Current guidelines are irresponsible

[Rookiemistake]

I am on my second bout of Covid in 8 months despite being fully vaccinated. I have been ill both times, pretty incapacitated for two days and a bit more functional for the last three. Regardless, it has been disruptive and I am healthy with no underlying conditions. My teen ds has also had it for the first time. He was similar to me and about to start mocks for his A Levels.

Talking to someone the other day and they said it'll be like flu and we'll learn to live with it. It's not like flu. I'm 43 and I've had flu twice in my whole life yet I've already had this twice in less than a year.

I have stayed at home and will do until I either test negative or reach 10 days and am not symptomatic. However, I could if I choose, just go around as normal. My ds was allowed back into school after three days if he felt well. He didn't go but he could have as he was feeling much better by day 4. He would have still been spreading it and there are kids at school and on his bus in the middle of their GCSE's. I just think we are being entirely irresponsible. This is not a cold.

I'm not advocating a full lockdown but I think there needs to be more stringent controls if people are knowingly positive.

What do others think?

So what you're saying is that some people seem prone to catching it and some people are almost immune to it with everyone else somewhere in between.

I don't want to burst your bubble but the above was the common concensus for all respiratory infections before the cult of covid took over with stuff like 'I believe masks work', or 'I feel that compulsory vaccination with an experimental drug is good' or 'have faith in the experts'. No need for hard facts and evidence anymore.

Just put your hands together and pray.

Lockdowns!

Sorry, automatically assumed you were from UK. What country are you from?

I also know that people cannot simply isolate whenever they have symptoms, or even if they test positive. Many employers insist staff come into work even if they're positive if they're well enough. I know people who have been on disciplinaries for not coming in while testing positive, and also people who have had to resort to using food banks and got into debt because they haven't been able to earn due to isolating.

Exactly. There is a financial cost to isolation, and if that cost isn't being borne somewhere than the isolation will not happen. Whether it's the state, the employer or the person's own personal resources, the money has to come from somewhere and if none of those are forthcoming then the person is not going to isolate.

But I think a lot of people don't really understand this, and as a consequence they're also not aware of what a good reason many people had to swerve testing and isolation even when the latter was still a legal requirement.

The absolute, unshakable selfishness of the covid-fearful is baffling. Have you seen the state of the economy because of us having such ridiculous restrictions?

You'll be the same people complaining when your poor vulnerable relatives can't find a loaf of bread in a shop or the production of a medication they need has ground to a halt because of covid restrictions!

I think some people CRAVE disaster and drama, they enjoy the buzz of a lockdown and restrictions, they enjoy having something to bloody talk about and worry about.

This.

The care home I left scrapped isolation payments for workers who tested positive (I believe it came from local authorities and that stopped) yet testing was still a requirement and not allowed to work if positive, to 'protect the vulnerable'.
Shifting the financial burden onto the workforce - a workforce that's underpaid and taken advantage of to start with, and then punishing them financially for catching covid - ironically the 3 times I had it it was from an outbreak at work too, caring for people with it.

There were a lot of people who talked a lot about duty of care around covid, vaccination and protecting others, but weren't interested in the price those doing the caring were actually paying - as long as it was someone else then that was fine. Unless you were the someone else, but then you just had to shut up and put up because of 'duty of care'.

Great choice to face there, knowingly making vulnerable people ill and potentially killing them or risking your job, home and paying the concequences for a long time afterwards. Not a choice I was willing to make or a price I was able to pay unfortunately.

It's ok for you if you can work from home, if you get full sick pay, if your job isn't at risk, you don't have the same at stake do you? You're not paying the price of the protection - someone else is.

I’m very sorry about your sister being ill. That person is a jerk and if I was your sister I wouldn’t give them lifts again. Who knows they have symptoms and gets in a car with someone they know is susceptible? Although they have to say is I’m ill and it’s up to you whether I see you or not so the susceptible person get Sri decide if they don’t want to test.
a colleague is currently 2 weeks post Covid fully vaccinated and unable to make it out of bed to leave the house yet.
Its not flu, but people need to be sensible and change how they view visiting vulnerable when they know they are ill themselves

I understand why they are doing it as it is still so prevalent the economy would grind to a halt with people being off ill isolating. People have to self regulate, but unfortunately a lot of people are just selfish and if they are told they can legally go out and mix with Covid and no mask, and with no free tests to check it really is just a cold, they will.

