Is covid growing rampant again

[Prizlime]

I read an article online and it says it is growing. Another article says that a newer symptom for starting off is a sore throat.

I am in work and my colleague and boss both have sore throats.

I'm supposed to be going away on holidays. I feel fine to be honest but the idea of getting sick right now or withing the next week doesn't appeal to me.

Same here.

I tested positive yesterday - never had it before in all the previous spikes despite both DDs having it etc. DP’s mum is in a hospice and she and everyone in there came down with it last week - DP tested positive in Saturday. I started with a sore throat yes!

It hasn’t been just a cold for us, I can’t make it out of my bed for more than 5 mins without needing to go and lie down. I’ve been either sleeping or watching shite daytime TV - even typing this is exhausting.

I don’t know what kind of colds other people have but this is nothing like a cold I’ve ever had.

I had covid in the summer and that was my experience too. I was ill. I have an underlying condition too so when I saw my fever I knew I was in trouble.

Why are so many people being gaslighted by being told its a cold?

You lost me when you said you would just pass it on because everyone else is.

I’ve got it now. I feel like shit and had to miss a really important hospital appointment. I have sore ribs from coughing; my temperature has been all over the place for days; my ear is popping and crackling (it hurts), and I have sickness and diarrhoea.

Just got over my seventh round of covid. Yes, it's on the increase again, as it will be every year when the schools and universities go back. DD is a teacher and she brought it into the house this time - there are literally hundreds of kids and staff off at the moment with it (or a 'nasty cold' among those who aren't testing). Out of DH's team of 15, 11 are off.

Why are people moving about knowingly being sick and just passing it on?

Because they've no choice. DC are expected to be back in school after five days. DD had to go back to work after five days, still testing positive and with (mild) symptoms. Many workplaces aren't even allowing the five days - it's like the olden days in that if you're well enough to come in, you have to come in.

The scary thing is it starts off mild like a cold so it's passed on and on and then it turns.

I've had a cold and that is what it was, no sore throat even tested for a week and still nothing.

Maybe they have been testing?

It may be just a cold for some people but it's clearly much more than that for many others.

I felt unwell over the weekend with a sore throat, tested positive on Monday and since then I have felt absolutely terrible - worse than I have ever felt before, I think, even with flu. I've never had a fever with a cold - only with flu and tonsillitis.

In the past hour or so my fever has gone and I'm feeling a little less wretched.

So if you do go down with it OP, let's hope it's short lived and mild.

I had a horrendous sore throat with covid in August, OH had a sore throat too but not quite as bad.

Is "growing rampant" the 2022 version of "exponential growth"? Or "ripping through"? Or carnage maybe?

Seriously. Some people need to get their heads around the fact that Covid is going nowhere and we're going to see peaks and troughs just as with any other disease that you were never interested in monitoring before March 2020.

No it isn’t as an epidemic it is finished. It’s just the ridiculous British tabloid press with their usual ridiculous scaremongering. I mean honestly “experts have said”.
I mean what experts, who are they, what are they qualified in?
Are they perhaps the same so called experts who tell us that we can fix 350 plus years of global industrial pollution as well as years of detonating nuclear bombs under the sea by driving electric cars full of planet pillaging heavy metals whilst we sit at home with a slightly thicker carrier bag and a special lightbulb.
Covid Pah, it’s over.

If I do get it, hopefully it will be mild but if its not

I'm just getting over COVID, for those saying it's just a "cold" I can assure you,for some ppl, it's not. I felt like I had been hit by a bus. Was sick for four days before I tested positive. Started with an irritating tickle in my throat. Still have no energy.

I think masks are needed or some other kind of restrictions for those of us who are vulnerable ! I’ve never not known none of my 4 inhalers not to work on my asthma and one is a heavy steroid!

I’m breathing a little better and luckily I have antibiotics from my last chest infection left so I’m going to take one tonight after dinner before my chest problems get any worse ( if that’s possible)

Really feel like I've got it again. Tickly throat for two days thinking oh just a sniffles, then about 10am this morning took a massive downhill turn - aches, nausea, throat has gone like glass shards and headache. Either that or tonsillitis as daughter had that a couple of weeks ago x

How long was it since you got covid

I came down with a sore throat last week which rapidly progressed to fluey-sinusitis misery. Lots of gastric stuff too. I tested positive, felt like utter death for two days, and snapped back over the weekend. In all, it was a tough week; fast but furious, a couple of brutal days for sure. It was a bad flu with an actual, logical trajectory this time (as opposed to the meandering ‘Hmmm, I wonder what surprises Covid will bring today?’ dragged-out experience I had before). It behaved more rationally this time!

I don't want to give out to you but I have to. You shouldn't have any antibiotics left after a prescription of antibiotics. You shouldn't be taking another antib if you only have one or two left.

Covid will be a walk in the park compared to the antibiotic resistance pandemic that will surely come our way some day.

😢

@Prizlime yes it’s ramping up again sadly. The vaccine has meant that the likelihood of serious illness or death is reduced by something like 86% I think which is great and is true even if you’ve had only a couple of doses of the vaccine many months ago (but we’ll have to wait and see how long this lasts- could eventually wain quite a bit).

However Immunity to -catching Covid at all, to getting asymptomatic covid, or milder/moderate (ie you’re sick but don’t need to go to hospital) symptoms only seems to last at most 3-4 months after your last vaccine or infection. It could be as small a window as 40 days (in this respect as a corona virus it’s much more like cold than flu).

The really annoying news is this, reinfection increases the risk of long Covid and worse symptoms, instead of protecting you long term. In some large multi country studies they found something like 30% of people have at least one long Covid symptom 12 months or longer after infection (eg fatigue, lack of taste or smell, muscle pains, cognitive symptoms, hair loss). This was found to be the case among a large proportion of children also, I think maybe around 8-15% children get long Covid for at least 3 months after, it’s not very clear but it’s enough to be worried about reinfection among children I think. Fewer than 1 in 100,000 children may also develop MIS-C, which is a very dangerous but luckily very rare post Covid complication for children. However, if we are just “letting it rip” we could potentially see a troubling number of MIS-C and a huge amount of long Covid.

Other risk factors which increase the chance of getting long covid: being a woman, high BMI, smoker, co-morbidities (the more of them the higher the risk) having less money.

All this is just to say, yes very few people/organisations are doing anything to mitigate against it anymore. But it’s still worth thinking about the risks of reinfection- it doesn’t appear that getting a mild dose lots of times makes you super immune for example, it looks like it mainly increases the risk of long term complications. It’s annoying, because we’re all bored of it but that doesn’t mean the pandemic is over yet.

In March but I was asymptomatic then, just showed up on a swab during an A&E admission! That was fun, I got thrown in a room with a commode it was like being locked up lol

I got sick 3 times this summer all from other people writing off their symptoms of sick.

I got covid followed by a 24 hour bug followed by another bug. All from people who couldn't be bothered to isolate.

There's a simple solution to this and that is for people to simply stop going out and about and mixing with others while being sick.

6 of us at work have it. (Nhs). It crippling is as we have to have ten days off. We have never had this many of before.

All of this hits home and makes sense.

The worst part is that so many people treat this like a little cold,

Nothing is stopping you wearing a mask if you want to. You can also impose restrictions on yourself if you wish. But please don't agitate for mandatory masks and restrictions for all during a cost of living crisis. People can ill afford to lose wages - or indeed their jobs - more than ever before. Poverty kills, too. And at far higher rates than covid ever has.

Also worth remembering that restrictions were never intended to protect public health per se, rather to reduce pressure on the NHS.