Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

[Old Skier]

OK, just looking for a bit of clarification from those more understanding of these things than me.

From a week today, people under the age of 50 can have their booster jab but I understand that it has to be 6 months after your second jab. Is that set in stone and for a solid medical reason.

I only ask because I had plucked up the courage to finally go to a gig at an indoor venue for my birthday on December 11th. Trouble is, that is 6 months to the day from my second jab. Mentally I would feel so much better if I could have that booster jab just a couple of weeks earlier and go out knowing I had all of the protection in me that I can have but suspect that I will have to have it when I get back (but at least will be triple jabbed for Xmas)

Doubt if the system will allow you to book early.

 

[GB72]

It is set in stone for administrative reasons. The difference between getting the booster 6 months minus a day versus 6 months plus a day is, of course, precisely zero. You could try your luck a few days earlier at a walk in centre, but I wouldn't like to bet on a successful outcome.

I wouldn't worry too much, though. If you are under 50 and don't have some impairment affecting immune response, your immunity from 2 vax should still be pretty robust at 6 months. I won't comment on whether you should or should not go to the event except to say that I don't think the level of protection would be very different if you had the booster a week or so before. 3 or 4 months further down the line, maybe.

Thanks for the info and thanks for staying away from should I go or not (even my opinion on that changes pretty regularly). I was working from Jab one etc where there was a difference after a few weeks rather than it being a longer term thing. I will head down to Brighton for a nice meal on the Friday and make my decision on the Saturday whether I go to the gig or find anther nice restaurant for my birthday.

 

[ExRabbit]

Doubt if the system will allow you to book early.

The system opened up for me a week last Friday and I was able to book my booster for Wednesday this week, which is about 11 days sooner than expected. I had been trying most days to book online, and was refused because it wasn't long enough, and then suddenly on Monday the gates were opened early. I'd just try booking and see what happens.

 

[ColchesterFC]

I hadn't realised the absolute chaos and chain of events that happens after a positive Covid test. Younger son returned a positive LFT this morning. Mrs Colch phoned his primary school to inform them and because it is the 3rd positive test in his class the local authorities and PHE got involved and declared an outbreak leading to restrictions and testing for his whole class. Older son had already left to cycle to school so I tried phoning him but got no answer. I then phoned my dad and step mum to tell them to stay away as they've moved to a new house about 5 minutes from us and often drop in for a coffee unannounced. While I was on the phone to them older son tried to call me back but obviously was engaged. I phoned the high school to check on their policy and got told that he has to stay home for 3 days and then take a PCR test, which if negative means he can return to school. We then got a phone call from older son who was with one of his teacher's and had to explain the situation and agree that he could cycle back home. Myself, Mrs Colch and older son have all returned negative LFTs and I have had to take younger son for a PCR test this afternoon and should get the results tomorrow. Mrs Colch was due to go away on Thursday morning for a 3 day craft fair but was due to be staying at my brother's house as it's a 2 hour drive each way to get there and he lives closer. Unfortunately as he has previously had leukaemia he's classed as vulnerable and now can't risk her not showing symptoms and carrying it over there so she's had to cancel. Mrs Colch is also classed as vulnerable due to her asthma so we've been freezing our tits off with doors and windows open trying to get fresh air in the house while she hides away in her work room. I'll be glad when this is all over.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Flu jag done today; covid booster in 3 weeks time.

 

[SaintHacker]

Just found out a good friend of mine is in hospital on a ventilator. Tested positive sunday, taken in monday and ventilated that evening. Went downhill unbelievably quickly according to his daughter. Very very worried for him at the moment

 

[ColchesterFC]

This could equally have gone in the random irritations thread, but, in a completely non-political way, Test and Trace is an absolute shambles. Younger son tested positive with a LFT on Tuesday morning. Took him for a PCR test that afternoon and got the positive result through this morning. Had to go to the pharmacy to get him some paracetamol and while there got a call from Test and Trace. I explained where I was, at which point the woman got quite shirty and told me that a close contact I should be isolating. I pointed out to her that as I am double jabbed I don't have to isolate as I don't have any symptoms and had tested negative on a LFT. I asked them to call me back once I got home. Got home and received the call back and started going through the questions. The phone line was terrible and the guy I was speaking to explained they were on an internet phone line and it often dropped out. Half way through the call it dropped out completely. A different person then called me back twice but both times I couldn't hear them. Someone else then called me back and tried to start the questions again from the beginning. I told them that I'd already answered most of the questions so they managed to find where it had been left before and started from there. At the end of the call he asked if I had any questions and I said "Yes, don't you want the contact details for Mrs Colch as you haven't taken them". Cue back peddling as he desperately tried to find the right part of the form to complete that bit. Plus the fact that I was asked three times if my son travelled to a place of work. He's 10 years old, I've already given you his date of birth, and as we don't live in Victorian times I'm not sending him up chimneys, so no, you moron, he's not travelling to a place of work.

