ADs drinking al fresco at The Sleeping Swans

[BogRollBOGOF]

ADs, grab your thermals, long johns and winter woolies, we're finally off to drown our sorrows at the Sleeping Swan!

Found it, the hygiene hypothesis was first proposed in 1989. There is a fairly accessible article here, with a slightly misleading title, so worth reading as it expands on our understanding of the hygiene hypothesis www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4966430/

@SloeSummer

Masks are evil About to get the bus with my lanyard, advertising my disabilities yet again!

I'm sad that so many people practised poor hygiene before.

Honestly, I think you are very brave. I have not been on a bus for a year even though I have a lanyard because I am scared of being harassed.

I don't like advertising my disabilities either.

@TabbyStar

One good thing to come out of covid is hygiene. Masks, washing hands, sanitiser, don't know which works best but it has decimated other virus transmission.

I'm not sure this is a good thing in a wider sense, don't we need some exposure to build a strong immune system?

This comment is just one example of how everyone here is not one homogenous clique of the same opinion and is able to have respectful discussions and remain supportive.

I am curious as to the effect of so much sanitising on "superbugs" and anti-biotic resistance and that 0.01% of bacteria that haven't been squited to death.

I can't say I particularly enjoyed my healthy, cold-free winter, it's not like I went anywhere to enjoy it! I think the greatest defence has been social isolation and ventilation, but the cost of isolation far outweighs the benefits of avoiding colds and sickness bugs. MiL has taken shielding seriously but at 89, she's aged rapidly from what I hear and have seen on photos. She has only left the house for medical appointments in 13 monthd, and the local family only see her in the garden. She's preserving her life, and hopefully we can see her in the summer as it's now already 18m, but at what cost? She's not going to physically bounce back, how does she regain social confidence especially as the vaccines are so slow in her country.

I've lost family suddenly and not always at a ripe old age and it's just shaped me to live well when you can.

I'd rather write a week off here and there over the winter because I'm run down with a cold, than never do anything to avoid it.

Early March 2020 I was due to see DM, she'd recently been ill and I had what felt like a normal cold and Covid hadn't reached the panic stage. I said I had a cold, did she want me to cancel... so I saw her nearly 4m later...

I'm not a zealously clean person, I will wash my hands properly after the toilet etc, I don't have an issue with sanitiser being avaliable for use if that continues longer term- yesterday I picked up a leaky pack of peppers so sanitising was sensible after that. I prefer proper handwashing though.

I just can't stand the social/ communication costs of masks though. People are within their rights to continue wearing them, but they are a barrier to communication and I just get so pissed off with the false narrative that they're such a little, harmless gesture of being selfless. I'm amazed more women don't feel concerned about the personal safety aspect regarding outdoor use. It's also timed unfortunately with the growth of electric scooters whizzing up silently and people concealed entirely by black hoodies and masks so there is zero identifiable feature if there was an incident either accidental or malicious. I'm a heck of a lot more confident about being out alone tgan many MNers too... maybe they just don't venture out much to feel the concern from that angle?

To provide some anecdata, parents have always had a "relaxed" attitude to mess/dirt/best before dates and my sisters and I have grown up with iron constitutions I have eaten food that has left DH vomiting all night with zero effect on me!

If I had to guess which it was, I'd say washing hands. I think everyone should have to read Tony Ross' Little Princess book entitled I don't want to wash my hands and do a fact file on Joseph Bazalgette.

People are within their rights to continue wearing them, but they are a barrier to communication and I just get so pissed off with the false narrative that they're such a little, harmless gesture of being selfless

Completely agree, it's more of people who are fine themselves not acknowledging that there are other people with different experiences!

@TabbyStar

One good thing to come out of covid is hygiene. Masks, washing hands, sanitiser, don't know which works best but it has decimated other virus transmission.

I'm not sure this is a good thing in a wider sense, don't we need some exposure to build a strong immune system?

Depends really on your health. The grandkids we care for have given us colds over the winter, I only got one, OH who has COPD has had three of them, the latest has meant five days of oral steroids and a week on antibiotics. To hear him struggling for breath at night is scary.

Norovirus was unusual years ago and has risen at the same rate as fast food, ready meals and eating out scientists have said. I thought that interesting. We do not eat out a lot and cook from scratch at home, touch wood norovirus has never hit us. The offspring and their children, however have been wiped out a few times by it. I have nursed and cleaned up after sick kids and avoided it.

I think apart from OH COPD issues we are pretty tough here.

Norovirus and hand sanitiser, not good. Interesting article.

newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/hand-sanitizer-use-gastroenteritis-outbreaks/

The upshot being washing your hands with soap and water is the way to go. I play lip service to sanitiser where indicated in public, but as soon as I get home, wash it off with soap and water, it is very drying.

