Do we all just need to get it?

[friedeggandsauce]

So this new variant is really virulent, we went out just over a week ago and more than half our party of 12 have now got covid.

Thankfully no one is really ill with it, people have got a sore throat, bit of a headache, slight temp but nothing else.

So with that in mind (and I know there may be a few who get it bad) why are we isolating? Do we just need to all get it?

This isn't goady, we're all isolating and have taken the correct tests, just trying to see if this could just end (in an optimistic way!)

@vickyc90

Personally I think COVID has redefined how we live with chronic illness and potentially for the UK how we fund healthcare. I would love to see our response put out to an online public vote with scientist explaining the options to the general public. The most popular strategy is the one we stick with. But to do that we need the general public to be more rational about how long they can realistically expect to live and what quality of life they want.

Like some kind of gruesome game show?

@vickyc90

If you can get PCR capacity up you could even test the staff working with the vulnerable daily. Like I'm going private for surgery in the coming months hopefully, having waited nearly 6 years, if the surgeon has COVID I would be happy for him to operate even if he infects me the surgery I'm having doesn't make me more vulnerable so I can spend 7 days at home with COVID and a surgical wound. The husband might even bring me dinner in bed!

It's almost like the past two years have passed you by completely without you gaining any concept whatsoever of what Covid is, how the disease can affect you and others, and how many people across the world have died from it.

We are all going to get it - like it or not. Thank goodness for vaccines and improved treatment (and mild illness for many)

Personally I don’t like being the world’s Guinea pig. Everyone is looking to us to learn from the number of people who die here first our data.

Id rather we were a bit more cautious so that we are making decisions with info from all over the world. I think our high rates of infection and lack of sensible mitigations prior to omicron arriving show how hugely vulnerable we are here.

We are just lucky that omicron is not worse than
Other variants.

Eventually we will all get hit but I would rather that was in a more informed and less haphazard way.

@AnyFucker

Yes. But shield the vulnerable as much as possible.

Unfortunately this is impossible. Even if CEV people wanted to shield (and of course it needs to be voluntary), there is no support in place to do so. Or for household members to effectively shield too, because them going out to work/school etc means that the CEV person might as well have not bothered shielding anyway.

Personally I don’t like being the world’s Guinea pig.
Yes, quite - and even worse our children are the most exposed, deliberately due to government choices, and lots of parents seem to want them to be infected

I feel like we do and we will. I can't believe the number of my friends who've actually got it right now! Those that haven't got it in the household at the moment have had it in the last couple of months. Dropping like flies (none of them are very unwell though, ranges from barely a sniffle, to a couple of days feeling a bit rough)

• Yes it is a cold for the majority. This is false reassurance, also known as covid minimisation/denial.

Covid has always been mild for most but the issue is the small % for whom it is serious*

You've basically just agreed with that comment. "Yes it is a cold for the majority" means exactly the same as "mild for most" 🤷🏼‍♀️

It seems inevitable that a lot of people are going to get it. Let's hope that it is mild and short lived.

On that basis I think we need public health campaigns on the importance of vitamin D status and any other vitamins and minerals that can help.

We also need early treatment protocols to prevent as many hospitalisations as possible.

Simple old fashioned things like gargling seem to help and certainly can't do any harm. When I had covid I gargled several times a day and tried to keep my mouth and throat as clean as possible. I have no way of knowing but I believe it helped to prevent the cough.

www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-99866-w

And we need to know more about natural immunity - both in those who have recovered and in those who seem to be resistant.

Those who wish to be regularly vaccinated in a similar way to flu vaccines should have that possibility. Having said that, I think we also need to know why the vaccines' effectivement against infection wane so quickly. Is it due to variants, the type and level of immunity stimulated, the nature of the virus itself?

Effectiveness

Sorry

@Dghgcotcitc

I think that it’s hard to genuinely get people to buy the “let’s all just not get it at the same time”, conversation “So we are locking you in your own home only allowed our for exercise once a day, your kid will get no education and you can access no routine medical care” “Oh wow are we doing this to protect me from a deadly virus that might kill me?” “Oh no no you are still going to get it but we want you to do all of that si you get it in March not January”

Do people honestly think most people agree to lockdown on the basis of putting off when they get covid? It’s was stay home save lives not stay home to not get covid until March? Why didn’t they go with the second slogan if they thought everyone was really in board with that plan?!

This is very true. The compliance simply isn't going to be there for delay when you get it. Unfortunately the government rather backed themselves into a corner with some of the previous messaging combined with the behaviour of various members.

@Beachcomber I don’t disagree with you but I think the biggest problem with the pandemic has been public health messaging and comms.

Firstly, it has become so political that people selectively listen to what suits their agenda and discounts everything else. A highly dangerous position to be in when you have factions of the media and government pushing such opposing views with almost no professional understanding of what they’re talking about.