Those who are more vulnerable or cannot afford to be ill in the coming weeks need to be careful and make their life decisions accordingly...wear masks, keep car windows open etc.

I'm in the last category and am wearing masks in shops for a couple of weeks and getting weird looks. But I'd rather that than risk my holiday.

I'm three weeks into a full blown influenza bug. I've never been so ill. Still coughing and feeling rough. I've also had Covid this year. It wasn't pleasant, but nothing compared to this which has been confirmed as influenza.

It seems crazy to go back to all the isolating etc. when a flu bug has been life threatening for me. It's not just Covid that's a problem.

People have to self regulate, but unfortunately a lot of people are just selfish and if they are told they can legally go out and mix with Covid and no mask, and with no free tests to check it really is just a cold, they will.

You've left out affordability here. With the cost of living soaring and millions of people reliant on food banks, a pound or two every time anyone in the household has something that could be a covid symptom simply isn't affordable. This is even before we factor in the potential loss of wages if one of the tests is positive. Frankly anyone who would expect people in that position to pay for covid tests off their own back is selfish.

I understand why they are doing it as it is still so prevalent the economy would grind to a halt with people being off ill isolating

Except it has been proven wrong time and time again.
You dint need lockdowns to protect people and the economy.
protecting people also protects the economy.

Look at what Japan has done. It worked and works with an elderly population. Their economy hasn’t suffered from taking measures, quite the opposite. An hey haven’t had all the lockdowns that we’ve had.

They simply actually acted on the fact it’s an airborne illness. They have monitoring of the CO2 levels. They have HEPA filters. They’ve supported companies/restaurants/cinemas etc… to put those measures in place and improve their ventilation.
Simple and easy with little effect in individuals.

And yes they have masks, like they’ve always had anyway.

@Rookiemistake you are right.
1 in 5 people suffers form long covid. often those people don’t even realise it is long covid because they dint associate their symptoms with covid.Or they dint want to acknowledge it.
But so far the science shows that repeated infections can be very damaging to health. That the long term effects of covid are not non negligible. (And I’m not talking about feeling rough for a couple of weeks after covid there. I’m taking heart issue, strokes, diabetes, ME/CFS, POTS etc etc etc. All of which are well documented)
We have our education minister suddenly realising that a hell of a lot of teachers are I’ll with long covid. Giving teachers one year off with sick paid is great. Protecting teachers in the first place would have been better.

So yes. More needs to be done. But you’ll find a hell of a lot of resistance to it.

1 in 5 people suffers form long covid. often those people don’t even realise it is long covid because they dint associate their symptoms with covid.Or they dint want to acknowledge it.

The only way to get to prevalences like that is by using definitions that are so wide they're essentially meaningless. Like the ONS, who categorise anyone who still has a cough or feels a bit tired on day 29 as having long covid.

I fall into their long covid group, and I think it's deranged to group me with the couple of hundred thousand people in the UK who report being really significantly impaired in their daily lives months or years after their covid infection. That in itself is actually a real problem, without pretending a cough that took a while to shift is comparable. Post viral symptoms definitely exist and can be life changing in some people, but throwing around obviously ridiculous figures does nothing to encourage the issue to be taken seriously.

I had the virus twice in two months. Neither was as bad as flu. Took 3 and a half days off the first time. Second felt crap but could work. I do think we have to live with it

Tests in Tesco are only £2. Though I realise for many people, doing a few of those would be unaffordable now.
I do take your point and I also said that if they went back to compulsory isolation the economy would grind to a halt - that includes because of people having to stay off work and loss of earnings. And I don't mean that to sound unsympathetic to those people but when the govt make decisions they are looking at the economy not individual suffering... especially the current govt but that's another post :-(.

The people I know who currently have Covid - and quite badly - have not caught it from work colleagues or people out trying to make a living though, it's been through social or entirely voluntary situations. In one example someone with a stinking 'cold' booked in for a face to face expensive personal treatment and the treatment provider could not insist they wear a mask because there is no legislative requirement. Self employed treatment provider now off work and hospitalised.

But where is the balance or sense when other people will be off sick like me? I think I'm I'll because someone came in early when still +..

