Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

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Furby
 
 
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by Furby »

This strep seems to be taking told with 8 childreh died already. It's made me question health services know what they are doing yet again because of how they change minds to exact opposites which if science based would not happen overnight.

They have been saying for years mustn't give antibiotics even to sick people because it makes resistance and now they are saying preventive use of antibiotics for school children because of this new strep.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

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Well surprise surprise we have run out of antibiotics. It all seems a bit odd to me. 9 children is 9 too many to die but it shouldn't be enough to use up the antibiotics already even with 9 schools of children all getting prescriptions at once should it. I start to wonder conspiracy if all these health scares are sponsored by drug companies who will no doubt have tripled the price of antibiotics now. Scarlet fever has always been a thing for children why is it top news. We never know if there is more behind these stories not being told yet or if it's just luck (not I a good way) that health officials and people who want fusses and knee jerk reactions made have managed to get the attention of reporters this time.

I wonder if we will live long enough to find out about covid. Probably not the vaccine stuff is on 70 year embargo and any foreign policy is usually at least 30. Something happened between UK deciding it wasn't an extermination level threat (we had Italy by this point) and a week later locking down. Did they find out somethng serious that changed cabinet minds. No one who knows will be allowed to tell so I suppose no point me wondering.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by Furby »

Covid is back in news because china are stopping their restrictions in particular allowing people to go on holidays elsewhere in the world for Chinese New year in January.. countries like Italy and USA are making them take tests and Italy has found half are positive. Uk has said they are allowing free travel despite everything which is where are started three years back isn't it. Uk prioritised the rights of foreign travellers and made the home population suffer lockdown later to save the NHS instead. Unless all countries do travel restrictions I can't see the point though because travellers can just fly to UK and then on to USA. They needs restrictions on the restricted country plus all other countries without restrictions for it to have a hope.

It's quite worrying because we in uk are told covid is over now yet if other countries are doing restrictions again that suggests they don't believe it is over.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by OurCreature »

Those of us with brains between our ears - which I'm sure includes every member of this Board - instead of crap know jolly well that Covid hasn't gone away despite the efforts of HMG and their lackeys to persuade us otherwise. I think the thing to do is to take whatever precautions you feel appropriate to your circumstances. Nowadays I am 100% reliant on the vaccines to keep me safe, so I am waiting to see what the policy is when last September's booster is thought to have run out. I also keep a few facemasks in my bag so that if I feel unhappy about travelling on the bus I can put one on even though the main purpose of face masks is to protect the people near you rather than yourself.

I think the main advantage of making Chinese visitors undergo tests for Covid will be to improve the chances of detecting new variants that might have emerged in China. If that is the real reason for testing them it needs to be PCR tests because those are the results they analyse to see what sort of Covid the testee is infected with. Testing them just for the sake of demonstrating that 'something is being done' is a stupid waste of money and time.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by Wildrover »

I get really fed up with this - MYF's parents got Covid earlier this year after 4 vaccine shots and they were under the weather ( though not life threateningly ill) for 2 weeks but the cough and shortness of breath took 3 months to go. They got Covid again earlier this month and were only under the weather (by which I mean tired and achy) for 5 days but 3 weeks down the line they both have really hacking coughs and he has noticeable shortness of breath. Covid is not trivial for OAPs especially and I get annoyed with people who say it is. Allowing people into the UK from a country with the infection rates that China currently has is utter madness - if half the plane was infected when they arrive you can bet the other half will have become infected on the plane. Then they're all going to troop through a busy airport and often onto public transport - utterly ludicrous. And that's always saying they haven't got another new strain.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by Furby »

U turn for England. But travellers get a weeks notice to flood in before the testing deadline and as i type can still fly to Scotland or wales and then travel on to England. I am surprised at Scotland because Nicola surgeon always tried to be tougher than England on covid matters didn't she. So probably u turn for Scotland soon but they are all too drunk right now at hogmonay to be making policial decisions.

The arguments against travel restrictions are they don't stop spread which is true but this is because they allow exceptions for diplomats business people family emergencies etc. But fewer infected people means fewer people virus is spread to at least this week and it will help the NHS not to have thousands of people turning up on same day because with our own covid and flu and general accident and emergency needs and strikes it's already struggling and new year always kicks off flu with all the kissing. On the other hand if lots of people die now they aren't there to die or need treatment later and that saves NHS work so it's difficult to calculate the best or worst overall effect as it does depend on who you care about most there's not really a science answer.

All the science people have been very quiet lately. It will be interesting to see what they say about vaccines next because as oc said the September ones are going to wearing off soon. Will we all get yet another booster it's just mad now isn't it. I am not medically trained in viruses and biology and vaccines but it does seem to me as an interested observer that the point is coming where they have to admit there is no point in vaccines. Even if there is a point they can't be vaccinating millions of people every few months because of the expense and workforce needed.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by eccles »

I still think there's a case for yearly vaccine top-ups. After all, we've been having Autumn flu jabs for decades. I'm surprised the two vaccines haven't been combined into one yet, but maybe in a couple of years they will be. What happened to the Oxford vaccine? When that was developed there was a big thing about it being able to be tweaked for new variants. I know the EU has gone off AZ but the rest of the world is out there still getting infected. Then there was Imperial College London with its brand new souped up version of the RNA synthetic vaccines. That's gone quiet as well.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by eccles »

There is a new Omicron variant called XBB1.5. Omicron was really really contagious, whereas XBB1.5 is really really contagiouser. It has taken off in the USA and has arrived in the UK. Lucky old us.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by Furby »

The vaccine program is being stopped on 12 February for most people and there will just be a 99th booster plan for people who are on the list decided by NHS experts.

