Covid tests

Our local hospitals have reinstated mask wearing etc and stopped most visiting because their wards are very full with Covid patients again. They are mostly unvaccinated. Don’t forget there are a lot out there who won’t take the vaccinations.

The hospital where I volunteer has never dropped mask wearing and sanitising. My ward was recently closed due to Covid. It's open again but there are still several cases. It's not gone away.

Frankly, if people won’t have the vaccine, assuming there is no medical reason why they shouldn’t, then I’m afraid be it on their own heads as my mother used to say.
The problem of course is that it’s possibly not just themselves they hurt, it could be a very vulnerable person, or a person who cannot have the vaccination for good medical reasons, or the doctors and nurses who are supposed to be at work but are off work sick with Covid. Not having the vaccination is selfish in my opinion.

volver

I think some people might just be over-reacting a bit...

That’s what several people said in January 2020!

I've not had the vaccine this time because I was so ill the last time I had it, it was actually frightening. I don't feel like I am being selfish but I tend t stay indoors and away from people if I am ill anyway

If it was virtually any country other than China I wouldn’t be concerned but we just don’t know the truth about the covid situation there do we?
What we do know is that it has a largely unvaccinated population, with a vaccine which has shown to be not so effective as western produced ones.

The January sales here have always been a big draw to the Chinese, so we potentially have a large number of possibly infected people heading our way.

We are continually told how our health service is struggling, not to mention the strikes which are set to continue apparently, so what we don’t need is it put under extra pressure.
Yes of course we are a well protected country with a high level of vaccine protection but why put ourselves and the NHS at unnecessary risk by giving free access?

Surely it would be perfectly simple to insist that anyone from China wishing to visit will need to produce negative covid tests.

When I typed that there has been a post postulating another lockdown. That's over reacting, despite anything you say.

The person in the article saying we should do what the Italians are doing was Health Minister during the pandemic, so he's hardly covered himself in glory.

Now we have a post saying that China have a "largely unvaccinated population". Which isn't true.

Its about time we realised how much half truth and misinformation is flying around, and that its not March 2020 any more. I don't know what will happen because I'm not an expert, and neither is anybody else on here. Except maybe growstuff But I know over-reaction when I see it.

Eeek! I'm not an expert either! (But I recognise BS when I see it ;-))

Well, I did say "maybe" .

I recognise BS too - no shortage from some quarters- and also the prognostications of some who modestly disclaim “expert” status yet dismiss any opinion other than their own as over-reaction, panic etc.
Speaking personally, but I do not think I am in a minority to believe I have my doubts as to how much credence we can attach to official stats from China when their reporting has been, at the least disingenuous and as with all totalitarian regimes, it is hard to encounter anything other than the official line. Chinese authorities claimed the daily death count is in single figures, but modelling suggests it is more likely to be 5,000-a-day, with hospitals and crematoria overwhelmed.
However by any any standards it seems that the so-called vaccination programme falls lamentably short of the ideal.
The problem of under-vaccination is most acute among the elderly. The (Chinese) government announced a little over a week ago that around 30% of people aged 60 and up — or roughly 80 million people — were not vaccinated and boosted as of Nov. 11. Among those 80 or older, the ratio was closer to 60%.
Experts on Chinese health care say several factors have contributed to the low vaccination rates among older adults. COVID vaccination campaigns focused initially on essential workers, and efficacy data was not focused on the elderly. The government has almost exclusively enforced "zero COVID" policies to keep the virus out and douse flareups rather than moving to ramp up vaccinations when outbreaks were limited?
Plus, there's deep-seated vaccine hesitancy^.
For many, it has its roots in product quality and is reinforced by official distrust of “Western” vaccine production.
China’s Zero Covid policy proved unworkable and the consequences for the population as a whole are likely to be appalling. Almost 250 million people in China may have caught Covid in the first 20 days of December, according to leaked internal estimates from the nation’s top health officials, reported by Bloomberg News and the Financial Times.
COVID 19 was/is a pandemic and IMO an international- universal - response is the only way to get on top of it.

Well that's all true. Apart from the first paragraph which is just a bit of personal ill feeling.

What's your point? As related to testing Chinese travellers arriving in other countries?

JaneJudge

I've not had the vaccine this time because I was so ill the last time I had it, it was actually frightening. I don't feel like I am being selfish but I tend t stay indoors and away from people if I am ill anyway

You are not being selfish. Why risk being so ill again?

The selfish people are those who summarily dismiss all scientific evidence, who sneer at those still wearing masks (and it does happen, even if only infrequently, it happened to me and others I know); the type who will cough and sneeze in crowded places making no attempt to stifle the urge as they elbow their way to the freezer in the supermarket. And I'm not talking about this in relation to Covid necessarily either.

Chap the other day - I actually felt sorry for him, he was clearly unwell - unable to stop coughing but making no attempt to cover his mouth, and wiping his forehead because he was sweating like crazy... obviously he needs to eat but why couldn't he at least make an attempt to not splutter his blobs of virus or germs into other people's space? I know masks aren't totally effective, but even one of those would've helped somewhat.

If I'm ill - and I don't automatically assume it's Covid either - I just make an attempt to stay away from people, and if I was coughing like this gentleman - uncontrollably - I'd wear a flippin' mask at least!

You're doing the right thing IMO. I've had no reaction to any of the vaccines, but that's just the luck of the draw isn't it? If I had, I'd be very wary of having another.

