To wonder why we’re still obsessed with Covid.

[bridgetreilly]

Three times as many people are dying of cancer every single day. More than ten times as many people are dying every day of other causes. But we aren’t getting daily updates about these on every news bulletin or website. Yes, people should get vaccinated, yes occasionally people are still getting very ill with it, and some are dying. But it is very far from being the great danger that it was 12-18 months ago. Can we just move on from the endless focus on it now?

[Hawkins001]

@bridgetreilly

Three times as many people are dying of cancer every single day. More than ten times as many people are dying every day of other causes. But we aren’t getting daily updates about these on every news bulletin or website. Yes, people should get vaccinated, yes occasionally people are still getting very ill with it, and some are dying. But it is very far from being the great danger that it was 12-18 months ago. Can we just move on from the endless focus on it now?

Because I'm guessing, there's a lot more to it all , behind the scenes and I'm guessing if there's still quite a lot of unprotected people, then it's a high risk, and especially when the risks can be limited , I'm presuming it will be in the papers quite a lot for a while.

[MrsBerthaRochester]

If you are vaccinates then yiu wont get seriously ill from covid right? so why concern yourself with those who choae not to take it? And no the Nhs is not being over run with the unvaccined. Its statisticly just not possible.
The nhs will certainly struggle with flu this year as apparently it just didnt exist last year. Only covid.

[NotMyCat]

@WonderfulYou

You can’t treat cancer patients if hospitals fill up with covid patients.
People undergoing chemotherapy are at great risk of dying if they contract covid.

I agree.
You can’t pretend to care about people with cancer and then say you want to ‘move on’ knowing that people with cancer will be the worst affected.

Life isn’t back to normal normal, but you can do the majority of things you could do before Covid so I don’t mind keeping things the way they are if it means protecting people with serious illness like cancer.

That ^^
I'm neutropenic and it's harder now. People don't want to distance and I've been told it's "my responsibility" but I can't stop people leaning over me in the supermarket or refusing to back off in a queue

I thought the pharmacy would be ok given they are only letting 2 people in still and ask for masks. Nope, no masks. Same in the doctors. Yes I wear a medical grade one
I'm not old, I'm mid thirties with a normal life expectancy but I can't fight infections, and a standard chest infection last time needed nebulisers, steroids and 3 courses of antibiotics

All my haematology appointments are by phone still as they can't risk us being in the Macmillan centre (usually 40-50 people on appointment days)

[HippoRaine]

@MrsBerthaRochester

If you are vaccinates then yiu wont get seriously ill from covid right? so why concern yourself with those who choae not to take it? And no the Nhs is not being over run with the unvaccined. Its statisticly just not possible.
The nhs will certainly struggle with flu this year as apparently it just didnt exist last year. Only covid.

Well you sound completely well informed and on the ball don't you? Do you have real life experience of what it's like in the NHS right now or are you pulling this out of your arse?

Personally I've spent my evening (another one in a long stretch) donning and doffing endless rounds of full PPE, sweating into plastic, glasses steaming up, FFP3 masks digging grooves into my face while performing examinations on covid patient after covid patient, many of whom I've watched deteriorating over the last days/nights/weeks. Some of them are skeletal, most of them have lungs which are every day becoming more and more obstructed with covid pneumonitis. A scarily high number of them are double vaxxed but are sick anyway. I'm a highly trained health care professional. What's your experience then love?

[Kanaloa]

Well people are still interested because it affects them directly every day in a way cancer doesn’t. Cancer is obviously awful and tragic if you have a relative who passes from it but it is its own separate worry that doesn’t affect everyone every day.

I’ve never had to scramble to find emergency childcare so I can go to work after my kids were sent home because of cancer.

[grapewine]

@HippoRaine

Also you can stick your flu conspiracy up your arse, covid is new, clinically unique and we are still extremely vulnerable to it. Influenza is a totally different (but still dangerous) virus, to which we have had generations to adapt, you would know this if you did even the slightest amount of proper actual research instead of spouting your ill informed, badly spelled, absolute fucking balls out ignorant nonsense on the internet

Sometimes I really wish there was a 'like' function on here.

