What's your attitude to COVID and risk now?

[Griff]

You are ignoring content by this member.

Fuck off following me round the boards you boring cunt.

 

[LDC]

You are ignoring content by this member.

Fuck off following me round the boards you boring cunt.

Check your ego, following you round the boards, lol. You said something that's pretty unusual for here (having had zero vaccine doses) and I asked why.

It's a fair question, same as if someone on here posted that they wouldn't have X which was a common and effective treatment for Y.

 

[William of Walworth]

My main area of taking a lot of extra care, as throughout "all this", is good social distancing. In and out, all the time, I deliberately aim to distance.

OTOH, I go to the pub all the time , but only three plus an occasional fourth, in all of which I know crowds will be low (it's January anyway, and a more than average amount of people are avoiding pubs ATM).
These particular pubs have pretty good rule regimes in place at the moment too -- Welsh Government insist on table service only, and track/tracing etc.

I actually think that if I avoided pubs and drank at home I'd end up drinking more and enjoying it much less
I only hang out while out with similarly careful-ish friends who I know well. -- just a few ...

We have a gig lined up for Saturday January 29th -- that's in Glastonbury , a town in which I strongly suspect I'll have to take extra care!
Unlike some of G-Town's conspiraloons!
That's by far my biggest risk in prospect though. Not doing much else like that at this time of year!
I have got a local outdoor cider wassail event this coming Saturday though, but it seems pretty likely to be safe, being outdoors.

At work, I'm LFT'd every Thursday, and our CS rules about desk-distancing and staff-zoning are nice and strong. Masks there (and on buses here in Wales!) are mandatory.
New work-rule just introduced that all those who come in to the office (which I have to because of the very paperwork-based work I do), will now have one day's 'Special Leave' a week. My day as from today will be every Tuesday ..... ( ).

I'm aware that I'm not doing the maximum I could to protect myself and others, but I'm significantly more careful than many

 

[Cloo]

Oh god, I do like Glastonbury town but you can certainly bet it will be full of 'I keep my immune system fully activated against covid with turmeric' types William of Walworth !

 

[elbows]

There are lots of reasons why we're in a better place than we were, including vaccination, past infection and the fact of many of the most vulnerable to a serious reaction to covid are now dead.

But omicron is different. It multiplies in a different part of the body, mostly causing something like bronchitis rather than something like pneumonia. Hence the hospital numbers are going up but the numbers in ICU are not. That's different from every strain before it, including the original strain. Whether or not you choose to call that 'milder' is a matter of taste, I guess, but it isn't an incorrect term. More transmissible, but different and less serious symptoms on average. That was the message from South Africa right from the start, and it's only been confirmed by what's happened since.

I'm not sure where you're thinking of wrt countries that are still in deep shit with the current wave. The places that have been horror shows in the past few months have been those with an undervaccinated population that have been swept by delta. So far, none of the countries that have seen an explosion of omicron has seen an associated explosion of deaths in the same way.

The advent of omicron could end up saving lives by knocking out the much more lethal delta. That's something few people seem prepared to speak about, but if omicron had happened a few months earlier, it could very well have saved many lives in places like Bulgaria or Romania that have been devastated by delta.

We arent as far apart on some of that as we are about many other aspects of the pandemic.

For example I do use the phrase 'milder than Delta' when describing these things at the moment, and I would agree that not as many hospitalisations and intensive care cases would be expected in a country with a million Omicron cases compared to a million Delta cases.

Beyod that some differences in our stances remain, but rather than argue incessantly about that, this time I will simply choose to wait for data and estimates to firm up a lot more. There will be a hell of a lot more clinical data on Omicron in future due to the number of infections it causes. And yes it is certainly true that the unpleasant picture in many countries can be hard to fully decode right now because a lot of places had Delta and Omicron waves overlapping to a greater extent than has been the case in the UK. I will dig further into some of those in the weeks to come.