I'm going to he off for at least two days

But the day I was in...who else have I brought down

People aren't usually going to know where they got covid, especially with there being such reduced levels of testing now and asymptomatic Omicron strains being so common. You'd have to have quite unusual and specific living circumstances. I can see why your friend thinks they caught it from the person with the visible symptoms, but given that they evidently make a living from being up close and personal with people, that wearing a mask doesn't necessarily stop a person with covid transmitting it and that they probably do other things in their life as well, how would they actually know?

Obviously yes if your partner/child has it and then you get it, you'll have a fair idea. But for the first person in a household, even factoring in the odd case where a person has only had one contact in the relevant period, the majority of the time it's going to be an assumption.

As a self employed person, I definitively ask people to wear a mas, esp in those circumstances.
It is very clear form my guidelines when people book in and they know.If they prefer to not wear a mask, they are welcome to not come (proviso for those people who can’t wear a mask etc… of course. But I’ll be honest, in two year, I can count those on one hand. I’ve had more people where I told them to take it if because they were visibly struggling wearing it than the other way around).

But then as self employed person, I also have windows open, a HEPA filter etc… in place. It’s ALSO about protecting MYSELF so I can carry on working rather being off several times a year Because I’m unwell (assuming it’s only just a bad cold/flu blablabla)

BTW i am providing the mask too….
Its much cheaper for me to buy masks for people than to take time off…..

People do die from minor viruses.

It is a minor virus in that for the vast vast majority of people who had it (and more had it than the stats showed), it was a coldy fluey type of illness after which they largely recovered. All viruses have the potential for long term side effects, Im living proof of this after a bout of something 8 years ago but thats life

I don’t know anyone who is testing and most people are perfectly happy to get on with it. You do you but you must also accept that not everyone wants or considers it necessary to take a hard line approach.

I agree about the definition of long covid. You have a very wide range of people all been affected in different ways.

What we don’t know yet is what is the impact of getting covid several times. If you fall under the long covid group for let’s say a cough that doesn’t go away, what will happen the next time you get it?

I have ME. If I get an infection I will always get worse afterwards, flare up of symptoms etc…. Seeing all the parallels between LC and ME, will the same thing happen with covid?
Tbh we don’t know the answer to that one yet. And people who have strokes, diabetes etc… following covid are not counted in the LC cases either. So the real effect of covid is as of yet unknown.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take precautionary measures. Because you REALLY don’t want to develop the severe case of LC. Thé effect in quality of life is horrendous. Just think severe LC is similar to ME. The quality of life of someone with ME is worse than someone with cancer or MS for example. Suicide rates are 6x higher than the general population. And, at least, anecdotally the same is happening with LC. Why would anyone not take some precautions is beyond me tbh. So is the ‘let’s wait what research is telling us before we actually decide it’s a issue and needs to be tackled’ brigade.

What we don’t know yet is what is the impact of getting covid several times. If you fall under the long covid group for let’s say a cough that doesn’t go away, what will happen the next time you get it?

Yes, this worries me too. I did have covid quite badly when I got it, and though fully vaccinated I assume it'll happen again at some point. I would like to see better ventilation in public areas, I think that could achieve more than OPs unworkable proposal.

The whole point of this thread is that what matters isn’t JUST the total number of deaths just after you’ve caught covid.

A mild case of covid increase the risk of diabetes.
A mild case of covid can lead to LC, suicidal thoughts etc…

Are these effects not important enough that we shouldn’t take those into account? I mean this will cost a lot of money to care for those people health wise. It will cost a lot of money when people can’t work (see the Bank of England comment on that).
And that’s Wo talking about quality of life for those affected.

Is that not severe enough to take it all into account? Have we ever seen those effects from a cold or the flu? Can we really say it’s the same when you take everything into consideration, not just the number of people, directly in hospital or dying from it just after being infected?

Yesterday I had a temperature of 39.1 and tested negative. Today temp is 37.5 and test is positive. Same happened with DH. Started with a cough - tested negative. Next day, tested positive. So clearly LFTs are pointless as if you test negative and go about your daily life then you are likely to be infecting people. DH would have been at work if it wasn't for his positive test.

I have significant long term health needs from the virus I had. Of course no one tested me for its special name so I 'just' have long virus (although that concept didnt exist before covid even though there are millions of people like me)

I am on life long medication from and will need an operation.

I wouldnt have expected the world to stop to prevent me catching this thing. Each time I get a sniffle Im affected badly again but life doesnt have to stop for someone like me.