with Delta”.

The early findings could dash the hopes of some experts that a change in the virulence of the new variant would ease the pressure on health systems despite Omicron’s high levels of infectiousness.

Professor Azra Ghani, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London and one of the study’s authors, stressed the “uncertainty” surrounding whether or not Omicron is less severe than previous strains.

“Whilst it may take several weeks to fully understand this, governments will need to put in place plans now to mitigate any potential impact,” she said, adding that the results demonstrated “the importance of delivering booster doses as part of the wider public health response”.

FT

https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1471485797530583046?s=20

that's great