It's just a cold

First of all of course the government isn’t
‘happy’ about Omicron’.
They are trying to deal with it in the best way possible by, among other things, urging everyone to get boosted.

Secondly scaremongering about what may or may not happen in the future is pointless isn’t it?

notgran

Any medical issues I have, experience has told me IT Systems guys are always the best qualified. Any computer issues I have I ring the GP's practice. Who doesn't?

Nasty

MaizieD was only asking for comments on the article.

BlueBelle

Live life the same as you would if there was a winter flu epidemic going on ( most years) live….. stop passing on doomsday messages and stop listening to reams and reams of true/false/maybes

Yes, for 10 years I’d had the flu jab , with posters in chemist / surgery saying Flu Kills …but not advertised anymore since Covid taken over …strange one that …so I think very similar….I don’t take much notice of the news , bypass all the covid scaremongering , I just live life as it comes but take all precautions like social distancing ect ect . This could go on for years yet and we’ve already wasted 2 years of our precious lives .

BlueBelle

Live life the same as you would if there was a winter flu epidemic going on ( most years) live….. stop passing on doomsday messages and stop listening to reams and reams of true/false/maybes

So agree with Bluebelle, thought it needed to repeat her excellent post.

Two younger members of my family had it over Christmas, both very unwell and the second infection for one of them. Although symptoms may be mild, they are often not plus the longer term effects are only now starting to show. I think that there's real cause for concern. I am glad that some people are flagging it up as an issue, the effects on the population longer term with the current infection rates are potentially horrendous.

25Avalon

The plain fact is that we just don’t know - not at the moment anyway. Different people are affected in different ways probably according to their DNA. Vaccinations are another factor as well as life/health style. Science will gather the statistics and do medical research so that eventually we will know much more about Covid and it’s impact. Until then all the worry in the world won’t make any difference as my grandma used to say.

Agree with your grandma little point in worrying about something that may never happen

Aveline

Is long Covid not similar to post viral syndrome? ie nothing new.

No it isn’t. Yes it might manifest as a form of post viral, but equally it might leave you with permanent reduced lung or kidney capacity. Covid may attack other areas of the human body, including heart, brain.

The worry is that there will be a significant minority of the population that is sufficient to impact on the health service, and employment.

Exactly! Aveline

Is long Covid not similar to post viral syndrome? ie nothing new.

The plain fact is that we just don’t know - not at the moment anyway. Different people are affected in different ways probably according to their DNA. Vaccinations are another factor as well as life/health style. Science will gather the statistics and do medical research so that eventually we will know much more about Covid and it’s impact. Until then all the worry in the world won’t make any difference as my grandma used to say.

MaizieD

Just the reactions I was expecting. Thanks folks. I'm sure the 1,000s of Long Covid sufferers would agree with you.

MaizieD I don't think anybody is denying the existence of Long Covid and the impact it has on people's lives.

But this poster who has no medical knowledge whatsoever, is cherry picking sentences from published works to suit his agenda. Which is to make people think that Long Covid is hiding round the corner just waiting to make children's brains shrink. (I quote)

Its quite possible to understand that long covid is a condition that we need to be aware of without thinking that the governments of all countries are trying to pull the wool over our eyes and that the medical authorities are happy to see children suffer.

Live life the same as you would if there was a winter flu epidemic going on ( most years) live….. stop passing on doomsday messages and stop listening to reams and reams of true/false/maybes

Ok so he's stated facts & stats. Other past flu viruses have caused auto-immune conditions including ME, Mastocytosis etc.
As the mother of a daughter this has severely effected after a virus (glandular fever) 20 years ago & still affected, we're watching & looking forward to what the research turns up about Long Covid.

As scientists have said, people react differently to this virus based on their genetic make-up & DDs condition has been found to be genetic (via human genome project)

At the Tunnel when uploading documents for crossing into France, one lady of about the same age as me kept saying 'all this fuss and it is just a cold' - took all my strength not to challenge her.

'Doomscrolling' really? It is a fact many out there think the same as him and are now wanting to get rid of all precautions, distancing, testing, vaccinating - and THAT is truly scary.

No, many of us, and Maizie too I believe, are not petrified and neurotic, and are living our lives as normally as possible, but feel that it is far too early to stop testing those coming from abroad, for instance- and lifting all precautions. That does NOT make us 'doomscrollers'.

Just the reactions I was expecting. Thanks folks. I'm sure the 1,000s of Long Covid sufferers would agree with you.

I think that at the moment we don’t know yet how much long covid omicron will cause. The problematic thing with omicron, is that, it causes many many more infection and even if it is a milder form, together with the vaccine effect it will still be a lot of long covid.

That is what I think the OP is saying, - long covid seems to be extremely challenging, with many people still suffering 2 years after being first infected. People also seem to relapse.

The implication for the workforce will undoubtedly be challenging, but alarmingly there are numerous instances of long covid in children.

MaizieD I do think that this is scaremongering, and will contribute to making some very nervous GN members more so.

'Doomscrolling' excellent word Alegrias.

We may have done it with smallpox but it took 35 years! No quick route to zero covid I’m afraid.

There will come a point where we are going to have to accept that Covid is a thing and we're going to have to put up with it.

This guy is an advocate of zero Covid and says we did it with smallpox, polio etc, so why not Covid? It took decades, centuries in fact, to get to zero smallpox. So we can all live half lives till the middle of the next century or we can just get on with it.

Scaring people half-to-death with dubious twitter threads isn't the way forward. I'm not denying, I'm advocating a pinch of reality.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58726775

Be afraid, be very afraid ?.

Regardless of what one thinks of him, I expect we all acknowledge that long covid exists and it seems impossible to predict who may contract it. The omicron variant may produce cold-like symptoms in most but I don’t take it any less seriously.

MaizieD stop doomscrolling!

Just citing peer reviewed papers isn't enough. He makes one line quotations from many of the papers without any context and is clearly cherry picking the information that he wants to see.

I took a look at his Twitter feed and I see he is also building himself a home made air purifier to keep his children safe. That seems perfectly rational.

Scaremongering!

Really, Twitter, one of the most toxic sites anyone can visit. Not always truthful either, full of conspiracy theorist and anti vaxxers, which Twitter are allowing a platform too.