Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

[Swinglowandslow]

I'm less than convinced there will be a vaccine. There isn't one yet for any other strain of coronavirus.

There hasn't been in the past such a dire situation in respect of the other Covids,so there wasn't the "push"
The vaccines are out there and most work to a large extent., it's the safety testing that is time consuming.
(That's why a lot of the vaccines have been mass produced already, so when the green light is given, they will roll out quickly.)
It may well be that the situation will get so serious that the vaccine will be offered before all usual safety issues have been satisfied.
I.e. If it stops Covid but had only 75% safety testing, they might offer it on that basis, leaving it to the individual to make an informed decision.
So, if like me , some in their late seventies get the offer , they may take it as long term side effects are not too important. ?

 

[SocketRocket]

Me and my Mrs got a bit worried watching the briefing as it looking like Boris was going to be on SCD...in the end I hope that last night is as close as he gets...the thought of him doing the Charleston or a Cha-cha-cha...?? Phew...

Eh!

 

[SocketRocket]

Next year there may be a cure or a help with medication. Maybe it will be good, maybe less so. The damage that this virus has done to the country is now, in my opinion, far outweighing trying to protect us against covid. The build up of deaths from undiagnised cancers and other diseases will only become aparant over the next two or three years. Many of the covid deaths would have happenened anyway. It is all getting far beyond the twilight zone. I think we need a much more counter-policy decision and look to Sweden and have the courage to put resources round the vulnerable and let the rest of society get on with life as near normal. £150-200bn or so cost so far and the legacy this does to the next generation is a price too high to pay.

Just let it rip. Do you have any idea how many people would be seriously affected by that, Covid doesn't just kill or affect certain demographics it has serious long term and fatal effects on all age groups. If left to its own the consequences would dire.

 

[Mudball]

Next year there may be a cure or a help with medication. Maybe it will be good, maybe less so. The damage that this virus has done to the country is now, in my opinion, far outweighing trying to protect us against covid. The build up of deaths from undiagnised cancers and other diseases will only become aparant over the next two or three years. Many of the covid deaths would have happenened anyway. It is all getting far beyond the twilight zone. I think we need a much more counter-policy decision and look to Sweden and have the courage to put resources round the vulnerable and let the rest of society get on with life as near normal. £150-200bn or so cost so far and the legacy this does to the next generation is a price too high to pay.

i agree with you.. but let us push that logic further... lets shutter all hospitals.. At some point (untreated) Cancer, diabetics and other diseases will cost life, so why bother saving them. Smoking, drinking and other life style choice diseases was the patient's fault anyways. Imagine the impact of the economy as we will be able to save a few billions on the NHS every year. Money that an be spent elsewhere. Finally the forum has a bright idea..

 

[Hobbit]

Me and my Mrs got a bit worried watching the briefing as it looking like Boris was going to be on SCD...in the end I hope that last night is as close as he gets...the thought of him doing the Charleston or a Cha-cha-cha...?? Phew...

Eh!

Its another of his thinly veiled political digs. If he thinks he gets away with it without intelligent people realising, he's a bigger idiot than he might imagine.

 

[Hobbit]

Just let it rip. Do you have any idea how many people would be seriously affected by that, Covid doesn't just kill or affect certain demographics it has serious long term and fatal effects on all age groups. If left to its own the consequences would dire.

The son of a friend, 21 years old and very fit, got it in the first wave. He didn't know what it was other than it felt like a nasty cold. After a couple of months of struggling with a cough and feeling ropey he went to the docs, who sent him for an x-ray. Long story short, pockets of live infection in his lungs, whatever they are. 5 months on and he's still struggling to get out of the house.

 

[SocketRocket]

The son of a friend, 21 years old and very fit, got it in the first wave. He didn't know what it was other than it felt like a nasty cold. After a couple of months of struggling with a cough and feeling ropey he went to the docs, who sent him for an x-ray. Long story short, pockets of live infection in his lungs, whatever they are. 5 months on and he's still struggling to get out of the house.

Same with my 40 year old daughter, caught it in March and still gets exhausted after the slightest exertion.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Its another of his thinly veiled political digs. If he thinks he gets away with it without intelligent people realising, he's a bigger idiot than he might imagine.

