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

He got back on the 13th after 101 weeks away. Not that we were counting ;)

Amazingly we all managed not to blub but it was close although I am tearing up slightly now for some reason. Loving having him home although low key so far as he is in a training camp for the national team until Christmas Eve, then flies back to Uni on the 3rd of Jan.
Happy for you my friend. Enjoy your time together and happy holidays.
 
Following on from this:



My Mum got a call from the hospital and they said her CT scans she had on Saturday have shown that she has a blood clot in her lung. This would explain the coughing but she also has a fever. I hope to God we aren't dealing with covid and this blood clot at the same time.
Hope everything goes well. Such things are incredibly sad to read. Stay strong brother.
 
I’m not sure either. But the experts seem to be fairly confident that SA won’t be getting any more curveballs from omicron as of these last couple of days. Which is about four weeks (I think?) since their first case. So that means 3 weeks from now until we’re similarly confident.

DISCLAIMER: I didn’t check any of those dates so could easily be a week or two out, in either direction!

Fair when i say the UK i'm explicitly talking about England (English arrogance and all that) its a given we are further along in this whole thing.

When this is all said and done, i'm most interested in the fall out in the trust of the news media and government i think this may be the start of a fundamental change, has there been a point in modern society where the trust in these things has been lower, i suppose thats a topic for another thread!
 
When you look at all of the numbers now and look at the measures we have in place and are considering, which I broadly support, that initial Alpha wave in the UK was absolutely crazy.
 
I haven't read this report properly and I'm hoping someone will dissect it properly for me, just in case. But, looks like good news.

 
Lowest same day figure for number of patients on mechanical ventilation for more than two months
Good sign. I do think we’d be seeing an increase in hospitalisations and deaths by now if the worse case scenarios projected had any merit.
Getting harder and harder to argue against it being less severe be it due to immunity or just the virus itself.

The doomsday models are looking just as stupid as the originals not that will stop the media hounding down peoples throats everyday.

Its simply become a problem that society's have a far too small buffer in hospital beds at all times in the year especially winter.
While I think worse case scenarios should always be modelled I expect and hope that SAGE etc also model the most likely and best case scenarios. I think the media fear monger by writing only about the worse case models and this actually reduces trust from the public in the credibility of these groups as most people won’t think the media might be cherry picking what models they write about. For all we know for every 6000 daily deaths model there might also be a no increase in deaths, and a reduction in death model.

If decisions are made solely on worse case models, despite the daily data not showing any likelihood of them coming true as is currently the case then it leads to people really losing trust.
 
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hi guys

I'm quite ill at the moment after a wedding on saturday and isolating. taken antigen tests sat morning, sunday, monday and today, and will take one tomorrow, all negative. very hard to get a pcr test in dublin at the moment and result might take a couple of days anyway.

the gf is going home to her dad (70 years old) at some stage this week. Has also passed multiple antigen tests now but also can't get a pcr test easily.

what is the play for her here? be ultra cautious and potentially not get home until christmas eve or christmas day, even though i will have passed 8 antigen tests in 5 days tomorrow and even though she has no symptoms (last saw me on sunday). Does anyone know what odds are of passing 8 antigen tests while you have symptoms and getting 8 false negatives? symptoms are just cold like stuffiness, sore throat.

as i said, cautious route is for her to do nothing until i am able to get pcr slot & hear back results
 
I haven't read this report properly and I'm hoping someone will dissect it properly for me, just in case. But, looks like good news.



Yeah, it’s all good news.

The more negative among us (including yer man from the FT, weirdly) are looking at the risk of progressing to severe disease once hospitalised and concluding it’s the same as delta (which is bad news, if true) But the results of that analysis are a classic example of when failure to demonstrate a difference doesn’t mean there is no difference. The study was obviously underpowered to test that hypothesis with very wide confident intervals on this outcome. The risk might be the same, it might be less. These data tell us nothing useful, one way or the other.
 
hi guys

I'm quite ill at the moment after a wedding on saturday and isolating. taken antigen tests sat morning, sunday, monday and today, and will take one tomorrow, all negative. very hard to get a pcr test in dublin at the moment and result might take a couple of days anyway.

the gf is going home to her dad (70 years old) at some stage this week. Has also passed multiple antigen tests now but also can't get a pcr test easily.

what is the play for her here? be ultra cautious and potentially not get home until christmas eve or christmas day, even though i will have passed 8 antigen tests in 5 days tomorrow and even though she has no symptoms (last saw me on sunday). Does anyone know what odds are of passing 8 antigen tests while you have symptoms and getting 8 false negatives? symptoms are just cold like stuffiness, sore throat.

as i said, cautious route is for her to do nothing until i am able to get pcr slot & hear back results

Really tough call. Shit that you’re in this situation. Would you consider splashing out on a private PCR for one or other of you? The public system is completely overwhelmed at the moment.
 
