Anti Ds We might be locked out of last thread,..but we will never be totally locked dow 👍

[Dowser]

How did that happen?
Taking one for the team 👍

Arghhh I was just about to book but now you have got me pondering again

@countrygirl99 Fri 07-Aug-20 08:44:01
On the cold and flu thread - just because you've had a negative test doesn't mean you don't have Covid. Well, there will always be a margin of error in any test but why so doom laden.

The test is said to be at least 80% accurate for positive tests but because there are so few with CV (Less than 1 in 2000)now that means for every 10,000 people tested there will be on average 5 people with Covid and 4 of them will get a positive test.
On the other hand 99.9% accuracy against false positives means that 10 people will get a false positive.

The lower the numbers the more important the false positives are - currently testing is only 50% accurate with the majority being false positives.

Carl Heneghan in the Spectator

I've never had the jab but then again I've never had flu either (touches wood). Maybe I wouldn't be so blasé if I had and experienced first hand how horrible it is.

Currently have no plans to have it but then I wfh anyway, have a DH to bring me tea and kids are young adults. I totally advocate people who can't afford to be knocked for six having it.

In addition to above

Even if we totally eradicated Covid - so long as we were still random testing we would still get approximately 10 false positives per 10,000 tests.

I had flu once in 30 years over last Christmas... Although it had all the CV symptoms. It was truly vile and took 5 weeks before I wasn't spending swathes of my day in bed and a further month to feel back to normal.

However, I think one in 30 years is pretty good odds without having had a vaccine.

I've never had flu but one Christmas DH and both DS went down with it on 23rd. I had to go round shops to get enough paracetamol to last us through Christmas working on the assumption that I would be crocked too by then. 2 primary aged boys couldn't even summon the strength to open their presents for days.

It's a hell no from me to flu jabs. I used to have them annually from work and thought the only downside was a sore arm but my eczema etc has been way better since knocking it on the head. The efficacy is shockingly low, even when they do match it to what's circulating. I found it eye opening how a lot of medical staff decline it, despite the pressure on them to have it.

Plus I've seen a research paper saying it can make you more vulnerable to viruses like covid but haven't studied it in detail as don't intend to have it anyway.

I agree with Skeptile re. wake up call on mortality. Victorians would definitely think we were hilarious, they didn't have any choice but to crack on, or die of starvation.

Also agree on furlough ending, I think people's attitudes might readjust pretty quickly. I was quite skeptical about the BoE announcement yesterday that the economy is not as bad as we thought. It's one thing eating out when it's being subsidised and it's sunny. It's going to be different altogether if people are unemployed and it's raining

@IAintentDead I was pondering exactly that today. At what level will we all draw a line under it and concluse we're down to false positive levels?

I’ve never even stopped to consider flu might kill me - as for having it. Had I been single, no kids, I’d have been absolutely fine. All I did was sleep and sweat for 3 days. 😂

Mine are older now obviously and may deviate from a weetabix diet in a crisis.

So I’ll keep my eye on the jag vs. Covid thing.

Never had flu. And that's with 12 years of being a teacher as well. Norovirus a couple of times, that's not fun. Think I might have had Covid at the start of April, but could have been a chest infection or something.

Just had the update from the school. Pupils are required to stay 2m away from each other. WTF? I thought in Scotland there was to be NO social distancing for the little ones?

Sorry, my mistake - I read that wrong. I can't get within 2m of someone else's kid.

Ibake I had very very bad flu in 1999. Honestly felt like I was dying. I'm still blasè and never considered the vaccine. My understanding is that a bad bout gives you great long term immunity and sure enough I've never had it since.

Another one who had awful flu, along with the rest of my family, over Christmas 1999. Must have been a bad year for it. I wonder if we had had social media then it would have been a much bigger deal in the national consciousness 🤔

Fucks Sake.

Nicola has just announced that I can no longer wear a face visor and have to wear a mask.

