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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

I've mentioned it before, but even if deaths (and to some extent hospitalisations) are relatively low (although I'd say 100-200 a day on average isn't something to be complacent about) there can be massive pressures on the NHS, possibly sometimes resulting in lower standards of care and access to care for people. One infected person might have numerous contacts with various services (their GP, the OOH service, 111, pharmacist, 999, etc.) and might even go to ED once (or even more) but not be admitted, and then worst case post-infection will need long term follow-up and maybe other interventions.

And I know the NHS isn't some sacred thing to be protected from patients, but it is a factor is the rates and how they should be regarded etc.
 
bluescreen said:
In any case, you have to be pretty ill to be admitted to hospital so there will be a lot of people feeling rough or very rough, and possibly continuing to feel too rough to go into work for a long time after they are infectious. Deaths + hospitalisations don't measure everything that matters.
Click to expand...
Not to mention the question of long Covid, which the government seems to work very hard at pretending isn't a thing.
 
With the significant increase of positive cases we've seen recently I find it very hard to believe this won't be filtering through to the more vulnerable groups for the next few weeks.

It just seems to be swirling all around us.
 
ska invita said:
Just to say in case it wasn't clear I'm not defending what's happening or ignoring all the other fallout, I was just answering the question of why the current situation isn't generating dramatic headlines.
Click to expand...

Yeah, didn't take it as such. TBH I think for many people that it's been normalised through a mix of messaging, fatigue, and some weird denial in parts. Round where I live you'd be hard pressed to notice much difference to pre-pandemic life now; a few old posters and the odd person wearing a mask.
 
ska invita said:
Because hospitalisations/deaths remain relatively low?
View attachment 293337
Click to expand...
That deaths figure is a Monday figure which is always low because of patchy reporting at the weekends. I guarantee this afternoon's figure will be much higher as it catches up, same as every Tuesday. The average number of deaths over the last week is 124 per day; equivalent to 45,260 deaths in a year. As cases increase, I expect the number of people dying will increase too.

Yesterday there were 915 people reported as admitted to hospital with Covid.

These figures are only low relative to the horror shows in spring 20 and winter 20/21. It's certainly not a good position to be in going into winter.
 
Teaboy said:
With the significant increase of positive cases we've seen recently I find it very hard to believe this won't be filtering through to the more vulnerable groups for the next few weeks.

It just seems to be swirling all around us.
Click to expand...

There's a bit on the beeb about why are / might the case numbers be so high ...

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: Why are UK cases so high?

The UK has higher infections than most of its neighbours, as scientists fear a difficult winter.
www.bbc.co.uk

