Is there any light at the end of the tunnel

[SummersBreeze]

I know a family who are down with covid for the second time in a matter of a few short months. March was the last time. I had covid last week and it's no picnic.

Covid reminds me of a cold that has married a flu.

This can't possibly be ideal to have a flu type of illness every few months.

I'm someone who's not able to get sick. I don't tolerate sickness well and I don't have time to be sick. I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve to help myself. I remember in the winter of 2019 many people arou D me got cold after cold but I avoided them. I looked after myself so much to avoid colds.

But I wasn't able to avoid covid. I dread to think what this will be like every 3 or 4 months.

There has to be some sort of a let up surely. The world and its people needs a break from this.

That's incredible and it's so depressing. I was reading another forum and some of the posters there can only be described as psychopaths claiming that covid is only just a dose of the sniffles for a sizable portion of the population and there's no point in following isolation guidelines any more if you feel unwell and other such trash on similar lines.

I was flattened for a week with my dose. It's far from sniffles.

The information you shared is depressing as fuck.

I have about 1/3 of my organisation with Covid at the moment and only one member of the leadership team (of 6) not unwell today. We had a big meeting last week....

From the dose I had last week, this isn't mild like a cold. I had fevers going up to 40 for 3 days in a row and body aches and other symptoms.

I know then there would be other incidents where it is mild like a cold but there are still guidelines on isolation.

It's not sustainable going forward. I don't know what the solution is going forward. It's going to be hard for businesses.

https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1547579713509400578?s=21&t=Oubnvpnfbyc1fK7cc_ANYg

People are claiming their own experiences as fact.

Ok, it's fact that it's incredibly mild because I had it a couple of weeks ago and barely noticed it, like lots of people locally. Carried on working, saw DP, slept in the same bed. He didn't catch it.

Equally silly

We can't reintroduce restrictions that damage the economy. The first lots have done terrible damage. No country ever improved its health outcomes by making itself poorer.

We need to concentrate on helping people become fitter and healthier.

Well, there is always the lab theory, which I personally am highly open to.
It's all quite depressing especially as I was hearing talk about lockdowns and masks again. I thought we'd got over the worst of it.
I'm recovering from covid the second time now and it has been milder but was still pretty shit.
I don't want to go back to where we were. Especially now we've got a credit crisis and probably no furlough. It will be very very grim if we head that way again.

I've had it six times and I'm fully reconciled to the fact that I'll have it many more times.

Reconciled doesn't mean happy however.

I'll over weekend. Tested monday positive strong line immediately

Today been loads better for two days
Tested. Negative today so hasn't lasted that long for me.

Obv not everyone has this experience

Dd now has it.

Been taking a good quality probiotic and I swear that's helped.

Covid is different for everyone , first time i never knew I had it , tested as ds had it , then developed a slight runny nose and that was it , 2nd time more flu like but never lasted as long.
But it is concerning as staying home for 5 days 3/4 times a year off work along with colds etc will make it difficult

Well we can't have a lockdown without furlough.

We just can't.

Furlough has helped wreck the economy too.

And the stupid thing is, none of it worked. Why would we do it again? Infection curves come down on their own, without lockdowns.

I had it in March something really strange happened, I felt ill and had a cough so took a test which was positive. After about a week I recovered thinking well that wasn't too bad, then a week or so after that I was hit with another load of symptoms that were so much worse and I collapsed at one point and tested positive again. Never felt so ill in my life I honestly thought it was going to kill me.
My worry is my daughter. She got covid vaccine damage (consultant confirmed it) and now has rheumatoid arthritis. She's in so much pain and on treatment that blocks her immune system and it's such a worry as she works in a big busy place.
This isn't going to go away and it's far worse than any cold or flu it leaves people with all sorts of problems.

Yes, lockdown requires furlough. The purpose of lockdown is to reduce contacts for a period. That means paying enough of the population enough money to ensure they're not just at home, but comfortable at home. If they become uncomfortable, worry about paying their heating bills, the risk of them not staying at home is higher. Pacifying millions of people to that extent is expensive, and we're not going to fund another one.

As for the origins, who knows, but I make it a rule to always think the worst of the CCP. So it wouldn't surprise me, in the absence of evidence, if this were man made.

It did work, though. Without lockdowns, the health systems would have been hit far harder, and many more people would have died, of covid and other things, due to lack of care.

DS (13) has worked his way through school, and was immune to most of the bugs, but has come down with covid. littlest now has a fever, so I think everyone, including babysitting granma will get it. feeling pretty depressed as its the summer months.

I've got it now for the second time in 4 months. I've actually had it 3 times if including March 2020. The second bout was the worst and left me feeling terribly fatigued for weeks afterwards and threw my thyroid function out. I've only just started to feel better from that and now I have it again.
I work in a hospital and it's everywhere amongst the staff at the moment and causing chaos with staffing levels. I have absolutely no confidence that this second bout offers me any kind of future immunity at all.

Well that was the initial narrative.

Meanwhile the death toll from lockdowns is gathering pace.

