IOM Covid removing restrictions

[Utah 01]

8 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

Walked into our GP surgery today to be handed a mask and told to wear it.

There's an appropriate response.

[Roger Mexico]

4 hours ago, Youaintseenme said:

I think it’s pretty widely accepted that a proper dose of flu is worse for most people than a dose of COVID isn’t it?  Especially the later milder variants.

Just because it's widely accepted, it doesn't mean it's true.  Obviously what a 'proper' dose of flu is, what a 'proper' dose of Covid is and how they are comparable are all very subjective anyway. By definition a dose of flu that puts you in hospital is worse than a mild sniffle from Covid, but the other way round is true as well.

What people seem to be getting mixed up with is an assessment that Covid was now less deadly than flu in England at some point in March this year.  Though it was only very slightly less deadly (0.9) and only for a very short time and the two were not really comparable because what was being compared was a weekly calculated figure for Covid with a seasonal/yearly average for flu calculated over several years and making certain assumptions about the prevalence of flu.  So it was pretty meaningless as the 'seasonal' rate for Covid would have still been much higher.

I think the point that the article is trying to make is that vaccination for Covid had reduced the risk of death from Covid[1] to about that of seasonal flu - it really wasn't true as above, but even if it was it's just showing the effectiveness of the vaccination at that particular time.  Without vaccines Covid would be many many times more deadly.  But we also know that the effectiveness of such vaccination diminishes, so there is no guarantee that that situation will continue.

As if to illustrate that the March article says:

“Is Omicron the same as flu? No. But the vaccines have made the risks to the individual very similar,” said Dr Raghib Ali, senior clinical research associate in epidemiology at Cambridge university, who added that this made a “large spike” in hospital admissions or deaths “unlikely” while Omicron remained the dominant strain.

Which was then followed by a spike in hospital admissions and deaths in April; 

Nothing like the horrors of January 2021 but still significant

 

[1]  This is the IFR, the infection fatality rate - that is the likelihood of someone dying if they get infected with a particular disease.  Obviously even if the IFR for Covid was a bit lower than for flu, if a lot more people catch Covid than flu, more people will still die of Covid than of flu.

[Banker]

1 hour ago, Youaintseenme said:

am one of them and could happily be in the office but instead am hoping for the predicted warm and sunny weather so I can work from the garden and various picnic benches around the island

What are you a teacher or bus driver?

[manxchester]

1 hour ago, Youaintseenme said:

My point was a poster was saying that he had had COVID and basically felt rough for a few days then comparing that to having had “flu” in the past and stating COVID was worse.

I would suggest that if his vaccinated version of COVID that as far as I can tell didn’t even warrant medical attention was in his eyes worse than Flu, then he has never really had flu, and is in fact coasting COVID to a cold.

Its not unusual as flu has historically been the self diagnosis  of choice for people who just feel a bit crap with a bad cold.

I am posting at silly o clock in the morning because I have been up most of the night feeling a bit rough.

LFT says it’s COViD.  Hurrah, it’s everywhere as was widely predicted so time will tell if the hospital sees an increase in admissions needing actual COVID treatment.  I guess it won’t as it seems very mild in everyone I know who has contracted it over TT.  Mostly people seem to be still working but mentioning in their emails that they are stuck at home due to employer policy rather than actually being too I’ll to work.

I am one of them and could happily be in the office but instead am hoping for the predicted warm and sunny weather so I can work from the garden and various picnic benches around the island

Yeah he definitely hasn’t had flu. I was the same previously, put really heavy colds down to flu, it wasn’t till I actually got it (and was diagnosed with it) that I realised the difference. Bed ridden for a week and felt like crap for a month, Covid was a walk in the park compared to it (obviously vaccinations helped).

 

[WTF]

1 hour ago, Youaintseenme said:

I teach people how to drive a bus.

evidence suggests you're not very good at it.

[quilp]

2 hours ago, Banker said:

What are you a teacher or bus driver?

He is everything to all men. 

[Johnny F]

A week ago I didn't know anyone with covid, today I know 10 people. Manx Care dropping mask wearing is a shockingly ignorant decision, regardless of the efficacy of mask wearing it just shows they are still blindly following the other Island ffs.