The subject is complex, but in my opinion, UK cases are high because
a) no mask mandate / no social distancing etc etc,
b) unlockening far too widely, far too quickly and much too soon,
c) vaccine rollout - despite the initial speed and coverage - is not yet complete - eg with teenagers and some of the BAME populations.
d) flu & booster / 3rd jags - rollout getting behind where it should be.

~~~~
Personally, I am still wearing my good mask indoors & in crowded places.
I'm not quite as good as I was with the hand sanitising/washing unless I've been handling stuff outside my home, car & garden - or deliveries ; then I do keep up with the advice.
I'm lucky enough to be able to WFH ... although, sometimes I do go in, but usually after hours or at the weekend.
Still having food and other stuff delivered. [which means runs to take cardboard boxes for recycling about once a fortnight].
 
Reasons also include changes to self-isolation rules, especially for children and when notified of a close contact via the app. Having deliberately ranted for ages about the 'pingdemic' months ago in order to pressure the authorities to weaken those systems, most of the press seem keen to utterly avoid all references to anything on this front as being part of the cause of current woe.
 
I get an interesting perspective on the impact of COVID from the kabbess, which is a perspective I’ve just not really heard from elsewhere. She’s currently doing a Masters in regenerative medicine and her main focus of interest generally is cellular damage. She says that the whole understanding that people generally have of what an illness is and what it does to the body is just not really right. People view it as something that turns up as discrete little invaders and then the body fights off those invaders and everything goes back to normal. But that isn’t really a suitable metaphor.

So here’s the bit where I’m out of my depth and attempt to explain what she tells me as if I understand it. So you get the information filtered through my brain, for which I apologise.

Viruses get into cells and even if the virus is fought off, those cells are getting damaged. Damaged in problematic, DNA-altering ways. Damaged cells can become senescent, which means they aren’t working properly any more but they also don’t self-destruct, like normal cells that reach the end of their life. So they sit there, signalling in ways that causes problems and may well cause surrounding cells to become senescent. Effectively, it’s like those cells have aged. So you end up with cells that are kind of “older”, which makes you as an organism effectively “older” too. The problems that accumulate are kind of like the problems of old age. The more this happens — the more you get infected with viruses — the more these problems accumulate.

Furthermore, to create antibodies, the body needs to activate stem cells. These only have a limited number of uses. So every time you have to fight off an infection, you are slightly using up your ability to fight infections. I have to admit that my understanding kind of runs out at this point, but I am left distinctly feeling like you don’t want to have to keep on fighting off infections.

What all this means is that you can’t view yourself like a fortress that just fights off invaders and goes on undamaged. Every fight takes its toll. In a way, every disease has its “long” effect. COVID just seems to be one for which that cellular damage is particularly systematic and extensive. It’s not so much that you “get” something called “long COVID”, it’s more that something like COVID is an extreme example of viral damage. And that means that it isn’t really a question of whether or not long COVID ‘exists’. To ask whether it exists is to view reality in the wrong paradigm. It always does damage, the question is only how much damage it has done and what impact that damage has for that individual both in the short and long term.

My apologies to those who have actual medical knowledge, who might be wincing at some of the way I have put things. I think it’s important, though. It certainly changes my perspective on diseases. It means you can’t be cavalier about disease, ever. Treat your body as if it is the only one you have and it can’t infinitely repair, basically.
 
kabbes said:
I get an interesting perspective on the impact of COVID from the kabbess, which is a perspective I’ve just not really heard from elsewhere. She’s currently doing a Masters in regenerative medicine and her main focus of interest generally is cellular damage. She says that the whole understanding that people generally have of what an illness is and what it does to the body is just not really right. People view it as something that turns up as discrete little invaders and then the body fights off those invaders and everything goes back to normal. But that isn’t really a suitable metaphor.

So here’s the bit where I’m out of my depth and attempt to explain what she tells me as if I understand it. So you get the information filtered through my brain, for which I apologise.

Viruses get into cells and even if the virus is fought off, those cells are getting damaged. Damaged in problematic, DNA-altering ways. Damaged cells can become senescent, which means they aren’t working properly any more but they also don’t self-destruct, like normal cells that reach the end of their life. So they sit there, signalling in ways that causes problems and may well cause surrounding cells to become senescent. Effectively, it’s like those cells have aged. So you end up with cells that are kind of “older”, which makes you as an organism effectively “older” too. The problems that accumulate are kind of like the problems of old age. The more this happens — the more you get infected with viruses — the more these problems accumulate.

Furthermore, to create antibodies, the body needs to activate stem cells. These only have a limited number of uses. So every time you have to fight off an infection, you are slightly using up your ability to fight infections. I have to admit that my understanding kind of runs out at this point, but I am left distinctly feeling like you don’t want to have to keep on fighting off infections.

What all this means is that you can’t view yourself like a fortress that just fights off invaders and goes on undamaged. Every fight takes its toll. In a way, every disease has its “long” effect. COVID just seems to be one for which that cellular damage is particularly systematic and extensive. It’s not so much that you “get” something called “long COVID”, it’s more that something like COVID is an extreme example of viral damage. And that means that it isn’t really a question of whether or not long COVID ‘exists’. To ask whether it exists is to view reality in the wrong paradigm. It always does damage, the question is only how much damage it has done and what impact that damage has for that individual both in the short and long term.

My apologies to those who have actual medical knowledge, who might be wincing at some of the way I have put things. I think it’s important, though. It certainly changes my perspective on diseases. It means you can’t be cavalier about disease, ever. Treat your body as if it is the only one you have and it can’t infinitely repair, basically.
Click to expand...

That's dead interesting, thanks. I've always meant to read that book The Body Keeps a Score that covers similar stuff about trauma I think. Working in medicine it is so shockingly obvious that a hard life (repeated infections, etc.) means you get much poorer long term physical (and often mental) health, which I think is related to what you've said. Too late to write more, but some of this stuff is really important for illuminating the health impacts for some of living the way society is now.
 
kabbes
