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'.

@Awalkintime And now I am meant to know it was about NHS despite it not saying that?

Umm you weren't, as I was making a general comment that applies across the board.

Unfortunately we can't put this virus back in its box. It's endemic. There's no evidence that certain 'mitigations' make any difference. Masks are still mandatory in Scotland and our rates are higher than in England. We have pretty effective vaccines, very effective antivirals for the vulnerable, and more evidence for hospital treatments. Although there are a lot of people in hospital with covid, they're just not as sick as they were earlier in the pandemic. I totally agree that morbidity and mortality rates are going to be worse than 2019. But we can't eradicate the virus.

@Cornettoninja

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.

HIV is a good example but I would dispute the numbers. At its peak in the late 90s and early 2000s millions WERE dying of HIV. And usually they were adults of reproductive age (i.e. often parents to young children) in their 20s to 40s - the most economically productive ages.

It's easy to forget HIV in developed countries. But, yes, it is still around. And still close to a million people die of it a year. Life expectancy now has still not even recovered to post pandemic levels in the hardest hit countries in southern Africa.

So perhaps when we look at our future with Covid, thinking about HIV in southern Africa with decades of devastation is a cautionary tale.

Learning to live with Covid should have been taking precautionary measures such as improving ventilation, encouraging mask wearing, improving SSP.

But instead, we just pretend it doesnt exist anymore, because thats the easier option.

[quote Invasionofthegutsnatchers]@ChloeHel teachers will struggle in to work with the most horrendous symptoms because we care about the children. Last week I felt utterly shite with a flu like virus but I turned up every bloody day so my class weren't shortchanged. This is nothing new. The dedication of school staff is ridiculously unrecognised[/quote]
Do you think you're the only people who have to work when they're sick?

@TheKeatingFive

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

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

This is just said to block doing anything. We can see the benefits of air filtration in two settings, one medical one educational, the analysis has been done.

With any crisis/change there is always a group of naysayers who don't want to do anything until it is too late to bother doing anything.

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

We know very little about it. Just enough for people to throw unfounded statistics about.

This is just said to block doing anything.

No, it's wholly necessary and important. The costs (not just economic) of various covid restrictions have been absolutely enormous. They cannot be justified without evidence that they actually improve things.

We can see the benefits of air filtration in two settings, one medical one educational, the analysis has been done.

Isn't the medical one based on a room with one or two patients. I think we'd need a lot more than that. However I'm not dissing this analysis, I'm saying we need significantly more of it, in relevant and real life situations to inform our decisions

This is just said to block doing anything. We can see the benefits of air filtration in two settings, one medical one educational, the analysis has been done.

With any crisis/change there is always a group of naysayers who don't want to do anything until it is too late to bother doing anything.

This is essentially just you getting irritable because people don't share your faith based approach, though.

I've no objection at all to better air filtration, we should improve air quality in schools and healthcare settings even if it did nothing at all for covid. Stuffy is unpleasant. But that is one intervention only. Others that people often like to default to, such as the return of mask rules, is not backed by real world evidence for strains as contagious as Omicron. And like it or not, anyone wanting any kind of restriction is going to have to do better than chiding other people for not being true believers.

@LittleBearPad

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

We know very little about it. Just enough for people to throw unfounded statistics about.

The data I've seen, based on evidence from the last years, points to a serious morbidity burden and I am concerned.

Not sure what unfounded statistics you mean.

Probably the nonsense claim a few posts up that there are over 1 million people disabled by and unable to work due to long covid, which invariably results from a misunderstanding of the ONS figures and their very wide ranging definition. Speaking as an apparent long covid sufferer, according to the ONS definition anyway, who also has a job.

@TeaPacks I think the global fatality figures from HIV/AIDS peak and covid peak are comparable. I just checked quickly and HIV/AIDS peaked around the 2mil pa for a few years and if we do a straight division of two years fatalities from covid you get around 3mil per year.

I’m ignoring a lot of factors to make that comparison but it illustrates why I don’t really understand certain stances on this subject. It’s unimaginable that at any point between the emergence of HIV and now anyone would have turned around and said ‘nah, don’t worry about screening blood and organ donations, it’s fine we’ve got treatments for that now’.

