Avoided it this far - today it's caught up with me

[PrincessPark]

Covid.

Since the pandemic my world, like many others I guess, has now become a lot smaller.

I do go out and about, quiet times where possible for the supermarket shop etc - meet friends in gardens still for catch ups and take my own coffee etc.

DD negative but DP positive first and I've been avoiding them rigorously. Seems the damage has been done.

It's only a question of time - a day or so maybe? That Covid scores it's hat trick in this house.

No actual point to this post at all.

Personally my world has gotten bigger.
Since covid I’ve had more social gatherings, been to Disney and various other holidays.
yes we’ve had covid in our house but got over it like we have with flu, gastro etc.
I understand if you have an illness that effect your immune system, breathing etc but honestly.
covid is very mild for the vast majority.
chances are you’ll feel a bit crap for a few days and then get better. You might not get ill at all.
My daughter has a life threatening illness and even she was still dancing and singing with covid.

I had it for the first time 2 weeks ago. I am a key worker who has worked out of the home throughout the pandemic, still went to supermarkets, had a son in nursery throughout, etc and have been living life as normal for a while now including overseas travel, gigs, cinemas and so on. No idea how I avoided it for so long! Tested positive after suffering with a scratchy throat and generally feeling “off” (tested due to work, otherwise probably wouldn’t have bothered) and it took a whole 5 days for DH to test positive afterwards, despite sharing a bed, kitchen, bathroom etc! It was a mild cold with a slightly irritating dry cough, all forgotten about now. Kids were fine too. I am however fully vaccinated and relatively young and healthy so I was never really concerned about catching it anyway.
Hope you’re ok!

I’m sure people will come round to it.

Maybe it will be because companies will have enough to see their employees off sick ‘ a regular basis so they’ll enforce some rules at work.
maybe it’s because people will have seen too many people around them become disabled.
maybe it’s because our government has decided to take some measures (can only dream).

But I don’t think we will have a choice tbh.

My friend was in hospital with an infected ingrown toenail where as I’ve never been hospitalised with mine.

I have to say I’m at the level of cognitive dissonance of this thread with people saying covid is like a cold unless you have a pre existing condition alongside clear message that the more often you get covid, the more severe it gets, with long lasting effects too.

@SingingInParadise we can't live like that forever though
Covid is here to stay

Pretty sure your friend wasn't in ICU.

But hey keep minimilising.

@Bongbangbing do you have links to the studies for this ?

COVID-19 survivors have twice the risk for developing pulmonary embolism or respiratory conditions; one in five COVID-19 survivors aged 18–64 years and one in four survivors aged ≥65 years experienced at least one incident condition that might be attributable to previous COVID-19

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7121e1.htm?s_cid=mm7121e1_e&ACSTrackingID=USCDC_921-DM82414&ACSTrackingLabel=MMWR%20Early%20Release%20-%20Vol.%2071%2C%20May%2024%2C%202022&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM82414#contribAff

Also

www.google.com/amp/s/www.imperial.ac.uk/news/236034/lasting-brain-impacts-severe-covid-19-equivalent/amp/

That study also says that vaccination status was not considered. And the patients were from Jan 20 to Nov 21, so many will have been unvaccinated, and pretty well all infected with the older variants.

sorry - cross post - the study on the cdc link

The thing is, most people in the country have had covid at least once by now. If 1 in 5 of them were suffering devastating long-term side effects that would be fairly obvious. Unless we’re now on to the phantom Long Covid which is simultaneously awful and disabling and also goes unnoticed by the people who have it, which seems a bit unlikely.

Do you suffer from anxiety? Seems a very sad and extreme way to be living life still. The longer you carry on like this the worse it's going to get. Maybe try and get some help to manage this fear so you can start living normally again

According to latest INS survey 2% of uk population have self reported long covid symptoms..
that's defined as symptoms lasting more than 4 weeks

ONS

OP could well be immunocompromised, she hasn't said
People say that to me and suggest vitamins like that's going to improve my immune system

You’re focusing on my semantics. I have an occasional use of American English. Really sick as in, feeling really ill. I quite clearly stated that none of them have been in hospital.

However, they’re all in bed, no desire to eat or drink, dizzy, weak, appalling enduring headaches and sore throats, not really able to do much apart from lie there. One has occasional good days and thinks it’s on the wane, then they crash again. For him, it’s been three weeks. And he’s an athlete with no existing problems. The others are all twenties and thirties and all healthy people.. Two of them were not particularly rough with earlier variants, too. It’s just weird.