I'm not keen on hand sanitiser either, it dries me out too. And it always feels like it leaves a thin smeary film all over my hands.

In related news I am trying to find a foam/bubble bath that doesn't dry my skin out. I got a load of Molton Brown for Christmas and it seems to disagree with me. Disaster!

Foam bubble bath is a detergent so it will dry you out. Add oil and bubbles disappear. Also your lady bits will not thank you. Thrush aint funny.

Isn’t the protective layer on corona viruses basically a lipid/fat? So absolutely yes to soap being the best way of washing hands. Especially if you pretend you’re an extra in ER at the same time .

I was thinking more about herd immunity rather than individual immunity, which might be variable between different people, so those who might be more vulnerable are protected by everyone else having higher levels of immunity. It's better that those of us who are healthy get stuff and then become immune to protect everyone else.

@BIoodyStupidJohnson

I'm not keen on hand sanitiser either, it dries me out too. And it always feels like it leaves a thin smeary film all over my hands.

In related news I am trying to find a foam/bubble bath that doesn't dry my skin out. I got a load of Molton Brown for Christmas and it seems to disagree with me. Disaster!

When I worked in a hospital it was just coming in at the ward entrances to use coming in and out... I went in and out a lot. It was excellent for my hand hygiene... regularly going to the toilets to wash the build up off!

I like E45 hand wash. I'm not sure how effective it is at virus busting, but when hands are struggling it is far kinder on skin and certainly helps to flush the dirt down the drain.

I bought some cracked heel cream for my feet, but if my hands are going to sandpaper, it calms them quite quickly.
Oilatum is a good, basic cream too.

DS2 had a very sicky class in the infants years, but he always dodged it. He has invoked the 48 hour rule after overheating playing football on a hot day day. He did it at school and was the hot class gossip for it so there was no sneaking around the rule. That was a fun couple of days accompanied by Tigger Child looking the epitome of good health! DS1 was 6 before he was ever sick. At 10, he's been sick twice!
It's rare for us to be afflicted by more than a couple of heavy colds per year.

@TabbyStar

I was thinking more about herd immunity rather than individual immunity, which might be variable between different people, so those who might be more vulnerable are protected by everyone else having higher levels of immunity. It's better that those of us who are healthy get stuff and then become immune to protect everyone else.

That's been a criticism levelled at the vaccine passport concept and excluding lower risk unvaccinated people away from formerly higher risk unvaccinated people. Covid isn't the only virus and people need to maintain immunity to the full range of illnesses.

DS was chatting about red squirrels this morning, and the conversation included how greys introduced an illness that they were immune too on top of their physical advantages.

We saw some reds on Brownsea Island last year. That was a great day out as the ferry significantly restricted the numbers able to go so it was very quiet. We've seen them in Ireland too.

re NHS covid passport, Drakeford Wales is insisting it is bilingual, well wish Spain, France, Portugal, etc. luck with translating the welsh. What a wanker Drakeford is.

So sorry everyone if I created a stir yesterday with my flippant remarks. Don't want to get us all banned so I'll keep quiet for a while.

@thefallthroughtheair

So sorry everyone if I created a stir yesterday with my flippant remarks. Don't want to get us all banned so I'll keep quiet for a while.

Best stick to phallic vegetables

Or kitties or tortoises. Here's a kitty

Actually, does anyone have dogs? I could do with seeing a doggy face

Your wish is my command...

Awwww. Thank you! Perfect 🐕

Here’s mine asleep in the sun on his teddy! He was 10 on Monday so we went to the park and had ice cream.

YY @Ohnomoreno

The role of chance in pandemics was well illustrated in controlled epidemic studies of mice by William Topley and Major Greenwood between 1920 and 1940. The pair admitted that "hundreds of thousands of mice were sacrificed" in their meticulous process of controlling myriad variables, type of infection, type of mouse , degree of overcrowding, "mousehold" size, the level of pre existing immunity, nutrition, genetic variations etc.

The overriding conclusion is that even when you control as much as you possibly can, chance events contribute greatly to the patterns and speed of spread in epidemics. This is not surprising given that viruses mutate at random. Alas "some shit happens by chance" is the excuse history never forgives and the media never accepts.

MD Private Eye.

@MercyBooth yeah. I mean basically this all sucks, and there are no good options. It would just be nice if we could all keep our humanity at the end of it. Maybe my only concern re: covid passports is that I hate admin in general and like the idea of spontaneously doing something. Doesn't seem like anything will ever be spontaneous again. As for people comparing it to the star of David, they really make me angry I'm afraid (I never RTFT but it came up somewhere). The comparison is just silly. Much better to look at more comparable events of social ostracism through contagious disease the most famous of which are probably leper colonies.