Healdplace
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 12 May 2013
- Messages
- 15,985
The symptoms have probably NOT changed. It is all but certain lots of people under 30 caught Covid in the first few months of 2020 but because their symptoms were not the catastrophic ones reported in the media and they were also not old and kept being told older people were most at risk. And because we were still coming out of Winter they often presumed they did not have Covid and it was just a cold. And when it fizzled out after a few days or a week why would they not?
Now almost nobody over 60 is catching it (4% of all cases versus the majority being identified last year when resources HAD to be focused on the most at risk because we had so little of them to do otherwise and could not just treat all as if they had the disease - then this exaggerated what were already the higher numbers into what looked like the big majority).
As we focused vaccines rightly on these people as soon as we had them they became less and less vulnerable and in time after both doses largely protected so numbers plummeted to the 4% we see now who are either just unlucky, have chosen to say no to vaccines or have other underlying health issues that exacerbate Covid that are always going to be more likely to occur with increasing age.
So now we have up to 80% of cases coming in younger people - the ones who last year never even reported it because it felt just like a bad cold.
Now in order to identify them, minimise the spread to their peers as these people are far more likely to mix daily with lots of others, then we have had to tone down the symptoms to what might indicate Covid in this cohort and so we can get them to test even if they do not feel ill enough to bother. As the SPREAD is the problem now.
It may also even be true that the vaccinated older people only get milder symptoms too thanks to the vaccine and may not assume they have Covid either because it is not so bad and they have been jabbed. But knowing they have still matters so they can isolate.
20,000 people catching Covid a year ago was a huge deal as many of them would be vulnerable and get very ill and there was zero protection to offer or few real treatments and so many had to be hospitalised and often stayed there weeks. And we still had only limited things we could do afterward with no vaccines.
20,000 people catching Covid now is far less of a danger because of all these factors having changed dramatically,
We still seek to minimise spread as whilst only a much smaller fraction of under 30s will get sick enough to go into hospital and or get really ill and die - some will. And a smaller fraction of a rising number still means a rising number. Just not to the heights we saw in the past or to a community at quite so great a risk of death or long term care. Though even here again some sadly will.
The percentage of people under 40 dying from Covid - even teenagers - is small but because a lot less older people are catching it is significantly higher as a fraction now than it was in past waves.
So this is all about mitigation so we can edge back to normality and as long a those catching Covid now do the right thing we will be fine. But they need to know what they might not think is Covid COULD be this disease.
Hence why the symptoms seem to have changed in the briefing. When in truth they have not really. They are just the ones we tended to let be in the past when there were too many other worse ones to tackle first.
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