Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Healdplace]

here’s hoping this does pan out. There was clearly a spike in cases 4 days after Christmas and New Year’s Eve but they don’t seem to have translated into hospitalisations.

Yes, I can attest from my family that Christmas very clearly created a spike. Of the 10 who mixed over Christmas directly 7 of them have since tested positive. And all were said to have probably caught it in that few days after Christmas Eve. They ranged in age from children through to late 60s and happily though they varied in how ill they felt and how long it lasted none were anywhere near serious enough to get close to needing to go into hospital. Though the oldest of them is still not back to any kind of normal three weeks on.

I think this strain is incredibly infectious and in any kind of close contact situation looks like if one has it then most of you spending any time with that person will too. But happily no real sign it is particularly more dangerous. Indeed I would not be entirely surprised if in due course it turns out it is less deadly as a kind of trade off versus infectivity that can happen with viruses as it really has no evolutionary purpose to a virus to infect more and just kill them all off. Infecting and thriving is the aim of this evolutionary process not genocide. Death of the host for a virus is an unsought happenstance.

IN some respects the world is blaming the UK for letting this new super spreader take off but it might actually be paradoxically the best thing to happen in a sense that it might speed up the inevitable and necessary equilibrium that is the only way out for us all.

We will never eradicate Covid. We will reach a point where it is sufficiently rated as more a nuisance than a threat. It will always kill a proportion of the elderly and unwell as dozens of diseases and viruses do. But the problems we have had here is its newness and in that period when both the virus and ourselves as a species seek some kind of balance point is when it is most deadly.

The faster we emerge from that the faster the new normal becomes more like the old normal. Though that normal will almost certainly never involve Covid going away.

 

[Marvin]

Just a question now of how fast we can vaccinate, and how the epidemic responds because we don't know the effect of vaccination on transmission.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

That is your ears , phone up and get some antibiotics , if they dont work it is viral and will right itself

Not necessarily.
If you’ve developed labyrinthitis or Meniere’s disease antibiotics won’t do anything.
It’s a problem caused by crystals in the inner ear detaching and disrupting the balance sensors.
You can only treat the symptoms through anti nausea and anti vertigo meds.

 

[kaz7]

Not necessarily.
If you’ve developed labyrinthitis or Meniere’s disease antibiotics won’t do anything.
It’s a problem caused by crystals in the inner ear detaching and disrupting the balance sensors.
You can only treat the symptoms through anti nausea and anti vertigo meds.

You cant get in the drs so go for the obvious first and work back , you have to be shown by a dr how to displace the crystals , sometimes once is enough if the dr does it

 

[Healdplace]

Stockport bordered many areas where you could step easily into an area where haircuts pubs restaurants were all open, many did, literally living next door to an area that was technically open must of caused some spread.

Indeed - I have posted about this osmosis effect of the tiers in here for months - in fact since it happened with Wigan in August when it was initially excluded from the GM restrictions and numbers went through the roof.

It was the reason I have been consistently outspoken against the value of tiers because imo they just transfer the virus rather than stop it spreading.

They are a short term solution for areas in big trouble but a long term detriment to those who were relatively untouched nearby to which the virus simply commutes care of the movement from tier to tier that nobody can stop.

Might be more effective in a huge country with large gaps between regions but in a densely packed nation like ours where you can go anywhere in an hour or two people will if they feel the need to do things there they cannot do where they are from. We are too small and heavily built up island to respond to this virus sensibly in any way other than as a whole not bit by bit.

This is why only national measures work effectively. And I hope that penny has finally dropped with HMG. They seem to have as Hancock specifically referred to NOT excluding Stockport from the upper tier when GM entered it around Christmas and some politicians were pleading for boroughs like this one and Trafford to be given special treatment, He said this was the reason. Though he only referred to it acting one way across GM and seemed to have missed the obvious that it could move both ways if you draw some artificial border and call it a tier.

 

[ayrshire_blue]

my sister in law is just starting to get hers back 2/3 months later.

Jesus, that's horrible. Glad she's on the mend, that's a really long time.

 

[Marvin]

Yes, I can attest from my family that Christmas very clearly created a spike. Of the 10 who mixed over Christmas directly 7 of them have since tested positive. And all were said to have probably caught it in that few days after Christmas Eve. They ranged in age from children through to late 60s and happily though they varied in how ill they felt and how long it lasted none were anywhere near serious enough to get close to needing to go into hospital. Though the oldest of them is still not back to any kind of normal three weeks on.

I think this strain is incredibly infectious and in any kind of close contact situation looks like if one has it then most of you spending any time with that person will too. But happily no real sig it is particularly more dangerous. Indeed I would not be entirely surprised if in due course it turns out it is less deadly as a kind of trade off versus infectivity that can happen with viruses as it really has no evolutionary purpose to a virus to infect more and just kill them all off. Infecting and thriving is the aim of this evolutionary process not geocide. Death of the host for a virus is an unsought happenstance.

IN some respects the world is blaming the UK for letting this new super spreader take off but it might actually be paradoxically the best thing to happen in a sense that it might speed up the inevitable and necessary equilibrium that is the only way out for us all.

We will never eradicate Covid. We will reach a point where it is sufficiently rated as more a nuisance than a threat. It will always kill a proportion of the elderly and unwell as dozens of diseases and viruses do. But the problems we have had here is its newness and in that period when both the virus and ourselves as a species seek some kind of balance point is when it is most deadly.

The faster we emerge from that fast the faster the new normal becomes more like the old normal. Though that normal will almost certainly never involve Covid going away.

Covid-19 is an example of punctuated evolution. There is no equlibrium because Sars-Cov-2 evolves over time to Sars-Cov-3.

 

[somapop]

Sorry to hear your having such a crap time with it. I had 2 days of fever then 5 days with the horrendous throat infection and then the symptoms cleared and I was just knackered for the week after. Hope you feel better soon.

Thanks.
I suspect mine is going to last longer. Worse night ever. I get these weird chills but (probably due to asthma) I dont seem to be able to suck a lot of oxygen in and every coughing fit results in a potential wretch. Appetite shot but that weird taste in the mouth would prevent me enjoying anything anyway.

Feel like ripping my own bloody throat out and it’s driving me insane too :(

 

[kaz7]

Seeing everyone will be offered the vaccine by sept now , what i am not hearing is whether this is a yearly vaccine , i think it will, sept will see the old and vulnerable will get vaccinated again, will there be enough for everyone ? Lots of questions floating in the air

 

[Healdplace]

Covid-19 is an example of punctuated evolution. There is no equlibrium because Sars-Cov-2 evolves over time to Sars-Cov-3.

There will be more coronaviruses of varying impact - yes. That has long bee true. And another pandemic - maybe 50 years from now - maybe 5.

No way to stop that. Except be better prepared as most people bet the farm on the most likely one being a deadly flu because that is what we got in 1918. All the pandemic programmes and movies made before this year tended to go with that and it made a hash of our preparations as we were ready for the wrong enemy.

Next time we must be far better prepared. Hopefully one lesson the world will learn.