Well, it’s taken 725 days for me to finally catch Covid!! Less than a week short of two years!!
I haven’t much of a clue where we caught it. It was probably at the cinema when we went to watch Belfast. Great film!
I’m sure if we had caught this at the beginning we would have been a lot worse off. Between then and now they have created a vaccine and we’ve had three doses of it. Without that vaccine we could be in hospital now. Instead of being a minor inconvenience, we could be in a life-threatening situation. This just feels like a nuisance.
My symptoms at present are:
A strange oversensitive mouth with a metallic taste.
A feeling of lethargy.
A slight cough, more like clearing my throat.
A slightly runny nose.
The occasional sneeze.
I’m not really feeling that ill – slightly muzzy.
Acid stomach and slight diarrhoea.
That’s it.
Thank you all those vaccine people. The fact that IO don’t feel at all bad is down to you!
I reported my positive test and went through all the bureaucratic questions. Took me a while. There’s a lot of them.
It made me realise two things. Firstly, reporting this illness is a pain. I bet a lot of people don’t bother. Secondly, reporting contacts is arbitrary. I could have put down quite a number and I’ve been pretty much in isolation.
The other thing is that it would have been easy not to have tested. I wasn’t feeling that ill – just a bit under the weather. I went down with this last Saturday but my test was negative. I was unwell and contagious but free to pass the virus on. If I had been in work, mixing with a lot of people, I could have passed this on to a lot of people.
This virus is horribly underreported! I think the levels are much much higher than they’ve ever been. I know of lots of people who have just gone down with it. Because of vaccination most of us are asymptomatic or have, like me, very mild symptoms – easy to overlook.
The Track and Trace system is a waste of £37 billion. There is no chance of following up those contacts. We’d be far better off being instructed to contact our own contacts. Clear instructions are essential.
Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, it is quite apparent that our clown of a PM is playing football with covid-19. He thinks that pretending that the pandemic is over and lifting all restrictions will make him popular. The man is a dangerous chancer.
There has been no consultation with the scientists. his is purely a political decision made for the wrong reasons.
We know that there are numerous variants already on the horizon. We know that Omicron does not give immunity against other variants. That means that we are likely to get variants that evade the vaccines and immunity from illness.
Any sensible leader would initiate a public debate on how we deal with this.
Looking into the future it may well be that we do have to live with it. We need to vaccinate the vulnerable every few months. It is unlikely that we will ever reach herd immunity as this immunity is so short-lived. We need the scientists and politicians involved and a grown-up debate.
What we have is a leader who hides in fridges, provides no leadership, likes being seen in Hi-Vis jackets but not answering questions, unilaterally makes laws, refuses to be held accountable and breaks the rules he brings in for the rest of us.
What sort of pillock of a leader is that???
So, yesterday there were a reported 51,899 new cases (though I take that with a big pinch of salt – it is becoming much harder to obtain accurate stats) with 183 more deaths!!
We are now jabbing 5-11 year-olds – though I am not quite sure what the strategy is and why we are doing it. Are we still trying for herd immunity?? I wish we had more science in this. My trust in politicians is in minus figures.
There is now some discussion as to the ending of free tests. When those go then we have effectively the end of all stats. That means that nobody will really know what’s going on and where. It’ll all be down to hospital admissions and deaths. Might be a bit late by then eh?
We voted in mindless, greedy profiteers – now we are paying the price with both Brexit and Covid – horrendous rising prices and deaths.
They’ll just put a spin on it. The media they control will back them up. The morons in the population will swallow the garbage that they are doing a good job – got Brexit and covid done!!
When will they wake up!! This bunch of entitled, overprivileged incompetents are tightening their grip on power. They are pumping out spin and propaganda. They are banning opposition through protest. They are avoiding any scrutiny and accountability. They control the media and threaten the BBC. They are now looking to turn schools into propaganda sites under the guise of fighting Woke culture. They lie and break laws and rules with impunity.
This bunch of extremists is overtly dismantling what remains of democracy. It’s scary!!
So as global warming exerts itself we have a red weather alert – a severe storm approaches!!
Let’s hope it blows these nasty populists away!!
Stay safe!!
Opher – In general conversation today a friend was asked if they had had Covid. They replied “no, not knowingly.” It made me wonder if for some vaccinated people, Covid is actually so mild as to not be noticeable at all? Most I know, have been laid low for a couple of days, sometimes a week, with a slight sense of lethargy in the aftermath, but have certainly known they’ve felt under-the-weather.
There is no science behind the clown’s decision to end restrictions: it is an act of appeasement; red-meat for the benches. If the decision were supported by science, why not let Whitty take the stand to publicly support that decision? He’s got credibility with the public, and is more believable than BoJo! I’ve also read of a couple of Tory politicians who without providing supporting evidence have stated that because Omicron is a mild variant, future variants are likely to be mild as well. I’d like to know how they arrived at that conclusion? I’d also like to know how well prepared we are as a nation for any future pandemic variants!