I’m not and never have been worried about Covid. And I’m in no way in favour of any more restrictions, I wasn’t really in favour at the time. I’m not fear mongering either. But this little concentration of quite unwell people has made me a little more mindful.

Oh and a brain fog and memory issues seems to be something affecting all of them. It just sounds horrible.

I was relaxed through the whole lockdown. I was never worried. Didnt wear a mask as exempt and no other reason
Ds was at school, dh at work. Dsc at school and coming from her dm family where in a large bubble. Etc etc.

None of us got it for 2 years.
Then this year i got it. I can honestly say i was rough for 1 evening. The next day i was tired but more bored because was in. Deep cleaned house out of boredom and had a clear out.
Dh nor any dcs got it despite being near me.

Ds got it 3 weeks later and it had been half term, he'd been in most of it except one trip to costco. He was really rough for a week.

We can’t live with people getting more and more ill either…

Ventilation isn’t that much if an imposition
Staying at home when you are ill isn’t either. That will avoid the companies such as tesco threatening their workers with being sacked if they don’t turn up when they are actually being ill (not just testing positive).

Unlike the flu, covid isn’t showing any sign of becoming milder as such. And it’s becoming more infectious….. evolving more and more quickly…..

Me / DH / DD / DS have so far avoided it - not sure how - school / work (no WFH) / theatres / planes / public transport / parties (when allowed)
DS is even a paramedic!

But now DH has cancer so I am wearing masks / hand gel / being careful and a lot of people comment that I am being over cautious (when they don't know)

I think there is a huge misunderstanding about the 1 in 5.

It doesn’t mean that 1 in 5 people are disabled by covid, let alone VISIBLY disabled. There are quite a few peop,e around you that will actually be disabled by covid but you won’t see it. Just like you wouldn’t see I have ME unless I’m telling you. That’s the charm of i visible illnesses.

The 1 in 5 refers to symptoms lasting more than 4 weeks if I remember well. Some of those will be very mild like an annoying cough, some will be severe like exhaustion/fatigue keeping you in bed most of the day.
A lot of people recover from those symptoms but very few of those do after 12 weeks. That’s why GP start referring to long covid clinic at that point.

Bearing in mind that the medium/long term symptoms of covid don’t always appear when you have covid but can surface 1, 2, 3 weeks after covid….

Of the people who have symptoms that just stayed, some will be acutely aware they are linked with covid.
eg bad tinnitus that appeared with covid and never went away.
Others won’t even make the relationship between their new symptoms and covid.
eg. Some unusual fatigue, memory problems
Some will know but won’t do anything about it because they know there is little that can be done
eg a friend of mine with pain in shoulders/arms
Some will know but have already heard so often that LC is a scam, not real, in people’s head etc… that they dint even dare saying it.

So yes, all of that means that actually few people will tell you that they have LC and you will probably not noticed it.

And then you have the 400.000 people who have been so badly affected that they’ve hard to stop work or reduce traffic hours. U less they are close to you, there is no way you would know out in the street. They won’t look ill. They isn’t look disabled and they are unlikely to be out and about that much any way….

All that to say…. It’s nit because it’s not visible that it’s nit happening.

@GoldenOmber sorry that was long….

Another way to put it…

A friend of mine recently told me she didn’t believe 80% of 18yo had been sexually assaulted. She just didn’t see it around her and she is a teacher. So how can it be true….

But still girls are being groped, touched etc… when it shouldn’t happen. Most get on with it. It’s not visible.

Same with the 1 in 5. Lots of people affected. Some don’t even realise they are. Few talk about it. From some it’s nothing more than a mere inconvenience. For others, it s serious. But from the outside , it could look like there is nothing to see.

The 1 in 5 refers to symptoms lasting more than 4 weeks if I remember well. Some of those will be very mild like an annoying cough

Well, yes. Exactly. 1 in 5 people reporting any symptoms at all after is really not the same as 1 in 5 people with a debilitating long-term condition. And that’s before we even compare the ONS’s 1 in 5 against a control group in the first place.

If you’re asking “why aren’t more people worried about the 1 in 5 with long covid?”, and then acknowledging that your 1 in 5 includes people with a bit of a cough for a few weeks and people who don’t even know they’re ill, you have answered your own question.