Who thinks Australia and NZ have got it right ?

[marilenagrace]

What do you think ? Do you think that keeping everyone out of the country is the right approach long term to deal with covid ? Do you wish we did that here in the UK ?

+1 to @XiCi. As an Australian in the UK (and usually pretty alive and challenging to any British people putting down/having a go at Australia and Australians) it’s bloody tedious.

Thank god my own family haven’t gone in for it.

We had to do it this way (in NZ). We simply do not have the resilience in our health system, huge areas of the country with little or no access to a regular GP let alone access to a hospital. We have a substantial vulnerable population of Maori and Pasifika who need to be protected.
It is great here unless you want to be somewhere else or have family overseas. Lots of people in NZ don't have any understanding of what it is like to be separated from whanau for over a year now.

uk.news.yahoo.com/news/personal-trainer-health-anxiety-long-covid-105058416.html

Long covid. This poor guy is only 23. Former personal trainer. He's had to employ a carer and his debilitating condition is impacting his mental health.

Lucky for the young in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, and Taiwan.
They were protected from the long term suffering of long covid. More than 1 million in the UK. Some have had (confirmed by scans) heart and lung damage. Doctors are beginning to see cases of type 2 diabetes triggered by it. People unable to work long-term.

In the UK we're facing up to 5 year backlog for NHS healthcare including delayed and missed cancer diagnosis.

Australia, New Zealand, and East Asia definitely got it right.

@Tealightsandd

uk.news.yahoo.com/news/personal-trainer-health-anxiety-long-covid-105058416.html

Long covid. This poor guy is only 23. Former personal trainer. He's had to employ a carer and his debilitating condition is impacting his mental health.

Lucky for the young in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, and Taiwan.
They were protected from the long term suffering of long covid. More than 1 million in the UK. Some have had (confirmed by scans) heart and lung damage. Doctors are beginning to see cases of type 2 diabetes triggered by it. People unable to work long-term.

In the UK we're facing up to 5 year backlog for NHS healthcare including delayed and missed cancer diagnosis.

Australia, New Zealand, and East Asia definitely got it right.

You last paragraph remains to be seen, and I say that as someone who lives on an island where there are currently no restrictions at all.

I would rather be in the UK right now and able to visit family I haven't seen in over a year. Its rubbish

You'd rather be in the UK, where people have gone months at a time not even being able to visit family in their own homes. Where people haven't been able to go to shops (other than essential like food) or pubs or restaurants or hair salons or sporting events for months on end. Where school is constantly disrupted with lockdowns and bubbles popping. Where there's an up to 5 year backlog to clear of NHS diagnosis and treatment. Really?

Apart from anything else, if you had been in the UK you might very well never be able to visit your family again. You might've been amongst the 150,000 dead or 1 million suffering debilitating long covid (for many, getting out of bed is an achievement).

Tealightsandd

Can we please start by getting the terminology right?

ONS reported that 1.1 million people experience Covid symptoms for longer than four weeks. It does not necessarily mean they cannot get out of bed or have suffered long term damage to their internal organs. In fact, most of those cases will only experience mild to moderate symptoms (e.g. coughs or fatigue). My coughs always last for several weeks but I do not refer to them as "long colds".

Again, according to ONS, 70,000 people have had their day to day activities severely limited for more than one year post Covid illness. This clearly falls under the "Long Covid" definition. It is highly likely that the number will increase and potentially double (considering the size of the second wave). However, 150,000 or even 200,000 people are not 1.1million.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/health/long-covid-symptoms-uk-ons-b1825434.html%3famp

Latest official estimates reveal the scale of the longer-term health problems caused by coronavirus

This is a significant increase in previous estimates of persistent and debilitating symptoms and follows the January surge in coronavirus.

The ONS says 1.1 million have reported symptoms lasting beyond four weeks that were not explained by anything else

Long Covid can include chronic fatigue, shortness of breath, so called “brain fog” as well as serious damage to the kidneys, heart and lungs.

