To ask regarding COVID - what does 'we just have to live with it' look like in real life?

[Fay2121]

I keep hearing the phrase.

What is the reality of 'we just have to live with it'.

WeddingFavour

Sorry forgot the rules of this thread. No teachers allowed to comment.

@Awalkintime Don't be deliberately obtuse. Of course you can comment, it's just frustrating when I make a general comment (personally I was speaking about NHS staff actually) and you tell me I'm wrong because in your job it wouldn't be the case. Can't you look outside your own bubble? I'd expect teachers to have a wider grasp of different lived experiences tbh.

twitter.com/drgregkelly/status/1511146486293463043?s=21

How we have ended up in a situation of cognitive dissonance and why so many people struggle to accept the pandemic isn’t finished despite the evidence in front of them…

Very good thread from a doctor that resume most of what you read around (on MN, newspapers etc…) that dont make sense when confronted with the reality/numbers.

I’m always amazed at the a sense of self delusion and the feeling of ‘it won’t happen to me’ (because I don’t have any pre existing condition/I’ve had covid and I’m fine and so on) going on those threads.

@SoupDragon

Spanish flu killed more people than covid. But it isn’t killing people like that now. Why do you think that is?

This.

"The pandemic" has happened before and now we have better research and better medical facilities. I don't know why people are so keen to see only doom and gloom.

So it’s not doom and gloom to have 1000+ people dying every week?

And it’s not doom and gloom to have 1+ millions people with long covid. People who can’t work anymore and for whom we have no treatment at all.

It reminds me of the time when people were saying ‘well I don’t know anyone who actually has had covid, let alone die so it can’t be that serious’

Dear lord. I'm a teacher. I get it. But fgs, if you are too ill to be at work, phone in sick. Other teachers seem to be managing to do so. I know this because I'm a supply teacher atm, so I'm covering them! Taking a couple of days off to recover is better than making yourself even iller and ending up off for a long time.

I pretty much always leap furiously to the defence of fellow teachers on here when posters denigrate them with no understanding, and I know we care about the kids and want to do our best for them, but honestly the level of martyrdom, and the derailing threads onto the topic of teaching, is getting a bit much here!

@SoupDragon

Spanish flu killed more people than covid. But it isn’t killing people like that now. Why do you think that is?

This.

"The pandemic" has happened before and now we have better research and better medical facilities. I don't know why people are so keen to see only doom and gloom.

Doom and gloom or rational middle ground?

Neither extreme is great, the reality isn’t ‘it’s all over’ or ‘we’re all going to be maimed/die’ it’s that covid is here to stay and it’s become apparent that there are some ongoing problems that look unlikely to resolve themselves. That’s not doom and gloom it’s just recognising that society is still trying to find a balance.

Yes we have much better resources available when compared to the Spanish flu but that’s not to say we can’t improve of what we have or how we use it.

Shutting down discussion about what people continue to face or tools available for the places/people that need them isn’t particularly helpful to anyone is it? If life is pretty normal for you, fantastic - enjoy it! But at least accept that’s not everyone’s truth and people have very real problems directly caused by or linked to covid. Those problems may not be resolvable but that doesn’t mean people can’t discuss them. Acceptance of there being nothing that can be done won’t happen because people are shouted down. It’s possible to enjoy your fortunate circumstances whilst recognising that the same circumstances are problematic for others. That’s a theme that’s run through our society for decades.

My view is the long COVID risks are vastly underestimated by most. From the start I have been amazed that working people don't worry more about that and other post-COVID responses. It is why new insurance policies are so very interested in whether you've had COVID. Actuaries are fully aware.

And it’s not doom and gloom to have 1+ millions people with long covid. People who can’t work anymore

This kind of misrepresentation of the figures does not help your case.

The definition of long covid being used to get to the 1 million is much, much wider than a definition that would encompass 'can't work anymore'.

So it’s not doom and gloom to have 1000+ people dying every week?

The doom and gloom comes in when people declare it will be this way forever and ever until the end of time.

This hasn’t happened with previous pandemics. Including those which killed more than covid has, where we had no vaccines and no modern medical care. They still didn’t keep killing 50 million people a year every year forever. I don’t know why it is seen as minimising to point this out?

WeddingFavour
I can look outside my bubble not sure you can though but this thread is asking for what it looks like now we are living with covid yet when teachers share their experiences of living with covid they are shot down.

And now I am meant to know it was about NHS despite it not saying that? Which job would you like me to comment on?

And it’s not doom and gloom to have 1+ millions people with long covid. People who can’t work anymore and for whom we have no treatment at all.