[Kanaloa]

Also it directly affects many people in other ways than actually catching Covid - my kids schooling has been and still is being hugely disrupted. Yes, DH and I try our best to teach them at home but now with my oldest two kids much of their curriculum is honestly out of my reach. I’m not qualified to teach late primary/high school age children.

And they miss out on other things too. Especially kids with sen, many support groups and such that I attended in the past have been cancelled/really patchy because of issues around Covid.

[HippoRaine]

Oh I'm ranting now, it's been a long hard shift tonight as usual and this thread has made me furious.

On the subject of cancer, I'm acutely aware that there is highly likely to be a second pandemic of undiagnosed/late diagnosed serious illness because we can't cope with routine and GP appointments as a direct result of covid. My hospital has vastly reduced capacity because of beds/wards taken up by these inconvenient statistics (aka the covid patients we are desperately trying to keep alive). Staff shortages due to covid/isolating/stress mean that routine scans, clinics and imaging are being limited/cancelled every day because of the pressures of covid, on top of the usual winter viruses. This is happening right now, it's not waffle or conjecture, we are on our knees.

[Domino20]

@bridgetreilly

Three times as many people are dying of cancer every single day. More than ten times as many people are dying every day of other causes. But we aren’t getting daily updates about these on every news bulletin or website. Yes, people should get vaccinated, yes occasionally people are still getting very ill with it, and some are dying. But it is very far from being the great danger that it was 12-18 months ago. Can we just move on from the endless focus on it now?

Where are you getting your figures from? The ONS monthly mortality figures for both September and October say something COMPLETELY different to your claim.

[HippoRaine]

@Kanaloa

Also it directly affects many people in other ways than actually catching Covid - my kids schooling has been and still is being hugely disrupted. Yes, DH and I try our best to teach them at home but now with my oldest two kids much of their curriculum is honestly out of my reach. I’m not qualified to teach late primary/high school age children.

And they miss out on other things too. Especially kids with sen, many support groups and such that I attended in the past have been cancelled/really patchy because of issues around Covid.

This is a HUGE impact of covid too, I'm "fortunate" in that my children are older so I could work throughout the pandemic without having to worry too much about this but my uni age kids had a terrible time of it (my 20 year old son ended up working last winter in a London hospital literally stacking bodies in the morgue) and my youngest had his GCSES screwed up at the same time. I'm in awe of all of the parents who had to step up and help educate their children through this! It's hardly a bloody surprise that it's still newsworthy, no matter how bored people might be by it.

[Pascal80]

@HippoRaine

Oh I'm ranting now, it's been a long hard shift tonight as usual and this thread has made me furious.

On the subject of cancer, I'm acutely aware that there is highly likely to be a second pandemic of undiagnosed/late diagnosed serious illness because we can't cope with routine and GP appointments as a direct result of covid. My hospital has vastly reduced capacity because of beds/wards taken up by these inconvenient statistics (aka the covid patients we are desperately trying to keep alive). Staff shortages due to covid/isolating/stress mean that routine scans, clinics and imaging are being limited/cancelled every day because of the pressures of covid, on top of the usual winter viruses. This is happening right now, it's not waffle or conjecture, we are on our knees.

I can't even imagine how hard your job must be. What could the public do to help the situation, if anything? I remember making masks last year when no-one had any but guess that's no use now.

[HippoRaine]

@Pascal80 mask making was a huge help, I worked in a privately run care home last year because I was still doing my degree for my NHS job and we had a six month period where we weren't allowed on placement, we worked with no official PPE for a scarily long time and people like you meant that we could feel safe at work!

Thank you

[CheekyHobson]

In 2020 heart disease was the leading cause of death (690,882 deaths, 2 x the rate of Covid-19 at 345,323 deaths) in the USA.

Second was cancer (598,932 deaths, 1.7x the rate of Covid-19).

In 2021, Covid deaths have already surpassed last year's total in the USA.

Just to spell out the bleedingly obvious...

a) Only one of the top three causes of death is contagious

b) That cause of death is still increasing year-on-year despite the availability of vaccines

I hope this explains the continued high-level of focus on this continued high-level threat.