You would've thought that some of the £36 billion could have been spent on decent phone lines and also staff that know what they are doing. Rant over.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Just found out a good friend of mine is in hospital on a ventilator. Tested positive sunday, taken in monday and ventilated that evening. Went downhill unbelievably quickly according to his daughter. Very very worried for him at the moment

Very sad news. There was a double jabbed middle aged guy in my place (no other co-morbidities) who went downhill very quickly and died and it affected a lot of the nursing staff deeply. I hope your mate can pull through but from my experiences it'll be a long and difficult journey but best wishes to him

 

[Ethan]

This could equally have gone in the random irritations thread, but, in a completely non-political way, Test and Trace is an absolute shambles. Younger son tested positive with a LFT on Tuesday morning. Took him for a PCR test that afternoon and got the positive result through this morning. Had to go to the pharmacy to get him some paracetamol and while there got a call from Test and Trace. I explained where I was, at which point the woman got quite shirty and told me that a close contact I should be isolating. I pointed out to her that as I am double jabbed I don't have to isolate as I don't have any symptoms and had tested negative on a LFT. I asked them to call me back once I got home. Got home and received the call back and started going through the questions. The phone line was terrible and the guy I was speaking to explained they were on an internet phone line and it often dropped out. Half way through the call it dropped out completely. A different person then called me back twice but both times I couldn't hear them. Someone else then called me back and tried to start the questions again from the beginning. I told them that I'd already answered most of the questions so they managed to find where it had been left before and started from there. At the end of the call he asked if I had any questions and I said "Yes, don't you want the contact details for Mrs Colch as you haven't taken them". Cue back peddling as he desperately tried to find the right part of the form to complete that bit. Plus the fact that I was asked three times if my son travelled to a place of work. He's 10 years old, I've already given you his date of birth, and as we don't live in Victorian times I'm not sending him up chimneys, so no, you moron, he's not travelling to a place of work.

You would've thought that some of the £36 billion could have been spent on decent phone lines and also staff that know what they are doing. Rant over.

Test and Trace has been a disgrace. I don't blame individual badly paid employees, but the process. To start with, tracing is not a call centre activity, but a ground level activity. T&T used some very generous interpretations of performance metrics to inflate their apparent performance, for example if you identified X names and agreed to contact them all, then X people were recorded as having complied with instructions.

 

[ColchesterFC]

Test and Trace has been a disgrace. I don't blame individual badly paid employees, but the process. To start with, tracing is not a cell centre activity, but a ground level activity. T&T used some very generous interpretations of performance metrics to inflate their apparent performance, for example if you identified X names and agreed to contact them all, then X people were recorded as having complied with instructions.

We'd already done the job of test and trace as soon as he tested positive on the LFT. We called his school to let them know and also our older son's school. We informed all of the parents from his football team and the manager let the team he'd played against at the weekend know. Once the positive PCR result came back we phoned all of the same people to let them know that it had been confirmed with a PCR test. Everyone that needed to be informed had already been informed before test and trace even got involved.

EDIT - I know a lot of the £36 billion has been spent on the testing side of things (approx 90% from some reports I've read) but that still leaves over £3.5 billion that has been spent on the tracing side of things which is a ridiculous amount.

 

[Ethan]

We'd already done the job of test and trace as soon as he tested positive on the LFT. We called his school to let them know and also our older son's school. We informed all of the parents from his football team and the manager let the team he'd played against at the weekend know. Once the positive PCR result came back we phoned all of the same people to let them know that it had been confirmed with a PCR test. Everyone that needed to be informed had already been informed before test and trace even got involved.

EDIT - I know a lot of the £36 billion has been spent on the testing side of things (approx 90% from some reports I've read) but that still leaves over £3.5 billion that has been spent on the tracing side of things which is a ridiculous amount.

You did well, but as you say, you did the work. Traditional contact tracing involves IDing a case, then identifying contacts, taking action to limit spread (different for TB compared to gonorrhoea, for example) and testing exposed people. If done properly, it breaks the chain of spread, but needs some direct, or at least personal, contact from someone who can use their common sense and training to tease out information.

The budget for Serco T&T was a number of years of the entire Public Health England budget. It could have been much much better spent and created a brilliant contact tracing system.

 

[SocketRocket]

I was just looking at the English data and the daily cases have been dropping since the 18th October which is before most schools broke up for half term so whilst half term may well have sped up the reduction in infections the direction of travel was downwards before that happened. Hopefully that's a good thing as if it were solely based on half term then infections should dip and then start to rise again.

