We all came down with flu (or something like flu) a few weeks ago that was absolutely horrendous. We RAT tested every day: apparently not covid,

Same here. Feeling awful, not covid.

Not testing +ve doesn’t guarantee it wasn’t Covid! We had all 4 in our house with the same symptoms last year – 2 positive 2 negative.

“An appropriately qualified person was interviewed on the radio this morning and said that there’s a higher chance of getting long covid from a second infection than from a first infection.”

I certainly feel this second infection I’ve got is messing with my heart rate a lot more than the first – which is obviously concerning

Spent most of Saturday night (9th) sat right next to a girl, we hugged and kissed (cheeks) twice, then sat together briefly at breakfast, hugged, kissed etc

She tested positive on Monday.

I had a bit of a sore throat, cough, snotty nose towards the end of the week, but tested negative three times. Feel fine now

Last had it 6 months ago and was testing positive regularly then

Not testing +ve doesn’t guarantee it wasn’t Covid! We had all 4 in our house with the same symptoms last year – 2 positive 2 negative.

Yeah, aware of that. 3 out of 4 of us came down with it. We’ve used 17 lfts over the week between us. I would have thought the margin of error would have worked it’s way out over that number of tests. But feeling rubbish so I’m obviously not going anywhere.

My resting heart rate – normally 45 to 46 – hasn’t been below 55 in the three weeks since.

Yesterday I complete a bike ride which confirmed I’ve lost my top end and at about 30s of hard efforts my chest starts to tighten. Today I’ve been up since 4:30 with a proper albeit mild migraine, I’m not sure if it’s related.

Very, very close to cancelling any “training” for the rest of the year.

Signed up to a local study looking at the health outcomes of people who have and have not been vaccinated against COVID-19.

.. wonder how they’ll get participants that haven’t been vaccinated though, given they’re likely to be sceptical of a state-sponsored study like this?

Balls – I’m diseased!! 😬😬😷😷

We’ve been very lucky so far though. First time anyone in my immediate family has got it since this began.

We’ve been very lucky so far though. First time anyone in my immediate family has got it since this began.

Still hearing that from so many people

Not testing +ve doesn’t guarantee it wasn’t Covid! We had all 4 in our house with the same symptoms last year – 2 positive 2 negative.

Same in our house.

I had Covid a few weeks ago, OH had a cough but repeatedly tested negative.

Similarly we had an outbreak at work, the assumed patient zero (turned up to work with a cough) repeatedly tested negative on LFT’s. There’s alternative sources (I’d been to a wedding abroad the weekend before) but I wasn’t the first to get symptoms.

I’ve begun to wonder if now that we’re on 3rd or 4th vaccinations whether you can be asymptomatic enough to test negative but still be infectious for a short period?

I’m aged 54 so perhaps vaccine is wearing off (last booster was just before Christmas). 3rd one.

Daughter has just tested positive too (19). She came back from a break in Cornwall on Sunday.

Here’s the advice on RAT (LFT) sensitivity that’s being provided by my employer (large healthcare provider):

RAT sensitivity

In the current high prevalence situation of COVID-19 in the community, RAT tests will perform accurately. False positive test results will be less than five per cent.

RAT tests are not as sensitive as our PCR tests. However, regular and repeated RAT tests will perform well as a diagnostic test for COVID-19. It is important to use repeat testing to improve the detection of COVID-19.

In symptomatic patients a RAT test is 80 per cent sensitive, meaning it will detect eight out of 10 cases with a single test. If the test were repeated in 12 to 24 hours, the sensitivity would be 96 per cent.

In asymptomatic patients with COVID-19, the RAT test has a sensitivity of 40 per cent, meaning the test will detect four out of 10 cases with a single test. Repeat testing will increase sensitivity to 64 per cent with two tests, 78 per cent with three tests, 87 per cent with four tests, and 92 per cent with five tests. It is important to continue to test if you are identified as a close contact working in high risk areas.

Second infection here, thanks for first work trip for 2.5 years! Have to say it is a very different beast at a personal level. Having alpha back in 2020 with no vaccines, the body having no idea what has hit it, not leaving the house at all for 18 days and the mental side of feeling very scared of the unknowns. Compared to getting it again now knowing that despite I had long covid for a year last time, the whole thing is not as bad – both body and mind are far more prepared, and though I’m isolating in the attic, I can at least go and get some very socially distanced fresh air when the streets are quiet.