[quote Cornettoninja]@TeaPacks I think the global fatality figures from HIV/AIDS peak and covid peak are comparable. I just checked quickly and HIV/AIDS peaked around the 2mil pa for a few years and if we do a straight division of two years fatalities from covid you get around 3mil per year.

I’m ignoring a lot of factors to make that comparison but it illustrates why I don’t really understand certain stances on this subject. It’s unimaginable that at any point between the emergence of HIV and now anyone would have turned around and said ‘nah, don’t worry about screening blood and organ donations, it’s fine we’ve got treatments for that now’.[/quote]
I agree! I thought you were making the opposite point . Sorry!

@TeaPacks I didn’t pick up on that at all!

I was just taking the opportunity to continue banging on!

Come to Italy, where you still need a super green pass to go in the post office, people wear masks walking alone on an empty street, except seemingly when they fancy a fag, and it's still plastered all over the news every day. And no one I know has had it

Jesmonddene 123
Have you contacted a Dr ?she may be dehydrated which would exacerbate confusion and changes blood chemistry

Colds and flu don't affect the brain, the architecture of the lungs, the liver and the heart.this government have been cavalier to say the least in abandoning all mitigations.just hope when you get it you are not one of the unfortunate ones

@Cornettoninja

Oh I'm the same!

You look at HIV and wonder how people can be so complacent about the potential impact of living with a virus. One in five deaths in South Africa are still due to HIV.

That leads me to dying of/with. The majority of AIDS deaths are from aids-related conditions but no one tries quite as hard as they have done through this pandemic to press that point.

Honestly, the rebranding of illness during this pandemic is astounding when you stop and think about it.

That leads me to dying of/with. The majority of AIDS deaths are from aids-related conditions but no one tries quite as hard as they have done through this pandemic to press that point.

Honestly, the rebranding of illness during this pandemic is astounding when you stop and think about it.

@Cornettoninja

This! Exactly my thoughts.

Didn't Mbeki promote denialism for a time? And stop ART in favour of herbal remedies so big pharam didn't profit?

So many parallels! I guess we never learn.

The HIV/covid comparison is silly for many reasons. You don't spread or catch HIV by breathing, so there are more realistic ways to reduce spread. HIV is always fatal if not on treatment. That's just not the case for covid. Also comparison of mortality figures isn't a fair comparison due to the much higher numbers of people who have been infected with covid and recovered. Also the point made above about the population most affected by these illnesses - if covid was mainly fatal in the 20-40 age group it would be more concerning due to the impact on the economy and reproduction.

The reality of living with it also seems to be worrying about kids disrupted education and things like not knowing if you will be well enough to go to family events like graduations, weddings etc and holidays - it's a sad state of affairs

@WeddingFavour

The HIV/covid comparison is silly for many reasons. You don't spread or catch HIV by breathing, so there are more realistic ways to reduce spread. HIV is always fatal if not on treatment. That's just not the case for covid. Also comparison of mortality figures isn't a fair comparison due to the much higher numbers of people who have been infected with covid and recovered. Also the point made above about the population most affected by these illnesses - if covid was mainly fatal in the 20-40 age group it would be more concerning due to the impact on the economy and reproduction.

No one is saying it's exactly the same, of course not, but there are so many parallels.

Denialism, misinformation, conspiracy theories, government inaction, inequity in access to treatment. And an impact on life expectancy which continues to this day

@WeddingFavour it’s a comparison not an argument for a template for covid.

Of course there are massive differences in the viruses and treatments/possible vaccines, transmission routes, disease progression etc. It’s just an interesting exercise to look at comparisons in perceptions. Just like people are moved to compare this pandemic with previous ones despite them being completely different viruses and usually very different societal circumstances.

Cats are a different animal to dogs, that doesn’t mean parallels can’t be drawn.

@Dishh

*@MangyInseam*

So, figuring out how to live with it is really the only option. As far as places like seniors homes, people need to decide what is really worth it. And when I say people, really I mean the actual individuals living there. I daresay the majority would not agree to permanent restrictions on their movements and guests.

What are you attempting to suggest here exactly?

What I am saying is that locking people into institutions to keep them safe for their own good isn't an acceptable thing to do. Nor is telling them they can't have visitors.

What I am saying is that locking people into institutions to keep them safe for their own good isn't an acceptable thing to do. Nor is telling them they can't have visitors

It's still happening in Scotland. Today.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/20044342.call-scrap-scottish-care-home-close-contact-isolation/