Dr John's "Important Announcement" - we are all going to get it.

[vera99]

I've been following 'Dr' John since the start and always found him to be informative and useful. In his latest video, he has changed his tone somewhat.

If he's right, and the consensus is now that herd immunity is impossible, because the vaccine can't prevent transmission, then that's obviously very significant in terms of what the policy will be from now on.

This presumably also assumes that it's not going to be possible to 'tweak' the vaccine such that it can prevent onwards transmission.

He doesn't really talk about what happens if we get to a point where the health service can't deal with hospitalisation numbers.

Bring on the boosters, please.

I do remember trying to work out when a good time to get Covid would be. I decided last August as the hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed if it turned serious and I’m less run down in summer. So wasn’t careful at all. Still didn’t get it.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i can't decide what I think the answer is. Assuming Covid isn't ever going anywhere, do you think in a year or 2 or 5 we will still do a PCR if we think we have symptoms or will we just shrug it off as another 'cold'?! I am assuming the latter.

We may do nothing, or it may turn out that it's actually still useful to know whether what we've got when ill is covid or something else. I think I read that there may be tests one day that also test for flu or other viruses as well as covid, so you'll find out which you've got or whether it's something else.

That may be for national disease surveillance, so the health service can be aware of which viruses are spreading most at a particular time, or because we find there are long-term effects of covid we don't now about yet, so it's important to know if/when you've had it as an individual.

There may also be covid-specific treatments available like particular antivirals, so again it may still be useful to know what you've got for that reason.

@M0nica44

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i can't decide what I think the answer is. Assuming Covid isn't ever going anywhere, do you think in a year or 2 or 5 we will still do a PCR if we think we have symptoms or will we just shrug it off as another 'cold'?! I am assuming the latter.

I think that will happen in the next 6mths. I strongly suspect some people are already doing that. Not everyone can afford a day or two off work everytime they have a minor sniffle.

Thanks @sretcarahceromro3ebtsum that's really interesting, i wonder how much the cost of various testing will impact the long term decisions. But i am cynical!

@Lockdownbear, very true!

@sretcarahceromro3ebtsum

There may also be covid-specific treatments available like particular antivirals, so again it may still be useful to know what you've got for that reason.

I think we'll get to a point fairly soon that people will only be tested when they are ill enough to require hospital treatment.

But for the majority who have cold / flu / covid theyll be in bed for a couple of days and forget about it.

@NCBlossom

No *@Marguerite2000* that is the ‘myth’ part. Natural immunity is not a protective factor for the population and never has been for any pandemics. If a vaccine hadn’t been developed we would have simply had more deaths and more illness.

So what do you think happened in the thousands of years before vaccines were developed then?

I'm not sure why people thought covid would one day be gone? As long as it has a host it will survive.

Not gone entirely, but there was a golden time a few months back when it looked possible that the vaccines might be very effective in preventing transmission. If they were, then with very high vaccination coverage, wouldn't it be very difficult to for the virus to spread from host to host? We'd have had a sort of herd immunity. There would be the occasional outbreak, cases from abroad, etc., but it would be easily contained.

Due to the variant being more transmissible and the vaccines being less effect than hoped, it doesn't seem like that's possible now, but there was a time when it did, and some of us had pinned our hopes on it.

I would find it much easier to accept that I am just going to get it at some point, if I could find any figures for relative risk. e.g. if it’s 3 times a dangerous to me as flu then I’m fine with that and will happily crack on. If it’s 100 times as much risk as flu, then I’m going to carry on being cautious.

Yes, I would like to have an idea of the risk too. At one of the government briefings a while back we were told that the risk for an 80 year old had dropped to the level of somebody in their 50s, IIRC. Which is obviously fantastic, but not terribly reassuring if they are going to get it, as somebody in their 50s would still have been at increased risk due to age last year (hence the extra flu jabs). If I have underlying conditions that put my risk level at similar to an 80 year old, does that mean that my risk is now also the same as, say a 55 year old? Or is it higher or lower?

We're being told it will be like a mild cold, but anecdotally, I'm hearing of double vaccinated people who are feeling pretty ill after catching it, worse than flu. And of course, some are being hospitalised.

If the risk of catching it really is going to be 100% or close, would it be better to catch it now, before the vaccine effectiveness maybe wanes? What about very elderly or very vulnerable people?

Very cheerful. I've had covid twice pre and post vaccination and had no symptoms either times not even a headache and no long lasting, or any, effects, it was picked up on a test.
I'm 60 and fat so prime candidate for being wiped out.

@Tupla yes the transmissibility might have been reduced but that's not the same as eradicating the virus.