 

[Roger Mexico]

4 hours ago, Youaintseenme said:

My point was a poster was saying that he had had COVID and basically felt rough for a few days then comparing that to having had “flu” in the past and stating COVID was worse.

I would suggest that if his vaccinated version of COVID that as far as I can tell didn’t even warrant medical attention was in his eyes worse than Flu, then he has never really had flu, and is in fact coasting COVID to a cold.

All you're doing there is redefining flu to being a bad respiratory infection.  But the definition of flu, like that of Covid, doesn't rely on how bad you feel, but on laboratory testing.  Like Covid it can also be fairly mild and like Covid it can also have its symptoms alleviated, or maybe even infection resisted, by vaccination.  Vaccination which was available throughout the period the FT article considered.

Obviously one person's experience of a particular bout of flu may be worse than their's of a particular bout of Covid. Or vice versa.  But we can only look at a population as a whole and the evidence is pretty clear that, even with vaccination, Covid is still more dangerous and more deadly, though the gap has been much reduced from what it was, mainly by vaccination.  Though Omicron is a little less lethal than pervious variants, that might possibly change as further sub-variants develop.

I hope you feel better soon, but the anecdotal number of infections and severity of some of them suggests we will be seeing a rise in cases in this week's figures and a future rise in hospitalisations and possibly deaths.  The change is so dramatic that I would suggest a mixture of TT and new sub-variants[1] to be the most likely cause (is there any genetics being done?), but it could be other causes.

 

[1]  South Africa, where they were first detected, seems to have got off relatively lightly from BA.4 and BA.5, but they seem to be spreading quite fast in the US. 

[AOR]

1 hour ago, Youaintseenme said:

I have advised them all to work from home and that it was suggested by a banker.

(I don’t really teach people to drive a bus, I just thought the concept might make bankers head explode)

A bit off topic but buses (etc) will probably be remote controlled in the not too distant future. Probably more on an Air Traffic Control type set up, but no reason why bus drivers in this scenario could not work from home.
Thinking about it, there would probably be a supervisor (working from home too) checking up on all the bus drivers to make sure they aren't working in their underpants and sneaking off to the fridge for a bite of cheese every now and then.
 

[Itsmeee]

15 hours ago, MrGarrison said:

Full of could’s and is’s .. absolute bullshit. 

And full of unnecessary apostrophes. Please make it stop. 

[immortalpuppet]

I am guessing most people got infected on Friday as did I and a lot of work colleagues. Thankfully mild and nothing more than a sweaty sleep and bit of a bark. Most of my coworkers work outdoors and in pairs and those that have it are taking precautions. 
 

Those wearing masks have reported being heckled quite a bit which hasn’t been seen since the start of the pandemic. 
 

Symptoms have all but gone for most of us which is why I am assuming it was Friday when collectively we likely picked it up.

[NoTail]

I've got it, I feel really shitty. 

[MrGarrison]

3 hours ago, immortalpuppet said:

Those wearing masks have reported being heckled quite a bit which hasn’t been seen since the start of the pandemic. 

There’s an easy way to stop that. I had covid the other week. Went into a shop with a mask on and some wag goes what you wearing that for and I said because I’ve got covid you tool. Never seen anyone leave a shop so quickly in a while. Like he was literally trying to outrun the fumes. 

[wrighty]

9 minutes ago, MrGarrison said:

There’s an easy way to stop that. I had covid the other week. Went into a shop with a mask on and some wag goes what you wearing that for and I said because I’ve got covid you tool. Never seen anyone leave a shop so quickly in a while. Like he was literally trying to outrun the fumes. 

I have non-covid right now (cough, presumably due to a respiratory virus, tested negative x2) and had to get supplies in yesterday.  So for the first time this year I wore a mask round M&S. Felt a bit odd, but it was the right thing to do as I was potentially infectious.  Nobody said anything to me (probably due to my general air of unapproachability) apart from a non-masked little old lady who was quite happy to ask me to get her something off a top shelf she couldn’t reach herself. 
 

It’s something I think we’ll get used to long term. If you’re ill, coughing/sneezing etc, stay home if possible but mask up if you go out. And ideally start seeing mask wearing as an altruistic deed to protect others, rather than a sign of being a covid-scaredy-pants or whatever.

[doc.fixit]

I'm an altruistic scaredy pants, should I wear two masks?.......I am actually both of those things.