People used to get told off at University for plagiarism.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/29/china-now-perfect-breeding-ground-new-covid-variants-britain/

www.wskg.org/npr-news/2022-12-09/why-vaccine-hesitancy-persists-in-china-and-what-theyre-doing-about-it

www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/leaked-notes-from-chinese-health-officials-estimate-250-million-covid-19-infections-in-december-reports/ar-AA15Cjtj

Now people can read the rest of the articles instead of well chosen paragraphs, if they want.

volver

Well that's all true. Apart from the first paragraph which is just a bit of personal ill feeling.

What's your point? As related to testing Chinese travellers arriving in other countries?

My point goes back to OP - who made a perfectly valid comment on the apparent reluctance of the UK government to test arrivals from China who, along with all subsequent responses, was dismissed as Chicken Licken , panicking and running round in ever decreasing circles.

Actually MawThe Merrier I think that all of your post is true.
Just read today that Sunak is considering safeguards for Chinese visitors to the UK. A bit late in my view to be only just thinking about it, but that’s this government all over.

I am still testing as I am severely immunocompromised with several autoimmune diseases/Vasculitis. My Rheumatologists have lost a number of patients to Covid. Sadly I have several relatives and friends with Long Covid. Covid is very much around.

MawtheMerrier

volver

Well that's all true. Apart from the first paragraph which is just a bit of personal ill feeling.

What's your point? As related to testing Chinese travellers arriving in other countries?

My point goes back to OP - who made a perfectly valid comment on the apparent reluctance of the UK government to test arrivals from China who, along with all subsequent responses, was dismissed as Chicken Licken , panicking and running round in ever decreasing circles.

Nobody - nobody at all - is disputing the information about cases and vaccinations from China. However we, the West, have to decide what to do about it. Half a dozen countries have decided to impose restrictions on travellers arriving from China. But they haven't all imposed the same restrictions as each other. And restrictions might not be what we need to do - its just the first, knee jerk reaction that people are jumping to without understanding the first thing about disease control.

From the absolute start of this, the government have said that there are no plans to impose restrictions, but they are keeping the situation under surveillance. But the headlines jump on the "no plans" bit, and those looking to damn the government and, yes, instill panic and worry in other people, hold forth about how the government aren't doing anything, how they never learn and so on. Chance to have a go at the Chinese as well, of course. (Telegraph, I'm looking at you.) Well they are doing something, so those who think they are not can just change the record.

I find myself defending Sunak for the second time in a week. If people took time to actually understand what was going on, I'd not have to do that and I could criticise him and his government for things they've got wrong, and there are plenty of them. Instead of pointing out things people have made up about them.

I think this goes back to another 'issue' where Sunak was mis-represented in the media.
It's slightly ironic that some of us who are his fiercest critics are compelled to defend him, and his government!
But in the interests of reporting facts, and reporting accurately, it's necessary.
Sensational headlines garner more readers, and more click-bait garners advertising revenue. It's woeful, and causes, or rather adds to, the already divisive culture in this country.

People are not always swayed by reason, but emotion. Some find it harder than others to get the balance right.

Maybe be government should tell us what measures are being taken then. They are going to stop publishing covid rates in this country soon so how are we to know what is happening covid wise. Or is publishing the R rate panic spreading?

Actually , I believe that publishing the R-rate is "panic spreading".

What's the R-rate for flu?

For Strep A?

Don't know? There's a reason for that.

It doesn't matter and anyway it's a measure, not an indicator.

Here's the ONS page. No figures today because of the holidays. They are still tracking COVID in this country but its not news any more.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/23december2022

I thought the R rate was a good way for non scientific people like me to make sense of what was going on covid wise. Believe it or not I didn’t run around like a chicken without a head when the R rate ent up but did *modify my behaviour ( *which in your book relates to panicking I assume)

But the R-rate tells you how the disease has behaved in the period under study. It tells you how the cases have multiplied or reduced in the past few days, weeks or months. It does not imply that you should change your behaviour or indicate what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone next week or next month.

The R-rate was a useful measure while the pandemic was raging to give us an indication of what was going on. All infectious diseases have an R-rate. None of us know the R-rate for flu which is as big an issue for us this year as Covid. As a society the population-level measures of how the disease is progressing are no longer relevant, the same as with flu. Because they would provide a number for people to obsess about that is not important to how individuals should behave, in normal non-pandemic times.

Rant over.

JenniferEccles
‘Surely it would be perfectly simple to insist that anyone from China wishing to visit will need to produce negative covid tests.’
Negative tests don’t mean much - we had to provide negative results and proof of vaccination to join a one week cruise from Liverpool. By the end of the week we both had Covid. My husband tested positive on day 5. I was negative, and negative with a PCR again on day 6, even though I could feel something starting in my throat. Apart from our fellow passengers and the crew, the only other people we came into close contact with were passengers on the Flåm railway in Norway, on day 4, and the taxi driver on day 1. Not sure what the Covid situation is in Norway…

I think that people that have had covid and have recovered have a different attitude to it than people like me that haven’t caught it. I still don’t know if I’m going to be one of the people that it does affect badly because there doesn’t seem to be a clear pattern to who is affected more than others. I’ve always been someone that tries to keep myself as healthy as possible and likes to know about what health issues I may be exposed to. If that makes me some kind of nutter in some peoples eyes sobeit.