I notice the infections are starting to rise again. I have no empirical data but it certainly looks as if they are related to school activity.

 

[ExRabbit]

I notice the infections are starting to rise again. I have no empirical data but it certainly looks as if they are related to school activity.

My wife is a teacher, and I would agree with this judging by the numbers at her school.

Pretty glad we both got our booster yesterday. Ironically perhaps the least painful jabs, but the sorest arms today!

 

[Foxholer]

I notice the infections are starting to rise again. I have no empirical data but it certainly looks as if they are related to school activity.

Have you noticed that the days are also getting shorter? That means Winter is on its way/here. And infections have risen every Autumn/Winter. The observation of rise of infections at schools is, to me, merely a reflection of the above. Though that's certainly no reason for schools to be complacent - quite the opposite in fact.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

And so a work colleague you work closely with tests positive and consequently your work asks you to go home as you present a risk to other colleagues. But you are on what is in effect a zero hours contract and only get paid for the hours you work, and so for as long as your employer will not have you back at work your earnings are zilch. Just checking if this is all legit or if your employer has any obligations to you - or indeed if you qualify for statutory sick pay even given that you yourself do not exhibit any symptoms. Would it make any difference to your situation were you double-vaxxed.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

And so a work colleague you work closely with tests positive and consequently your work asks you to go home as you present a risk to other colleagues. But you are on zero hours contract and only get paid for the hours you work, and so for as long as your employer will not have you back at work your earnings are zilch. Just checking if this is all legit or if your employer has any obligations to you - or indeed if you qualify for statutory sick pay.

It depends on the employment contract signed, that needs to be carefully read. I suspect the clue is in the phrase, zero hours, though. The nature of those contracts is that costs for the employer are kept to a minimum and this is likely to be part of that.

I've checked citizens advice and the person should be entitled to ssp, unless they are classed as self employed. That might be the case in this situation.

I can't help further I'm afraid, we employ people with proper contracts, that give protection etc.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

It depends on the employment contract signed, that needs to be carefully read. I suspect the clue is in the phrase, zero hours, though. The nature of those contracts is that costs for the employer are kept to a minimum and this is likely to be part of that.

I've checked citizens advice and the person should be entitled to ssp, unless they are classed as self employed. That might be the case in this situation.

I can't help further I'm afraid, we employ people with proper contracts, that give protection etc.

Interesting…but since your response suggests that the detail matters.

If I provide what is in practice a self-employed ad-hoc service to the customers of the business, that being 90% of my income (though at any point if no customers want my services provided then my income from that is zero), and at the same time get paid a small amount by the business on a contracted basis to provide them with some basic services? They send me home and I immediately lose 90% of my income - because one of their customers I worked with tested positive…

 

[road2ruin]

I notice the infections are starting to rise again. I have no empirical data but it certainly looks as if they are related to school activity.

Agree, the schools probably are helping with the numbers but as already mentioned time of year is also going to be contributing to the numbers. I was in a pub at the weekend that doesn't usually feel that busy inside however that's because they have a large beer garden, now the majority are inside and it was rammed. Summer and mild autumn have kept keep the numbers down but as we're forecast much colder weather it's inevitable that the numbers will increase. The positive news is that largely speaking hospital admissions are still not following the upward curve of the cases.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Interesting…but since your response suggests that the detail matters.

If I provide what is in practice a self-employed ad-hoc service to the customers of the business, that being 90% of my income (though at any point if no customers want my services provided then my income from that is zero), and at the same time get paid a small amount by the business on a contracted basis to provide them with some basic services? They send me home and I immediately lose 90% of my income - because one of their customers I worked with tested positive…

The key is usually what is in the contract, assuming it is legally correct which we would hope it is. I know that is obvious but actually very few do read their contract and so a number of things become a shock. I remember reading the first contract which stipulated which deaths I could have time off for, how close a family member etc. It identified them and how many days I was entitled to. I'd never seen that before but later discovered it was pretty common.

Sadly, these types of contracts are loaded very heavily in one direction and it is not towards the employee. Nature of the beast unfortunately.

 

[Foxholer]

Interesting…but since your response suggests that the detail matters.

If I provide what is in practice a self-employed ad-hoc service to the customers of the business, that being 90% of my income (though at any point if no customers want my services provided then my income from that is zero), and at the same time get paid a small amount by the business on a contracted basis to provide them with some basic services? They send me home and I immediately lose 90% of my income - because one of their customers I worked with tested positive…

Why can't you provide that (90% of your income) service from home - or an alternative office (if security is a major concern)? Surely telephone and comms are sufficient these days. They were 'tolerable' for me and the company I was contracting for when inclement weather caused this to happen once in the early '90s.