New strain is scarily infectious!

[annie987]

I’m a teacher and we’ve had the odd case of Covid in school since last March but nothing that has spread beyond immediate close contacts. With proper safety measures and isolating it was easy to manage.
We’ve had a few cases since Christmas that have spread like crazy - taking out huge numberS of staff and students that didn’t have particularly close contact with the positive cases.
It’s a totally different beast!

@Pimlicojo

So you don't actually know it's the new strain, you're assuming it is and calling it 'scarily infectious'. What are you aiming to achieve by this thread?

Even if it is the new strain we all know the stats on how much more transmissible it is so this thread is just chit chat and story swapping rather than information isn't it?

A couple of weeks ago I read that 85% of cases are the new Kent variant. It's one of the reasons Novavax were able to publish data earlier than expected. During the second wave, people were infected so much more quickly that they hit their targets sooner.

I didn't know anyone who caught it in 1st wave and now I know people in 3 separate households (2 households are 30 year olds).

I thought that our standard covid tests that you get at testing centres etc can't detect what strain it is?

@AluckyEllie

I’m a ICU nurse, we were talking about it at work and it’s what the drs believe is responsible for this second wave. It’s likely why the south got hit so much harder this time, as it originated in Kent. Not all of the diagnosed cases are the new variant though, so you will have cases where it doesn’t transmit as easily (and peoples resistantance- including those who will have antibodies post covid but didn’t know they had it at the time.)

One major point they made is that we are so, so lucky it was not this strain back in March. The nhs would have been massively overwhelmed and deaths would have been huge. Although it may seem unorganised, hospitals have spent the last ten months drawing up escalation plans so when we hit chaos in January it was relatively organised. We knew the next area we would expand into. We knew the staff that would be redeployed. They hired staff to work in the logistics of stock and beds and staff. Also, we’ve bought loads more cpap machines and ventilators. The factories are churning out ppe and commonly used meds (both of which were running very low first wave.)

It’s frightening to think how it could have been last year- but hopefully we are on the home run now.

Thank you for everything you do. The last year must have been a scary time. It's good to hear that although hospitals are at capacity it is being managed well. I hope you all manage to rest once this peak is over.

DH is a GP and I find it amazing that he and his staff members have gone all year without getting it. He does have to go into his surgery to see certain patients face to face (I know most GPs work from home, as does DH, but he does go into see patients to check lumps and bumps and things that he worries could be sinister). So he's continued going into the practice once or twice a week to see face to face patients and his elderly patients (full PPE when he sees them). The kids were at school from September. We've been exposed to the world, like most people, these past few months.
Over Christmas holidays, he went in on the 23rd, felt ill on Boxing Day, tested on the 27th, got a positive on the 28th, was in ICU a few days later and stayed for two weeks. He was incredibly ill... as were 6 of his staff members/colleagues- only one was on duty with him on the day he was exposed to the infected patient, who didn't know they had covid, obviously. There are never more than 2 people in the practice at a time, so how they all got it at around the same time is weird... coincidence. Maybe it was just rampant around Christmas and some of his colleagues got it out and about, not from exposure at the practice. It seems to really be out there, everywhere. My neighbours and I never knew people who had covid. Now, everyone on my road, one by one, is battling covid.
The kids and I were fine. DH nearly died. Weird virus. I have more questions than I had before. But yes, this variant is more infectious. More deadly? Not sure. But certainly more infectious. This has been confirmed.

AluckyEllie It's been harrowing for you, I am sure!
All I can say is, if DH were fighting the covid he had this January last March, I am not sure he would have lived because he came so, so, so close to dying this year. There has been so much learned since last March. The CPAP has been a gamechanger, I think.
Thank you, with all of my heart, for fighting on the frontline for our loved ones!

I work at a school and send my DS to school and haven’t seen anyone dropping like flies, it must vary from area to area.

ALuckyEllie
That is massively reassuring to read. Thank you for the hard work you and your colleagues have continued to provide ❤

The vanguardsix. I hope your DH is recovering well now. I wonder if they were all exposed to high viral load? Must've been an awful time for you.