Really tough call. Shit that you’re in this situation. Would you consider splashing out on a private PCR for one or other of you? The public system is completely overwhelmed at the moment.
I have tried today to find a slot, my understanding is the private capacity is fulfilling a lot of the public overflow anyway right now, and as fast as they release times they are getting snapped up. going to try again at midnight tonight to get a slot for weds or thurs but may end up making a decision based on 1000x antigen tests
 
@Pogue Mahone
@jojojo
@Wolverine
@golden_blunder
@Wibble
@Arruda

A nice message from a newbie. I particularly like how they appended my name to the bottom of the list before they asked me to pass it on. :lol: Nice words all the same which I’m pleased to pass on.
I'd like to second this, the expertise and info have been invaluable, a massive thank you and happy holidays to you all. Also an extra special shout out to @Wolverine and all those working to get us all through this. Thank you all so very much.
 
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Good sign. I do think we’d be seeing an increase in hospitalisations and deaths by now if the worse case scenarios projected had any merit.

While I think worse case scenarios should always be modelled I expect and hope that SAGE etc also model the most likely and best case scenarios. I think the media fear monger by writing only about the worse case models and this actually reduces trust from the public in the credibility of these groups as most people won’t think the media might be cherry picking what models they write about. For all we know for every 6000 daily deaths model there might also be a no increase in deaths, and a reduction in death model.

If decisions are made solely on worse case models, despite the daily data not showing any likelihood of them coming true as is currently the case then it leads to people really losing trust.
I don’t think decisions are made on worst case. Decisions will be made on the most probable case, with a view on the pessimistic scenarios to look for indicators that those pessimistic scenarios are coming to fruition. It is more important of course to factor in worst case rather than best case, because the nature of Covid means that if the worst case is realised and you don’t move early enough, it is calamitous. But they won’t just look at those in isolation.

The problem with the media though is more inherent than Covid specific. Media gets money, ultimately, by traffic on its websites. To get traffic it needs, broadly speaking, either unique and informative content which draws in readers on a more consistent basis as their “go to” news outlet. Or it needs splashing headlines to draw in the casual browser. A headline which stuns by saying “thousands could die per day” is obviously going to get more clicks than something more factual. The second issue is then that many people will actually just read that headline and that’ll be that. So even if that article does go on to say it’s a worst case scenario and not the most probable, it’s irrelevant.
 
hi guys

I'm quite ill at the moment after a wedding on saturday and isolating. taken antigen tests sat morning, sunday, monday and today, and will take one tomorrow, all negative. very hard to get a pcr test in dublin at the moment and result might take a couple of days anyway.

the gf is going home to her dad (70 years old) at some stage this week. Has also passed multiple antigen tests now but also can't get a pcr test easily.

what is the play for her here? be ultra cautious and potentially not get home until christmas eve or christmas day, even though i will have passed 8 antigen tests in 5 days tomorrow and even though she has no symptoms (last saw me on sunday). Does anyone know what odds are of passing 8 antigen tests while you have symptoms and getting 8 false negatives? symptoms are just cold like stuffiness, sore throat.

as i said, cautious route is for her to do nothing until i am able to get pcr slot & hear back results

Hard to say as the rapid tests have a high incidence of false negatives so can't bexrelied upon in your circumstances. Pogue's suggestion is probably your best bet.
 
Following on from this:



My Mum got a call from the hospital and they said her CT scans she had on Saturday have shown that she has a blood clot in her lung. This would explain the coughing but she also has a fever. I hope to God we aren't dealing with covid and this blood clot at the same time.

Fingers crossed it is "just" the clot. As if chemo isn't hard enough without covid to think about.
 
Based on data Omicron really isn't as deadly as the previous variants. The spike in infection really is troublesome though... it's going to be a long long arduous journey because of this virus. I fecking hate it.
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Source : https://ourworldindata.org/explorer...on=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=GBR~ZAF

I wish everyone here and members of their family who got infected by Covid to recover quickly.
 
hi guys

I'm quite ill at the moment after a wedding on saturday and isolating. taken antigen tests sat morning, sunday, monday and today, and will take one tomorrow, all negative. very hard to get a pcr test in dublin at the moment and result might take a couple of days anyway.

the gf is going home to her dad (70 years old) at some stage this week. Has also passed multiple antigen tests now but also can't get a pcr test easily.

what is the play for her here? be ultra cautious and potentially not get home until christmas eve or christmas day, even though i will have passed 8 antigen tests in 5 days tomorrow and even though she has no symptoms (last saw me on sunday). Does anyone know what odds are of passing 8 antigen tests while you have symptoms and getting 8 false negatives? symptoms are just cold like stuffiness, sore throat.

as i said, cautious route is for her to do nothing until i am able to get pcr slot & hear back results
Your first few words are “I’m quite ill” so personally I’d be erring on the side of caution. I really don’t trust those antigen tests
 
So apparently the isolation period has been reduced to 7 days assuming you can produce a negative LFT on day 6 and 7.