No it’s not - it’s the thought of Boris on SCD...?. After all Ed Balls had a decent go previously and Jacqui Smith is making a right hash of it this time round...

You did notice last night that Boris was still speaking when the BeeB had to cut to SCD...close shave ?

 

[Hobbit]

No it’s not - it’s the thought of Boris on SCD...?. After all Ed Balls had a decent go previously and Jacqui Smith is making a right hash of it this time round...

You did notice last night that Boris was still speaking when the BeeB had to cut to SCD...close shave ?

Maybe you're right but isn't it a coincidence that so many of your (supposed) non-political posts are aimed at the govt's handling of the crisis and the main players involved.... You skirt round it so (too) often for it to be a coincidence.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

No it’s not - it’s the thought of Boris on SCD...?. After all Ed Balls had a decent go previously and Jacqui Smith is making a right hash of it this time round...

You did notice last night that Boris was still speaking when the BeeB had to cut to SCD...close shave ?

At least you won't have to worry about Smith anymore. Or do you think it was a political vote?

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

At least you won't have to worry about Smith anymore. Or do you think it was a political vote?

no matter your political hue - she was a bit better at being Home Secretary than dancer - though she couldn’t actually be worse...

 

[PNWokingham]

Just let it rip. Do you have any idea how many people would be seriously affected by that, Covid doesn't just kill or affect certain demographics it has serious long term and fatal effects on all age groups. If left to its own the consequences would dire.

...and a pointless lockdown. Then what. We open up again and it spikes again, repeat..... Lockdowns are futile. Sweden are the only country with the guts to see the reality.

Put the efforts into shielding and helping those that need it. If this goes on for much longer there is a significant effect on all of us that will dwarf the effects of covid. We do not know anything about long-term effects of covid but we know plenty about the rest of the diseases and ailments that affect all of society including early diagniosis of cancers, heart diseases etc.

When people can go and get their nails done, hair cut etc etc and they cannot have face-to-face appiontments with doctors something is badly wrong. It is tiume we learned to live with this before we wreck the economy and the amount of covid-caused non-covid deaths far outnumbers covid, if it has not already. Plus the 150bn or 200bn that it has already cost, with the future costs set to dwarf this. I am not belitleing that it is serious but we have no option other than to live with it - there is no guarantee that anything medical related will have a transformational impact in the next few months

 

[Deleted member 16999]

...and a pointless lockdown. Then what. We open up again and it spikes again, repeat..... Lockdowns are futile. Sweden are the only country with the guts to see the reality.

Put the efforts into shielding and helping those that need it. If this goes on for much longer there is a significant effect on all of us that will dwarf the effects of covid. We do not know anything about long-term effects of covid but we know plenty about the rest of the diseases and ailments that affect all of society including early diagniosis of cancers, heart diseases etc.

When people can go and get their nails done, hair cut etc etc and they cannot have face-to-face appiontments with doctors something is badly wrong. It is tiume we learned to live with this before we wreck the economy and the amount of covid-caused non-covid deaths far outnumbers covid, if it has not already. Plus the 150bn or 200bn that it has already cost, with the future costs set to dwarf this. I am not belitleing that it is serious but we have no option other than to live with it - there is no guarantee that anything medical related will have a transformational impact in the next few months

Sweden is not the beacon I think you believe it is, yes they may be above the UK in certain aspects, but it’s by no means a success.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/sweden-coronavirus-response-experiment

“As of October 21, Sweden stood 15th on the grim global ranking list of Covid-19 deaths per capita, and fifth in Europe, below only Belgium, Italy, Spain, and UK.”

Maybe a quick straw poll on here to see if anyone would like to see us follows Sweden’s example of not admitting anyone over 80 with Covid-19 to an ICU?

Yes the damage will be hideous, yes it will take years to recover, but there will be a bigger cost if it overwhelms the NHS and costs even more lives from every type of illness not just Covid.

 

[road2ruin]

As we head into Lockdown 2.0 is appears to be on the back of the 'science' telling us that we need this to ensure that we don't reach a level of cases/depths that have been put forward my SAGE. My issue with SAGE is how they are allowed to put forward these scenarios without also putting out the data that they are based on. I am not talking about us as members of a golf forum pouring over the facts and figures however why are other scientists who are equally qualified as those in SAGE not able to see what the numbers are based upon? Every single SAGE scenario is the worst case +1, the impact these lockdowns will have on the majority of the population is incalculable and yet we are expected to just accept it.