I don’t feel that bad (bad head cold and tiredness of long haul travel) but taking it very easy to try and avoid a long covid repeat.

“An appropriately qualified person was interviewed on the radio this morning and said that there’s a higher chance of getting long covid from a second infection than from a first infection.”

I’ve looked into this previously and the reason is the more times you get any viral infection, the more chance you have of post viral illness. This isn’t specific to covid. And the data is showing the long covid occurrence is vastly reduced with the vaccines.

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o407

I’ve looked into this previously and the reason is the more times you get any viral infection, the more chance you have of post viral illness. This isn’t specific to covid. And the data is showing the long covid occurrence is vastly reduced with the vaccines.

https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o407

Your words say “vastly reduced” but that paper says vaccination halves the incidence. I think most people would expect a vast reduction to be more like a factor of ten reduction.

Fair enough. Maybe not the most scientific choice of words with covid head. And after a year of having long covid myself, I wish it was a factor of 10 reduced as I wouldn’t want anyone to want to go through what I did. Analysis is also difficult as too what definition of long covid is – for many people in impacting their day to day life they would say anything beyond 4 weeks. The NHS say 12+ weeks.

@ahsat Hopefully this infection continues to feel relatively mild for you and your long COVID symptoms don’t flare up again.

My better half is now 19 months into sick leave due to long COVID, keeping her off work from her NHS role in a mental health department. Her body reacted badly to infection in March ’20, needing almost six weeks off to deal mainly with breathing and low energy levels, she was mostly back to her old self through summer, before similar issues gradually returned from around November ’20 without either of us testing positive.
It’s getting to the stage where it is a real worry about her long term health and concern about our finances going forward, but for now we are keeping our heads above water.

There’s been a few times since September ’20 when symptoms have made me do lfts for a few days, but they’ve all been negative, somehow apparently dodging waves going through my work colleagues that have often ignored COVID h&s protocols.

While I don’t particularly want it again after what I went through March to May ’20, there’s the concern it’s now been seven months since both our boosters and the unknown of how my better half will deal with reinfection.

I’ve finally got it. I was beginning to feel a bit left out as everyone I know has had it!

Joking aside, it’s the same symptoms my wife had when she tested positive last month. Very achy and lethargic with random sweats. By day 5 she was almost sypmtom clear so I’m hoping it’s the same for me.

As with any flu I’ve ever had i just want to get out and do some exercise to “sweat it out” but looking at people’s experiences of long covid, this may not be wise. I’ll maybe try a bit of light gardening……

It’s getting to the stage where it is a real worry about her long term health and concern about our finances going forward, but for now we are keeping our heads above water.

I don’t how your finances are but if it helps with reduced pay for extended leave, etc, then Unison have been doing a lot of work and have produced this…
https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2022/05/Bargaining-to-support-those-who-have-long-COVID-v4.pdf
There is a piece of interesting case law to do with disability on p6

Thanks @timba, downloaded for better half to look at.

1st case in our family of four (all vaccinated). Youngest son with sore throat and chunky cough. Not too much in the way of flu like temps and aches though and 2 days in he seems to be improving. Just hoping isolation and ventilation stop is all getting it one after the other as that could well mess up the summer plans.

My wife and I caught Covid for the first time, testing positive on the 11th July.

Think we’ve done well both being frontline nurses throughout the pandemic, both working weekly with people with Covid and managing to remain Covid free.

I was pretty rough for about 3 days but my wife was much worse – both recovering now.

Unfortunately my Trust dropped special Covid leave on the 7th July so my 5 days off are now counted as normal sick.

I have had 2 singe days off in the past 6 months with a recurring tooth abscess prior to this so am now waiting for my threatening letter from HR warning that further illness in the next 12 months might result in dismissal.

If only we’d caught it 5 days earlier I’d have been fine.

Wife’s Trust is changing their Covid policy as of September so her episode won’t be counted a sick.

Felt off all weekend, struggled through today’s shift, lft negative Saturday and today after work. Better half felt really rough beyond her typical long covid pains today, but also lft negative so far. Neither of us coughing, but exhausted and aches all over. Shirley this is it, cant be summer flu, ironic after my post a few days back.

I just had it again, possibly third time but only second time with verification from a test. First time I seriously ill by the end of the three weeks and had to go to hospital. Bounced back after a week from getting out of hospital but took maybe 2-3 months to feel back to normal. After six months when I was eligible for the vaccine, they didn’t seem much use given my previous exposure.