Best news of the day…a judge rules Trump, and his two eldest children must testify in New York fraud investigation! They’ll appeal, but I’m not sure they’ll be successful. He could take the fifth amendment, and say nothing…but do you think Trump would ever miss his day in court..he’ll love biggin’ it up for his base. However, this could be the first brick removed from the house of Trump that’ll cause the rest to fall.
I read Prince Charles may be called to testify in a cash-for-honours investigation into his charity. And a question to be asked in the Commons seeking assurance that the Queen – who is said to be paying handy Andy’s settlement – will be using her private wealth and not tax-payer’s money to pay it. Given the nature of the civil case, it’s a fair question. Oh, and the City of York are seeking to remove ‘the freedom of the city’ to Handy. It’s not shaping up to be a good year for the Windsor’s is it? Go Global Britain!
Interesting read in the Guardian about Oliver Dowden’s comments on woke culture. (1) It’s a crazy world, full of wingnuts!
DN
(1) – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/17/british-tories-war-on-woke-oliver-dowden
There is no scientific basis for Johnson’s decision. He hasn’t consulted scientists. SAGE is not meeting.
The elite are having a spot of bother with Trump and Andrew. Nasty, greedy people. All this underage sex business. They were both friends of Epstein. Now Charles and his charity.
This war on woke is quite scary. They are using it as a means to tighten controls. We are getting as bad as America.
Opher, the ONS have been saying that only one-third of omicron cases actually get reported as cases. The rest are either asymptomatic, or people just get over it, never knowing whether it was COVID or something else.
I’m really not sure on the herd immunity situation – it looks as if the Yanks are saying one thing while the South Africans are saying quite another. And the media seem to be into their usual fear-mongering mode. We’ll have to wait and see. But the daily new cases, weekly averaged, are now down to 48K from a peak of 191K six weeks ago. And this article at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00438-3 says that about 10% of new infections now are re-infections. I’ll take my chances with that.
As to track and trace, you’re right, it was a complete waste of time and money. But the political classes will do (and spend) anything for an excuse to snoop into people’s lives more and more intrusively.
As to weather, I was out walking in storm Dudley yesterday morning, and he was a dud. The way they draw the map for Eunice, I am just near the western boundary of the eastern of the two “red zones.” They are talking about 63mph gusts in 2-3 hours’ time. Once the rain has stopped (which, according to their forecast maps, should be imminent – and yes, the sun has just come out!), I think my walk today will be from west to east!
I don’t see how we can achieve any herd immunity if immunity only lasts twelve weeks. That means that virtually the whole population have to be either infected or inoculated within a narrow window. That’s not going to happen.
Time for a big girls and boys debate.
We’re on the edge of the red for Eunice too. Dudley was very blowy here!!
I’ve been out walking in Eunice now, too. Wasn’t able to do the walk I originally planned, because I needed a bus to get me to the start of the walk, and they weren’t running. It was actually a bit disappointing – nowhere near 63mph gusts. Probably 40-45mph at max. The hardest bit was the last 100 yards home – while climbing the steep hill I was protected by it from the wind, but once I got to the top the wind was right in my face! Lots of twigs and foliage broken off the trees, but only one tree actually down. Nice to be able to walk round the lake without any dog-walkers, though.
I don’t see where you get the idea that omicron immunity only lasts twelve weeks. What I see is this: https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/covid/immunity-after-omicron-infection/. “A recent study published in The Lancet estimated that reinfection by SARS-CoV-2 under endemic conditions would likely occur between three months and five years after peak antibody response.” And then there’s the T-cell immunity, of which they say: “This arm of the immune response tends to be broader than antibodies – and thus more likely to recognise variants, and to last longer.” It’s T-cells that will get us to herd immunity, not antibodies.
Wind is picking up now but today has been intermittent sunshine and rain. It’s the flying debris that gets you!
I’ve read a number of reports on this. Immunity wanes quickly with these corona viruses. There is some residual T-cell memory but I wouldn’t count on any of that too much. There is a high level of reinfections with the second or third infection sometimes being worse than the first.
And I’ve just seen this: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/covid-19-vaccines-induce-immune-response-omicron. I suspect that T-cell immunity from having had and recovered from COVID (any variant) will be at least as good as the immunity provided by vaccines.
Don’t kid yourself Neil. T-cell immunity is a weak immunity – takes time to kick in. Vaccine immunity is higher than immunity following a full-blooded infection and longer lasting. It begins to wane after 12 weeks – hence the need to boost. This is going to prove a long-lasting problem. Herd immunity is almost impossible.
No, Opher, T-cell immunity isn’t weak. Yes, it takes time to kick in; you need to have had the damned thing and got over it to get T-cells to react. But it provides longer term immunity, while antibodies (and vaccines, so far at least) only provide short term immunity. That’s why it’s good that you’ve got the damned thing at last.
Anyway, I’m not worried. I managed to find the person who passed the infection to me – a pub landlord in Sandhurst. So I’m absolutely sure that what I had was COVID. And as I’ve said before: Been there, done that, got the T-cells.
Good luck with the T-cells. But then I’m just a biologist……..