[Pascal80]

[quote HippoRaine]@Pascal80 mask making was a huge help, I worked in a privately run care home last year because I was still doing my degree for my NHS job and we had a six month period where we weren't allowed on placement, we worked with no official PPE for a scarily long time and people like you meant that we could feel safe at work!

Thank you [/quote]
Oh my Gosh Raine! You have worked through the whole thing You are so very appreciated for everything you are doing.

[GreyPurbeckMarble]

@MrsBerthaRochester

Oh you did an AS on me? Wow...you really have a lot of time on your hands. I am as entitled to my opinion as you are to yours. The statistics do the real talking. It is a mild illness for the VAST majority. Fact .

Finally someone talking sense!

[HippoRaine]

@Pascal80 thank you lovely, that means so much!

I went into the NHS because I kind of vaguely wanted to help people but mostly because I was having a nearly 40 crisis and my lovely, safe office job life was getting boring (also, the pension, the pension is pretty great ). Four years (and covid) later and I'm qualified and it suddenly seems so vital and urgent that we protect (and improve) our wonderful national health service. I'm relatively new to it but I couldn't work anywhere else now, I'm also fiercely protective of it, knowing first hand how hard we all work, hence my rantings on this thread

[Pyewackect]

One of the reasons is because there are only so many ICU beds available.

[Pascal80]

[quote HippoRaine]@Pascal80 thank you lovely, that means so much!

I went into the NHS because I kind of vaguely wanted to help people but mostly because I was having a nearly 40 crisis and my lovely, safe office job life was getting boring (also, the pension, the pension is pretty great ). Four years (and covid) later and I'm qualified and it suddenly seems so vital and urgent that we protect (and improve) our wonderful national health service. I'm relatively new to it but I couldn't work anywhere else now, I'm also fiercely protective of it, knowing first hand how hard we all work, hence my rantings on this thread [/quote]
A baptism of fire!! After this there is nothing you wont be able to take in your stride. You haven't gone for the easy life! I admire you so much.

[CheekyHobson]

@MrsBerthaRochester

It is a mild illness for the VAST majority. Fact.

This is possibly the take on Covid that annoys me more than anything. It's a CONTAGIOUS FUCKING DISEASE. A small minority of an enormous number of people is still a VERY LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE.

If a gunman ran through a crowd at a concert of 100,000 and killed 1000 people and left another 30,000 with a variety of injuries, nobody would be like, "Oh well the majority of people came through it just fine."

[Moonmelodies]

Also worth considering, the more the virus is able to spread and multiply, the more likely it will mutate. No one wants to turn on the news and find a new variant means fresh travel restrictions etc.

[WeasilyPleased]

YABVU.

[Gingerlovesbiscuits]

MissBerthaRochester are you a doctor? Because all the medics I know are saying that hospital resources very much are overstretched due to Covid. 40k people a week are getting infected and currently around a thousand a week are still dying - even with our vaccination campaign. Many of the ‘elderly’ and people with health conditions would have had many years ahead of them had it not been for covid. Living with it does not mean abandoning all sensible precautions.

[thecrowroad]

Because if you are a senior leader in a school like me you start every day wondering who you will have to stand in front of classes, and how many young people will miss out on learning through being unwell. We had 23 cases of Covid in session 20-21. This session we are already at 95.

[Frazzled50yrold]

For the first time during the pandemic covid is raging through our work force who only work from the office one day per week. Out of immediate colleagues one anti vaxxer has been , in his prognosis, lucky to survive. When he started to experience severe symptoms he drove to his gp and demanded to be seen. His oxygen levels were deemed too high for him to require hospitalization but he drove himself to our nearest acute hospital and demanded attention. Despite having refused the vaccine he sat outside the hospital and took up a place until he was turned away 48 hours later.
Another 40 yr old friend with a congenital heart complaint was given covid by the above colleague. He was given steroids and antibiotics at the outset but 3 weeks coughs until he vomits and has arrhythmia which is proving really difficult to get under control.
We need to be so careful about providing falsehoods or misinformation about covid. It's very much out there and will be for the foreseeable future.