Just had COVID again last week. This time thankfully the worst effects were relatively mild (compared to previous exposure) and lasted for 2-3 days. I felt fairly bad at one point but after 4 days since the positive test I felt normalish and the day after went for a run and had a beer. Loads of people I know are getting it now and report very similar sypmptoms. It also gave me the shits, which I had last time.

Hopefully this will top up my antibodies for another year and a half! Experiencing it the second time round now the body has had prior exposure seems to line up with the research that naturual immunity still works in keeping it as a relatively minor illness despite falling antibody count (?), which is very welcome as last time it felt like I was dying horribly for the best part of a month.

Glad you’re feeling better. BTW, I still clearly remember some of your posts from over a year ago on this. Don’t know if this preceded your hospitalisation, but did this brush with the virus alter your perspective on the public health response?

With regard to vaccine-acquired immunity vs naturally-acquired immunity, I recall some evidence that there was some additional benefit conferred by vaccination even in people who’d definitely had covid. Whether that’s still the case after multiple reinfections, I don’t know.

Hi Martin. Well, it certainly reframed things.

By the time I was hospitalised, of course if I’d have been eligible to have been vaccinated and had turned it down, I would have obviously regretted that deeply, especially given the resources being spent on keeping me from possibly dying. In all honestly, I doubt I would have taken one anyway – I was so far from the demographic profile which COVID was at statistically affecting with severe illness. For most people I knew, COVID-19 had been a relatively mild illness. For me it was anything but.

With hindsight, I’m still not sure how I feel. The whole thing of it just seems insane looking back. I supported initial lockdowns to some extent but was highly opposed to mandated vaccines and stricter measures. I felt alarmed by the overnight loss of civil liberties and the anti-vaxxer “lock em’ up” discourse deeply troubling. Of course, at that time, I can’t say the state of my mental health was particularly good. Others could probably relate. It’s also worth noting I wasn’t in this country for a lot of it but in Spain which had much stricter measures.

Given the benefit of hindsight, do you think your opinions have changed?

The whole thing of it just seems insane looking back.

You’re not wrong there.

Have my opinions changed – yes and no. I think, in the face of an unprecedented and rapidly unfolding public health crisis, massive decisions had to be made which were not entirely evidence-based. In the absence of vaccine coverage for nearly a year, lockdowns were pretty much the only tools at the government’s disposal. I think we can see now that they tend to push a wave backwards rather than prevent it entirely, but of course, if you’re pushing it back to a point where many more people are vaccinated, and keeping health services from being overwhelmed, you’re going to save a lot of lives.

The issue as I see it with UK lockdowns was that late implementation meant that they were longer than they needed to be, and you cannot expect to take the goodwill of all the people with you if the lockdown just drags on and on. Once goodwill has been lost, then it is harder to enact draconian restrictions and expect people to follow them (see also: Dominic Cummings).

We knew that a lot of very old, very frail people were going to die regardless, but also that a lot of people with a lot of years left to live would also be threatened – the key thing was to try to keep cases at a level where effective medical care might also be available for your demographic (and mine) should that be needed.

I was always opposed to mandatory vaccination. I also couldn’t entirely see the point of child vaccination later on, although the long covid stats in children may prove me wrong on that.

If I’m honest with myself, my mental health was not entirely rosy – as someone in a high-risk group, I thought there was a reasonably high risk that I’d end up in ICU before vaccines came along. So I was fairly intolerant of some of the complaints about lockdowns/mask wearing, as well as those who were saying it was ‘just the flu’ and was unlikely to kill anyone without comorbidities.

Apologies if some of that frustration was directed at you while you were in a bad place, and I hope you’re doing better now.

I agree with virtually all of that.

In the end I just tapped out of the discussion and had to try and find more constructive ways to cope with the stress of it all. I would also apologise if I caused any offense.

You could talk a lot about where we are now two and a half years later, but the most pressing question for me, especially having been so personally impacted, was where the hell did this thing come from?

Given the untold damage it caused, I want a definite answer on that but it seems that the official discourse is basically “move on, nothing to see here”.

In any case, I’m just glad the second time around hasn’t been anything like the first time. Hope no one else gets it back as it was a fairly harrowing experience.

Given the untold damage it caused, I want a definite answer on that but it seems that the official discourse is basically “move on, nothing to see here”.

The official inquiry is just beginning.

Bats is the most likely explanation. A jump from a benign infection in one species, becoming a serious infection in another. MERS is just a camel cold – its 30% mortality in humans (but hard to spread). This is not uncommon and is what keeps virologists awake at night. And is why they go virus hunting in all sorts of strange places.

