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?

@Butterdishy Bizarrely, some doctors in uk have recommended people go out and catch illnesses. It's one reason why there's been no routine vaccination against chicken pox for uk kids unlike the US.

How are all these healthy people getting multiple covid infections? I am out and about a lot and had covid once, Mr Monkey has never had it.

Most friends are similar

The fact that it has become a common virus doesn't mean it won't have long term repercussions. That's not how things work.

It's quite possible that it has become common AND repeated infections can increase the risk of long covid.

I despair that adults working with kids don't have the ability to think critically and just leap into assertions based on what they want to think and believe.

In the article, it says £45.

I don't think it's defeatest to carry on living and accept a risk.

Once the popultion of this country routinely had to endure Smallpox, TB, Polio, Typhoid, etc.., they couldn't do anything about it, they had to live.

Then, in the fullness of time scientists like Flemming, Jenner, Salk et al solved these conundrums, with far less technology than we have today.

I have every faith that scientists will crack this, given the number of brains focussed on the task - but it could take decades, it may be reliant on technolgies yet to be developed.

In the meantime I still have to teach my science classes, who knows one of those studious youngsters might go on to be the one who resolves covid! life, and of course sadly death, have to go on as they always have....

This is the problem with anecdotal evidence, as I said earlier, like you, no personal experience of any of these things, despite teaching in a school of 1200 kids, 200 staff (most of whom I know to chat to) and octogenarian parents with a wide circle of friends.

That doesn't mean that another person has quite the opposite experience, but rather that mine is so very boring and mundane as to be quite uninteresting, therefore the genuine horror stories appear to be commonplace as they are the ones recounted - those with nothing to report, say nothing...

Gosh @Arbor you have me figured out! Against "pretty much everything Covid related" doesn't actually mean anything you know. Unless you mean "against being guilt tripped into agreeing with measures which made manifestly no difference at all, did no good at all, simply because the likes of Sturgeon wanted to score political points". Have you read the latest evidence on what happened in care homes in Scotland? You think me opening windows on a bus would have prevented that? While we were/are led by such donkeys?

Just be a responsible human being, really And as for that, given that you know absolutely nothing about me, I think I'll carry on as I am thanks.

I work in an education setting, as do many of my social circle. We come into contact with hundreds of children from different schools every week.
I guess if people work in hospitality, supermarkets, public transport, town centres, they are routinely coming into contact with thousands of people weekly.
I would imagine we're the one's exposed and catching it the most.

I've had covid 3 times (that I know of/symptoms and tested positive) now.

Mr Monkey worked in hospitality during lockdown (when it was open) and now works in retail in central London. We both use public transport every day in London and I had to go in to the office a couple of days a week during lockdown. We live in a block of flats and have to walk through windowless shared areas every day to leave our flat

Since lockdown eased we have travelled, gone to many gigs, music festivals etc.... and been fine.

Of course we could have had it asymptomatically a lot and not noticed. We are both fit and healthy and at 53 Mr Monkey recently ran a sub 3.15 marathon, so if we have had a lot of covid it hasn't impacted us.

The infection risk seems very unevenly distributed, which in and of itself is very interesting.

I wonder if prior susceptabilty to infection is a factor. Neither if us have ever had flu or even a chest or throat infection and rarely get colds (I don 't think I have had a cold since lockdown)

@WestwardHo1

Gosh @Arbor you have me figured out! Against "pretty much everything Covid related" doesn't actually mean anything you know. Unless you mean "against being guilt tripped into agreeing with measures which made manifestly no difference at all, did no good at all, simply because the likes of Sturgeon wanted to score political points".

I don’t live in Scotland, so I wouldn’t know. I do know most Covid measures around the world were more or less similar and not particularly related to political point-gaining. Besides, most measures were unpopular, weren’t they? So what points would she be gaining? And of course they made a difference. (Some more than others.)

@OldAndNotWise I’m in a similar position - never thought I’d get LC this badly. Was fit, healthy, vaccinated. I got LC after my first infection, was ‘fine’ after infection 2 but 3 seems to have affected me again. While I agree that we can’t go back to a world of lockdowns, masks etc, there does seem to be an extreme amount of gaslighting about the long term effects of covid, origins etc. I’m not sure what the answer is though - I guess we’ll see the true impact in a decade or so…

I imagine some people are just very resilient to it.
I've had it 3 times but my parents, in their 70's, haven't and neither has my son even though in the same house as me.

I do think I've mainly caught it off children though - and once really badly from a music festival - that was my worst bout of it.

I know they are investigating possible genetic resistance.

Mr Monkey did not get it when I had covid, despite us sharing a flat and bed whilst I was isolating (although I was virtually asymptomatic)

I take it you haven't been following the enquiry. That seems strange, seeing as you are so interested in Covid.