We'll all get it at least once during our lifetime. You can protect yourself against serious symptoms with the vaccine. That's it. Get on with life.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky looking at a covid age calculator, a rather obese 60 year old woman has a covid age of 58. So maybe not so likely to die as you would think, thankfully!

@Amobesli Yes, it's really bad news for people at high risk, unfortunately, especially after herd immunity seemed to be in sight last year. I suppose now it's just hoping for better treatments, better vaccines, etc. The only positive I can think of is that more people get the flu vaccine now, so maybe there will be fewer flu deaths.

@M0nica44

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i can't decide what I think the answer is. Assuming Covid isn't ever going anywhere, do you think in a year or 2 or 5 we will still do a PCR if we think we have symptoms or will we just shrug it off as another 'cold'?! I am assuming the latter.

I'm really hoping it's the latter :)

[quote Tupla]@Shehasadiamondinthesky looking at a covid age calculator, a rather obese 60 year old woman has a covid age of 58. So maybe not so likely to die as you would think, thankfully!

@Amobesli Yes, it's really bad news for people at high risk, unfortunately, especially after herd immunity seemed to be in sight last year. I suppose now it's just hoping for better treatments, better vaccines, etc. The only positive I can think of is that more people get the flu vaccine now, so maybe there will be fewer flu deaths.[/quote]
What's your "covid age" and how do you calculate it please ? I've never heard of this and if sounds interesting.
I've done the QCovid test but that just gives you a indication of risk (

Now that theres a variation(s) that the vaccine is not as effective against, does that mean all further variants will partially evade the vaccine? (I know it is bring worked on and "tweaked" for want of a better word ) ...and could it mutate into something more transmissable but no more dangerous than a "regular cold" ? (isnt the common cold a different coronavirus?)

I hadn't heard of "covid age" before but here it is. I am 60 and have the same covid age apparently.

alama.shinyapps.io/Covid_Age/

@Tupla I just found this and found it really useful

fullfact.org/health/covid-flu-2021/

So if fully vaccinated, the risk is roughly the same as flu i.e. somewhere between half to twice as likely to die from covid as from flu depending on how the flu figures are calculated.

I found that massively helpful from a personal risk assessment point of view.

I tried the QCovid one too, but that includes risk of catching it and then dying of it. If we are now being told we definitely will catch it at some point, then I am only concerned with what the risk is of dying from it.

[quote vera99]I hadn't heard of "covid age" before but here it is. I am 60 and have the same covid age apparently.

alama.shinyapps.io/Covid_Age/[/quote]
That's interesting thanks. My covid age is 5 years younger than I actually am which sounds good :)

Those BMI bands are a bit broad though

@Marguerite2000
So what do you think happened in the thousands of years before vaccines were developed then?
er… smallpox which killed millions
The Plague - which killed millions
The Spanish flu - which killed millions
Whenever a nation ‘conquered’ another nation - introducing a novel virus - such as in South America - the resulting deaths from illness wiped out more people than any fighting over gold or territory.

Etc etc etc there are so many examples.

So yes novel viruses which caused pandemics before vaccines…
Basically killed millions. Natural ‘immunity’ did not prevent those deaths.

@M0nica44

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i can't decide what I think the answer is. Assuming Covid isn't ever going anywhere, do you think in a year or 2 or 5 we will still do a PCR if we think we have symptoms or will we just shrug it off as another 'cold'?! I am assuming the latter.

It isn’t a stupid question. There may be political reasons to make PCR tests harder, as they are on the expensive side. However it would a good idea, as others have said, to know if you have Covid.

The NHS are building 90 clinics to treat long covid sufferers in England I believe already. So it would be good to know individually if we’ve had it.

@M0nica44

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but i can't decide what I think the answer is. Assuming Covid isn't ever going anywhere, do you think in a year or 2 or 5 we will still do a PCR if we think we have symptoms or will we just shrug it off as another 'cold'?! I am assuming the latter.

I’m guessing it will be like the flu. If you’re ill with Covid symptoms and go to the GP or need medical attention of some kind you’ll get tested. Otherwise you’ll just assume it’s a virus of some kind. Maybe people will start saying ‘I’ve got covid’ instead of ‘I’ve got flu’ for a sniffle

I also know some countries are phasing out free Covid testing.

Oh and here in Australia we’re still being given the message that masks and social distancing are here to stay for the foreseeable future and there will still be at least home quarantine for returning from overseas. Sigh.

Maybe I’m selfish but I just want life to go back to as normal as possible. I worked out the ‘everyone will catch it’ bit ages ago.

The NHS are building 90 clinics to treat long covid sufferers in England I believe already. So it would be good to know individually if we’ve had it.

I hope this isn't just an empty gesture and the medical profession actually have a clue about how to help people with Long Covid, because they sure don't have a clue re CFS/ME.