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Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

GB72 said:
Just a quick vox pop from being in town today at lunchtime. Most peopel still wearing masks, in every shop where the signage said recommend wearing a mask, people were putting them on. Actually saw more people alking between shops with masks on, maybe making a point. Still, round my way, it appears that if somewhere says they would rather you wore a mask, people are wearing them
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This is exactly what I saw here too today. Baking hot and quite a few more than usual wearing masks outside. A few shop staff were not wearing masks but almost all shoppers were. Had a haircut and all the Covid protocols were still being followed there too.
 
Kellfire said:
I’m intrigued as to how you think people will fake things like cardiomyopathy or hepatitis.
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Not that cut and dried though is it? For every hepatitis there will be 10 x chest pains, tiredness and brain fog (?)

I suppose I’m looking at it from an employers point of view but people will definitely milk it.
 
SocketRocket said:
My pet hate is people stood or sat at the bar blocking it from other customers being served.
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Not sure what sort of pub you are in but it is very much the norm in my village local and, indeed, my previous local as well. Everyone chats to everyone in the bar and so everyone stands up and mills around or sits at the bar. It is a small bar and so most regulars will buy a round for people coming in anyway. In a busy pub I understand it but in many village pubs where everyone knows everyone in the bar, it is perfectly normal.
 
PNWokingham said:
just wandered into town and walked into a pub and ordered a pint at the bar without a mask on. It felt good
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I’m at Sams clubhouse at the Belfry and nobody is going to the bar with one on. The staff still have to wear them which is a shame they don’t have a choice. It’s nice, it’s normal!
But take advantage of it. It won’t be around for long. They need something to blame and justification for the inevitable lockdown in autumn.
 
Jamesbrown said:
I’m at Sams clubhouse at the Belfry and nobody is going to the bar with one on. The staff still have to wear them which is a shame they don’t have a choice. It’s nice, it’s normal!
But take advantage of it. It won’t be around for long. They need something to blame and justification for the inevitable lockdown in autumn.
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Don’t bother with the Bel-air. It’s a sausage fest ???
 
Swinglowandslow said:
All that makes sense. The second paragraph in particular is pure logic sense.
I know you have a strong opinion about the last paragraph subject, but what exactly is the data about long Covid particularly in the young ( under 40ish).
I ask because I haven't seen any figures, only anecdotal.
You see, E, what people who are very concerned about L C are up against is that day after day, we hear that such and such well known person has tested positive etc. I have never seen a follow up about any of them getting LC.
E,g in golf, quite a number of Pros have tested positive, none has reportedly got LC.
Footballers, rugby , even people on this forum.
Just how prevalent is it? .
Is there such a thing as Long Flu ( I think there is- I read something about hippocampus etc.)
Just what is the perspective of Long Covid. How big is the likelihood?
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There are three separate non-fatal outcomes of concern.

The first is the most obvious, damage during an acute episode that the patients has not, and possibly will never fully, recover from. So some people have lung damage, or damage from the cytokine storm affecting one or more organs. These people have usually been quite unwell and have probably been in hospital. Derek Draper is an example of this, widely discussed in the media.

The second group is long Covid, which generally means persisting symptoms weeks or months after infection, sometimes after mild infection. Estimates of the prevalence vary, but something around 10% at 12 weeks appears to be an accepted number. The numbers at one year are not yet well enough studied. Post-viral syndromes are well known, and occur with other viruses too. Long Covid is probably to do with a disordered immune response to the virus, not ongoing virus activity, and sometimes responds to vaccination which kind of kickstarts the immune system.

The third group are the ones that concern me most. These are the people who had mild illness and seem to have fully recovered. But if you scan their brains or liver or kidneys, you find a number that have changes in the organs suggestive of inflammatory change. In simple terms, they have put a lot more miles on the clock very quickly. Now, these people are fine now, but in a year or 3 or 5, their kidneys, liver, heart or brain might fail. There is published work on brain atrophy, i.e. degenerative changes like you see in MS or Parkinsons, on myocarditis (as well as being a side effect of vaccination), etc. This is an iceberg of future pathology floating mostly under the surface that could cause serious problems in the short two medium term.

