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.

@funzeny I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted I can barely make it up the stairs. I think you are referring to people who are just positive but not ill.
I’m nhs , my dpt don’t want me anywhere near. Being zero hrs , they can just tell me “ there’s no hrs,” . I don’t get sick pay on bank.

The one thing I learned in the summer time and indeed throughiut covid is to look after myself. If I get sick again. That's it I don't care. I'm not going to isolate and if I can stand at all I will pass it on.

How lovely. I'm not particularly stressed about Covid in particular, but nobody should be going out when they know they have a nasty viral infection. That was disgusting behaviour before Covid and still is. One would have hoped at least the whole Covid thing would have hammered that point home: if you are unwell, stay at home!

I think it's so important for people to realise that early or mild symptoms has the potential to turn into covid

This is very confused. An infection can't "turn into Covid". It either is Covid, or not. People may not realise it's Covid early on if symptoms are mild, but a viral infection won't start out because of one virus then suddenly become Covid later.

You say you work in the health service but this comment makes me doubtful. Or scared, if it is true that you do!

If people have viral symptoms they are obviously not well enough to be out in public! I don't know why people do this, it's gross, Covid aside.

It can be as gross as you like, but the fact remains that people have no choice but to go into work (or school) with symptoms. It was the same before covid - bosses didn't take kindly to people phoning in sick for a sniffle then, and they don't now.

I'm not saying this is right necessarily, I'm just saying it is what it is. The real issue here is employers who don't pay for sick leave, and also zero hour contracts, where no work = no pay.

It's not selfish to need to keep a roof over your head.

Viral symptoms seems to be getting conflated with nasty symptoms here. They're not the same, one can have mild viral symptoms.

But even if they were, there are people who have no choice but to be out if they're physically capable of it because they can't afford to lose pay. Other people's failure to get their heads round it doesn't make two shits of difference.

I read before that covid can hide out in the body and that's what long covid is, apparently. Apparently its hiding in the body and then it brews up from time to time. I read that it can live in the gut. I have gut issues as it is so I took laxatives and cleared myself out and followed a liquid diet for a few days. If I get covid again I will do the same to try and prevent long covid. There's no medical stuff and I have no guidance from a medical professional to do this but this makes senses to me. Just in case covid is hiding in my gut, it makes sense to clear out my system with laxatives and flush it out with a liquid diet

You believe you can 'clear covid' from your body by taking laxatives? Gosh that's worrying.

@prizlime no wasn't sick last time though I got conjunctivitis. I've never had any of the classic symptoms whenever I've had it and have never been too ill but am tired of it now! Especially as I won't get paid for this time off work.

I assume it is now going to be the same thing every year: it becomes more of an issue in what is already the cold/flu season.

There is a programme of boosters at the moment though for the most at risk groups.

I know people who have had it several times now.

I have never had Covid, although I live in London which always has some of the highest levels of infection. I still have no idea as to why some people seem less affected by it than others.

Please don't dismiss COVID. My mum is in such a mess.
COVID positive, diagnosed the same day with COVID induced paranoia and now a very quick decline to rapid onset dementia. Her behaviours, due to this are beyond belief.

Horrific.

OK, so you're happy to have your child's class closed, hospital appointment cancelled, train cancelled, shop closed, every time staff have a runny nose or a sore throat?

I've had it twice. First time I felt awful and was in bed for about 3 days. Second time felt like a cold. It's a strange illness

Are you sure? I work for the NHS and have COVID at the moment. My hospital is saying stay at home after a positive test and then test again on day 5. if you're testing negative then and again 24 hours later you're allowed back into work if you feel well.

I'm so sorry. That sounds awful. It's a cruel virus.

I had covid in Dec 2020 and all it was for me was the worst sore throat I've ever had and a desire to sleep. I was still Wfh but would log off at 5PM and fall straight to sleep till I woke up at 8.30am to log on again. The only time I left my bedroom? was xmas day and that was hard work. I was unwell for about 6 days.

