Now that COVID is here permanently

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I think one question is how we manage cold symptoms in the future, if Omicron is more likely to present like that in the vaccinated. There’s a social, educational and vocational pressure to carry on with cold symptoms that don’t reach a certain level, should people start not attending school or work every time they get a sniffle?

I know some will say they should anyway to not pass on any colds, but families with young children can have colds go through their household every three weeks or so. With governmental attendance pressure, schools aren’t going to stand for several days off every month. Plus there’s the complication of the more snotty allergies.

I think there's a tricky moral dimension to this sort of stuff that potentially extends well beyond Covid. If I get ill whose fault is it? Mine? Whoever passed it on? In general people have avoided that sort of thing and treated it as 'just one of those things' but when attributing responsibility starts I'm not sure it necessarily stops somewhere sensible.

 

[existentialist]

I think there's a tricky moral dimension to this sort of stuff that potentially extends well beyond Covid. If I get ill whose fault is it? Mine? Whoever passed it on? In general people have avoided that sort of thing and treated it as 'just one of those things' but when attributing responsibility starts I'm not sure it necessarily stops somewhere sensible.

I think that the "problem" of attribution of responsibility stems directly from the notion that catching something has to involve blame somewhere. And that stems from the corporate mentality that says everyone should be able to operate at 100% all of the time. Things like the Bradford Scale are nothing short of an iniquity, that could have been designed to force people to work when unwell, whether due to physical illness, mental health difficulties, and regardless of the contagious potential for whatever the illness is.

If we can ever get past that mindset, we might stand a chance of reducing presenteeism and the potential for workplace-acquired infections.

 

[LDC]

God knows the mental damage it's done to God knows how many people. We'll be counting the cost of that for years.

I find it hard to take what you say as well thought through, based on evidence and, genuine, partly due to the fact you've consistently spouted anti-public health measures including promoting demos that include far and alt right blocks. And that bit is much more complicated than you make out, some of the evidence actually shows that the MH impacts are not as great as the anti-lockdown people keep going on about. And also some of the negative impacts have been down to poor support from the government etc. rather than restrictions themselves (not to mention all the things like sub-standard housing, poor employment conditions, etc. that the State is also largely responsible for).

And of course it's balanced with what would have happened without restrictions as hundreds of thousands of people dying and suffering long term health issues would of course had a massive impact on people's MH and the functioning of society in all sorts of other problematic ways.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

I think there's a tricky moral dimension to this sort of stuff that potentially extends well beyond Covid. If I get ill whose fault is it? Mine? Whoever passed it on? In general people have avoided that sort of thing and treated it as 'just one of those things' but when attributing responsibility starts I'm not sure it necessarily stops somewhere sensible.

And self/other blame is so highly subjective that it is a case of YMMV. My biggest fear has been passing it on to someone who then dies, which I’m sure comes from a combination of personality, socially acquired core beliefs about myself and others, and working in a health care profession. Other people certainly don’t view things in that way though.

 

[two sheds]

I think that the "problem" of attribution of responsibility stems directly from the notion that catching something has to involve blame somewhere. And that stems from the corporate mentality that says everyone should be able to operate at 100% all of the time. Things like the Bradford Scale are nothing short of an iniquity, that could have been designed to force people to work when unwell, whether due to physical illness, mental health difficulties, and regardless of the contagious potential for whatever the illness is.

If we can ever get past that mindset, we might stand a chance of reducing presenteeism and the potential for workplace-acquired infections.

I had to correct myself when telling a neighbour that I'd got a chest infection: "I'm not sure who I got it from ... no sorry .... where I got it from".

Blame's only attributable when someone ignores basic health precautions I think.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think there's a tricky moral dimension to this sort of stuff that potentially extends well beyond Covid. If I get ill whose fault is it? Mine? Whoever passed it on? In general people have avoided that sort of thing and treated it as 'just one of those things' but when attributing responsibility starts I'm not sure it necessarily stops somewhere sensible.

Given that most jobs offer only very limited sick days, we've already been at least partly held personally responsible for getting ill.

If a long-term outcome of covid is a greater acceptance of taking time off when ill, that will be a good thing.

I suspect things will revert back to more or less what they were pretty quickly, though. It's hard to have a good feel for this while we're in the middle of an outbreak. Easy to think things will change more than they actually will.

 

[LDC]

On the topic at hand I think we're nearing the end of the phase we've been in, and I doubt we'll see many more widespread restrictions after the next 1-3 months (and not even sure if we'll get any now). I think we're not far off it becoming something we live with, and people will make their own personal risk assessments and choices as to what they do, and we'll deal with it through vaccinations and some mask wearing in winter, with possible local/regional news flashes or similar when it's more widespread there. I think it will become like a 'flu' where you do hear of people you know dying, and sometimes they'll be a bad year and it'll be in the media a bit, but that's it.

I think it will be very difficult for CEV people, the NHS, and care homes for a while.