Secondly it has shown that most people simply aren’t able, or are too driven by a political bias, to understand basic messaging and basic data. Two good examples being masks, which have been proven to have a positive impact even if they’re not 100% effective, and LFTs / PCRs. I am continuously astounded by the number of people who think there is one magic bullet to solve all of this (eg it should all be over now we have the vaccine, or masks “don’t work” because they’re not 100%) rather than incremental levels of protection from a series of mitigations. I’m also continuously astounded by the number of people who haven’t got a clue about the difference between LFTs and PCRs and when to use them. If we can’t even get this right after two years then I worry we have little hope from putting yet more more information into the public domain.

Everyone thinks they’re an expert as it’s been going on so long, yet still largely selects messages that suit their own personal bias, which will make it hard for anything to be achieved collectively going forwards.

The government certainly needs to accept that pretty much everyone will be exposed, whatever they do. (I'm not even convinced they can do much to slow that down, as people have immense lockdown/ restriction fatigue.) The government should be looking at how the country can cope with that. It might include letting people work when ill but asymptomatic (I've seen suggestions that a LFT negative but PCR positive means you've got it but are very unlikely to spread it due to low viral load, so maybe there's something can be done there.) It might also include offering shielding again for the most vulnerable - I do think it's awful that right now a CEV person working in, say, a supermarket, has to go to work or not get paid. I'm not suggesting locking the CEV up - I'm suggesting that they're offered the option, with no stigma either way.

I agree @110APiccadilly at this point it all needs to be personal choice.

Covid is going nowhere, there is every chance it will ‘last’ at least another couple of years with various strains etc.

The last 2 years of restrictions have caused untold damage to people’s lives. We simply cannot ask more of them.

[quote Chessie678]@Dghgcotcitc
I think it's exactly this. "Lockdown to delay catching covid by a couple of months" isn't a persuasive message. So far as I can see it has been accepted by most scientists for a long time that almost everyone will get covid eventually probably multiple times. Many have said as much. Obviously better for vulnerable people to get it having had three jabs than it was before they were vaccinated but unless people are going to shield forever they will catch it eventually. I don't think a lot of people have really grasped this.

A lot of my friends and relatives still talk as if catching covid is a very unusual thing and only happens to people who either engage in "risky" behaviour or who work in a hospital / as a teacher etc and still expect that it might go away if we are all "sensible" such that they never catch it. If they get a cold they will say something like "I have no idea where I caught it. I went to a cafe/ shopping etc but I wore a mask (while walking to my table)". The latest study I read (pre omicron) suggested that 50% of people have already had covid.

I get that people may want to avoid getting it pre-vaccine / before an important event etc. but unless you are very vulnerable and have made a long-term decision to shield I don't understand the logic of severely limiting your life to avoid covid every time the rates go up.

My parents, for example, live a relatively normal life while rates are low (going to cafes, shops etc) but if rates spike a bit they almost go back to shielding. They don't seem to grasp that if they spend ten weeks going about life basically as normal but spend a week or so indoors if rates go up, they are still likely to catch covid eventually. Clearly, it's their decision as to the level of risk they want to take and I don't put any pressure on but it makes them incredibly stressed to live like this and I almost think it would be better for them if they caught it and had done with it, given that they are not particularly vulnerable and are recently triple jabbed. I have other relatives who are living a very limited life, avoiding almost everything they used to enjoy, "until covid is over". Again, their choice but it's sad to see as they have lost two years of their life and will probably get covid eventually anyway if they ever go back to normality.[/quote]
My mum is the same. She is determined that she can avoid getting Covid. It’s as though she can avoid it through sheer will power!

She seems a bit shocked that I’m okay with getting covid now I’m triple jabbed. Also keeps talking about long Covid and organ damage.

The belief that we can get the virus under control if we all do X, Y and Z is still surprisingly pervasive.

This is going to sound selfish but I hope we get to a stage where this who want to wear masks can and nobody is mandated to wear them. I know masks are partially there to protect others but there are masks like N95 you can wear that are more effective and don’t require everyone else to wear a mask to protect you.

I’m in the ‘boosted And don’t care if I catch it’ category but my government is still Covid obsessed so I have no choice but to still live under restrictions.

@Lifeisnteasy and @110APiccadilly

at this point it all needs to be personal choice

I agree that personal choice / responsibility has to play a growing role. However, what I’m continually frustrated by is the notion that millions of people CANNOT make a personal choice, often due to policy decisions by govt. Our choices are not equal.

At the moment - govt is trying to maximise equality of OUTCOME (trying to minimise severe illness in those who are most vulnerable to it first). To move to personal choice you have to maximise equality of OPPORTUNITY which is whereby everyone has the chance to make the same decisions equally. This isn’t the case right now.

