Covid. Permanent suppression or truly learning to live with it?

[GaolBhoAlba]

Interested to see where people are at, as we go into our third year of the suppression approach.

Its taken a while, but most have accepted that coronavirus is here to stay, and that restrictions serve only to suppress (they cant/wont eradicate). We hear the theory (and the phrase) 'learning to live' with it, but in practice we're nowhere near to learning to live with it. Indeed, we're still behaving as though we can eradicate it via repeated 'short term' suppression. Current thinking is as it was in March 2020 ie that if we suppress it for 'just a bit longer' it'll go away. It wont. Clearly we cant continue swinging between 'living with it' and 'suppressing it' - the uncertainty of a continued stop/start for business, education (planning life in general!) etc isnt feasible as a long term strategy; we need to decide one way or another.

So... are you in favour of accepting that our current way of living must become permanent and (obviously this list is not exhaustive) masks, distancing, limits on mixing, one way systems etc are how we must live now. Funding to support business/furlough is made permanent and we all pay extra to support same (because I suppose the alternative is hospitality businesses just close? Become part of the bygone era). Remote learning in schools is a fixture (and that will be based, not on illness, but on isolation rules) every time there is a peak (and funding will need to be, I dont know, redirected from schools to parents in order to allow this). WFH is made permanent and, again, funding redirected to allow same.
Or... are you in favour of truly 'learning to live' with it, relying on vaccine to do the heavy lifting (thus not counting cases and accepting, as with flu, hospitalisations and deaths), scrapping track and trace, scrapping isolation (thus allowing asymptomatic people - including teachers and NHS staff to live/go to work normally) and essentially returning to life as it was in 2019.

YABU - in favour of permanent suppression.
YANBU - in favour of truly learning to live with it.

“It's not possible to 'live with' something that kills and disables”

Isn’t omicron displacing delta now? Omicron doesn’t seem to be killing and disabling. It also seems to be giving us immunity against delta according to research from South Africa. If this is the case, then we should be coming out of this pandemic, unless another severe variant arises (unlikely, fingers crossed)

Oh come on OP, you made some silly points and Natty - a health care professional - challenged you and shared her anecdotal experience. Her posts seem anything but boring!

TheScenicWay Omicon is causing serious illness requiring hospital treatment to the extent that there is risk hospitals won’t have capacity to provide care - after cancelling other healthcare for other conditions.

Omicron doesn’t seem to be killing and disabling.

Well except for the nearly 1000 patients killed by SARS-CoV-2 in just the last week alone.

And Long Covid is disabling a significant minority.

unless another severe variant arises (unlikely, fingers crossed)

We can't know how likely. Hopefully it won't happen, but we cannot predict with confidence because this is still a new disease.

But it's not all bad news. We have the good luck of ability to take mitigations. Sensible basic infection control measures. Masks, vaccines and vaccine passes, and good ventilation including HEPA filters.

We also have new treatments. Antivirals, and monoclonal antibodies like sotrovimab. High global demand and currently limited supply, but it's a positive step forwards for a better future. Eventually there will be wider availability.

We will also hopefully have more of the world vaccinated (morally right, but also vital if we are to reduce the likelihood of new variants).

@Dozer

Oh come on OP, you made some silly points and Natty - a health care professional - challenged you and shared her anecdotal experience. Her posts seem anything but boring!

What points were 'silly'?

I am sorry I could not be bothered to vote.
The Spanish flu eventually assimilated into our society - and covid will too.
Nothing will be permanent - they are all temporary measures until covid becomes like a common cold. A few years of restrictive living seems like a long time to those living it - but in the history of the world its really not.

@Dozer where is that info from? According to news articles I’ve seen, hospitals don’t seem to be overwhelmed at the moment. I know staff absences due to illness and self isolation is causing issues but not actual hospitalisations.
There has been a rise but it seems to be mainly ‘incidental covid’ and there isn’t a rise in patients needing critical care because of covid.

I’m in favour of living with it and relying on my own immune system to do so.

Yes I'm so boring that wherever I go and whatever I do peiple are asking me for my opinion and current experiences.

I have provided an alternative to the many, many posts declaring it "just a cold". It's not. Yes, severe and critical illness in healthy young people is rare but in 14 years of intensive care I have NEVER come across a young healthy person dying of the cold (or flu). It's not a cold and as long as people keep dismissing it as such in order to justify their views I will correct them with my anecdotes. The ease of transmission and severity of illness to the vulnerable and non vulnerable is why we need to have some restrictions. One avoidable death is one too many imo.

I have hand on heart met a lot of people who share(d) your views. It absolutely sickens me how every single one of them ONLY start to care about it all when it is them or someone they love being stuck on a ventilator and dialysis machine as their organs fail one by one. Suddenly the whole world needs to turn on its axis in order to save them.

@DoleWhipFloat

I’m in favour of living with it and relying on my own immune system to do so.

@Natty13

What do you think of these sorts of replies? I've got a few on my FB feed who think they just need to rely on their immune system and they'll be fine 🙄

You definitely aren't a bore @Natty13
Quite the opposite.

Also, thank you for what you do. I'm sorry things are so tough for you and your colleagues. I hope you know that many of us do very much appreciate your work.

@BootsScootsAndToots

Why should you think anything?

As for 'incidental Covid'. As has been pointed out by doctors and other HCP. A patient admitted to hospital are generally by very nature of the admission vulnerable. The very last thing they need is to battling on two fronts - what brought them to hospital and Covid.

[quote DoleWhipFloat]@BootsScootsAndToots

Why should you think anything?[/quote]
Because we are reading an account of just one HCP experience with Covid patients in her ward and you come along with this tripe?