I also look forward to more firming up of the picture of quite how much difference boosters made to this wave in the UK - it looks to me so far like it has been a key difference maker in the UK, but it is possible that I have gotten a bit ahead of the firm facts on that one, I'll keep an eye on official analysis going forwards.

 

[elbows]

There will also be plenty of signs of the limits of how much good Omicrons severity relative to Delta can do, there is still a point at which the much larger number of Omicron infections outweighs the severity reduction. Even in the UK this starts to show up, for example via more care home deaths per week than we experienced during the Delta era:

Omicron is starting to take a greater toll in England’s care homes, with deaths from Covid almost doubling in the first week of the new year to 122 from 65 in the last week of 2021. It represents the highest Covid death toll among care home residents since March 2021, according to weekly statistics on the deaths in care homes notified to the Care Quality Commission regulator.

2h ago 11:19

 

[[62]]

Somewhere between the first and second options. I just go with the rules whilst trying to accept that other people are more cautious than myself. Still go to the pub, but the ones I go to are generally small venues, and I use public transport for leisure, masked up obviously. I had Covid myself early on and my daughter had it in November. We're all jabbed up now and don't really know anyone vulnerable, but I've still found myself checking and declining certain situations where the mixing is a bit too much and indoors, more for other people really.

 

[elbows]

Even I now feel the need to point out that nothing I'm saying should change the perception that we have come some distance in this pandemic, and that the vaccine era should have changed attitudes towards the virus and personal risk. Its just there are some limits as to how far it is sensible to run with that at this particular moment. I'm bound to move further once this wave is done. Living with the virus now is not the same as trying to manage it in the first few waves pre-vaccines. But some similarities do remain, especially in winter.

 

[iona]

Still being more cautious in a lot of ways than most people I know irl, but also rolling around on the floor with people doing heavy breathing right in each others' faces. Not licked anyone but I got a bit of someone else's sweat in my mouth the other week which is basically the same thing. Got tickets for loads of gigs in the next few months and yet sitting in a half-empty cafe without a mask on still feels wrong

 

[gentlegreen]

After two years without sickness - following two years where the flu kept me off work for over a month, I am now a virus-phobe and it's making me weigh the advantages of company versus the risks ... certainly it's made my solitary lifestyle seem slightly more appealing.
But I have the massive luxury of being retired ...

I am even more annoyed that I was before with people barging through on pavements when I#m waiting for someone approaching to pass.

I will be the last person in the shops I frequent to stop wearing a mask.

In the nearish future I will need to be prepared to go into enclosed spaces with other people.
At the moment I won't even do that with my own kin ..

 

[William of Walworth]

Cloo : I know ..... been before and x-million times, not so much recently though, TBF

But that does mean I know how to avoid the worst!

 

[Magnus McGinty]

My worry went down after having it in the end of the summer and not giving it to anyone else. Then this new variant came about and I was in the NE with family and I worried again. I have had a stinking cold but all tests have come back negative.

 

[mentalchik]

As before, since it started nothing much different for me...have worked as usual all the way through it (retail)didn't have a social life before and still don't.....have been to the cinema twice in the last year....loads of people coming into the shop still don't wear masks, have had all 3 jabs, have never taken any sort of test and not had even a sniffle since it started.

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm not sure where you're thinking of wrt countries that are still in deep shit with the current wave. The places that have been horror shows in the past few months have been those with an undervaccinated population that have been swept by delta. So far, none of the countries that have seen an explosion of omicron has seen an associated explosion of deaths in the same way.

Hospitalisations and deaths in the US have not been decoupled from cases to anything like the extent that the UK/SA have seen. Might not be an "explosion" but it is serious.

 

[Cloo]

Our turn has come - tested son after I heard his mate had tested + and sure enough, big red line. My other half agrees with me that although we don't have to isolate, we basically will. If we can't get a shopping delivery this weekend (doubtful) then hopefully as long as one adult can test negative they can get it, or maybe even better a click and collect, and I think we'll still go for a walk if negative, but cancelling everything else. Fortunately not a lot on, and luckily not been anywhere near either set of parents in last week.