TBF, it is pretty doom and gloom to claim that there are a million plus people with long covid who can't work. And there's no evidence for it, indeed the best evidence we have says something quite different.

The million plus claim presumably comes from the ONS figures:

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/1april2021

These are very widely defined: anyone with symptoms persisting for 4 weeks is counted in their million plus headline figure. That would include a great many people, me included, who according to this definition have long covid but who are still absolutely fine to work. My chest still isn't quite right after I got it a couple of months back. But I continue to work as usual, because the persisting symptoms have had no impact on my job. The number of people who are actually reporting significant limitations because of it is much lower.

By all means make the argument that disability and and inability to work any more due to covid is important, but use accurate figures for that. 1.1 million with long covid unable to work is just scaremongering.

I have to say, what is the threshold at which pint people will say that the situation is serious.
How many people should die every day before we do something?
How many people off sick in one day (which stops the whole country from working)?
How many people on long term sickness/disability from getting that illness before it’s serious enough to take mitigating measures?

And more to the point, how many people will need to loose their job because they took many days off sick for themselves and for their dcs?
How many people affected by holidays cancellation?
By not being able to see a GP because they are off sick for the third time of the year.
By not being treated in time for their cancer/Heart attack/diabetes/ whatever illness because HCP a were off sick? (Eg a good friend’s dc who couldn’t see a specialist for thyroid issues in time and their thyroid ended up damaged)
By having a disrupted education both because they were off sick several times AND because teachers were off sick (same with all out of school activities btw)

What si the threshold before we take measures again? Not a lockdown, just simple measures such as ventilation, checking CO2 levels and wearing masks.

@TheNameOfTheRoses

I have to say, what is the threshold at which pint people will say that the situation is serious. How many people should die every day before we do something? How many people off sick in one day (which stops the whole country from working)? How many people on long term sickness/disability from getting that illness before it’s serious enough to take mitigating measures?

And more to the point, how many people will need to loose their job because they took many days off sick for themselves and for their dcs?
How many people affected by holidays cancellation?
By not being able to see a GP because they are off sick for the third time of the year.
By not being treated in time for their cancer/Heart attack/diabetes/ whatever illness because HCP a were off sick? (Eg a good friend’s dc who couldn’t see a specialist for thyroid issues in time and their thyroid ended up damaged)
By having a disrupted education both because they were off sick several times AND because teachers were off sick (same with all out of school activities btw)

What si the threshold before we take measures again? Not a lockdown, just simple measures such as ventilation, checking CO2 levels and wearing masks.

Well mask wearing isn't going to come back given the lack of evidence that it achieves anything much to control Omicron in real world conditions. I'd do it if it were going to help, but not to indulge those of you who just want Something To Be Done, or who think that pointing out the risks of covid somehow means simple and effective measures must exist to combat them.

What si the threshold before we take measures again? Not a lockdown, just simple measures such as ventilation, checking CO2 levels and wearing masks.

Why do you think these ‘simple measures’ will stop omicron in (presumably) England, when they have failed to do so elsewhere? Have you seen Germany’s cases recently? Italy? Scotland? South Korea? Even China, where they’re doing much much more and still not stopping omicron?

@GoldenOmber

So it’s not doom and gloom to have 1000+ people dying every week?

The doom and gloom comes in when people declare it will be this way forever and ever until the end of time.

This hasn’t happened with previous pandemics. Including those which killed more than covid has, where we had no vaccines and no modern medical care. They still didn’t keep killing 50 million people a year every year forever. I don’t know why it is seen as minimising to point this out?

It’s minimising because the only real fact we have is we simply don’t know which way it will go. We’ve got best case and worse case scenarios but that’s all they are , scenarios.

Covid isn’t a flu virus so it’s there are holes in the theory that eventually it’ll become akin to the common cold. There are a lot of variables that are all weak points where it could take a different direction and cause issues even with advances in treatments and vaccines because we’re always one (or multiple) steps behind disease evolution. If we’d had a decent period of virus stability it would give those theories much more credibility. I’m confident that will happen but it hasn’t yet, it might even be omicron but there simply hasn’t been enough time to make that call at this stage.

Ultimately projections have to be made on tangible evidence which at the moment points to a pretty severe impact caused by covid, there’s no evidence based on provable fact that it will simply fade away. It might, but that’s based on knowledge of other diseases. Re-infections and animal reservoirs are pretty big issues standing in the way of a relatively quick resolution.

A disease doesn’t have to kill millions and millions every year to cause an issue (see HIV), neither does it have to mean the collapse of society as we know it but it does change things.