That is a very interesting read - my interpretation of the bit where you describe cellular damage caused by virus infections probably explains a lot of post-viral fatigue syndrome and why flu sometimes seems to knock me for six ...
 
And thats just the start of it, check out another depth of understanding and ways of thinking about such matters:

The human genome contains billions of pieces of information and around 22,000 genes, but not all of it is, strictly speaking, human. Eight percent of our DNA consists of remnants of ancient viruses, and another 40 percent is made up of repetitive strings of genetic letters that is also thought to have a viral origin. Those extensive viral regions are much more than evolutionary relics: They may be deeply involved with a wide range of diseases including multiple sclerosis, hemophilia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), along with certain types of dementia and cancer.
Click to expand...

www.cshl.edu

The non-human living inside of you | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

« Previous Story Next Story » Half of your genome started out as an infection; if left unchecked, some parts of it can turn deadly all over again. The human genome contains billions of pieces of information and around 22,000 genes, but not all of it is, strictly speaking, human. Eight percent of...
www.cshl.edu www.cshl.edu
 
kabbes said:
I get an interesting perspective on the impact of COVID from the kabbess, which is a perspective I’ve just not really heard from elsewhere. She’s currently doing a Masters in regenerative medicine and her main focus of interest generally is cellular damage. She says that the whole understanding that people generally have of what an illness is and what it does to the body is just not really right. People view it as something that turns up as discrete little invaders and then the body fights off those invaders and everything goes back to normal. But that isn’t really a suitable metaphor.

So here’s the bit where I’m out of my depth and attempt to explain what she tells me as if I understand it. So you get the information filtered through my brain, for which I apologise.

Viruses get into cells and even if the virus is fought off, those cells are getting damaged. Damaged in problematic, DNA-altering ways. Damaged cells can become senescent, which means they aren’t working properly any more but they also don’t self-destruct, like normal cells that reach the end of their life. So they sit there, signalling in ways that causes problems and may well cause surrounding cells to become senescent. Effectively, it’s like those cells have aged. So you end up with cells that are kind of “older”, which makes you as an organism effectively “older” too. The problems that accumulate are kind of like the problems of old age. The more this happens — the more you get infected with viruses — the more these problems accumulate.

Furthermore, to create antibodies, the body needs to activate stem cells. These only have a limited number of uses. So every time you have to fight off an infection, you are slightly using up your ability to fight infections. I have to admit that my understanding kind of runs out at this point, but I am left distinctly feeling like you don’t want to have to keep on fighting off infections.

What all this means is that you can’t view yourself like a fortress that just fights off invaders and goes on undamaged. Every fight takes its toll. In a way, every disease has its “long” effect. COVID just seems to be one for which that cellular damage is particularly systematic and extensive. It’s not so much that you “get” something called “long COVID”, it’s more that something like COVID is an extreme example of viral damage. And that means that it isn’t really a question of whether or not long COVID ‘exists’. To ask whether it exists is to view reality in the wrong paradigm. It always does damage, the question is only how much damage it has done and what impact that damage has for that individual both in the short and long term.

My apologies to those who have actual medical knowledge, who might be wincing at some of the way I have put things. I think it’s important, though. It certainly changes my perspective on diseases. It means you can’t be cavalier about disease, ever. Treat your body as if it is the only one you have and it can’t infinitely repair, basically.
Click to expand...
thanks for this
Yes makes perfect sense to me...when i was in the depths of Covid, say two, three months in, my hair started going grey, and fast! i felt 85 years old (am 46).
I just hope that i am young enough that i can regenerate those cells over time. 7 years to replace all cells isnt it? Does it work that way?
TBH i dont want to know any bad new saying it isnt as its important part of my recovery to try and get back in youthful ways - really hope this isnt permanent in any way. I seem to be in continuous if not linear improvement so remain hopeful
 
ska invita said:
thanks for this
Yes makes perfect sense to me...when i was in the depths of Covid, say two, three months in, my hair started going grey, and fast! i felt 85 years old (am 46).
I just hope that i am young enough that i can regenerate those cells over time. 7 years to replace all cells isnt it? Does it work that way?
TBH i dont want to know any bad new saying it isnt as its important part of my recovery to try and get back in youthful ways - really hope this isnt permanent in any way. I seem to be in continuous if not linear improvement so remain hopeful
Click to expand...

Rooting for you, fwiw.
 
bimble said:
Does anybody know, what happens to tourists / visitors to the UK if they get a positive test result whilst they are here or just before they intend to fly home?
I'm curious because of what's happening to my friend, currently incarcerated in a quarantine facility in Spain, which is not at all pleasant but is free.
All i can find online is the government website which sends people here, to book and pay their 2 grand, but thats just for if you are coming in from a red list country, what if you catch it whilst visiting.
Click to expand...

How much do they earn per year and do they have a private plane?
 
ska invita said:
thanks for this
Yes makes perfect sense to me...when i was in the depths of Covid, say two, three months in, my hair started going grey, and fast! i felt 85 years old (am 46).
I just hope that i am young enough that i can regenerate those cells over time. 7 years to replace all cells isnt it? Does it work that way?
TBH i dont want to know any bad new saying it isnt as its important part of my recovery to try and get back in youthful ways - really hope this isnt permanent in any way. I seem to be in continuous if not linear improvement so remain hopeful
Click to expand...

The good news is that the body has all kinds of ways to gradually deal with damage. So keep your spirits up.

Unfortunately, I know that it isn’t as straightforward as new cells replacing old. But when in the past I have asked what it means when cells get replaced, I’m afraid I ended up with more headache than knowledge.
 
IC3D said:
I wonder if in a dystopian future giant air sanitisers will analyse the chance of us getting an air born virus on your morning commute and broadcast it like the pollen index.
Click to expand...
sounds totally possible to me
airfilters already exist which claim to analyse pollution contents, and filter germs etc
some hosptials have them
domestic ones too
wouldnt be that big a next step....
 
IC3D said:
I wonder if in a dystopian future giant air sanitisers will analyse the chance of us getting an air born virus on your morning commute and broadcast it like the pollen index.
Click to expand...
Or covid clothes/virus vests/morbid masks that change colour in the presence of a pathogen. Run away quick if it's you that's wearing them, or immediate sheep dip for anyone else.
 
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