NHS COVID advice useless and almost dangerous.

I agree Hetty. I also have a family member who has worked in a Covid Ward since the start. Covid is not an ordinary run of the mill virus. It kills people and sometimes those people are not the immune compromised or weak ones, either.

Maybe because my friend is a nurse in a Covid ward (and has had a truly horrendous couple of years) I do take the risks very seriously. I'd probably be fine if I caught it - but elderly and/or sick friends, relatives and neighbours might well not be. I'd be so distressed (and find it hard to forgive myself) if I passed it on, causing suffering and death - wouldn't anyone? Why do people try to ignore or minimise it? Why say 'It's just like a cold' or 'The pandemic's over now!' Is it because they don't want to face reality?

Surely, the best advice for anyone socially mixing/travelling/holidaying (or intending to) is to test regularly, twice a week. With so many asymptomatic cases, vague symptoms, or lack of them, seems irrelevant.

At the same time, it's also possible to acknowledge the damage pandemic restrictions have done to society. I'm not the only one thinking the price might, just might, have been too high.

It will all come out in the wash in due course.

Meanwhile, stop nagging.

It's possible to resent everything about the pandemic and the reactions to it as well as actually being a good person and doing everything required to stop the spread of infection. I think perhaps that that's what many people don't understand.

If your boss tested positive, he/she could have infected other people, who might have been more seriously affected and resulted in many more days of sickness absence. It is this kind of thinking which is resulting in the continuation of community spread.

You're doing it again, gs. My boss said she felt like a fraud having to stay off work. She fully understood the reason why she must and that's why she did as did we all when it was necessary, which I thought I had made clear. Stop assuming I and everyone or thing I mention is evil!

Baggs

Exactly. I think you might have read more into what I have actually said than is there.

I doubt it.

Circulating Covid aerosol particles most certainly are still a danger to vulnerable people.

Exactly. I think you might have read more into what I have actually said than is there.

Baggs

Sensible post, as usual, M0nica.

Good news from work today though: we don't have to wear masks at work any more. This in spite of the fact that most of the team I work in has had covid fairly recently , having avoided it since the beginning. So covid aerosols are still floating about but the danger to vulnerable people is now seen as insignificant, it would seem.

When I say danger, I mean dangerous enough to need hospital treatment. My co-workers and I were not seriously ill. I was hardly ill at all, just a bit off colour for two days. My boss said she felt like a complete fraud having to stay off work when not actually ill.

That, certainly, is a weird new thing the pandemic has brought in.

If your boss tested positive, he/she could have infected other people, who might have been more seriously affected and resulted in many more days of sickness absence. It is this kind of thinking which is resulting in the continuation of community spread.

Baggs

*Sorry, but there was plenty of evidence form super-spreader events.*

Could you point out where I denied this kind of spread, please, gs?

No, because you didn't.

Sensible post, as usual, M0nica.

Good news from work today though: we don't have to wear masks at work any more. This in spite of the fact that most of the team I work in has had covid fairly recently , having avoided it since the beginning. So covid aerosols are still floating about but the danger to vulnerable people is now seen as insignificant, it would seem.

When I say danger, I mean dangerous enough to need hospital treatment. My co-workers and I were not seriously ill. I was hardly ill at all, just a bit off colour for two days. My boss said she felt like a complete fraud having to stay off work when not actually ill.

That, certainly, is a weird new thing the pandemic has brought in.

Sorry, but there was plenty of evidence form super-spreader events.

Could you point out where I denied this kind of spread, please, gs?

DH, DD and I are now three days into COVID and none of us has really had any obviously identifiably COVID symptoms. We have all felt ill to greater or lesser extents and DD thinks she might have had a slight cough although I have now come to the conclusion that my ear problems are probably entirely caused by my fast ascent in the cable car.

DD has been monitoring the Cunard site and quite a number of people have, like us, gone down, with COVID, after returning home, but without the information from the website, I doubt it would have occurred to any of us that the 'bug' we hade brought back from holiday was COVID, the symptoms do not match any of those given on the NHS site or anywhere else, and we would have gone out and about our normal business, spreading the infection without realisisng it.

It would be much better if the NHS simply advised everyone to take a test if they feel unwell for any reason, whether they have the official symptoms of COVID or not.