It’s minimising because the only real fact we have is we simply don’t know which way it will go. We’ve got best case and worse case scenarios but that’s all they are , scenarios.

Well, we have the experience of 200 common respiratory viruses (not just flu, including coronaviruses). Most of them had animal reservoirs and re infections in humans, and yet none of them kept causing the same amount of damage year after year after year forever as they did at first.

We also know that the mechanism behind that isn’t anything specific to the virus, but is about our own immune systems. Viruses that are ‘just colds’ for us now were originally much worse. Those ‘just a cold’ viruses can still be very dangerous to isolated populations like uncontacted tribes who haven’t been exposed before.

Obviously covid could be the one exception to all of these things, and we don’t know absolutely for sure, but we can make a fairly good guess.

What is the threshold before we take measures again?

Its numbers of deaths.

Probably more than 50,000 a year. That's roughly how many flu deaths we'd get in a bad flu year and society accepted that. And lots of people didn't bother getting vaccinated at that level.

Going above circa 50,000 deaths a year is the level at which society may agree to the state interfering in their civil liberties again. Below that no chance. IMO. Below that its regular vaccinations and public health messaging like we get for flu.

Additionally, the death rate is also not the only relevant threshold here. There's also the evidential rate for whatever measures are being proposed.

There's also the evidential rate for whatever measures are being proposed.

Absolutely, we'd need a proper cost benefit analysis.

@GoldenOmber

So it’s not doom and gloom to have 1000+ people dying every week?

The doom and gloom comes in when people declare it will be this way forever and ever until the end of time.

This hasn’t happened with previous pandemics. Including those which killed more than covid has, where we had no vaccines and no modern medical care. They still didn’t keep killing 50 million people a year every year forever. I don’t know why it is seen as minimising to point this out?

Not forever and ever. Viruses evolve, behaviour changes, medical treatments improves. Or, in the worst case, there is simply not enough of a susceptible population left due to death or hard-won immunity.

But likely for decades to come there will be increased mortality (and indeed morbidity) compared with baseline of 2019.

It means you only stay off work/school if you’re dying in bed, not if you have a sniffle like when you have a cold.

See now there is no free tests the symptoms have been updated
Its having huge impacts on staffing in many industries still

@MajorCarolDanvers

What is the threshold before we take measures again?

Its numbers of deaths.

Probably more than 50,000 a year. That's roughly how many flu deaths we'd get in a bad flu year and society accepted that. And lots of people didn't bother getting vaccinated at that level.

Going above circa 50,000 deaths a year is the level at which society may agree to the state interfering in their civil liberties again. Below that no chance. IMO. Below that its regular vaccinations and public health messaging like we get for flu.

I think it's more than number of deahts though.

First, it's who dies. I think we've tolerated the high number of Covid (and flu) deaths because it's mainly the elderly and those with pre-exisitng conditions. Which says a lot about us as a society. If it were young adults or children dying at these rates, I suspect it would not be tolerated.

Second it's the associated morbidity. We didn't know quite the extent of long covid previously. Now we do and it's really scary. I hope that prompts us into more action. Flu does not lead to medium (and perhaps long) term disability in the same way.

@GoldenOmber I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written but it still remains that those are theories.

Yes we’ve plenty of experience with other corona viruses, which makes it all the more alarming that this one is capable of such wide spread and potentially devastating effects on so many bodily processes for a small but significant percentage of people.

Other corona viruses may have started out similarly but I don’t think historical science and medicine goes back quite far enough to draw on experience to be able to predict the path of this particular virus. I would be very suspicious of anyone trying to put a timescale on how long it takes a corona virus to become largely docile.

As a side point, if we’re drawing on historical references for how the pandemic might pan out, the Black Plague cycled around Europe for a couple of centuries and is still a risk in some places, I was reading a thread on an American forum where in one state they have public health messages regarding keeping safe from contracting it and getting prompt treatment if exposed. I want to say it’s from something like raccoons but I’m not 100% on that. Obviously a completely different organism but still, it’s not a given that viruses become weaker and less of a problem. Again, see HIV.

Well, to give an example, I currently have covid. Feels just like any other chesty cough/cold I’ve ever had… I don’t even have a temperature.

I also have a driving lesson booked every day from today til Friday. My instructor knows I have covid, but he can’t afford to lose money by postponing the lessons and I can’t afford to cancel them, so we’re going ahead. I’ve got a FFP3 mask and will scrub my hands raw before I leave, douse them in sanitiser before I get in the car and drive with the windows open. Not much else for it.