 

[elbows]

Hospitalisations and deaths in the US have not been decoupled from cases to anything like the extent that the UK/SA have seen. Might not be an "explosion" but it is serious.

Javid used several states in the USA to make a point or two in the commons today. Mostly to highlight how much of the heavy lifting our boosters have done in this wave. The tory government is not under many illusions about how 'mild' Omicron is.

Meanwhile in terms of peoples sense of risk, this is the website that people can use to sign up to the very large antiviral trial if they are over a certain age or have a health condition that places them at additional risk from Covid:

Homepage — PANORAMIC

www.panoramictrial.org

 

[stereotypical]

Im in the vulnerable group (moderate risk) and triple jabbed.

Over the past 18 months I've had periods of being CEV (due to meds changes) and like most people have done very little socialising.

Im now at the point of thinking "sod this" and just getting on with my life as usual (not in the bellend/Covid denial/burn my mask in the street way). Will still wear a mask when shopping etc but I'll use public transport, go the match, go the pub as before. To be fair my social life was limited before Covid anyway due to my health so it's not like I'll be out and about loads but very much feeling I'll take my chances now.

Watch me get Covid and be absolutely fucked

 

[_Russ_]

Im in the vulnerable group (moderate risk) and triple jabbed.

Over the past 18 months I've had periods of being CEV (due to meds changes) and like most people have done very little socialising.

Im now at the point of thinking "sod this" and just getting on with my life as usual (not in the bellend/Covid denial/burn my mask in the street way). Will still wear a mask when shopping etc but I'll use public transport, go the match, go the pub as before. To be fair my social life was limited before Covid anyway due to my health so it's not like I'll be out and about loads but very much feeling I'll take my chances now.

Watch me get Covid and be absolutely fucked

Its getting hard.
I went down the sea front today it was glorious, no wind a clear sky with low mist over the mumbles the beach was firm enough that I could cycle its length and it felt like everything was just fine for a couple of hours
Sigh

 

[stereotypical]

Its getting hard.
I went down the sea front today it was glorious, no wind a clear sky with low mist over the mumbles the beach was firm enough that I could cycle its length and it felt like everything was just fine for a couple of hours
Sigh

Ah that's nice that. Glad you're getting some peace amongst this all.

Im seeing my younger nieces and nephews again a lot more regularly, enjoying every minute of it (probably quite risky but hey ho).

 

[stereotypical]

I think I’m slightly more concerned about long covid as time has gone on. Hearing about how much people are still suffering a long time after infection.

Totally non scientific anecdotal case study re long Covid.

My friends 40 year old sister had a dose of Covid right at the start of the pandemic. She was fine with a bit of a sniffle and no other symptoms. She's very active and does things like parkrun, marathons etc.

Anyway the covid came and passed quickly and in a week or so she stated running daily again. She started noticing she couldn't run at the same pace and felt wrecked after comparatively short runs.

Fast forward a couple of months and she was running her regular runs again but said she never felt like she could breathe as well as she could before when doing short bursts and afterwards. It got worse and worse to the point she had to pack in running and ended up being referred to the chest consultant. After numerous x-rays over a few months it turns out she had a consistent level of chest inflammation which at the time they didn't understand why.

It got worse and worse, she was given inhalers and regularly monitored. Went on for 6 months or so to the point she was getting out of breath doing everyday stuff.

She was signed up to some research thing on the effects of long Covid and was going to be trialling new drugs.

Then one morning she woke up and it was gone. Totally back to normal overnight without any apparent reason (apart from the inhaler she'd had no treatment or vaccine yet). Follow up x-rays confirmed inflammation had vanished.

Shes been back running as normal with no problems for nearly a year now. Drs arnt sure what happened.

Not in anyway downplaying the effects of long Covid here as it's clearly a huge problem, just an interesting case of how unpredictable it can be.