Going back to my last para in the previous post, in a lot of this, Covid is very different from flu. Flue tends to kill old people in winter, Covid kills younger people too. Flu can cause post-viral syndromes, but not to the same extent, and flu tends not to cause (although Soanish flu was an exception) the widespread inflammatory effects of Covid. If an average forum member here got the flu, we could almost certainly reassure them that they will be fine, take some paracetemol, rest for a bit, you'll be fine. I would not be as confident with Covid. It is a nasty, sneaky little bastard.
 
Fade and Die said:
Not that cut and dried though is it? For every hepatitis there will be 10 x chest pains, tiredness and brain fog (?)

I suppose I’m looking at it from an employers point of view but people will definitely milk it.
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Hepatitis requires altered liver function tests, mycarditis an altered echocardiogram and abnormal blood tests showing heart damage. Both, going a bit yellow and having chest pain or unexplained breathlessness, need proper medical investigation. Brain fog, on the other hand, is common, see plenty of it around here.
 
Jamesbrown said:
I’m at Sams clubhouse at the Belfry and nobody is going to the bar with one on. The staff still have to wear them which is a shame they don’t have a choice. It’s nice, it’s normal!
But take advantage of it. It won’t be around for long. They need something to blame and justification for the inevitable lockdown in autumn.
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I will stick my neck out and take an optimistic attitude that although cases will rise for next month or so, that we will avoid a further autumn lockdown and that the vaccines will do enough of what is needed
 
PNWokingham said:
I will stick my neck out and take an optimistic attitude that although cases will rise for next month or so, that we will avoid a further autumn lockdown and that the vaccines will do enough of what is needed
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I hope you are right, but unless you are advocating vaccinating teenagers, then a large reservoir of disease remains.

Most public health measures work better if you take a pessimistic attitude and are proven wrong. If you take an optimistic attitude, then by the time you suspect you are wrong, it is often too late to change course.
 
Ethan said:
I hope you are right, but unless you are advocating vaccinating teenagers, then a large reservoir of disease remains.

Most public health measures work better if you take a pessimistic attitude and are proven wrong. If you take an optimistic attitude, then by the time you suspect you are wrong, it is often too late to change course.
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had enough of a pessimistic attitude. A holiday in Tenerife hopefully awaits in mid September and i have gone from fealing a near certainty to 50/50 - i want to start thinking more 80/20. And given the entire over 18s are likely vaccinated by september and many under 18 will likely have had it, i think there is room for optimism.
 
Had to have a think, The living with it phrase, will mean different things to different people. It isnt a binary thing. As before living life, is different for everyone.

For me, think it is that at the current state of play, as with other mutating infectious viruses, we will probably need to accept that we are going to 'catch' this multiple times in our life and take on that risk, vaccines really helping (hopefully the first and second plus time, will be mild for all of us, as our immunity builds up and hope we are not one of the outliners that sadly exist in quite high % in statistics ). Hope treatments get better as well.

Yeah we personally are taking various reductions of risk, due to family members age/other conditions and vaccines only reduce the risk for your age/conditions profile. Will also probably vary what we do, depending on time of year etc. Quite sobering thinking about it tbh, the day that life changed.

We have lost alot of weight since coming out of lockdown, to bring us into the 'sweet' spot for moving forward and weight being a bad thing for severity and other health issues, for me Ive lost 2.5 stone(thanks lockdown for the extra weight tho!) and don't need to lose anymore. Wife has lost over 2 stone so far. We are pretty fit etc already.

I hate lockdowns and the feeling of anger I have been left with, it will take a long time to move on from that, probably never.

Lost our son from our house at a very tender age, makes me * * just thinking about it. Didn't see the new grandchild for quite a time and son, due to the laws. Yeah I have seen the other side with the virus and people suffering from the virus, but life harms are not simple.