My views have not changed. In 2020 there were few options other than to avoid spreading what for some was a serious infections with high morbidity and mortality. The 2020-21 Christmas break was a disaster and accounted for about 30k avoidable excess deaths. Vaccines have been a huge and welcome success, but they were not a given, and have really only shifted disease severity (no bad thing for the health service to function), and show waning protection as noted by reinfections with other coronaviruses. Treatments are improving and being rolled out.

We’re about two or three more years from true endemic living with covid. By then I hope I will be able to ride a bike again in anger. I may even smell something too. We shall see.

Sorry to hear you’re still not back to your best.

Covid hospitalisation rates hit their highest so far in Australia yesterday. Without looking I’d feel fairly sure our Covid death rate will be far lower than many countries, which I think supports the relatively strict measures we applied.

I’ve seen more mask wearing in central Sydney the past few days than I’ve seen in months in Queensland (hospitals aside). Tv adverts are ramping up again for boosters and mask wearing.

Sorry to hear of your continuing issues TiRed.

There are other hidden outcomes. I don’t have an opinion on lockdowns and vaccines but did get educated to the fact the behind the scenes there are many good people working very hard to help. It taught me to ignore the suits behind the pedestals.

My daughter gained separation anxiety through the lockdowns. It’s quite hard to manage, and her anxiety is spreading and is getting serious enough we may have to take her to a child psychologist. As she’s 9, the other option is to suck it up until she goes through her teens but it could go either way. As an anxiety sufferer myself it makes me very sad to understand this has been forced upon her life.

Bats is the most likely explanation.

What do you think of the theory that it was a leak from the Wuhan lab?

Kryton57 – sorry to hear about your daughter. I would suggest you address this soon rather than leave it. I don’t know much, but I have learnt that ‘suck it up’ is rarely the best approach with mental health.

What do you think of the theory that it was a leak from the Wuhan lab?

batshit crazy.,..

What do you think of the theory that it was a leak from the Wuhan lab?

I think we’ll never know for sure, mainly because it happened in a country which is not known for transparency.

Conspiracy theories tend to flood into fact-vacuums, I could probably come up with some plausible ones just sitting here.

My personal guess (and it is a guess) is an accidental infection within lab workers, or from careless/reckless disposal of animals from it. Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. The geographical location of the first outbreak could be a complete coincidence though.

Was reading about their oncoming demographic crisis caused by the one-child policy though, and the thought that this was a novel way of dealing with their excess of elderly did pop into my head.

Does anyone know if the autumn boosters will be the same vaccines as the earlier ones or if they will be updated for new variants?

There was talk of an Omicron-specific booster (TiRed will know more), but I guess it depends on what is floating around at that point – ie whether a Delta variant pops back up. Omicron still seems able to voraciously out-compete pretty much everything right now. The latest R0 (transmissibility) is roughly the same as measles, which is quite frankly insane.

The latest R0 (transmissibility) is roughly the same as measles, which is quite frankly insane.

That estimate was based on a flawed calculation, which the author has accepted:

“In hindsight, I realize that my calculation is unlikely to be correct and the true value of R0 for BA.5 is likely to be much lower.”

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-r0-measles-covid-variants-infectiousness-423007125020

What do you think of the theory that it was a leak from the Wuhan lab?

Very unlikely, but there is a reason why the institute will have been studying this virus – as I said, virologists are always out there looking for what could be the next human pathogen of concern. SARS-CoV-1 came from bats. MERS came from camels. Influenza comes from birds and pigs. There are a lot of nasties out there we know little about.

There was talk of an Omicron-specific booster

Both Moderna and Pfizer are seeking approval for an Omicron-specific booster based on antibodies raised in volunteer studies rather than the large efficacy trials previously run against placebo. I’ll take one when available. GSK/Sanofi have a beta variant spike protein vaccine (beta being closer to omicron than WT is), which is also likely to seek approval using the same comparative methodology.

As for Long Covid, they’ve just added alopecia to the list of symptoms, and Mrs TiRed is currently experiencing this symptom. Not been a great pathogen in this household!

don’t know much, but I have learnt that ‘suck it up’ is rarely the best approach with mental health

Yes I agree, the comment was perhaps a bit flippant on my behalf, the real statement from a GP was that more societal interaction E.g. school, activities and parties with friends might alleviate the issue. It hasn’t to date.