I appreciate that the lateral flow tests are not 100% effective - but neither is the vaccination -. But just as the vaccination, even if it doesn't totally protect, it does limit and ameliorate the severity of the illness, so the LF test will be correct often enought to be able to reduce the number of people in the community, unknowingly with COVID.

DD was due to travel into London today on a commuter train to attend a mandatory management meeting. She contacted her manager when she got her positive test and she immediately agreed that DD should not come to the meeting. Quite a lot of people will probably not get COVID as a result.

I had some very strange symptoms, very very sore teeth/gums and awful back ache, amongst the run of the mil symptoms.

Baggs

growstuff

Baggs

Three weeks to flatten the curve they said....

.....and we're into the third year.

Because the UK didn't enforce the measures it allegedly put in place. It only takes one infected person to breathe all over others for infection to spread. You don't know how much worse the peaks would have been, if nothing had been done.

You don't know (nor does anyone else) that it made any difference so we're quits there.

I suppose it was just a coincidence that my partner's son attended a wedding, where about a dozen of the 50 guests (or so) caught Covid. And I suppose it was just unlucky that my partner almost certainly caught it from his son. If my partner hadn't tested and kept away from me, I suppose there's a chance I wouldn't have caught it, if he'd come to stay.

Sorry, but there was plenty of evidence form super-spreader events.

I think that the OPs suggestion is very sensible. Why not at least make an attempt to reduce infection? We know that it's going to get in the next few months, surely a constant level of sickness should be minimised? My friend had it recently and was very unwell, still suffering from the after effects too. She dreads reinfection.

growstuff

Baggs

Three weeks to flatten the curve they said....

.....and we're into the third year.

Because the UK didn't enforce the measures it allegedly put in place. It only takes one infected person to breathe all over others for infection to spread. You don't know how much worse the peaks would have been, if nothing had been done.

So my friends daughter, who flew long haul half way round the world, and stopped over to visit her mum, has tested positive. She is flying long haul tomorrow a bith further round to visit other relatives- but as there is no need to inform- she will be on that plane- possibly next to or close to someone who is particularly vulnerable for some or other reason.

Is that right do you think, Baggs, or others?

Ah .... brings back memories of my A-level French .......

Just read this, a review by Michael Hallihane of La Peste by Albert Camus. Seems appropriate to this thread. And its conclusion sits well with me.

It did make a difference – a negative difference – to lots of other things that matter in society.

growstuff

Baggs

Three weeks to flatten the curve they said....

.....and we're into the third year.

Because the UK didn't enforce the measures it allegedly put in place. It only takes one infected person to breathe all over others for infection to spread. You don't know how much worse the peaks would have been, if nothing had been done.

You don't know (nor does anyone else) that it made any difference so we're quits there.

People shouldn't assume I've been careless because I'm arguing for less obsessiveness. I have had to test twice a week for yonks for other people's sakes, but given my experience of having a few odd 'symptoms' (e.g. a slight headache one morning when I had a lot of extra work to do, sore eyes one evening during the week when I had extra work to do and so was tireder than usual! Did anyone else know sore eyes was a symptom associated with covid?) during a week when I kept getting negative test results, and then finding that I'd probably had covid for days before getting a positive result, my confidence in lateral flow tests is minimal.

On the Saturday morning after I'd had a disturbed night in which it was obvious I was getting something like a cold (not a bad one), I sent MrB out for another test. That result was negative too. So I assumed what I had was the mere cold it felt like. No test on Sunday therefore but one on the Monday morning before going to work (just in case) even though I felt fine and the cold seemed pretty much over. Result? positive.

I had a nice, restful, un-ill week off work.

None of the vulnerable people we were protecting at work got ill.

It all seems a bit pointless and more about controlling people than a virus.

Baggs

Three weeks to flatten the curve they said....

.....and we're into the third year.

Because the UK didn't enforce the measures it allegedly put in place. It only takes one infected person to breathe all over others for infection to spread. You don't know how much worse the peaks would have been, if nothing had been done.

Namsnanny

Some one always pays a higher price.
Could be the patients on waiting lists for other treatments need our consideration now?

Thank you for saying that, namsnanny.

It is those people. No 'could be' about it.