But, I remember having a cold in 2018 and literally thought I was dying. I have never been so unwell, aches, pains, shivers, very high fever (into the 40s), restlessness, sleepless nights, inability to focus......I mean it was the worst I have ever felt. I ended up going to hospital who confirmed it wasnt flu but "just a cold". I was unwell for a couple of weeks.

So I do think people snidley saying covid "isnt just a cold" has never had a REALLY bad cold. Colds can still be deadly to the vulnerable, but most employers still expected you in work if you could. So the fact covid is being treated the same way is sensible. Both covid and a cold can be mild, or deadly.

Not in my work you don't !

But that aside - my post was simply suggesting to the OP that if she was concerned about her colleagues that she may wish to wear a mask herself. I wasn't commenting on why anyone else would go into work with Covid as I am well aware that people have very different and individual circumstances .

5 days off then you must have two negative tests done 24 hours apart for social care too...

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.

I don't think it is that simple, though. The incubation time for BA.4/5 is now just 2 days! It's possible to spread the virus almost before you are aware you have it.

It seems weird that govt don't really mention covid or a proper strategy for living with it, that doesn't involve huge swathes of people being sick all the time, along with the obvious longer term issues of organ damage and long covid. Where are the plans for air quality? How can NHS take this continual excess pressure? How do we look after the increase in those no longer able to work and those now caring for them? What we are doing now is not cost free.

The problem is that just because ongoing covid means significant pressure on the NHS etc, doesn't mean there actually exists a strategy allowing us to avoid high sickness rates and longer term issues. The one doesn't make the other happen, unfortunately. So the failure to come up with a strategy that couldn't exist isn't actually weird at all.

I'm in favour of better ventilation, we had far too many stuffy buildings even before covid. But we could prioritise that immediately and it still wouldn't prevent constant transmission, some longer term problems because of infection and the problems these things cause in an NHS that already had massive structural issues. Obviously the Tories have an incentive not to mention the way in which the cuts of the last dozen years have also made things worse, and that stupid decisions like the vaccine mandate for care workers last year were short term contributors to the crisis.

I am wearing a mask in work but everyone is offended at it because they say its not covid completely forgetting that I don't want to get sick at this time.

People are arguing for economic reasons why people move around and go to work while. I think it is somewhat valid but it doesn't hold up. People move around while sick within social settings and social activities too. Social activities doesn't impact your income or bills. It's making excuses to validate shitty behaviour. You would swear by some of your replies that you all experience sickness every working day of the year when generally sickness is short lived. It's not right to pass it on.

I had a colleague who came into work on a Tuesday morning after being sick the night before. On Thursday I came down with the same hideous dose. All he had to do was give it 24 hours to let it pass but nope, he passed on vomiting and diarrhoea. If someone can't let 24 hours pass in that incident without struggling on bills and a mortgage they have deeper issues.

There are also those that want to stay off when infectious, but are pressured against it, so have to pretend to be sicker than they are to avoid making colleagues sick! It makes no sense! How does a company operate better with more staff sick, more rounds of sickness, rather than let one isolate? Same for schools - covid is a notifiable illness, yet kids are now told not to test! Why?! How does that help the rest of the class?!

You would swear by some of your replies that you all experience sickness every working day of the year when generally sickness is short lived. It's not right to pass it on.

No you wouldn't. That's a bizarre interpretation.

The fact remains that people being unable to do without their wages is a full and comprehensive explanation for why they'd go into work sick. You just don't like it.

No, that doesn't cover every single instance of people being out and about whilst infected, but then nobody said it did. And meanwhile you aren't entitled to expect people to default on their bills because you think it makes you less likely to get a disease that's absolutely everywhere and frequently transmitted asymptomatically.

With apologies to those of you who say you've seen too many graphs 😆Tim Spector of the ZOE Covid study has just uploaded his latest video to YouTube. He says that Covid is increasing rapidly. Meanwhile, "everything else" (i.e. illnesses which cause cold-like symptoms but result in a negative Covid test) is increasing more dramatically than Covid.

OP, you mentioned that your colleagues aren't keen on masks because they maintain they don't have Covid. You might put it to them that whether or not it's Covid, you still don't want to catch whatever it may be that they're spreading around.