How do people still not know?!

[Biscoffandtea]

Currently on a self catering holiday for half term in the UK. My FIL turned arrived yesterday full of cold coughing continously. He said he's fine as he's done a LF. I pointed out as he has one on the main three symptoms he needs to have a PCR. He claims he had no idea that it was a requirement and doesn't know what the main symptoms of covid are. He said he would book a PCR but wasn't going to isolate whilst waiting for the results.

I'm so cross about it all 😤 How on earth, over 18 months later can people claim they don't know when they should get PCRs?!

[quote NotMyCat]@puppeteer I went out today. Wore an FFP2 mask and a fucking giant badge that is from blood cancer U.K. that says please distance, vulnerable on it
A woman looked at my badge, and then leaned across me inches away to get to the shelf I was looking at 🤦🏽‍♀️
I think I need a zorb ball thing at this point. I'm doing everything I can but 1m distance would be nice [/quote]
People are going to act as she did, and fact of you wearing a mask protected you. If I was picking, I’d say your would be better with an FFP3, but either is better than a cloth mask.

It’s fine to grumble at peoples actions. Everyone likes a grumble.

But with that FFP3, you would have pretty much protected yourself fully. So it doesn’t really matter if others come close to you.

I don’t think you need a sorb ball. But we do all need to take responsibility to protect ourselves if needed, just as you are doing. But having done that, we need to move on.

Until numbers come down. And then we can all relax a bit more still.

Testing is out of control in our country.

One of the main reasons ‘cases’ are high here is that we test far far more per million of population.

We currently test 10 times as many tests as in Germany, 5 times higher than France and the highest per million in Europe.

Time to get things in proportion.

Excess deaths from other causes, in much younger people, are likely to skyrocket over the next 2-3 years and it is sadly this which which be likely to refocus the worried well on here away from COVID.

[quote NotMyCat]@puppeteer I went out today. Wore an FFP2 mask and a fucking giant badge that is from blood cancer U.K. that says please distance, vulnerable on it
A woman looked at my badge, and then leaned across me inches away to get to the shelf I was looking at 🤦🏽‍♀️
I think I need a zorb ball thing at this point. I'm doing everything I can but 1m distance would be nice [/quote]
Distancing isn’t required anymore so I don’t think you can expect that when you go out. Yes it would be nice if people gave you more space than others, but realistically it’s just not on people’s minds anymore. I don’t think about covid when I’m out anymore. Masks and distancing aren’t required so I don’t think about those either. I might look at you and briefly notice you’re wearing a badge but I wouldn’t register what it said and therefore wouldn’t give you more space. You need to factor others are no longer thinking about covid when you decide wether to go somewhere or not.

Was in an English city this weekend. Coming from Wales I was 😳 at the lack of precautions almost everyone was taking. Made us feel so uncomfortable (people literally coughing right next to us in queues) we cut the trip short and came home.

Testing is out of control in our country.

One of the main reasons ‘cases’ are high here is that we test far far more per million of population.

We currently test 10 times as many tests as in Germany, 5 times higher than France and the highest per million in Europe.

Time to get things in proportion.

Excess deaths from other causes, in much younger people, are likely to skyrocket over the next 2-3 years and it is sadly this which which be likely to refocus the worried well on here away from COVID.

What are deaths and hospital numbers like in other countries? Are they comparable?

You need to factor others are no longer thinking about covid when you decide wether to go somewhere or not.

I work with vulnerable cancer patients. I consider I have a responsibility to minimise risk to them, and you think I should do that by not going anywhere? I’m double vaxxed and boosted - lots of them aren’t.

Fear of Covid isn’t irrational. I’ve been without a colleague for over a year due to long Covid. Her return isn’t certain because of the neurological damage she’s sustained affecting her ability to walk. But sure, it’s just a cold.

@DicklessWonder

You need to factor others are no longer thinking about covid when you decide wether to go somewhere or not.

I work with vulnerable cancer patients. I consider I have a responsibility to minimise risk to them, and you think I should do that by not going anywhere? I’m double vaxxed and boosted - lots of them aren’t.

Fear of Covid isn’t irrational. I’ve been without a colleague for over a year due to long Covid. Her return isn’t certain because of the neurological damage she’s sustained affecting her ability to walk. But sure, it’s just a cold.

I well just go back to shielding tbh I mean fine, you don't have to distance but if you see someone wearing a badge that says blood cancer please distance, I would hope human empathy/nature isn't to lean over them but apparently not

Did you mean to quote me, @NotMyCat?

@DicklessWonder

Did you mean to quote me, *@NotMyCat*?

Sorry I was agreeing with you, it quoted wrong!

@DicklessWonder

You need to factor others are no longer thinking about covid when you decide wether to go somewhere or not.

I work with vulnerable cancer patients. I consider I have a responsibility to minimise risk to them, and you think I should do that by not going anywhere? I’m double vaxxed and boosted - lots of them aren’t.

Fear of Covid isn’t irrational. I’ve been without a colleague for over a year due to long Covid. Her return isn’t certain because of the neurological damage she’s sustained affecting her ability to walk. But sure, it’s just a cold.

Being perhaps too blunt, if you work with them and have a responsibility of care, you should be advising them correctly.

Grumbling about other people’s behaviour is a long term strategy that just might pay off and protect the entire population. It’s naive to think that it will do anything but make you feel better in the short term.

And in that short term, it leaves your patients unprotected. Bearing in mind we presently have very high infection numbers, that’s a bad thing.

If you really care to give them accurate, actionable advice, then no, going nowhere is too simple. But when they do go, if they are immunologically compromised, then mask up (FFP3, nothing less), stay in crowded areas for short periods only and distance where possible. It’s not rocket science.