WHY didn't they just mandate masks and vegetables back in March 20 and this shit show would all be over by now 🤔

@BootsScootsAndToots

Many are best ignored. Lost cause sadly. Unless and until, as Natty says, it happens to them or a loved one r(ather than one of The Others).

I think polyvalent vaccines will be the key turning point, as long as there is a concerted effort to vaccinate across the world.

Mandated vegetables? 🤔

I’ve had two vaccines. I had them purely to go abroad. I’d like now to allow my own immune system to take care of me. For the majority of healthy individuals, covid isn’t a huge risk.

Since I’m likely to catch and re catch covid throughout the course of my life, I’d like at this point to be able to refer to my human rights, body autonomy and just get on with it. People who want interventions can go ahead.

One of the biggest co-morbidities of covid is obesity. I’ve been called ‘stupid’ today for not getting my booster, by a morbidly obese person, who can’t lose weight because ‘it’s hard’.

If we are mandating vaccines, perhaps we could mandate that any obese people HAVE to have food restrictions, to reduce the pressure on nurses such as the one who’s posted here? They may then see at least 50% fewer unnecessary hospitalisations and deaths.

@Natty13

Yes I'm so boring that wherever I go and whatever I do peiple are asking me for my opinion and current experiences.

I have provided an alternative to the many, many posts declaring it "just a cold". It's not. Yes, severe and critical illness in healthy young people is rare but in 14 years of intensive care I have NEVER come across a young healthy person dying of the cold (or flu). It's not a cold and as long as people keep dismissing it as such in order to justify their views I will correct them with my anecdotes. The ease of transmission and severity of illness to the vulnerable and non vulnerable is why we need to have some restrictions. One avoidable death is one too many imo.

I have hand on heart met a lot of people who share(d) your views. It absolutely sickens me how every single one of them ONLY start to care about it all when it is them or someone they love being stuck on a ventilator and dialysis machine as their organs fail one by one. Suddenly the whole world needs to turn on its axis in order to save them.

I'm afraid Natty you're attributing views to me that I simply dont hold. I have, and would, never refer to covid 19 as 'just a cold'.

I don't think anything tbh apart from that they are very selfish. Im so so used to it now. Lots of them will of course likely be fine if they catch it. Some will feel unwell and maybe get long covid, some will get very sick and end up on ICU or pass it on to family members who end up on life support/dead. I feel zero sympathy for them when that happens. And that scares me because I've looked after all kinds of people including criminals and always felt sorry on some level when they are unwell. I can't care about people who don't care about others. You don't know that the person beside you on the bus or the person you share an office with isn't immunpsuppressed or CEV? What about their freedoms to live without risk of dying?

Most of us talk pretty openly about this at work. We are so sick of it.

Are the double vaccinated the new unvaccinated then?

I wasn't insinuating you think covid is a cold. As I clearly said, I was giving an alternative to the posters on this and allll the other covid threads who say that it is. That's why I used another paragraph to say that I have met people with the same views as you. Because I have read your posts. And paragraphs are used to separate unrelated topics.

Also, just to correct you on another matter from a previous post: "Its also noteworthy that the NHS has not actually become overwhelmed at any point of the pandemic."

This is patently untrue. We had to make decisions literally less than a year ago about who to admit and who to let die in ED or wards because of resources. That has never happened in the history of the NHS. All non emergency (and lots of emergency but not immediately life threatening) operatoons were cancelled. Chemo was cancelled for God's sake. We were triaging based on resources so yes, we have been overwhelmed in every sense of the word. We have lost 60% of our senior nursing staff in one of the units I work in. Why is what do you think?

Dole Good luck with relying on your immune system and your fat shaming to protect you from Covid, sadly the latest Science is not on your side. Latest research has ruled out all but age as a factor in vulnerability after you take account of things like frontline working /exposure, poverty, living conditions etc. I have an absolutely rubbish immune system, half the number of white blood cells considered the minimum for a well functioning immune system, in spite of 20 years of healthy vegetables, supplements, expensive magic mushrooms and every immune system boosting quackery on offer, some of which actually lowered my blood count. Many people with neutropenia like me were told to shield but fortunately my GP couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery or indeed a vaccination programme for the vulnerable (apparently it turned out you just had to ring up and ask for Jane on reception who was organising it, suck up to her and mention some vaguely clinical sounding ailment, but I was too conscientious to do that).

I was part of a trial which discovered that far from being at risk of death I had had Covid asymptomatically. I have gone on to give my DNA to studies that are indeed discovering that certain particles on your DNA are predictive for whether you have serious or mild Covid. It accounts for why so many BAME people proved vulnerable (one of those particles is present in 9% of all South Asians) and why people they thought vulnerable are not.

It is why Natty has healthy young men in her wards experiencing horrific illness.

As I say good luck with your DNA because your immune system isn’t necessarily going to protect you. In spite of my good genes (my family also have had similar Covid experiences including other ones with health issues like diabetes and a history of respiratory disease) I have still had the booster because I see absolutely no point in not having everything I can in my armoury and I don’t ignore Science.

And yes the health service is under extreme strain, maybe not in Middle Wallop or where ever you live (yet) but my hospital has declared a major incident and several London trusts are stopping all but essential services. Patients may be less ill or admitted with other issues but they still need to be isolated in Covid wards, treated by staff in full PPE and can transmit it to staff in whom cases went up by 100% in the last week. The number of beds and staff available for other healthcare is considerably reduced to emergency only especially since beds are blocked by people with dementia who cannot be discharged into care homes because existing staff shortages have been made worse by Omichron. We have had two years of treatments constantly delayed already and here we are again.

And what of vaccine reactions of which there are tens of thousands? Am I not allowed to weigh up what I feel is the bigger risk to me?

I’m not following this narrative anymore.