No shopping for me then.

unherd.com/thepost/will-there-be-a-second-wave-of-coronavirus/ I like this guy’s analyses. Slightly more cautious than ADs (e.g. in favour of masks to keeps cases low) but he always digs deeper to see what the numbers really show.

An interesting article about wee Nippy in unHerd (I don't agree with everything in that site, but they do have a variety of views which overall balances)

unherd.com/2020/08/the-snps-sly-doom-mongering/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3

This paragraph stood out for me..
".... some hangover of Presbyterianism, an ultra form of that puritanism which H.L. Mencken summarised as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy”. Scottish joy at the opportunity to impart bad news is some extension of this: the knowledge that someone, somewhere, may have been happy and that the universe has finally made them pay for it.

Is that the Dementors or is that the Dementors 🤷🏽‍♀️

I had flu at university in my 20s bad few days but easily shook off - had several bouts of flu and chest infections over a few winters after having the kids -so 5 and half year pg and bf looking back suspect I was low on some vitamins. It did leave me drained but then with young kids I couldn't rest.

I then got diagnosed with asthma and haven't been as bad since.

Last year HCP uptake was 70% partciularly good uptake posted link to that threads ago.

I get the flu jab and make sure DS has one to - but I suspect we have better reactions to the vaccines than many as most are older who get it.

Though since saw some articles and research suggesting missing odd year is actually better than getting for protection that getting flu vaccination every year - negative interference effect which isn't well studied - but one shot every five years might be better.

So if the GPs are shit again this year with flu vaccinations I might worry less than usual - combine it with all the handwash and distancing this year might be the best year to miss.

I had glandular fever when I was 19 and can still remember the 10 days in bed with a very high temp (over 40) not eating hardly drinking and feeling like I had done ten rounds with Frank Bruno! It took a good two years for my immune system to recover and to stop catching every bug going. After that I think I could cope with flu or Covid but wouldn't like to get them both together

On a separate note, my legs ache following a long bike ride (41.4 miles) this morning! I was supposed to have today off work but have been WFH for the past three hours as calls diverted to my phone (never normally rings on a Friday but weve had four calls before 10am today!), answering urgent mails and resolving an accounts issues. One day I will get a proper day off!!

I am normally a 'if I get it I'll deal with it' kind of person so only ever had the flu jab once when it was offered free at work.

Haven't had flu, well not the knock you for six type flu. The worst illness I have had was a UTI which turned into a kidney infection and I was resistant to the first antibiotics they gave me so spent a week in bed shivering unable to get up.

I wouldn't even think about this particular vaccine other than DH being insistent we should although he is only just in the 'extended group' the gov are thinking of offering to for free this year.

My Surgery has already contacted me and asked me to make an appointment for the flu jab.

I have been reading though about a small study done in children that said the flu jab made them 5 times more likely to get another Coronavirus infection. The study was pre CV19 (Results Feb this year) so they don't know if it will apply to it. They also said a bigger study needed to be done. Reported in the BMJ. (www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m810/rr-0)

Virus cases 'may be levelling off' in England

The number of people in England testing positive for coronavirus may be levelling off, according to a household survey by the Office for National Statistics.

After a low in cases at the end of June, it estimated infections had been rising slightly in July.

...

Figures for Wales have been included for the first time - and during the week of 27 July to 2 August, 1,400 people are estimated to have had Covid-19.

In England, the figure is 28,300 for the same week.

@SockYarn

Fucks Sake.

Nicola has just announced that I can no longer wear a face visor and have to wear a mask.

No shopping for me then.

FFS! Plus all eating in establishments will have to do track and trace as its now mandatory! A load of paperwork and data protection for businesses already struggling. A lot of people do not use the app so printing out reams of forms is costly.

I've only been in a few places since they reopened - two took my name and mobile number on a tablet, the other asked me to fill in one of the comment cards they had already with my name and number. They marked it with the time we were in and the table number, assume they had a way of filing by time.

Not a big deal for restaurants or cafes, harder for pubs when people are coming in and out all the time.