Their words not mine. Persistent and debilitating

Lots of concerning health issues relating to covid.

www.hriuk.org/health/your-health/lifestyle/people-with-coronavirus-are-at-risk-of-blood-clots-and-strokes

However, higher rates of strokes in patients with COVID-19 is somewhat unusual because it also seems to be happening in people under 50 years of age, with no other risk factors for stroke.

@wintertravel1980

Tealightsandd

Can we please start by getting the terminology right?

ONS reported that 1.1 million people experience Covid symptoms for longer than four weeks. It does not necessarily mean they cannot get out of bed or have suffered long term damage to their internal organs. In fact, most of those cases will only experience mild to moderate symptoms (e.g. coughs or fatigue). My coughs always last for several weeks but I do not refer to them as "long colds".

Again, according to ONS, 70,000 people have had their day to day activities severely limited for more than one year post Covid illness. This clearly falls under the "Long Covid" definition. It is highly likely that the number will increase and potentially double (considering the size of the second wave). However, 150,000 or even 200,000 people are not 1.1million.

Exactly this... the 1.1 million figure would suggest 1 in 50 people that I know should have had long covid.... I don't even know 1 in 50 people that have had regular covid..

Tealightsandd

It is always useful to review the actual research. Here is the link to the ONS study which has looked at multiple data points:

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

The first component was the number of people that are experiencing any Covid symptoms (including coughs and fatigues, etc) beyond 4 weeks. That number was indeed 1.1 million.

However, the study did not show that all 1.1 million people suffer from persistent and debilitating symptoms or have experienced serious damage to the kidneys, heart and lungs (that "emotional colour" must have been added by the journalists for extra clicks). In fact:

The most prevalent self-reported symptoms that persisted for at least 5 weeks after the assumed date of infection were fatigue (11.8% of study participants who tested positive for COVID-19), cough (10.9%), headache (10.1%), and myalgia (muscle pain) (7.7%).

The ONS says 1.1 million have reported symptoms lasting beyond four weeks that were not explained by anything else.

Every time I have a cold I get a cough that lasts four to six weeks. The ONS statistics include that kind of lingering symptom as well as the far more serious ones.

Long Covid is a serious issue but it actually harms the sufferers by misusing the ONS statistics as you have done - and as many journalists have done - as it makes it easier for people to dismiss it.

Their words not mine. Persistent and debilitating.

Exactly - these are the words used by journalists to attract potential readers. Fear is a powerful motivator.

How many people would want to read about fatigue, cough, headache or muscle pain (even if the latter is referred to as myalgia)?

I wonder how many people battling long covid are yet to been seen, diagnosed, or scanned?

Bearing in mind the propensity for GPs to dismiss some of the symptoms as anxiety (it's even happened to doctors who themselves have long covid).

Add in the fact that the NHS facing up to 5 year backlog.

How many people have contracted long covid after being vaccinated?

The situation is changing daily, and the risk profile is changing daily.

The number of people who will contract long covid after being vaccinated is much lower than the number who u fortunately became infected before vaccines were available.

What happened up to February this year is not relatable to what will happen from now on and is largely irrelevant when it comes to statistics and risk.

My brother lives in Western Australia, he has had no time off work, his son has continued in education, and their lives have remained largely the same.He had to cancel a trip home last May.
Good friends who live in NZ have said similar, life almost as normal except travel, like my brother they think it is a small price to pay for health and financial security.

I am convinced they have made the correct call to close borders.

I am amazed anyone could prefer the catastrophic effects of not on the UK.
Had l been Prime Minister l would have closed our borders until this stage in the vaccination process, and still limited travel to certain countries now.

My childrens education could have been uninterrupted, businesses and jobs kept in most fields, homes not repossessed, many less deaths, many less cases of Long covid....and not facing decades of unimaginable debt from the furlough scheme... to mention just a few reasons.

@Tealightsandd

You'd rather be in the UK, where people have gone months at a time not even being able to visit family in their own homes. Where people haven't been able to go to shops (other than essential like food) or pubs or restaurants or hair salons or sporting events for months on end. Where school is constantly disrupted with lockdowns and bubbles popping. Where there's an up to 5 year backlog to clear of NHS diagnosis and treatment. Really?