I have no problem with the lockdown if the reason behind it is justified but what I do have an issue with is 'SAGE think we should do it' and no supporting evidence as to why. I am almost certain that come December 2nd the lockdown will be extended up until Christmas at the very earliest if not into the new year, the science will dictate that the supporting evidence requires it however will they finally publish any of the data, I suspect not. Surely the who point of science has always been that it is evidence based and it's not just the findings that are out in in the public domain but also the workings that are able to be scrutinised by others. It seems SAGE are able to say whatever they want and we have to accept it?

 

[Ethan]

...and a pointless lockdown. Then what. We open up again and it spikes again, repeat..... Lockdowns are futile. Sweden are the only country with the guts to see the reality.

Put the efforts into shielding and helping those that need it. If this goes on for much longer there is a significant effect on all of us that will dwarf the effects of covid. We do not know anything about long-term effects of covid but we know plenty about the rest of the diseases and ailments that affect all of society including early diagniosis of cancers, heart diseases etc.

When people can go and get their nails done, hair cut etc etc and they cannot have face-to-face appiontments with doctors something is badly wrong. It is tiume we learned to live with this before we wreck the economy and the amount of covid-caused non-covid deaths far outnumbers covid, if it has not already. Plus the 150bn or 200bn that it has already cost, with the future costs set to dwarf this. I am not belitleing that it is serious but we have no option other than to live with it - there is no guarantee that anything medical related will have a transformational impact in the next few months

In my opinion, you are right on one thing. This will very likely spike up again after lockdown, especially with a compressed period of Christmas shopping, parties and kids coming back from Uni. Lockdown III looks certain in January.

However, Sweden had 5-10x the mortality of its immediate neighbours. Its economy did not do any better than its neighbours. There is no evidence mental health is any better there than its neighbours.

It is an article of faith, resistant to any facts, for the Covid denier that Sweden did better. Even Anders Tegnell, the main driver of this policy has been much more measured recently about the idea compared to when it started. Funny enough, many of the same share another delusion that dare not speak its name in the forum any more.

Lockdowns work by containing the virus until it dies. It isn't rocket science. They don't work if people continually flout them. A well known moron is about to launch another ego stroking organisation to encourage this, so he will likely be responsible for more deaths.

All this 'live with it' nonsense is rarely accompanied by any concrete idea of what that actually means. If it means letting it run through the population in a herd immunity plan, then that will cost tens or hundreds of thousands of lives. Also, the plan for dealing with shielded people is unclear. When do you release them back into the general population. As far as medical advances, most sensible people are now confident that vaccines will start to emerge. The timing remains uncertain, but could be early new Year.

People who need face to face appointments with their doctor can get them. Many people think they need them when they don't. People who need their nails done can do them themselves if the price is other people being put on ventilators.

 

[road2ruin]

Ethan, I agree with a lot of what you say and you are better placed than most of us in terms of knowledge etc however this just isn't true is it?

Lockdowns work by containing the virus until it dies. It isn't rocket science.

The virus is not going to be killed by a lockdown unless it has buy in by 100% of the world's population. If there was a world wide lockdown for 4 weeks that every single person on the planet adhered to then I would imagine the virus will be killed off. However that's unlikely so any other type of lockdown is just supressing the virus but as soon as you open up and allow travel across regions and then international borders it will just reappear and flourish again.

 

[robinthehood]

I'm already tired of peolple telling me what is and isnt essentail and we're not even in lockdown yet ?

 

[Ethan]

Ethan, I agree with a lot of what you say and you are better placed than most of us in terms of knowledge etc however this just isn't true is it?



The virus is not going to be killed by a lockdown unless it has buy in by 100% of the world's population. If there was a world wide lockdown for 4 weeks that every single person on the planet adhered to then I would imagine the virus will be killed off. However that's unlikely so any other type of lockdown is just supressing the virus but as soon as you open up and allow travel across regions and then international borders it will just reappear and flourish again.

