To Think People Have No Idea How Covid Messaging Has Changed

[Sunshineguy]

The CDC, HHS, and WHO are warning that Covid infections can get progressively worse and that the risk of Long Covid increases with each reinfection. Are people aware of this change in messaging?

Suggestions about opening windows on buses don't seem particularly well tailored for the UK in winter.

That doesn't change the fact that most of us are just about surviving day to day. I know I am. Lobbying and campaigning and organising takes energy and time that lots don't have to spare

Point is, there is very little that can be done, even the most draconian testing and lockdown regimes, as trialled in china, or isolation, as trialled in NZ, failed, such is the infectivity of covid.

The fact it was starting to spead out of control in China, despite all they were doing, shows anything less won't even make a dent.

I know someone who owns a manufacturing firm that make air conditioners, I asked him if they were looking into making air filtration units for covid - he said point blank, they had been asked, but had concluded they wouldn't work and therefore the market would collapse / they could get sued for selling a non working product. Make of that what you will.

I don't know how much clearer it can be! Look - 700 million known covid infections, 7 million known covid deaths..... 1%

How do they count known COVID infections. Who is reporting COVID?
How many unknown (unreported) COVID infections are happening daily that don't make it into the figures?

This is the combination of all governments across the world

What do you want people to do exactly?

@WestwardHo1 apparently we need to set up a pro-ventilation lobby group, open the window on the bus we never go on, and complain to our bosses about their policies, even though we have no idea of their policies. At least that’s the answer I got that question

fancy meeting up next week to set that lobby group up ? 😂

I use the bus and if we opened the windows in winter it would be unbearably cold. Be dying of hypothermia rather than Covid.

It is considered both a respiratory and a vascular disease, according to the British Heart Foundation; even viewed purely as a respiratory disease, it is one that often has longterm damaging effects on the cardiovascular system, so it is a respiratory disease known for vascular complications.

Is coronavirus a disease of the blood vessels? - BHF

Yes I get that. My question about known cases still remains. For the death rate to be 1 percent every case will have to have been reported.

Isolation periods did work to minimise both infection and death levels while there wasn't a vaccine.

@WestwardHo1

Call me selfish but it's beyond my mental energy to take responsibility for everyone else's health if it involves lobbying (who exactly?) for deeply unrealistic and expensive air filtration systems in public building. I'm not going to go along a bus opening windows if it means other people yell at me for making them cold. I went to the doc the other day and none of the staff were wearing a mask, so it seemed a bit pointless for me, a well person, to put one on.

Given you have always been a naysayer and against fairly much everything Covid-related, this doesn't surprise me.

Just be a responsible human being, really.

Not referring to isolation periods, referring to global isolation.

but on isolation periods, and other methods, the game changed dramatically with omicron as it is so much more infectious than previous variants. all these methods became much less viable at that point.

Absolutely. There is nothing that can be done.

This thing happened in the world and there's no going back to a world where there was no risk from covid or long covid.

The options are to spend your time worrying about covid and long covid, or else not worry about covid and long covid, either way everyone is at risk, and it's not humans faults, it's because of nature.

@PropertyManager

Not referring to isolation periods, referring to global isolation.

but on isolation periods, and other methods, the game changed dramatically with omicron as it is so much more infectious than previous variants. all these methods became much less viable at that point.

I'm aware of what you were referring to - I lived through it. My opinion remains the same.

I can't wait till you can get the vaccine and pay for it, as I'm not eligible for the top ups now.

@kkloo

Absolutely. There is nothing that can be done.

This thing happened in the world and there's no going back to a world where there was no risk from covid or long covid.

Happily, scientists and physicians are not as fatalistic and defeatist as you.

I'll correct that statement.
There could indeed be medical treatments that could help to limit or undo the damage in future, but there is nothing that the general population can do now that will stop it continuing to spread/mutate etc.

Did people miss the part where the world already tried the most extreme option of locking everyone indoors? and now people are talking about opening up windows as if that will make a difference? bizarre

I'd say that it's the 'you're at risk from x, y, z crowd who are more fatalistic tbh.

Telling people oh it could feel like a mild cold and you could feel fully recovered in a day but inside your body it's could be wreaking havoc and you're going to get parkinsons and heart problems and every other health issue going and you won't know until later on is fairly fatalistic

Oh and if you don't suffer the damage the next time you catch covid it will probably happen the time after that, or the time after that...but it will get you eventually

Thanks to everyone who's commented. Lots of different opinions.

It strikes me that no government ever said it was no safe to keep catching Covid. What they said was that it was up to us to assess our own risk.

At the same time, leading scientists, including Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, said they hoped repeat exposure would turn the virus into something our immune system would manage like a cold.

Instead, it's continued to cause organ and immune damage with each wave, so in America some of the most complacent states such as Alabama and Oklahoma now have over 30% of their population suffering from Long Covid according to the US census bureau.

I know too many people in their 30s and 40s who have had strokes, embolisms, heart attacks and new onset diabetes. Everyone seems to be ill all the time and fatigue and minor ailments are the norm.

The change in the CDC messaging is focused on vaccination but the US HHS (their department of health) and the WHO advise people to use N95 (FFP2) respirator mask and ventilation and filtration whenever possible. I know doctors who work on Covid wards and who are tested regularly who have never had Covid because they wear the correct masks and work in hospitals with HEPA on their wards.

I know too many people in their 30s and 40s who have had strokes, embolisms, heart attacks and new onset diabetes. Everyone seems to be ill all the time and fatigue and minor ailments are the norm.

You must know a very sickly bunch because I don't know of anybody with the same issues.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/thousands-hospitalised-and-an-nhs-warning-how-covid-still-grips-the-uk/ar-BB1hCfSN

I posted article upthread, but looks like you can, from April.

How much will the vaccine be?

@Sunshineguy
"It strikes me that no government ever said it was no safe to keep catching Covid. What they said was that it was up to us to assess our own risk."

Doesn't this apply to any disease though? Has a Dr ever recommended you go out and try to catch a cold? Or recommended a good dose of gonorrhea? Silly thing to say.

To repsond to the OP, yes the goal posts have shifted massively from 2020. Remember it would be a mild illness for most, reinfections would be vanishingly rare (only for those with compromised immune systems) and we could build up a wall of immunity so it would just be like a common cold in the future.
Now we know reinfections are common, even in short order, even a mild illness can lead to organ damage,immune harm and long covid, and any infection can be your worst. A massive change in messaging in those four years. What will the next four bring?
And you don't have to accept this is inevitable and there's nothing you can do. We used to accept cholera epidemics and post-partum bloodpoisoning and a near 50% child mortality rate as an inevitable part of life but then we started campaigning for clean water, sanitation, hand hygiene and better housing. Things improved. There are always things we can do, don't wait for governments to do it for you - read this
www.everydayexpertise.net/cleanair.html