dpedin wrote: ↑Fri Jul 01, 2022 12:56 pm
Well this is a surprise is it not? ONS reporting 2.3 million with covid in UK due to spread of BA4 and BA5. Reinfection rates are high. With these levels of infection expect more disruption to commerce, services and in particular the NHS as more staff go off ill. Whilst we will avoid way below the level of deaths as in first few waves thanks to vaccinations (although we still have 13 million unvaccinated in the UK) and better treatment pathways, I would expect a not insignificant % of those currently infected to develop long covid and stay off work longer. Not good for the economy. With case numbers increasing in many European countries it looks like we still have a pandemic folks!
It is a good article. It's okay it's only the flu is a strange comment as I can't work out if you are down playing COVID seriously or not considering the articles content.
Zarifkar does note the increased risk of these neurological conditions following COVID-19 does mirror what has previously been reported following cases of influenza or bacterial pneumonia. However, due to the sheer prevalence of COVID-19 infections, it is likely baseline rates of these neurodegenerative diseases will rise around the world over the coming years.
“We found support for an increased risk of being diagnosed with neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular disorders in COVID-19 positive compared to COVID-negative patients, which must be confirmed or refuted by large registry studies in the near future,” added Zarifkar. “Reassuringly, apart for ischemic stroke, most neurological disorders do not appear to be more frequent after COVID-19 than after influenza or community-acquired bacterial pneumonia.”
For decades researchers have seen a correlation between certain viral infections and neurodegenerative disease. Perhaps most well-known was the increase in rates of Parkinson’s disease following the Spanish Flu pandemic in the early 20th century.
Economic impact of covid .... this reflects the BoE view about a shrinking workforce due to long covid. Looks like 'living with it' ain't going very well? Infections and hospitalisations increasing, NHS really struggling now.
dpedin wrote: ↑Wed Jul 13, 2022 6:16 pm
Economic impact of covid .... this reflects the BoE view about a shrinking workforce due to long covid. Looks like 'living with it' ain't going very well? Infections and hospitalisations increasing, NHS really struggling now.
This and poor public health in general is a big issue. While I'm not sure how much they could have done post vaccination particularly with omicron the 1st and 2nd wave failures shouldn't be forgotten.
I don't know how but I've managed to avoid the thing so far... and I work with a lot of guys who treat it all as a minor inconvenience and irritation.
I'm steeling myself... this winter looks pretty full on for NZ with hospitals seriously straining, the newer variants getting a foothold and a nasty flu doing the rounds as well.
Wilson's Toffee wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:51 am
NZ isolated themselves only to be exposed to the fullgrown, most vicious variants.
Luckily Kiwis are strong, will eventually win this one too. The Spiritual Guardians of COVID....
Yep - in total so far NZ has 222 deaths per million due to covid, the UK has 2,688 deaths per million due to covid. Someone got it wrong! Just as well the Blonde Bumblecunt got all the big calls right eh despite having first dibs on the vaccine?
Wilson's Toffee wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:51 am
NZ isolated themselves only to be exposed to the fullgrown, most vicious variants.
Luckily Kiwis are strong, will eventually win this one too. The Spiritual Guardians of COVID....
Yep - in total so far NZ has 222 deaths per million due to covid, the UK has 2,688 deaths per million due to covid. Someone got it wrong! Just as well the Blonde Bumblecunt got all the big calls right eh despite having first dibs on the vaccine?
There's a gallows-humour laugh to be had at the bottom of the page, North Korea has had one case but six deaths due to Covid, giving it a 600% death to case ratio
As predicted another wave here and hitting NHS very very hard, staff absences due to covid running very high which along with normal sickness and peak holiday period means it is struggling badly. Silence from Gov and whoever is worrying about this sort of thing. Expecting next wave in September/October from what I am hearing.
Finally managed to get mum home. She's still very frail... But alive. We both ended up with Covid a few days after leaving hospital! Six weeks in there... Must have caught it in the final days. Funnily enough it knocked me around more than mum. Was just a cold for her... Luckily, as if she had felt as bad as I did I doubt she would have survived.
Half the staff seemed to have had it. So a lot of staff shortages in the final couple of weeks... Glad to be out of it. But caring for mum while barely able to stand is not easy! Lucky my sister helped out .. and hasn't caught Covid off us... And only now are we letting anyone else in the house.
dpedin wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:06 pm
Thank feck we have learnt to live with it eh?
As predicted another wave here and hitting NHS very very hard, staff absences due to covid running very high which along with normal sickness and peak holiday period means it is struggling badly. Silence from Gov and whoever is worrying about this sort of thing. Expecting next wave in September/October from what I am hearing.
Tbf we have learned to live with it. It peaked here in the last week and it was never really news. The chat is more about how many other doses are around e.g tonsillitis. Its been a rocky Ju e. I am now nearly 4 weeks since I got my dose and still hacking up loads of stuff. A proper awful dose and all joking aside the worst I can ever remember
Mate, you know dpedin lives for such news. I’m not sure he will be happy until we are all in hazmat suits, like him.