I think vaccine passes etc. will vanish from usage in any widespread way after this winter.

I think international travel will be different for a long time though, maybe permanently.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

I had to correct myself when telling a neighbour that I'd got a chest infection: "I'm not sure who I got it from ... no sorry .... where I got it from".

Blame's only attributable when someone ignores basic health precautions I think.

And this goes back to my question of how we should be treating any cold atm. The advice from scientific advisors seems to be apparent colds have a high chance of being omicron and should be treated as such. Formal government advice does not represent this. If I tried to keep my kids off school with a runny nose but no fever, loss of smell or cough then it wouldn’t be seen as a valid reason, and if that happened too often it could bite us. So what are basic healthcare precautions atm?

 

[xenon]

With me having avoided people almost totally over the last year I want to know where the two chest infections have come from. I'm starting to believe in spontaneous generation of diseases.

pretty sure this is scientifically bollocks but indulge me. I was talking about this recently that you know when you get a pretty heavy cold, feel mildly dilerious. It for me anyway, feels like the same colds I had as a kid. The same fuzzy day dreamy melancholy thing. And I wondered if it was like a dormant virus being reactivated when you're immune system's weakened for whatever reason

 

[platinumsage]

pretty sure this is scientifically bollocks but indulge me. I was talking about this recently that you know when you get a pretty heavy cold, feel mildly dilerious. It for me anyway, feels like the same colds I had as a kid. The same fuzzy day dreamy melancholy thing. And I wondered if it was like a dormant virus being reactivated when you're immune system's weakened for whatever reason

There are various ways to obtain respiratory disease symptoms without actually having a disease. Vaccine side-effects for one, also e.g.:

Acute chilling of the feet causes the onset of common cold symptoms in around 10% of subjects who are chilled

 

[xenon]

On the positive side. New vaccines, treatments, greater knowledge of developing both that might be useful with combatting other diseases.
sars-cov2 may be around for the foreseeable but Covid19 may not.
Japan have just started researching a vaccine that may provide lifelong immunity.
The inescapable logic that we are a globally connected civilisation and demonstration that global solutions and cooperation for various problems is needed.

Hey, I said I was being positive.

 

[xenon]

I think that the "problem" of attribution of responsibility stems directly from the notion that catching something has to involve blame somewhere. And that stems from the corporate mentality that says everyone should be able to operate at 100% all of the time. Things like the Bradford Scale are nothing short of an iniquity, that could have been designed to force people to work when unwell, whether due to physical illness, mental health difficulties, and regardless of the contagious potential for whatever the illness is.

If we can ever get past that mindset, we might stand a chance of reducing presenteeism and the potential for workplace-acquired infections.

At least this is one issue that more WFH might resolve. It's still possible to work from home with a regular cold, for a lot of jobs, assuming you don't have to also look after kids etc.

The alternative to fixing the problem of presenteeism is to have more staffing capacity, more flexability on production targets etc. Which is the opposite direction most businesses have been going in for the last 30 years...

 

[_Russ_]

School term times are gonna have to change (I can hear the complaining already but), if we go on a couple of more years with kids off for 6 weeks in the summer when things are relatively benign, then getting sent home throughout the winter when we have outbreaks then the poor kids leaving school will be in a terrible state

 

[xenon]

There are various ways to obtain respiratory disease symptoms without actually having a disease. Vaccine side-effects for one, also e.g.:

Acute chilling of the feet causes the onset of common cold symptoms in around 10% of subjects who are chilled

Ah so maybe not such ill founded nonsense on my part.

" Some years later Sir Christopher Andrewes suggested that exposure to a cold environment may trigger the development of a cold but only in people who are carrying the latent cold virus.6 Eccles developed these early observations by proposing a hypothesis that acute cooling of the body surface causes a reflex vasoconstriction in the nose and upper airways, and this vasoconstrictor response may inhibit respiratory defence and cause the onset of common cold symptoms by converting an asymptomatic viral infection (sub-clinical infection) into a symptomatic viral infection (clinical infection)."

 

[existentialist]

There are various ways to obtain respiratory disease symptoms without actually having a disease. Vaccine side-effects for one, also e.g.:

Acute chilling of the feet causes the onset of common cold symptoms in around 10% of subjects who are chilled

I wonder if this is where the canard that "getting a chill" is a cause for the common cold comes from?

 

[Flavour]

Think LynnDoyleCooper the scenario you imagine is optimistic but hope you're right. Annual vaccines also probably part of that

 

[LDC]

Think LynnDoyleCooper the scenario you imagine is optimistic but hope you're right. Annual vaccines also probably part of that

I'm not sure it's the 'best' scenario either, but I think it's the only one the government will consider Flavour. Also meant to say I have no idea about the variants/vaccination relationship, or the general likelihood of worse variants coming, so can't comment on that wild card.