Personally I think the fact that Sturgeon wore a tartan facemask tells us all you need to know about a lot of her motivation.

someone quoted 700,000 million cases and 7 million deaths = 1% fatality however the population of the world is 7 billion this would mean only 10% of the population have ever had covid however mild, current estimates in UK are that less than 10% have never had covid. 700 million cases is a vast underestimation, it is more likely to be 5+ billion cases so more like 0.14% at worst
as mentioned earlier in 2022 in England and Wales 22,000 people had covid as leading cause of death and a further 24,000 had it mentioned as a contributory factor. For the fatality rate to be 1% the number of infections however mild or asymptomatic in England and Wales must have been a max of 4.6 million which is 7.7% of population way more than 7% of poulation had covid in 2022 ( the estimate is actually roughly 50% of population ) which would make fatality rate of infections 0.15% . however fatality rates are normally carried out on a whole population basis which would make it 0.075% and if you only count those where it is the leading cause it is about 0.037%
this doesn't mean covid is nothing it just means that the fatality rate is not 1%, it may have been 1% at the very beginning when no vaccines and not knowing the best treatments.
current thinking is that between 10-20% of population have never had covid or have had it with no symptoms at all, there is great interest in whether some people are actually immune as they don't appear to be individuals who shield or who are extra cautious re contacts etc

I really don't think most covid measures were unpopular, not initially anyway. It was later on that the tide started to turn. In the UK at least, the first lockdown was politically unavoidable.

I think there is definitely a genetic link - and certain genes predispose you to suffering worse from Covid, despite no underlying health conditions.

Id love for a vaccine to be developed that prevented you from getting Covid, although I know that’s pretty much impossible.

@Vegetus @PropertyManager But it's not just anecdotal. So many organisations across the world, Bank of England, the Fed, ONS, National Census Bureaus, global insurers and government departments around the world, are all reporting the same rise in long term illhealth and disability, and longevity is already reduced in many developed countries.
If everyone you know is fit and well post-Covid, then count yourselves lucky. It doesn't fit with global data trends.

well yes of course there are billions of unreported cases and millions of unreported deaths, but we can only use the figures of reported cases and reported deaths to calculate death rate, can't we. 1% of recorded covid cases have resulted in death

Covid has undoibtable caused a rise in long term sickness but I think at the moment the rise in ill health is hard to decouple frpm lockdown effects. Staying at home was so bad emotionally and physically for people, especially the elderly. So many people saw older but fit relatives become really mentally and physically frail after lockdown.

There is a slight change in messaging - seems lots of people thought 'I didn't get it badly the last times, so that means will always be ok', which this advert addresses. I really feel for the kids of today who will be paying a large price for decisions adults have made on their behalf, especially with refusing even basic, relatively inexpensive measures like air cleaners in schools to reduce the viral burden.

And no one can extrapolate? I find that a bit hard to believe. That's what statisticians are for.

And this is the point isn't it: Covid has undoubtably caused a rise in long term sickness but I think at the moment the rise in ill health is hard to decouple from lockdown effects. Staying at home was so bad emotionally and physically for people, especially the elderly. So many people saw older but fit relatives become really mentally and physically frail after lockdown.

It is now acknowledged that since the end of lockdown and since the end of the pandemic that all cause mortality amongst Britons of all ages is increasing. Covid is not the cause. You can't shut down normal health care for any period and expect there to be no knock on effects. Doubtless there are some here who will say that these are no doubt due to Long Covid and ignore the fact that huge numbers of them are conditions that were not picked up in time when normal healthcare was denied.

I am not going to spend my life preoccupied with not getting Covid just in case I get Long Covid. I could get all manners of illness and diseases. I had it twice - the second time not bad, the first time was rough I won't deny. I did all the right things. I isolated. I got all jabs I was called for.

Personal anecdote: DP's gran died alone in a care home in 2021 believing everyone hated her because she had spent so long on her own, and everyone had stopped visiting her. She didn't understand how to use mobiles or do Facetime, and staff didn't have time to help her. They barely have the time and energy to keep the vulnerable residents hydrated. I find this fact unconscionably sad.

why would you need to extrapolate when you have a sample size of 700 million?

@notknowledgeable when you know a figure is inaccurate you can't go by it especially as we know it is a vast underestimation, the vast majority of the world ( outside of developed / first world) did not test any except the seriously sick and certainly never tested the asymptomatic. So 1% is known to be much too high as we know it is underestimated cases by a huge factor it is not even a guesstimate

you simply can not extrapolate when you know one figure is unreliable to the extent of 300-800%

@BitOutOfPractice "Sorry to ask a “deeply stupid” question then…what action should I take as a middle aged woman in England, with no underlying health issues or responsibilities for caring for vulnerable people. What decisions should I take as a result of reading that message?"

I'd say live your life fully and don't give it a second thought. Why worry about something that may or may not happen? After all, somethings gotta get you.

And on a slightly separate note that's saying that Covid is even a risk now. PP mentioned all these ailments and damage coming out of contracting Covid...who says it's Covid damage? Could it be vaccine damage? The horrid pesticides peppered on all of our food? Something else? The waters are so muddied now and lots of faith lost in the people who are elected to guide us. The way this was all handled, I'm not surprised people think something fishy is going on. I think we would be silly to assume that the powers that be always have our best interests at heart. There's a lot of money to be made from this stuff.

I think there are extremes to both sides of the argument and neither are helpful.