Apart from anything else, if you had been in the UK you might very well never be able to visit your family again. You might've been amongst the 150,000 dead or 1 million suffering debilitating long covid (for many, getting out of bed is an achievement).

I said. "I would rather be in the UK right now"

With a near enough world beating vacci e rollout and a common sense approach to risk. Rather than stuck here where there is now virtually no risk due to the vaccines and I still can't see family.

No, they are imprisoning the populations. It's inhumane.

@wintertravel1980

Their words not mine. Persistent and debilitating.

Exactly - these are the words used by journalists to attract potential readers. Fear is a powerful motivator.

How many people would want to read about fatigue, cough, headache or muscle pain (even if the latter is referred to as myalgia)?

You do realise that fatigue in Long Covid and in ME and other long term conditions can be extremely debilitating and stop people being able to do their jobs and normal daily activities don’t you?

You do realise that fatigue in Long Covid and in ME and other long term conditions can be extremely debilitating and stop people being able to do their jobs and normal daily activities don’t you?

I do - and this is exactly why I have drawn the distinction between people who have suffered severe limitations to their day to day activities and the headline number of 1.1 million.

Fatigue, cough, headache and muscle pain all have different degrees of severity. The majority of people will only experience mild to moderate symptoms that are likely to disappear within weeks.

Long Covid is clearly a real issue but a claim that there are 1.1 million of Long Covid sufferers only undermines the credibility of the message.

I wonder how many people battling long covid are yet to been seen, diagnosed, or scanned?

Bearing in mind the propensity for GPs to dismiss some of the symptoms as anxiety (it's even happened to doctors who themselves have long covid).

But the ONS stats you cited don’t have anything to do with reporting to GPs or figures compiled by GPs.

No one is denying the existence or seriousness of long Covid. But by using these figures in the way you are you are muddying the waters and potentially undermining how seriously people take the condition by conflating it with ‘any symptoms 5+ weeks after assumed infection date.’

Of course it takes more than four weeks to feel fully well if you have a serious respiratory virus. It took me about 2 months to recover from flu once. I didn’t call it long flu. Post viral fatigue can also last many months.

I don’t dispute long Covid exists and it very unique to this disease in terms of its impact. But arguably the definition of ‘long’ should be more than what we would see for other serious respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia. With a more accurate definition the figures would be much less.

I don't know a single person with long covid and me and my contacts have almost all worked outside the home all pandemic (therefore having been consistently exposed).

Obviously some have long term effects, as also occurs with other illnesses, but it's nowhere near a million.

I think some of the reporting abroad of life in the UK during covid parallels the reporting on terror - the truth is that many of us have been fortunate enough not to have been seriously (medically) affected ourselves or to know anyone who has. The perception that we all know someone who has died, and that the country is filled with the walking wounded is simply not accurate - in a purely medical sense anyway.

You may not know anyone, but the doctors suffering from it themselves definitely do. As do their colleagues treating all the many other patients battling it.

"Long COVID" is a grab bag comprising a bunch of things.

It includes a (probably pretty small) number of people with severe symptoms caused by COVID.

It includes a much larger group of people who are merely having a slow recovery from this unpleasant virus, but who will be fine after a while.

It includes people who have had COVID and are now blaming every health problem they have on that COVID infection they had a few months back (I was recently chatting with some mums at my local park--none of us have had COVID but we're all struggling with poor sleep, anxiety, menstrual disturbances and a whole bunch of other things that are being used as markers for "long COVID." If we'd actually had this virus, I am sure we'd all be describing ourselves as long COVID sufferers. As is it, we're suffering from pandemic-itis).

It includes people who suffer from crippling health anxiety that is causing psychosomatic symptoms.

It includes "mixed" cases, where there are some sequalae from the actual virus, but then anxiety is making the person experience the symptoms as worse.

I don't think many people doubt that genuine severe long-term issues can be caused by COVID, but the figures are almost certainly inflated.

You may not know anyone, but the doctors suffering from it themselves definitely do. As do their colleagues treating all the many other patients battling it.

Just not over a million of them, which you are well aware of now and I’m sure won’t be misrepresenting the situation in that way again.