Astra zeneca vaccine did disappear without trace didnt it. Even for the third booster it was have the pzier or else. All of the vaccines promised they could do upgrades and there was one combined Omicron version for the fourth booster I think but it seemed random who actually got it.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by eccles »

I turn 75 this year. Does that put me on their list?
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by Wildrover »

Hmm - that's not the way I understand it. The Autumn booster vacccine programme will end on February 12 but there will be a roll out of the Spring 2023 programme starting at the end of March for anyone over 50 plus the usual "at risk" groups under 50. There will then be an Autumn 2023 vaccination programme aimed at whatever variant is the dominant strain at that time.

The Astra Zeneca vaccine was always expected to be short term as it is based on the long established method of injecting a dead virus into people to provoke an immune response. The mRNA vaccines will be the vaccine technology of the future because it's much easier and faster to adapt an existing vaccine to new variants that emerge and it also seems slightly more effective. The AZ vaccine is still being used extensively in low income countries because it's cheaper to make and doesn't require the cryogenic storage conditions.
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Corona - sounds like a fizzy drink but not nice (COVID)

Post by OurCreature »

I'm not so sure about everybody aged 50+ getting a booster in Spring. The JCVI has published guidance re vaccinations for 2023 and says that
JCVI’s interim advice for planning purposes ahead of 2023 is that:

in autumn 2023, persons at higher risk of severe COVID-19 could be offered a booster vaccine dose in preparation for winter 2023 to 2024

in addition, for a smaller group of persons (such as persons of older age and those who are immunosuppressed) an extra booster vaccine dose may be offered in spring 2023
and further down the page says
primary course COVID-19 vaccination should move, over the course of 2023, towards a more targeted offer during vaccination campaigns to protect those persons at higher risk of severe COVID-19. This would include:

residents in a care home for older adults and staff working in care homes for older adults
frontline health and social care workers
all adults aged 50 years and over
persons aged 5 to 49 years in a clinical risk group, as set out in the Green Book
persons aged 12 to 49 years who are household contacts of people with immunosuppression
persons aged 16 to 49 years who are carers, as set out in the Green Book
I think the key is how old is older for the Spring booster - 50+ or something like 70+?

Full JCVI statement on the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ember-2022

I mention in passing that the wearing of facemasks at Park Road and KW is voluntary now. I didn't wear one when I last visited the old gentleman because it is so much easier for him to understand me when I'm not wearing a mask; but I kept it on at KW when I was doing my water jug and tumbler changes and hot drinks.
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Post by Furby »

Camilla the queen consort has got covid and has had to stay off work. I didn't think there were still covid tests any more and people are expected to go to work anyway even if covid positive so she must be really really sick and unable to work.
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Post by OurCreature »

I still have lots of covid tests at home, and I used one this morning because the Winchester home where the old gentleman lives was part way through a covid outbreak when I visited last week and it was Facemasks Obligatorisch. I haven't felt unwell since then but I tested myself this morning before I went to Knightwood to be on the safe side. I tested negative but I didn't try reporting it online via my smart phone because I don't think HMG is taking that information any more.
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Post by eccles »

One wonders how the government website gets its figures now. Is it only hospitals that are reporting them?
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Post by OurCreature »

I am mistaken - apparently you can still report results from in-date free test kits. I still have time to do it today.
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Post by Furby »

No point reporting negative test is there. You are allowed to go everywhere now even if positive. In the olden days people had to get negative tests to get in places.
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Post by OurCreature »

The telephone app only seems to allow you to report positive test results. I can still report negative results via the NHS website using a personal computer; so I did.
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Post by Furby »

Now that covid is over the sciences are worrying about bird flu because some humans caught it now. The UK had a plan for bird flu back in its hey day about 2006 but wasn't implented. So unlike covid they can't pretend it's unprecedented and they couldn't be expected to have a plan ready. At the time I did think the bird flu plans a bit far fetched but after covid they seem quite mild. Every area within a radius of an infected farm was locked down. So people in general weren't and types of businesses except chicken farms weren't it was decided by travel bans. We had to have a plan b for working just with staff who lived in the zone of the nearest farms and a car pool plan because all the public transport was shutting down entirely. That didn't happen in covid they kept the transport going even when no one was allowed on it.
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Post by Furby »

Matt hancock let a journalist see all his covid era what chat messages so she could help him write his book and now the messages are serialised in the telegraph. Which is paywall so most people only get second hand versions of the stories. Can't trust journalists who would have guessed. Not Matt hancock anyway.

The story about the care homes was yesterday's tale. Chris witty said let's test everyone and Matt hancock decided only the hospitals. Is this even new news though. There weren't enough tests to go round were there hasnt that been told many times. Scientists always suggest unaffordable impossible things. Like now they are saying everyone heat house to 18 degrees and 20 in the living room but don't worry their heads about where the money comes from to pay bills. Politicians have to choose not between right and wrong but wrong and also but differently wrong. Whoever was health minister they would have picked the hospitals wouldn't they. Protect the NHS was even the slogan.

Today's tale is someone else said let's keep the school's open/closed . It is all about Matt hancock isnt it. Was he really that powerful I think that's more of a story than the details of what happened because they happened over the world. Where they didn't have Matt hancock deciding. It's all been very odd how the whole world did pretty much the same when a lot of it was mad. I am supportive of lockdowns and especially social distancing my very favourite but it made nonsense. E.g. wear a mask but take it off to eat or make speeches. Keep away except where there isn't room. Stay off work except where you can't. Get a picture of a ye!low flower then you don't need a mask. It might have all been a good idea that worked if they had actually enforced the rules properly for no exceptions. So many people didn't need to obey the rules the virus spread anyway and all the efforts of people forced to obey rules were wasted.
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