Is the COVID 19 pandemic "over"?

[verdantverdure]

I just thought I'd ask.

YABU The COVID 19 pandemic IS "over."

YANBU The COVID 19 pandemic is not "over".

Surely you could say that about any virus circulating?

Yeah I've just been reading that.

I thought we were guided by the Australian Flu season and didn't they just have a bad one?

That's just what the NHS needs in wintertime! More flu!

@verdantverdure we aren't really relying on vaccines at the moment though. The last one I had as a healthcare worker was 2 years ago in September.
The vaccines are offered to vulnerable people only. But the uptake of it is has been low in our area as a lot of people have been unwell due to the side effects of the vaccine.

The virus will continue to mutate. The NHS aren't routinely swabbing patients and I don't know anyone who has lateral flows anymore.
It's just going to be one of those things.

We had a nightmare a few years ago with Flu and we have peaks and troughs of that.

I can be floored by a cold, but that doesn't make it serious. Just because you have more than a sniffle doesn't mean it isn't mild.

No they aren't!

I'm waiting to find out what they are saying about those with neurological conditions and their carers.

If they say they aren't them I'm paying for ds and I to have it!

The government must think it's in a lull to be reducing vaccination levels I suppose.

Oh well, the kids go back to school in a week or two. About six weeks after that is usually the point where we get anidea of what kind of a winter we're going to have, isn't it?

If it's in a lull it won't kick off.

Different strains of omicron vary in symptoms and how mild they are. A bit like flu. The one currently predominant in the U.K. is slightly less mild than others we’ve had but there are a number of strains circulating here at the moment. Also ‘mild’ just means that you don’t need a hospital admission. It doesn’t necessarily mean what the average person thinks of as mild.

The WHO did declare the pandemic over, but at the same time pointed out the risk from covid hasn’t gone away. They pointed out we still need to take it seriously as it is a mass disabling event. It will eventually fuck your economy if you don’t.

It would be much better if, like other countries, the U.K. allowed anyone who wanted to be up to date with vaccination. At the moment very few people have protection from a disease that it putting pressure on health services because it isn’t seasonal and has roughly 5 waves a year.

Yeah @RafaistheKingofClay I'm fit and relatively young and I've just spent a week in bed so what this could do to someone twice my age, or with a vulnerability could definitely land some people in hospital I would think.

I'm well out of the loop and don't really have any idea what variants we've got going on at the moment except that most of them are "Omicron" the one they said would end the pandemic.

I thought I'd already had Omicron to be honest.

I'm just getting over it now OP and it's been my worst by quite a way, too.

I would have liked to be vaccinated, personally, because I pop in and help a woman who is 98 and I was this <-> close to passing it on to her.

The version just becoming prevalent now is pretty nasty and the symptoms are different, just so everyone is aware.

Yabu

So like flu.

I don't know what you think ought to happen?

I think the only people testing nowadays are those of us worried about passing it on to vulnerable friends or family.

Which does make me wonder if there's quite a bit more covid circulating out there than we're aware of.

@Summerrainagain1

Don't flu jabs usually start in September?

And haven't the over 50s had them the last couple of years?

There's definitely a surge at the moment, it's even been in the news. But we can't go back to how things were before.

I do think people should be aware of the new symptoms just because of knowing how close I was to infecting the older lady I know, because I didn't recognise it as COVID.

The World Health Organisation website says very clearly that the COVID pandemic is not over but that it is no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. From the website today.

On 5 May 2023, more than three years into the pandemic, the WHO Emergency Committee on COVID-19 recommended to the Director-General, who accepted the recommendation, that given the disease was by now well-established and ongoing, it no longer fit the definition of a PHEIC. This does not mean the pandemic itself is over, but the global emergency it has caused is, for now. A Review Committee to be established will develop long-term, standing recommendations for countries on how to manage COVID-19 on an ongoing basis
Thankfully the worst of the effect of the pandemic definitely appears to be over but it is still a real threat to many vulnerable people, my husband included, and people are still being hospitalised and are dying from it, albeit not in anything like the same numbers. Anecdotally, I know of a lot more people who have had been far more unwell with COVID over the last couple of months than for some time.

It's managed just like flu - vulnerable groups identified and jabbed, the rest rely on previous immunity, it is accepted some people get very ill.

Covid is, in essence, a flu type illness. Like I said, I can't quite understand what you expected to happen with it, or why you seem to feel it is treated very differently.

Just waiting for the inevitable "why are you testing" moron to pop up as they do on every covid thread.

It's "over" enough that only "the vulnerable" are getting covid jabs this autumn and apparently there's no rush. But it's not so "over" that "the vulnerable" don't need to be jabbed against it.

Just like flu then?

I read earlier that there is a new strain out in UK and some people are wanting us all to mask up again.

Very depressing esp since I was one of the shielded people and have only recently felt confident about going out and about again.

Monday briefing: The new variant that’s a reminder the pandemic never fully ended | Coronavirus | The Guardian

Well, if you think getting knocked out for ten days with illness in the middle of summer is "just like flu", then yes. 😐

I don't know.

I've never had flu or a flu jab.

Flu's seasonal though isn't it?

Oh that made me laugh so now I'm coughing my guts up attractively.

It has gone into the general pool of bugs that are going around, that we try to vaccinate on a targeted basis against, and that have variants that will pop up that will be milder or nastier than others. It's no longer the super special new kid on the virus block and has to hang around with all the other germs now. Eventually we'll stop giving each variant super fancy sounding names - maybe we should start calling them things like Trevor, Derek and Ethel - reduce the threat factor down from "Omicron" which sounds like its escaped from the Transformers.

@betwelve you have just described what Flu is. True flu people describe that it even hurts to blink!
You can get Flu influenza in the summer.... it's just not as common. We have had a few people positive for influenza in my area.