All restrictions to end this month?

[ElleGB]

Just saw this on breaking news.

That’s it - no more restrictions. Everything back to normal.

I’m not sure how I feel about it.

I think they should have waited until all vulnerable people who want to are vaccinated. Also, despite Boris cheerfully announcing the end to various restrictions I am not seeing any changes in real life. Still having to wear masks in most indoor places. My dc's groups/activities still cancelled because of covid. Having to decide which parent comes with a child when they are in hdu or having major surgery because of covid.

Its over doommongers. Time to get on with living with the illnesd with a 99% survival rate.

Surely vaccination immunity is wearing out now?

You going to wait for everyone to be vaccinated with next lot of boosters?

Vulnerable people have had the chance to be triple vaccinated for months now. If they’ve chosen not to be, I’m not waiting any longer

People have done incredibly well over a long period waiting ‘a bit longer’

Now triple vaccination has happened it can’t be held over people to keep going

Vulnerable 5-11 year olds are just getting their first vaccinations now. Not all vulnerable people are adults.

There’s been some interesting research done in to long covid over the last year or so. It has been so hard to define as people will have a different group of symptoms depending on how covid has attacked their body.

Scientists know that covid can affect your heart, which explains the heart problems, chest pain, palpitations and sometimes the fatigue that people feel:

www.bayer.com/en/news-stories/understanding-long-covid-heart-muscle-damage-needs-to-be-spotted-early

And it can affect blood vessels, leading to POTs, dizziness etc:

meassociation.org.uk/2021/12/pots-and-long-covid/

Lung damage can be seen on specialised scans on long covid patients:

www.ouh.nhs.uk/news/article.aspxid=1709&returnurl=/default.aspx&pi=0

It can affect the immune system:

www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2022/01/25/new-clues-to-long-covid-prolonged-inflammatory-response/?sh=24aae8ea765c

And it can affect your neurological system.

www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(21)00059-4/fulltext

And cause microclots:

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/05/long-covid-research-microclots

From the Forbes article:

“The plight of long haulers was dismissed early on in the pandemic, often leaving sufferers to deal with life-altering symptoms on their own, without clinical or institutional support. This analysis by Phetsouphanh et al. helps firmly ground their experiences in biology. Long Covid is a medical condition, often debilitating, and has to be treated as such.”

I think people tend to see long covid as some kind of wishy-washy fatigue that can’t be defined, hence thinking it’s easy to fake. However, all of the problems above (heart, pots, immune, neurological etc) are all measurable. Like the article says, there are bio markers, damage is visible on scans or in blood tests and sometimes the physical changes can be seen with the naked eye.

Unfortunately for long covid patients some of the technology that detects these symptoms isn’t easily available on the NHS, or widely understood yet by GPs. I hope awareness continues to be raised for the sake of not only long covid patients but those with ME/CFS, lupus, PVS and similar who have been battling this lack of understanding for years.

In case it wasn’t clear, my last post was for the posters who’d asked about Long Covid and how it was defined. I promise I didn’t just reboot and generate walls of text about Long Covid at random

@HermioneWeasley

Vulnerable people have had the chance to be triple vaccinated for months now. If they’ve chosen not to be, I’m not waiting any longer

I've just had my 4th, about 2 weeks ago. And that was with being shit hot on dates and getting it the very earliest I could

Not all vulnerable people all well protected from vaccination. For example, people who have certain cancers will be vulnerable even after the 4th dose. Not to mention those who cannot be vaccinated (eg under 5s).

Is this country now saying "tough luck if you are weak or vulnerable, don't care if you die, the rest of us want to go to the pub"? Maybe that is the message, but then this is not a country that I recognise

@SuiGeneris

Not all vulnerable people all well protected from vaccination. For example, people who have certain cancers will be vulnerable even after the 4th dose. Not to mention those who cannot be vaccinated (eg under 5s).

Is this country now saying "tough luck if you are weak or vulnerable, don't care if you die, the rest of us want to go to the pub"? Maybe that is the message, but then this is not a country that I recognise

All the extremely costly measures were to stop heathcare from being overwhelmed rather than individual risk

But if you do want to keep going personally you can - for the wider public what do you want to keep and for how long?