Covid has made me 1) realise how fragile life and quality of life are and 2) how we have extremely limited control over our health.
I consider it very depressing and concerning as it still appears roll of the dice who gets very ill on which bout and who has very mild symptoms. (I've known people have it several times and the latest variant has hit them hardest.)
One day we might understand the reasons behind this - be it genetic or new factors science has yet to discover.
The frequency and duration of illness are problematic for society. Like a PP mentioned, we had a big work meeting (I was WFH) but someone went in (even admitted they felt rough) that night tested positive - it's wiped out a lot of people. It's not like the great flu of 2005 which took out my office, this seems to happen every few months.
As someone who was left with a life changing chronic illness post a virus, I don't like the idea of us and our children playing roulette with this. Prime of your life one day, get a virus for a couple of weeks and it persists. You can't work, lose your job, can't pay your mortgage and down the spiral goes.
I don't think lockdowns are the answer. Right now, behavioural change is all we have in our power. Everyday I see threads a long the lines of "AIBU to host a party with COVID?" I understand it may be harder to see the bigger picture if your experience of something is mild but we all have mask fatigue and are desperate to have pre 2020 life back - we actually have to accept we can't.
I think better ventilation is needed for schools and offices. Masks (FFP2 and 3) are a great idea in indoor places. (Not saying they should be mandated but they do work. They also serve as a visual reminder that we do have to be cautious.)
The biggest challenge in the workplace is people not getting paid sick pay/not able to WFH/and presenteeism. There's also a general culture of selfishness - a lot of people seem to think that people should be sensible and stay at home when ill but always find a good reason why that shouldn't apply to them, why they are special. Sorry, none of us are.
The only thing that comes to mind is with HIV and AIDS - at first there was no treatment and then the first treatment failed but when they found something that worked, it has revolutionised treatment. However, COVID is on a scale that nothing else we have tracked has ever been on.
Countries can't afford / have their heads in the sand about research that could just be pouring money down a black hole. Anti-virals would help a lot of people but even if you are on the list in the UK, they don't give them anymore.
What can we do? Look after our health, don't take unnecessary risks (for me personally that means no indoor socialising, no outdoor events too), I choose to wear a mask and will continue to do so indoors, think about others and not go out when we are ill and maybe send a prayer to whomever or whatever you believe in if anything.

But no indoor socialising? What forever?

My approach is to live my life as normal. Whilst taking the usual precautions when ill. I’ll admit I was very relieved that when I had Covid a second time recently it was far more mild. There’s disagreement on this but to me that means my immunity is building. I know people will argue we have zero immunity and we’ll all just keep getting Covid every few months. But I don’t believe this will be the case. It will be a rough few years whilst we all build up that immunity. And it’s utterly shit for those who have Covid severely and long covid.

But we do know half hearted mitigations don’t work. I honestly think being as healthy as we can and building up some exposure and immunity is our only choice now. Or avoid indoor socialising forever.

I’ve been reading that experts think that this summer wave isn’t necessarily a bad thing as we’ll have a bit of immunity going in to Autumn.

I feel the same. 3 vaccinations 2 rounds of omicron, each one milder than the last. I have to hope I have a good level of t-cells/antibodies which may (or may not) protect me in to Autumn and Winter. We are all different. Some peoples’ immune systems may take longer to build this immunity.

I don’t want to be ill multiple times a year with Covid so we have to hope that we are building immunity. Just like we need to with colds and flu.

My hospital is on its knees again with a covid wave. It's destroyed day to day care again. Elective worked stepped down. Wards closed. No through put etc. there's a lot of really sick people with it on top of other illnesses as well as a lot of vulnerable people who can't leave the hospital. We've had patients catch it in hospital, go home and have to be readmitted with covid decline. We also have over 10% staff sickness on top of summer annual leave. Everyone I know is really unwell (not ICU dying, but needing a solid few weeks to recover) Some parts of our service had no staff today - patients just won't be seen for days.

We were in this same position in March / April and in Dec / Jan and last summer - it looks like every 3-4 months normal NHS functioning will cease. That's not sustainable for anyone wanting healthcare.

And yet there still remains no cohesive strategy to improve the nation's diet, fitness and health. People continue to eat crap which remains cheaper than healthy food and take no exercise, and the government continues to look the other way. Diabetes and other obesity related illnesses continue to rise. The number of overweight children and teens you see is distressing.

Surely his needs to change rather than shrugging that it's too hard, or that we should be body positive. We should not be body positive when children and teens are developing type 2 diabetes.

@HesterShaw1 completely agree. There's not enough push on information on how to give yourself the best fighting chance. Ultimately, being a healthy weight and fit gives you the best chance but also things like making sure you eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and take vitamin d to support a good immune system.

Well, with the spiralling cost of living there's going to be an increase in people who have to select their food based on cost rather than nutrition. We may see millions priced out of being able to actually cook. So that'll be a great help.

I’m not really sure where we go from here. At some point we’re going to have to face the fact that if the living with covid plan is actually just pretend it’s like flu, then treating other things is not going to be possible for large parts of the year. And if you do need admitting as an emergency, catching Covid is going to be a risk. And that’s before we get onto repeated covid infections potentially causing an increase in people requiring healthcare due to the damage it has done to their cardiovascular/neurological or immune system.

I don’t see any sign that this government are going to do what other places have done and require places to have decent ventilation.

I like to eat healthy. I tend to avoid cereals for breakfast because they are not filling. I tend to focus on eggs and vegetables and a fibre source like bread for breakfast. For lunch it's often a salad like sweet potato, beet root and feta cheese or a salmon salad. I love homemade soup. My recent soup is a beetroot soup. I am not usually hungry for a big meal in the evenings. I do my best to limit processed foods. I like to add in some fruit servings during my days too - berries, banana, mango, oranges.

I have supplements in my diet too like vitamin c every morning and a vitamin D capsule and magnesium every night and a b complex. I am taking iron too due to low iron.

I exercise too as much as I can, as much as what my work will allow me to. Its a complex situation but often there are long hours from morning time til night time.

I do my best and I focus on diet.

It did not help me not week when I was sick. I was down for the week sick.

I lost my taste and smell too and ironically my good diet went out the window. I made an online grocery order and I ordered something I didn't have in years - cereal. Not only cereal, I ordered something I didn't have in nearly 20 years - frosties. I wasn't able to taste anything except for sweet and salty. I wasn't able to taste flavours.