Schools are the perfect example. Even if we wanted to choose to minimise our own covid risk we can’t because our primary age kids are thrown into the lions den of schools with no mitigations, no vaccines and your exposure being largely determined by other peoples’ “personal choice” and likelihood of bringing it in.

Likewise in addition to kids and families of school age kids, education staff, healthcare workers, retail and hospitality workers, transport and airline staff, factory workers… basically anyone who has kids and / or can’t work from home … has no personal choice.

I don’t know your situation but it’s all very well for people whose kids are older or have left home, who are able to work from home, or who are retired / not working to be able to exercise “personal choice”. In my mind, however, we cannot move to a situation where personal choice dictates your outcome yet probably around half the population have no say in whether or not they’re exposed and to what degree.

If we are to do so then we need to start prioritising these groups for things like boosters etc rather than those who can. But then we become a two tier society in another way, where those who might be more clinically vulnerable or older feel they’re not allowed a “normal” life because the focus is on groups who can’t make a choice.

Either way, I don’t think we can move away from govt and policy being responsible for outcomes until we have a situation where the choices people face are equal. And at the moment they are far from it.

Getting Covid doesn't stop you catching it again though. It's not like we can all catch it and we're done.

@rrhuth

If we are going to have endemic covid at high levels, we are going to either have invest a lot in healthcare or accept we do far less surgery etc than we used to do?

So what is your preferred option? We “socially distance” from each other forever? Lockdown every winter?

Covid is here to stay, like its relative The Common Cold, also a coronavirus. TCC likely killer off plenty of our ancestors when it reached our shores but by constant exposure it's now nothing more than something we winge about & drag ourselves into work with.

But, even TCC can be deadly in the right environment. The CEV can still get sick and die from it. The same way chicken pox, noro, flu can be fine for some & deadly for others.

Covid WILL become a virus we live with, eventually we will stop isolating everyone who catches it and will continue going about our business. I expect it'll be like flu in that we get a yearly booster.

There is no other option here. We cant get rid of covid and we cant keep up with the levels of isolations. The NHS will need to be funded better and work out how to cope better. It's on its knees every bloody winter anyway!!

And maybe, just maybe, we have to make peace with the fact we cant save everyone and people will and do die and will continue to do so. Our covid daily death numbers are currently akin to flu, they may go up, they may go down.

The governments job isnt to preserve some lives at all costs. It is to serve the majority & keep the economy moving. This will mean we have to go to work with covid if we feel well enough. We will have to treat it as TCC eventually.

This variant appears to be nothing more than a cold for most people, not even flu, it's not going to be sustainable treating something as spreadable but (mostly) harmless as Omicron as a deadly disease. I appreciate we need more data, presumably to see the impact on the vulnerable, but if it is as mild as it appears to be we are going to need to be MUCH more pragmatic.

@namechangeagain32

if it is as mild as it appears to be we are going to need to be MUCH more pragmatic

Who is “we”? I ask as at the moment, much of the world is looking on in horror at the UK. And within the UK we have England doing one thing, then Scotland and Wales doing another. I’d say that England is being pretty pragmatic about it at the moment no?? I’m not saying the mitigations we have now (basically masks indoors and wfh… is there anything else) should last forever but I don’t think you can really accuse anyone of overreacting considering much of the world thinks we aren’t doing enough?!

Not doing anything whilst we WAIT for the data is exactly where we went wrong in the past… therefore doing so again KNOWING what it led to before marks a pretty big shift in approach right?

I think in general people need to accept this will get better but it isn’t going to do so overnight. In the end everyone who says “it’s just a cold” will be right … but they’ll only be right because of the mammoth amount of work that has gone into developing vaccines and treatments and public health programmes to make it so. Without them, it would have been an even bigger disaster. We mustn’t forget that. Just because it (might hopefully) end up as a cold, that wasn’t how it started and it’s only thanks to the scientists who everyone seems to want to berate as doomsayers that it will.

Who is “we”? I ask as at the moment, much of the world is looking on in horror at the UK

Still?

France and Aus have high growth

SA talked about not understanding our reaction in other direction

I don’t think people are that focussed on us, as people think on here

Most are aware omicron will bring high growth

@SonicBroom we as in media, what's been speculated so far and the fact I know more people with Covid right now than I ever have before, it feels like more than 50% of the people I know have had Covid this last month and for every one of them it's been nothing more than a cold. The fact the Omicron symptoms are congested nose more than loss of taste shows it's different. But no I'm not being scientific, nor am I saying we shouldn't do anything I am saying if it turns out to be how it is appearing to be to me ( I will say me instead of us then) then I think we will need a different tactic for omicron.