I'm due to be out of isolation on Christmas Day (fully recovered now) and have tested negative this morning. Does that mean if I produce another negative LFT tomorrow I'm out of the woods? Or do this new reduced restrictions only apply to new cases and I'm still obliged to do my 10 days?
 
I swear that for the more I read about covid, the stupider I think I am. I simply don't understand half this crap.
 
I swear that for the more I read about covid, the stupider I think I am. I simply don't understand half this crap.

you're at least in the top 10% for simply recognizing that this is too difficult to comprehend fully as a layman. Stupid people won't see that. So, my guess is, you're not stupid at all, you're just not educated in this particular field. Reality is very complex and to really fully understand these things, you not only have to spend some hours (more like days now with covid) reading about it, but you need the fundamental education. And even then you might not be able to truely comprehend everything about it.
I do not (not even remotely) think that I am able to comprehend and truely understand everything law-related, yet here I sit and advise people (in specific fields).
 
So apparently the isolation period has been reduced to 7 days assuming you can produce a negative LFT on day 6 and 7.

I'm due to be out of isolation on Christmas Day (fully recovered now) and have tested negative this morning. Does that mean if I produce another negative LFT tomorrow I'm out of the woods? Or do this new reduced restrictions only apply to new cases and I'm still obliged to do my 10 days?

I’d say it applies to you mate. The government has realised that 10 days is overkill.
 
I’d say it applies to you mate. The government has realised that 10 days is overkill.
Yeah, I suspected it might have. I feel perfectly recovered and have tested consistently negative last few days, so feel fine to leave my house. Just conscious I'm not in danger to infecting others.
 
I swear that for the more I read about covid, the stupider I think I am. I simply don't understand half this crap.
You are probably the opposite, admitting you are struggling to know something means you are smarter than those who have no idea they are stupid.
 
just took a test at home and tested positive so just booked a pcr test today

I'm guessing the chances of a false positive are very low and the low accuracy of these things is mostly false negatives?

bummer
 
Dunning Kruger is average competence and high confidence?

Dunning Kruger measures the relation between confidence and competence. There is a point on the graph where one feels they know nothing even though they have average competence about a certain topic.
 
just took a test at home and tested positive so just booked a pcr test today

I'm guessing the chances of a false positive are very low and the low accuracy of these things is mostly false negatives?

bummer

Yeah, false negative many times more likely than false positive because so many more things can contribute (poor swab technique, testing too soon etc etc)

If you’re symptomatic and have a positive LFT the possibility of you not having covid is absolutely tiny.
 
Pleased to see the UK Gov change the rules on isolating as I enter my 10th day.
 
Dunning Kruger measures the relation between confidence and competence. There is a point on the graph where one feels they know nothing even though they have average competence about a certain topic.

fair enough, good to know thanks
 
Less severe (whether that be because of vaccines, age group, previous infection, less virulent or all of the above) seems to be where everything is pointing thank god.

Hospital numbers over next few days in London will be one to watch now. If they don’t surge I think we won’t see any restrictions
 
From Boxing Day Wales going to rule of six at pubs, cinemas and restaurants with a return of social distancing and mask wearing in all public places (already had the latter). This is in addition to all sports not having crowds and nightclubs being closed. No restrictions on household mixing - just a legal limit on 30 people max meeting indoors. If you’re a close contact but fully vaccinated you don’t need to isolate - however they haven’t gone down the route of reducing isolation to 7 days like in England - this is a mistake in my opinion. The more information that comes in regarding hospitalisations the more I maintain the big risk of how fast this spreads isn’t the number of admissions - it’s the number of staff isolating off work at the same time which will impact essential services including health. No word on how long they last - it shouldn’t be more than 3 weeks in my eyes. I’m assuming the purpose is to spread it over 4 weeks rather than 2 to reduce the strain on Health and the number isolating from work.
 
I'm confused as to why we don't have a somewhat efficient test yet to determine is somebody is infectious. It shouldn't be that hard to get some sort of rapid plaque assay going surely?
 
I'm confused as to why we don't have a somewhat efficient test yet to determine is somebody is infectious. It shouldn't be that hard to get some sort of rapid plaque assay going surely?

Are you talking about if they are currently infectious? That’s pretty much what LFTs do I believe?
 
I'm confused as to why we don't have a somewhat efficient test yet to determine is somebody is infectious. It shouldn't be that hard to get some sort of rapid plaque assay going surely?
We’ve got the LFTs which are available to all and they’re recommending you take before mixing with vulnerable people. Thankfully they’re proving far better than initially thought. When this all started I did think we’d have instant saliva tests readily available and you’d test before you went in to public places - maybe link it to an app proving you’re negative - proper dystopian sci-fi film style. That was basically what Boris announced over a year ago with his operation moonshot - alas it never came to pass.
 
Are you talking about if they are currently infectious? That’s pretty much what LFTs do I believe?

I thought they detected viral RNA much like PCR's! If they DO detect infectious covid, surely they are the gold standard compared to PCR?