However, the thing that brings me great pleasure and hope for the future, is seeing younger people who have suffered and given up so much from the restrictions, starting to being able to live a better quality of life and have more choices.
 
road2ruin said:
I'm not sure whether you are being deliberately obtuse or whether it's just an early start on a Monday morning however you are completely missing my point. If you take a moment to go back and have a read you will see that I have, at no point, said that all masks do not work. I have said that CLOTH MASKS do not work and this was based on SAGE adviser Colin Axon:

Standard face coverings are just "comfort blankets" that do little to reduce the spread of Covid particles, a scientist advising Sage on ventilation has said.

Dr Colin Axon, who has advised the government on minimising the risk of cross-infection in supermarkets, accused medics of presenting a "cartoonish" view of how how tiny particles travel through the air.

He warned some cloth masks have gaps which are invisible to the naked eye, but are 500,000 times the size of viral Covid particles.

As you can see, this isn't Dr Steve from Facebook this is from someone qualified to comment.

Your post giving the information on N95 mask is all very interesting and is probably correct but again it is completely irrelevant in proving me wrong as your using a different mask and it's efficacy as a completely different example, some might say to suit your argument and point of view.
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It might not be Dr Steve from Facebook, but it is Dr Colin Axon who is......

"Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Energy Futures. My research is about the use of energy in the urban environment and the limits to natural resources. My main areas of interest are in energy security, sustainability, transport, electricity networks, and resource efficiency. I use techniques and methods including the application of robust methods for metrics and indicators, and data mining and analytics. I have published more than 80 reviewed articles and technical reports."

Areas he's researched are.....
  • Energy security, risk, and sustainability.
  • Data analytics for energy use in the urban environment.
  • Infrastructure investment for the low(er)-carbon transition.
  • Energy use by transport and it's impacts on health.
  • Robust methods for metrics and indicators.
  • Electricity networks.
He may well be an expert in Energy futures and energy in the urban environment but what he's certainly not is a medical doctor or an epidemiologist.

https://www.brunel.ac.uk/people/colin-axon
 
ColchesterFC said:
It might not be Dr Steve from Facebook, but it is Dr Colin Axon who is......

"Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Energy Futures. My research is about the use of energy in the urban environment and the limits to natural resources. My main areas of interest are in energy security, sustainability, transport, electricity networks, and resource efficiency. I use techniques and methods including the application of robust methods for metrics and indicators, and data mining and analytics. I have published more than 80 reviewed articles and technical reports."

Areas he's researched are.....
  • Energy security, risk, and sustainability.
  • Data analytics for energy use in the urban environment.
  • Infrastructure investment for the low(er)-carbon transition.
  • Energy use by transport and it's impacts on health.
  • Robust methods for metrics and indicators.
  • Electricity networks.
He may well be an expert in Energy futures and energy in the urban environment but what he's certainly not is a medical doctor or an epidemiologist.

https://www.brunel.ac.uk/people/colin-axon
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But he’s also been advising SAGE (or at least that’s how it was reported) so he’s obviously got some knowledge that’s been required.
 
PNWokingham said:
had enough of a pessimistic attitude. A holiday in Tenerife hopefully awaits in mid September and i have gone from fealing a near certainty to 50/50 - i want to start thinking more 80/20. And given the entire over 18s are likely vaccinated by september and many under 18 will likely have had it, i think there is room for optimism.
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80/20. Airport management books don't really cover public health emergencies very well.

If you are manager of the widget factory and your plan to speed up production doesn't work, big deal. If you decide not to order enough ICU kit because you are "optimistic" about pandemic numbers and you are wrong, not so good. Optimism is fine if you also plan properly for that rosy picture not working out.

If you go to Tenerife, play Abama, by the way.
 
D-S said:
Everyone (including staff and me) wearing masks in Tesco today despite it being relatively empty.
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Just been in Tesco Wokingham. Similar, great majority wearing masks, apart from a pair of middle aged women who knew exactly where all the pies had gone and therefore were at much higher risk than most and needed a mask more than most.
 
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