Got it, thanks.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Interestingly the advice we got was from a previous scan about a month ago. We have our 12 week scan tomorrow morning and so I'm going to ask again about it to see if it has changed at all.
To be fair, they would say that given that they’re trying to roll out the boosters. A bit like when they were saying that there was little evidence that face masks offer any help early in the pandemic, when they had a shortage of them for health and care workers.
Had my PCR this morning so fingers crossed.
I used to work for Verifly. It’s handy
No chance and the man on the street knows that’s made up
We don't know whether it means anything really. If it's someone who died "with the virus" in a car crash that's different to someone dying of it. They won't be able to tell us much about the person themself either, without the permission of the family, as it will potentially identify an individual.
It's all still, "we won't really know enough for another week or two," nothing's going to change that.
Yes, and even someone dying “of it” doesn’t mean that it’s not milder.
What’s the craic with testing in the UK anyway? Presumably if you need a PCR you get a professional to take the sample?
An update from the Christmas party mass infection in Norway.
- a total of 145 people was infected after the Christmas party at 26. of november.
- they are all double vaccinated, and in the age group 30-50
- most of them are back to normal again, and no one has been hospitalised
- most of them had symptoms like runny nose, sore throat, or a cough, a few had flu-like symptoms.
- about half of them had a fever
- none of them had breathing difficulties
Link (in norwegian)
- a total of 145 people was infected after the Christmas party at 26. of november.
- they are all double vaccinated, and in the age group 30-50
- most of them are back to normal again, and no one has been hospitalised
- most of them had symptoms like runny nose, sore throat, or a cough, a few had flu-like symptoms.
- about half of them had a fever
- none of them had breathing difficulties
Link (in norwegian)
No, not completely so. You can get sampling kits sent to your house which you then send back for analysis. Not the best solution IMO.
Reports are out now that the Dept for Health have corrected the PMs pre-recorded message by saying that the PM meant to say that all over-18s would be OFFERED the booster, not GIVEN the booster!
Now I must have just listened wrong because I heard Boris talk about how the NHS was going to have to make more sacrifices to do more jabs than ever before - did I magically hear 'given' whenever he actually said 'offered'?
Now I must have just listened wrong because I heard Boris talk about how the NHS was going to have to make more sacrifices to do more jabs than ever before - did I magically hear 'given' whenever he actually said 'offered'?
Yep. For the elderly and frail even the classic common cold can be a killer. It really is a matter of - we won't know until we actually have enough cases and enough recoveries to put real numbers on it. But if we do wait for that hard evidence before upping the booster program we'll have missed the one trick that could save thousands of people and tens of thousands of hospitalisations that doesn't involve serious restrictions on all our lives starting now.
Narrow window to do something, and minimal downside if we didn't need to do it so quickly.
I read an interesting paper a while back about an outbreak of one of the ‘original’ coronaviruses (i.e. that have been in circulation for decades) in a residential care home that had a fairly significant mortality.
Because PCR tests are much more accurate than LFTs. If someone has symptoms they should really cut to the chase and get a PCR, without fannying around with LFTs (that are only useful for screening asymptomatic people that want some reassurance before visiting the vulnerable)
LFT's are just for home, school or work use as a first measure. If your LFT comes up positive then you need to get a PCR test to confirm.
Yeah, I did that thing idiots do of sharing a tweet without reading the link. Thought those might be home tests to be sent off for a PCR. Which would be a bit nuts.
So.... Is Omicron milder then or not? I assume we still don't know with certainty right?
Nope. At the PCR test centre today we were all doing our own tests.
It’s definitely possible that covid somehow evades these kits. It’s quite structurally different to “original covid” which they were designed to screen for. That would be a bit of a disaster. I haven’t read anything about that possibility yet though.
Jaysus. Really? In my experience it’s impossible to swab your own sinuses with anything like the same enthusiasm as a professional.
Can't help but get the feeling that, irregardless of how severe Omicron is, the UK is just not in a great place to deal with the outbreak that's guaranteed to happen.
Not enough tests to regularly monitor, not enough boosts in arms, not enough hospital beds, etc.
I think this has always been the crux of the disconnect when it comes to the insufferable pro/antivax debates. What defines the severity of the virus is by no means isolated to the virus itself, it's as much the coping mechanisms that exist around it.
Not enough tests to regularly monitor, not enough boosts in arms, not enough hospital beds, etc.
I think this has always been the crux of the disconnect when it comes to the insufferable pro/antivax debates. What defines the severity of the virus is by no means isolated to the virus itself, it's as much the coping mechanisms that exist around it.
LFTs are piss poor.
yep, and I agree. They don’t give a shite if you’re gagging or feeling uncomfortable whereas you obviously do so won’t do it with the same force. There was a constant stream of people at the walk-in though so I’m not sure if it’s because of the pressure of so many people that they’re resorting to you doing it yourself but it was a bit of a weird experience.
Not sure if I'm just being an idiot also but I'm pretty sure this is also a thing. I've just tried to get some lat flows but they're out, when through the steps for a PCR just to see and it lets me order to home if I wanted.
There will for sure be many more false negatives.
That’s what they do up here in NI
I'm sure it's been covered by some here, but I've not kept abreast of the thread's developments. What do people make of this
According to the South Africans it's far less serious.
I’ve done like 6 PCR tests since my kid goes nursery and every time they get a temp or cough we have to go get tested. Each time we do our own, at a drive-thru centre, and also have to do the one for our 2 year old (I say we, I mean my wife who sits in the back). We open the window slightly, they give us the tests, we do thems Then they scan some barcodes and at the end we pull down our window slightly to drop it into a box.
You also have test at home PCRs. Same as the drive thru example I gave above except obviously they send it home and you post it back.
So, is there any chance that a benign dominant strain of COVID-19 might develop? Each new dominant strain appears to be more transmissible than the previous one, but also, slightly less virulent than the previous one.
Otherwise, I can't see any way out of this.
Otherwise, I can't see any way out of this.
Delta was more virulent than Alpha and the original Wuhan variants. It didn't look like it in the UK because of high vaccine takeup, particularly among the most vulnerable groups. We don't know what omicron would do in an immune naive population either and neither SA or the UK will really be able to answer that question.
If our immune system works the way it normally does, and gets the occasional boost from a vaccine or infection we'll think it's getting milder even if it isn't intrinsically less dangerous.
Why does it seem to an impatient and uninformed person that it's taking ages for scientists to figure out if this is less virulent or not?
As an equally uninformed and impatient observer I guess because the true nature of the impact simply isn't known yet. In a couple of weeks the picture will probably be clearer.
I swear it was two weeks one week ago :-(
It's always two weeks. I feel like a primary school kid waiting for his birthday, where time actually moves backwards.
There needs to be enough data to form a good analysis. Being correct is better than being early. Especially with something like this that could be a game changer.
I guess even if it is less severe for people with it, assuming it won't be is probably the safest bet for now. I'm sure it's not pleasant to have regardless. And honestly if this is an overreaction but it manages to get arses in line for a booster, then all's good.
Some (limited) info on first UK omicron admissions (and one death). Wording is a bit strange. They make clear all the admissions were diagnosed either on or before admission (presumably to rule out coincidental diagnosis when admitted with a different condition) but go on to refer to death happening to someone who was diagnosed in hospital.