It is perfectly true, and we have known about it since Roman times. Covid is not immortal. If you stop it being transmitted, where it regenerates, as it were, it dies out. There is no evidence it lies dormant. The lower you push it, the less it will kick up again afterwards, and over a few cycles, that can have a major effect. 100% buy in would be great, but there is a sliding scale and the better you do it, the easier things become. If you simply say it can't be done art 100%, so whats the point of bothering at all, then you are stuffed and the health and economic effects, which are inextricably linked, just stay bad for longer.

New Zealand is probably the best example of how to do this. They put in place strict immigration and containment regulations early and have had a total of less than 2000 cases and 25 deaths in a population of 5 million. That is how you get back to normal fast, but acting decisively early. Scotland has a similar population and has had over 65,000 positive tests and almost 5000 deaths.

 

[Deleted member 21258]

I fear we are or have already passed the point of collateral damage being worse and it isn't really being discussed in all of this.

I agree complete lockdowns work, either we should either eliminate and lock borders or we need to look at the whole picture what we are doing currently is madness.


Just think about some of these statistics, the collateral damage is massive and we need to start acting for the bigger picture :-

March to August ..3.3 million fewer GP referrals to consultants for Outpatient apts. 62,000 are estimated to be for urgent cancer concerns. 7.6% will die

504 children denied radiotherapy

603 children denied heart surgery

12,000 secondary cancer referrals lost

62,000 urgent cancer referrals lost

350,000 suspected cancers missed

107,000 breast surgeries delayed

27 million gp apts lost

Cardillac attendances at A&E a massive dip during last lock down

9% increase in domestic violence reported cases during lockdown. April to June 2020.

107,102 fewer Gynaecology consultation episodes completed during lockdown April to August 2020. Down 46.8%

25,000 less children received psychiatry this year than last.

131,000 clinical Oncology appointments lost to lockdowns so far.

94,000 lost Adult Mental illness appointments since April 2020.

31,441 deaths in England from other causes have disappeared since last year


Non direct deaths, more economic stuff

350,000 young peoples jobs lost 1.5 million jobs lost

Been proved many times low wealth/bad performing economy leads to more deaths and earlier deaths



If you are willing to look about, there is plenty more terrible data like the above, the fall out of this is enormous by taking the half hearted approach, either lock down properly or manage spread far better and direct to younger generations.

 

[Deleted member 16999]

I fear we are or have already passed the point of collateral damage being worse and it isn't really being discussed in all of this.

I agree complete lockdowns work, either we should either eliminate and lock borders or we need to look at the whole picture what we are doing currently is madness.


Just think about some of these statistics, the collateral damage is massive and we need to start acting for the bigger picture :-

March to August ..3.3 million fewer GP referrals to consultants for Outpatient apts. 62,000 are estimated to be for urgent cancer concerns. 7.6% will die

504 children denied radiotherapy

603 children denied heart surgery

12,000 secondary cancer referrals lost

62,000 urgent cancer referrals lost

350,000 suspected cancers missed

107,000 breast surgeries delayed

27 million gp apts lost

Cardillac attendances at A&E a massive dip during last lock down

9% increase in domestic violence reported cases during lockdown. April to June 2020.

107,102 fewer Gynaecology consultation episodes completed during lockdown April to August 2020. Down 46.8%

25,000 less children received psychiatry this year than last.

131,000 clinical Oncology appointments lost to lockdowns so far.

94,000 lost Adult Mental illness appointments since April 2020.

31,441 deaths in England from other causes have disappeared since last year


Non direct deaths, more economic stuff

350,000 young peoples jobs lost 1.5 million jobs lost

Been proved many times low wealth/bad performing economy leads to more deaths and earlier deaths



If you are willing to look about, there is plenty more terrible data like the above, the fall out of this is enormous by taking the half hearted approach, either lock down properly or manage spread far better and direct to younger generations.

Good post, and is exactly why the Government has been forced into a 2nd lockdown, because if we go the other way and let Covid-19 run free all those figures will drastically rise as the NHS and economy is pushed to collapse.

Or we cross our fingers, hope it takes none of our loved ones then state the Government got it wrong.

Personally I prefer the way the Government is trying.