Covid-19 Virus

Boris has played a blinder. Best in the world

 

Back in light, if slightly snotty and sneezy, training and hopeful of a place on the bench for tomorrow....

 

Just got to end free testing outside of high risk individuals, hospitals, care homes etc now. Oh and stopping publishing the daily figures - though I think that might be being announced later this month.

 

On a slightly different point, what's the local BBC news like around your way? We've noticed even when Covid has largely disappeared from the evening national bulletins, it inevitably still leads the local news programme. I sort of figure it's just because it's easy for the local journos and better than 'cat stuck up tree' or 'person celebrates 100th birthday' stories, but it does give it an almost permanent presence that it really doesn't justify any longer.

 

It’s probably Zouma’s cat stuck up the tree, probably feels safer up there.

 

Alternatively, that’s where it landed ?

 

Two years and 1 month too late

 

Should have just let it take its course eh?

 

It hasn't been justified for months IMO, and when the final analysis is done on the whole pandemic world wide I think history will say that the whole world was in a state of some sort of mass hysteria and massively overreacted to the whole thing.

And before the brick bats start flying, I know that many people lost their lives during this pandemic and that is of course a tragedy.

However the COVID figures could also have been massively overestimated as it now appears a lot of the people diagnosed as having died FROM COVID in fact died WITH COVID BUT NOT OF IT as the cause of death in many cases was actually something else, but recorded as Covid.

 

Ban?

 

[sigh]

 

By this argument, as you is sadly unwell, were I to visit and shoot you and you died, you would have passed with a bullet, but not of it.

In most cases this holds. If it shortened it, it shortened it.

 

Current studies based on excess deaths seem to indicate that official numbers are undercounts rather than overcounts.

 

It's the excess deaths you need to look at to gague impact.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...ndandwalesprovisional/weekending28january2022

It does apears that after peaks, the death rate drops lower than average, which might suggest Covid picking people off early, but certainly there's many 1000s that sadly passed over what would be expected.
Whether any measures taken/not taken would have, or did make any difference will be a subject for discussion for years to come, but the overall figures can not be denied.

 

Ahhh, I remember those times when you ignorantly didn’t even believe it was a real disease yet wouldn’t dare go out yourself. Fun times. Before 5.8m died from it worldwide.

I’m sure that most of those, perhaps all of them, died of SOMETHING ELSE.

 

Stay positive!

 

The shortening life argument is maybe a bit more complex than just the numbers.

As with all these things my personal view is slewed by personal experience. My Mother died in December 2019 from the common cold. She was a few months short of her 88th birthday, was very frail and had zero quality of life. The last thing she said to me before she died was ‘I think I’ve had enough’. She died very quickly, peacefully and pain free for which I’m eternally grateful. Had she not caught that cold she may well have lived for a further miserable 6 months.

What can’t be denied or slewed by personal experience is the huge collateral damage caused by all the Covid restrictions. I’m not convinced any of it was worthwhile.

 

I totally agree with that sentiment RA, and sorry for the loss of your mum.

Losing your mum is not easy even if as you say it was probably a happy release.

 

There were two periods of harsh restrictions, Spring and Winter 2020. They were hard, but there was very little choice. We had no vaccines and we got to thousands dying each day.

Whether or not the victims were near death or a person with cancer in their 40s or 50s who may have hoped to survive, they still needed treatment and hospitalisation. Had we not restricted the numbers by lockdown, hospitals would have collapsed. I saw it myself taking my mother in law in during the pandemic. Chaos. Younger, fitter people would have died.

How we looked after each other during that time, the backlogs already present in treatment, the substandard housing, uneven furlough scheme, were all things we could have done more about.

Since the vaccines, restrictions have been minor, if cautious.

 

The personal tragedy of losing loved ones to the virus is difficult to set aside from an objective history of the virus. The main turning point was the development and deployment of effective vaccines. without them, I think we would be in a meltdown situation after two years.

Before vaccines, the only response practical was the public health measures of “lock down” Without them the virus would have had far whose outcome for individuals, businesses and the wider economy.

For the UK some things to ponder. (1) why our NHS had worse outcomes than a comparable society - Germany. (2) Was the Uk system of government agile and capable in dealing with the consequences of a pandemic? Again quoting Germany, it’s economy in 2020 shrank less than the UK, and it’s devolved federal government was more mature and capable than our highly centralised system, with relatively weak and narrow local government (3) Do we need to invest in national infrastructure that in normal times might be seen as “too expensive” - for example domestic vaccine production, rather than relying on globalism. (4) the pandemic was a poor house accelerating innovation and cultural change (vaccines, virtual technology, social patterns of working and learning, technology replacing face to face transactions, etc), how can these be harnessed to improve outcomes for individuals and businesses.

whatever your view on what was or should have been done. The last two years have been intense and as we come out o& the pandemic. Living with Covid 19, should be see as an opportunity to produce a better new normal than the normal trajectory we were on in autumn 2019.

 

I had my 2nd booster (on Sunday morning) and my arm's really, really farking sore.

 

Finally caught it, just feels a bit like flu. Craving cigarettes and full fat coke.

 

Yes but you've got the wimps watered down 2022 version. You ducked the chance to get the full-on "who knows if I'll survive and what permanent damage is being done to my organs" version of two years ago. It's akin to taking part in the Falklands "war" vs The Somme

 

#Pray4Filbert

 

Just got it for the first time and I'm in the 'extremely vulnerable' category. All I've experienced this last week or so is a slight cough and poor taste* and even that's improving. Lucky compared to many, I think!

(* I've been told about that for years )

 

Just checking you're ok ? No posts for 35 mins.

 

Takes an hour and a half for the internet to reach Leicester so don't start to worry yet.

 

Wrong poster. TVOR is Jim.

 

How do you know that @The undeniable truth is not also Jim?

in fact, we may all be Jim.

 

FILBERTS ALIIIIVE!*





*But he has lost his voice

 

No, I’m TVOR.
Jim is one of Moog’s.
Do keep up.