@TheVanguardSix didn’t you say your husband suffered more due to obesity?

Sitting within a meter of people for a training session for an hour.
Yes, that is reckless in current circumstances

I doubt it was done out of choice! Lots of people have no choice but to be within a metre of people at work

I was hours and hours with 2 people that had it, symptoms and everything and I didn't catch it. Still don't understand how.

Indeed, it was rife in my family but not all spouses caught it, and no children (unless asymptomatic, the adults got tested but not the kids) and we're in one of the ground zero new varient areas.

@OliveTree75

*Sitting within a meter of people for a training session for an hour. Yes, that is reckless in current circumstances*

I doubt it was done out of choice! Lots of people have no choice but to be within a metre of people at work

They can report the company to the Health and Safety Executive. And they should, because shitty employers like this are driving up infection rates

Gosh @Fembot123, so you haven't personally seen people 'dropping like flies' and obese people should expect to die anyway huh? Have a lovely time on planet denial

@DumplingsAndStew

That was very reckless. You got lucky

OP's post doesn't say she was aware at the time, she might have only found out subsequently.

That's what I presumed.

@DameFanny

Gosh *@Fembot123*, so you haven't personally seen people 'dropping like flies' and obese people should expect to die anyway huh? Have a lovely time on planet denial

Don’t be pathetic @DameFanny, I didn’t say that it wasn’t happening and @TheVanguardSix said those things herself on another thread but whatever suits your narrative sweets 😂

Presume you are angling for the schools to be closed even longer then are you OP? 🤔🤔

@SirVixofVixHall in my case absolutely no idea. I've only gone for walks outside/kids off school/and Tesco delieveries.

@TheVanguardSix that must have been terrifying. Im obese too but that doesn't mean you expect to end up in ICU. It's terrfified me having it and thinking where it could go. I think I'm day 8 and hoping I'm fine. Im so glad your husband is okay and hope he makes a full recovery x

You've failed to understand my point @Fembot123 and gone straight in with a personal attack. Robust argument is one thing, personal attacks are another. Learn the difference, stick to the points, learn to argue, maybe you can be taken seriously? As it is I've reported your post.

@ivfbeenbusy

Presume you are angling for the schools to be closed even longer then are you OP? 🤔🤔

Given the high rates of transmission, why not? Or are you suggesting there's something dodgy about wanting to keep people healthy?

@DameFanny

You've failed to understand my point *@Fembot123* and gone straight in with a personal attack. Robust argument is one thing, personal attacks are another. Learn the difference, stick to the points, learn to argue, maybe you can be taken seriously? As it is I've reported your post.

I’ve failed to understand nothing @DameFanny, when you deliberately misunderstand someone else’s post and patronise them it gets their backs up funnily enough. I can’t take you seriously as I’ve seen you haunting threads and misrepresenting what it being said, trying to shame anyone who has a different perspective to you. I never once said obese people deserve to die or will die I was referring to a posters own comments, maybe check that thread out before commenting, learn to to have your facts straight, stick to referring to what a poster actually says and I might be able to take you seriously as it stands you just make me smile. As for reporting, fine 🤷‍♀️ Not sure what you expect me to say about that.

[quote AfterSchoolWorry]@DumplingsAndStew

That was very reckless. You got lucky

OP's post doesn't say she was aware at the time, she might have only found out subsequently.

That's what I presumed.[/quote]
Didn't know she was sitting within a meter of someone else? Or didn't know it had been an hour?

I don’t think it’s the right time to reopen schools personally.

Those two statements taken on the one thread close together imply that you've fallen for the 'people with pre existing conditions die with not of covid' and if people are not dropping in the street it's not that dangerous fallacy @Fembot123

And I haven't mischaracterised - I've called out lies and misinformation where I've seen it. Because lies and misinformation get people hurt.

I work in a tiny SEN school. No-one had caught the virus up until the second week of January. Out of the 17 members of staff, 12 of us are currently infected. Lots of us have passed it onto our families. In total, there are now 25 people infected if you include our families. It's a bloody nightmare.