To your point about it not being irrational, you’re right. It’s not. But with a caring responsibility, you do need to rationalise it and translate it into something that is useful. If you let fear dominate, you’ll miss then steps that you can (and should) advise that they take when inevitably they are forced into an environment they haven’t anticipated.

These are cancer patients in hospital, in Wales where we still have mask wearing, working from home and social distancing.

I’m trying not to catch it myself and pass it to them, potentially wiping out a whole ward of patients. Sorry if that wasn’t clear or if that’s not rational to you. 🙄

@DicklessWonder my niece is 15 and has leukemia. These past few months have been hell and she caught covid, got covid pneumonia was close to an induced coma and now has to learn to walk again. I want to thank you for trying to protect the people you work with.

To those of you flippantly telling people to move on and live with it, I think you are disgusting.

Obviously for people who are vulnerable or very ill, it’s very different. I’m talking about people who are otherwise healthy and vaccinated.

I didn't know you had to get one if you had the symptoms. Personally I do a lot of lateral flow tests, and would order a PCR if one tested positive. I kind of see it as more accurate and a confirmation to be honest.

For those of you ill or who have family who are vulnerable, its really not going to help anyway given so many are asymptomatic. What is it - something like 1 in 4 don't have symptoms? You're likely surrounded anyway - you have to act like everyone has it and protect yourselves accordingly.

I haven't had a pcr with or without symptoms unless for travel. Neither have my teens. I will test for any symptoms that are unusual - regardless of whether they overlap with cold/flu. eg I won't test me or them if they have temp and cold but they never get a cough, ever, so would test for that as it's unusual

Yes i know they could have it but a) i don't care, they'll not get ill and b) if we have to test for such common symptoms we will always have to do it- like forever! i'm not prepared to do that.

I had a similar conversation with DH (about someone else who was coughing and said that they'd had a test and I asked whether it was a PCR).

DH: oh I thought they'd got rid of PCR testing?
Me (to my utter shock that he would think such a thing): NO! Wherever did you get that from?
DH: I thought I heard it on the news?!
Me (in complete bafflement until the penny dropped): No - that's for travel testing only, you idiot!!!!

Possibly other people were under the same (incorrect) impression as my numpty DH?!

@Watapalava

I agree, it’s personal responsibility. With so many cases presenting with no symptoms you’re at “risk” every time you step out your front door and happen to be a couple of feet away from a human being.

Personal responsibility is a notion applied when your reactions only impact on yourself. Not in a matter of public health ie a pandemic.

@Iggly

In your opinion.

How can you apply the notion of personal responsibility to something that impacts on others in your community?

I would argue that we have more of a moral and social responsibility really - and our government cannot expect it to be left to individuals. Our society is build on the fact we act collectively for everyone’s benefit (although you wouldn’t know it under the Tories).

People calling round to my house then coughing has always annoyed me even before covid. Same as people telling me they've were up all night with a runny bug, then they're sat next to you in church. It's just polite to keep illnesses to yourself in my opinion.

I can fully understand why your FIL didn't want to mess round with a test, which is fair enough. However he should have just stayed home till be was better rather then share what illness he had with you all.

Who can possibly know what the main symptoms of covid are? They have changed from early 2020 and the government refuse to update the guidance, for some reason best known to themselves. Tim Spector from the Covid 19 symptoms study, based on results from nearly 5 million people, has been rightly complaining about it.

@Duckrace

Who can possibly know what the main symptoms of covid are? They have changed from early 2020 and the government refuse to update the guidance, for some reason best known to themselves. Tim Spector from the Covid 19 symptoms study, based on results from nearly 5 million people, has been rightly complaining about it.

In this case the ill person has at least one of the 3 symptoms listed by the Govt since Feb/March 2020.

Yes, other symptoms could have been added since then, but they can’t exactly argue that they e never heard that a cough is one of the main symptoms.

A cough isn’t a main symptom anymore though, and the main symptoms for those are vaccinated are different.

I'm going through the same thing. My partner was ill last week. He had cold symptoms but he was also coughing. I'm appalled at how ignorant he was - he claimed it was just a cold but he never tested to establish if it was just a cold and to rule out covid. His cough was fierce. He continued going to work. He works in hospitality is customer service role. He would have been coughing while at work. He continued with his social plans too without a care in the world. I suggested for him to test but he dismissed me and said it was just a cold. I was absolutely appalled.

I now have some symptoms and coming down with a dose. It's no surprise. He was coughing and the cough etiquette wasn't the best either. I was exposed to whatever he had. Not only me but a whole entire table in a function room where he sat at his place and coughed several times. He definitely wasn't fit to be where he was.

I had a dental emergency in the winter of 2018. I had to mind myself and do myself to avoid colds for that winter and for the spring of 2019 because I didn't want to show up at the dental surgery with a cold. I managed to avoid a cold for that winter.
Similar happened for the winter of 2019 and spring of 2020. I was looking after myself well and I was taking a lot of supplements and I avoided colds and doses that went around. I live with my mum and she had a dose and I even managed to avoid that. She was coughing in the kitchen without covering her coughs and sneezes and yet I still avoided the dose she had.
Not only that but I work in a private capacity within a home and I was in and out to another family's home where they too had colds and I was able to avoid colds.

Here I am coming down with a dose now. The fact that I was able to avoid colds for a few winters and I am coming down with a dose that I suspect is from my boyfriend, it makes me believe that whatever dose I am coming down with is very transmissionable and perhaps covid/delta. I have a pcr test for tomorrow.

If this turns out to be covid, I will be absolutely fucking fuming. He behaved so carelessly when all he had to do was test to establish what he had and limit his close contacts to minimise spread. If this is covid he's put so many people at risk. If my pcr test turns out positive, I really do think my exposure came from him and I think I'm going to be done with him.