SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Bilbo said:
Work Xmas party tonight - can't decide whether to attend or not. I've been flip-flopping on it all morning
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It depends on your own circumstances really. If you or the people around you at home are likely to be vulnerable to the infection then be cautious. It's widespread already and it seems to love parties.

If you do catch it tonight, you'll be isolating on Christmas Day.

If you catch it, try not to pass it on. Try and get hold of some LFTs if you don't already have them, they may help you protect someone else.
 
P-Ro said:
I did actually consider if I'm making matters worse by doing so but I went there an hour after opening and they were all practically empty. I'm still really anxious about this booster I'm having in 90mins. I moved back home to help my Mum because she's undergoing chemotherapy and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I ended up catching it and passing it onto her with her immune system being weakened currently. This will be the only time I'm going to be setting foot indoors anywhere apart from my home in the next few weeks.
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It sounds like you're already doing what you need to do. Anybody can be unlucky, but I think you're doing the best you can to get it right.
 
P-Ro said:
I did actually consider if I'm making matters worse by doing so but I went there an hour after opening and they were all practically empty. I'm still really anxious about this booster I'm having in 90mins. I moved back home to help my Mum because she's undergoing chemotherapy and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I ended up catching it and passing it onto her with her immune system being weakened currently. This will be the only time I'm going to be setting foot indoors anywhere apart from my home in the next few weeks.
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I went for my booster on Tuesday, it’s all socially distanced. Everyone in masks. Not there for very long at all. Honestly, you’ll be fine.
 
jojojo said:
It depends on your own circumstances really. If you or the people around you at home are likely to be vulnerable to the infection then be cautious. It's widespread already and it seems to love parties.

If you do catch it tonight, you'll be isolating on Christmas Day.

If you catch it, try not to pass it on. Try and get hold of some LFTs if you don't already have them, they may help you protect someone else.
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Which is my concern really, since I'm hosting it as usual this year so will have family over.

The venue are requesting negative LFT's before entry which is the only reason I'm even considering it.
 
Buster15 said:
How typical is it that Professor Chris Whitty is having to answer questions to a group of MPs for his comments yesterday.
Not sure of others views, but I strongly believe that his professional advice had continually been ignored, or watered down by Boris to suit his personal agenda.
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He’s like a teacher who’s constantly undermined/overruled by the school parents
 
0le said:
Why do so many people use Twitter to have long conversations? It baffles me. It is surely easier to just make a single FB post or YouTube channel to air your view on the topic?
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Are you serious?
 
Bilbo said:
Which is my concern really, since I'm hosting it as usual this year so will have family over.

The venue are requesting negative LFT's before entry which is the only reason I'm even considering it.
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The issue I'd have is amongst a party of any size the chances of guests with covid having a false negative on LFTs are a certainty. Aren't they only like 70% accurate?

Just a judgement call on balanced risk at this point.
 
africanspur said:
I mean, the difference is not that great really is it? Yesterday the UK had 78k cases, France 65K, Germany 55K. A couple of days before that, UK 59, France 63, Germany 41. Belgium 10k, Netherlands 12k etc etc. And that's often with those countries having far stricter measures than the UK. Denmark had almost 9k cases yesterday by the way, which scaled up is higher than those other countries.

There's been a lot of strange dick measuring about this kind of thing all throughout. My vaccine is better than yours, these measures are better than yours. I remember when Delta first went through the UK (likely before the rest of Europe/Israel etc due to the UK's much closer link to India), there seemed to be a bit of back patting on here about how classic it was for the UK to get hit, how this showed the inadequacy of AZ vs pfizer etc etc.

Of course, delta ended up tearing through those other countries eventually in the same way too.
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I saw a graph the other day of global covid cases over time since day one. A straight line upwards. Feels like we’re trying to push the tide back. Whatever happens, the waves crash over everyone eventually. All we can affect is the timing.
 
Traub said:
Yip, anecdotally not a single person I know who has recently gotten covid has loss of taste or smell. The symptoms are pretty straightforward and consistent with all the cases: wake up with a scratchy throat, have a sore throat and slight cough for 3-4 days, covid over. My friend got covid about a week ago and she’s already better - she said it was basically like a very mild cold, nothing that couldn’t be dealt with with a couple of strepsils.
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Cool. Thanks. Good to hear.
 
Regarding distorted taste/smell. I currently have what I'm sure is the Omicron variant (symptoms check out), my sense of smell seems intact but my sense of taste does seem a little funky. Just a recent anecdote - eating a pineapple has made everything I drink taste very bitter - water included.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Cool. Thanks. Good to hear.
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I got covid after being double vaxxed and lost my sense of smell/taste massively impaired. Within a week both were back.

I've heard of others who regained these senses very quickly, presumably due to having been vaccinated.
 
@jojojo Stupid question probably.... With smallpox and other diseases in previous centuries, people sniffed spores and stuff to 'get infected' to quite good effect. Now obviously there's a huge difference as you couldn't be infected twice with variola, but would/is there any logic to intentionally infecting people with low doses of each variant to train the bodies?
 