 

[Orang Utan]

I think / fear that a lot a adopting the "La! La! La!" approach

The best way to deal with it I reckon.
Just take it as it comes

 

[Orang Utan]

Ah so maybe not such ill founded nonsense on my part.

" Some years later Sir Christopher Andrewes suggested that exposure to a cold environment may trigger the development of a cold but only in people who are carrying the latent cold virus.6 Eccles developed these early observations by proposing a hypothesis that acute cooling of the body surface causes a reflex vasoconstriction in the nose and upper airways, and this vasoconstrictor response may inhibit respiratory defence and cause the onset of common cold symptoms by converting an asymptomatic viral infection (sub-clinical infection) into a symptomatic viral infection (clinical infection)."

I always thought it was bollocks that you could catch a cold after going out in the snow, but maybe’s there’s summat in it after all

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The best scenario, I think, is that it becomes like a cold not the flu. Not guaranteed of course but also not fanciful.

 

[Griff]

The best scenario, I think, is that it becomes like a cold not the flu. Not guaranteed of course but also not fanciful.

Well fingers crossed that's the case.

It does seem that way with the six or so people who we know have tested positive in the last couple of weeks.

 

[Orang Utan]

It's the only scenario.

By all means be careful, wear a mask if you want, test and isolate if it feels necessary to keep yourselves and others safe but we cannot keep this going.

God knows the mental damage it's done to God knows how many people. We'll be counting the cost of that for years.

Not much mental damage from wearing a mask, surely? ‘Just’ from being socially restricted rather than the mask wearing

 

[Griff]

Not much mental damage from wearing a mask, surely? ‘Just’ from being socially restricted rather than the mask wearing

Where do you get mental damage from mask wearing from? I didn't say that.

It's the whole damn thing from March 2020, the fear, the constant daily death count, the fear of strangers, the fear of crowds, the fear of walking too close to somebody.

A friend of my wife is absolutely petrified of going on pubic transport, cannot go anywhere without a mask, sanitises constantly and insists on working from home. Meeting up has to have military co-ordination to avoid crowds.

One example, there must be many, many more up and down the country.

 

[Orang Utan]

Where do you get mental damage from mask wearing from? I didn't say that.

It's the whole damn thing from March 2020, the fear, the constant daily death count, the fear of strangers, the fear of crowds, the fear of walking too close to somebody.

A friend of my wife is absolutely petrified of going on pubic transport, cannot go anywhere without a mask, sanitises constantly and insists on working from home. Meeting up has to have military co-ordination to avoid crowds.

One example, there must be many, many more up and down the country.

You mentioned it in the same breadth as all the other things.
Though those fears are reasonable ones and caused by the presence of COVID, which is still with us

 

[existentialist]

Where do you get mental damage from mask wearing from? I didn't say that.

It's the whole damn thing from March 2020, the fear, the constant daily death count, the fear of strangers, the fear of crowds, the fear of walking too close to somebody.

A friend of my wife is absolutely petrified of going on pubic transport, cannot go anywhere without a mask, sanitises constantly and insists on working from home. Meeting up has to have military co-ordination to avoid crowds.

One example, there must be many, many more up and down the country.

I've never liked pubic transport much myself. The hairs seem to get stuck in my teeth.

 

[l'Otters]

I think one question is how we manage cold symptoms in the future, if Omicron is more likely to present like that in the vaccinated. There’s a social, educational and vocational pressure to carry on with cold symptoms that don’t reach a certain level, should people start not attending school or work every time they get a sniffle?

I know some will say they should anyway to not pass on any colds, but families with young children can have colds go through their household every three weeks or so. With governmental attendance pressure, schools aren’t going to stand for several days off every month. Plus there’s the complication of the more snotty allergies.

Maybe they wouldn’t go through cycles of having colds with anything like that frequency if people weren’t coming in close contact and coughing all over them when they had one in the first place?

 

[Orang Utan]

Though i agree that it’s not particularly healthy to be checking daily stats

 

[LDC]

Where do you get mental damage from mask wearing from? I didn't say that.

It's the whole damn thing from March 2020, the fear, the constant daily death count, the fear of strangers, the fear of crowds, the fear of walking too close to somebody.

A friend of my wife is absolutely petrified of going on pubic transport, cannot go anywhere without a mask, sanitises constantly and insists on working from home. Meeting up has to have military co-ordination to avoid crowds.

One example, there must be many, many more up and down the country.

Yes, some people have had a hard time. Do you think that would have been better or worse with no restrictions and hundreds of thousands more deaths, illnesses, and worse public services in a range of areas?

 

[Griff]

You mentioned it in the same breadth as all the other things.

Read what I wrote again. Also be aware of paragraphs.

 

[Orang Utan]

Read what I wrote again. Also be aware of paragraphs.

Yes, this paragraph:
“By all means be careful, wear a mask if you want, test and isolate if it feels necessary to keep yourselves and others safe but we cannot keep this going.”
Keep what going? Safety measures to stop people getting Covid? Why? It’s not gone away yet