This is such a good example of what makes Twitter a great medium, from the convo with Mike Lewis, Meaghan Khall, Renu Bindra



Getting the right people instantly to look at the problem
 
Anti-vaxxers share a huge chunk of the blame for this mess. If everyone got vaccinated this virus could have been stopped before these new variants showed up.
 
jojojo said:
I take it more as a reminder that if you want to visit granny tomorrow morning - test yourself tomorrow morning.
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It's true, it should be as late as possible although the pictures on the Twitter feed show that the person is positive in this example the evening before. The faint line is a positive test and the instructions tell you to treat it as such.
 
owlo said:
@jojojo Stupid question probably.... With smallpox and other diseases in previous centuries, people sniffed spores and stuff to 'get infected' to quite good effect. Now obviously there's a huge difference as you couldn't be infected twice with variola, but would/is there any logic to intentionally infecting people with low doses of each variant to train the bodies?
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That’s basically how the vaccines work.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That’s basically how the vaccines work.
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Not really (or at least to my limited understanding.) Bear in mind I know feckall about virology but my understanding was natural infection to a live properly vectored virus + vaccination is the best protection.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
The other point to note is that the UK carries out more tests than any other country in the world so case rates will be higher because of that. The link below is from the start of the pandemic so I don't know what testing rates are like across countries right now.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104645/covid19-testing-rate-select-countries-worldwide/

I know that last time people were getting hysterical and dick waving about UK case rates the actual transmission rate was higher in Germany.
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I know is seperate from the point compared to Europe but looking at the US testing rates are interesting and quite low. Positive tests have gone up 40% in last 2 weeks yet testing seems to be down 2% (this info is from Coronavirus Map and cases section in New York Times). US tested give or take a few the same at the UK 1.3mil yesterday, this might have been asked many time so sorry if it has been answered why is testing so low in the US?
 
Shakesey said:
Do you actually get to choose between the two?
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Yes, because you have to queue to see a doctor before you get the jab and you go through a health questionnaire with him/her. I asked for Pfizer initially rather than AZ because of my bad history with "traditional" vaccines, and the doctor agreed with that. At the time I was in the age group for AZ.

For the booster, the doc asked me if I wanted a third Pfizer and I said yes please, as I've been OK with two doses of Pfizer.

Obviously, some people won't know or won't have an opinion, and then the doctor decides (based on what you've stated as your medical history).
 
Bosws87 said:
To be expected built for the original/old variant of the Virus (same as the vaccines) now some of them don't work very well if it at all.
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Regarding antibodies and not T cells i.e. they've little neutralising effect against Omicron but should protect against serious disease. Bad for health services and society at large but less so for vaccinated individuals.
 
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Classical Mechanic said:
Regarding antibodies, not T cells i.e. they've little neutralising effect against Omicron but should protect against serious disease. Bad for health services and society at large but less so for vaccinated individuals.
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Yeh exactly, but does cast a little doubt on the 75% claim of boosters stopping infection.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Can you explain for my idiot friend again.
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Man he’s so dumb. You’re very kind for being so patient with him.

Basically it’s possible to manufacture artificial antibodies against covid. They’re useful for people whose own immune system isn’t functioning properly, either because it never worked properly or they got so sick so quickly it couldn’t catch up. They’re called monoclonal antibodies, are administered via injection and are usually very expensive (so not something a GP would prescribe)

Turns out most of the currently developed antibodies and antibodies in development don’t work against omicron. Not a massive surprise but a pain in the hoop nonetheless.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Man he’s so dumb. You’re very kind for being so patient with him.

Basically it’s possible to manufacture artificial antibodies against covid. They’re useful for people whose own immune system isn’t functioning properly, either because it never worked properly or they got so sick so quickly it couldn’t catch up. They’re called monoclonal antibodies, are administered via injection and are usually very expensive (so not something a GP would prescribe)

Turns out most of the currently developed antibodies and antibodies in development don’t work against omicron. Not a massive surprise but a pain in the hoop nonetheless.
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I knew all that I just wanted to make sure I got a 2nd opinion for the idiot, cause he's really untrusting.

That sucks :(
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Regarding antibodies and not T cells i.e. they've little neutralising effect against Omicron but should protect against serious disease. Bad for health services and society at large but less so for vaccinated individuals.
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Bosws87 said:
Yeh exactly, but does cast a little doubt on the 75% claim of boosters stopping infection.
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The tweet above is about man made, monoclonal antibodies. All of them exactly the same. The antibodies you generate in response to a vaccine are polyclonal. There’s a bunch of different types. So hopefully give broader protection. Monoclonal antibodies are needed when you either can’t generate your own antibodies or they need some help.

T-cells are a different issue. They can’t be manufactured in a lab. They’re only produced by your own immune system.
 
Shakesey said:
@Pogue Mahone

I'll let you know how I experience Omicron in about a week. My mother-in-law is turning 60 and there is a huge party. Indoors. And I can't get out of it without risking horrible marital complications.

It would be cool if I lost my sense of taste for broccoli. Then I'd finally be able to eat it.
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Just roast it with a lot of garlic and you'll be fine. You can also put some grated cheese on top.
 
jojojo said:
It depends on your own circumstances really. If you or the people around you at home are likely to be vulnerable to the infection then be cautious. It's widespread already and it seems to love parties.

If you do catch it tonight, you'll be isolating on Christmas Day.

If you catch it, try not to pass it on. Try and get hold of some LFTs if you don't already have them, they may help you protect someone else.
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not nice for anyone
 
Back in ireland, Meanwhile covid seems rife in my kids school and I know several parents who are now withholding their kids from school until Christmas is done. Just close the bloody things on Friday as some are calling for. They are only missing 2 1/2 days in which they will do very little apart from cough and sneeze on each other
 
golden_blunder said:
Back in ireland, Meanwhile covid seems rife in my kids school and I know several parents who are now withholding their kids from school until Christmas is done. Just close the bloody things on Friday as some are calling for. They are only missing 2 1/2 days in which they will do very little apart from cough and sneeze on each other
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Would you quit bashing the schools for feck sake.
 
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