Grandpa wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:38 pm
Finally managed to get mum home. She's still very frail... But alive. We both ended up with Covid a few days after leaving hospital! Six weeks in there... Must have caught it in the final days. Funnily enough it knocked me around more than mum. Was just a cold for her... Luckily, as if she had felt as bad as I did I doubt she would have survived.
Half the staff seemed to have had it. So a lot of staff shortages in the final couple of weeks... Glad to be out of it. But caring for mum while barely able to stand is not easy! Lucky my sister helped out .. and hasn't caught Covid off us... And only now are we letting anyone else in the house.
Your sister is typhoid Mary and I claim my lifetime supply of masks
I've never known her to get flu or even a cold... yet she constantly complains she has something!
dpedin wrote: ↑Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:06 pm
Thank feck we have learnt to live with it eh?
As predicted another wave here and hitting NHS very very hard, staff absences due to covid running very high which along with normal sickness and peak holiday period means it is struggling badly. Silence from Gov and whoever is worrying about this sort of thing. Expecting next wave in September/October from what I am hearing.
Tbf we have learned to live with it. It peaked here in the last week and it was never really news. The chat is more about how many other doses are around e.g tonsillitis. Its been a rocky Ju e. I am now nearly 4 weeks since I got my dose and still hacking up loads of stuff. A proper awful dose and all joking aside the worst I can ever remember
Mate, you know dpedin lives for such news. I’m not sure he will be happy until we are all in hazmat suits, like him.
Tbf we have learned to live with it. It peaked here in the last week and it was never really news. The chat is more about how many other doses are around e.g tonsillitis. Its been a rocky Ju e. I am now nearly 4 weeks since I got my dose and still hacking up loads of stuff. A proper awful dose and all joking aside the worst I can ever remember
Mate, you know dpedin lives for such news. I’m not sure he will be happy until we are all in hazmat suits, like him.
Yep - death rate is low but then again deaths, a lag factor, is only one measure of harm. Children, pregnant women and immuno-compromised most at risk. Older folk likely to have level of immunity as they will have had smallpox vaccine when young. Scarring from lesions is a common side effect but in more serious cases secondary infections like pneumonia, sepsis or damage to eye sight can occur.
It's just another unwelcome virus circulating in the community, many of whom are already compromised by covid and it has potential to hit NHS, especially the already stretched infectious diseases units, and healthcare workers the hardest if it continues to spread. As usual its a numbers game, if cases are contained then NHS will be ok, however if it gathers pace then the more cases means there will be more severe cases requiring inpatient care. So far most cases have been low risk and managed locally at home. Fingers crossed.
Covid is not on sabbatical here in Straya, unfortunately. Yesterday's recorded deaths (102) is the highest since kickoff back in Jan / Feb 2020 and current hospitalisation numbers are just below the record.
Good to see lots of people commenting on something they know very little about. Anyone want to define what a PHEIC actually is, seeing as you seem to have strong views on whether or not monkeypox should be one?
Good to see lots of people commenting on something they know very little about
That’s what the bored is here for. But seriously, that type of comment wreaks of dismissive arrogance
It’s putting monkey pox in the same ball park as
Six events were declared PHEIC between 2007 and 2020: the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, Ebola (West African outbreak 2013-2015, outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo 2018-2020), poliomyelitis (2014 to present), Zika (2016) and COVID-19 (2020 to present).
The others in the list would appear a little more significant in terms of risk to life/disability.
Good to see lots of people commenting on something they know very little about
That’s what the bored is here for. But seriously, that type of comment wreaks of dismissive arrogance
It’s putting monkey pox in the same ball park as
Six events were declared PHEIC between 2007 and 2020: the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, Ebola (West African outbreak 2013-2015, outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo 2018-2020), poliomyelitis (2014 to present), Zika (2016) and COVID-19 (2020 to present).
The others in the list would appear a little more significant in terms of risk to life/disability.
Has Zika virus actually killed anyone? Usually very mild. Declaring something a public health incident of concern is about unusual pressure on health systems, and necessitating a response from countries. Which is probably correct for monkeypox.
It's possible the mystery behind the hepatitis outbreak has been solved. Combination of delayed immunity due to lockdown against Adeno-associated virus and adenovirus, and increased genetic susceptibility
Calculon wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 8:51 pm
It's possible the mystery behind the hepatitis outbreak has been solved. Combination of delayed immunity due to lockdown against Adeno-associated virus and adenovirus, and increased genetic susceptibility
Excellent work to unpick that. Last winter/spring was a near constant barrage of illness for parents of very young children.
Is it the case that the longer China takes to drop zero covid the worse it will be when it does decide to open up?
Likely cause of mystery child hepatitis outbreak found
By Michelle Roberts
Digital health editor
Published
18 hours ago
Share
Noah and his mum Rebecca
Image caption,
Rebecca says her son, Noah, became severely ill, very quickly
UK experts believe they have identified the cause of the recent spate of mysterious liver problems affecting young children around the world.
Investigations suggest two common viruses made a comeback after pandemic lockdowns ended - and triggered the rare but very serious hepatitis cases.
More than 1,000 children - many under the age of five - in 35 countries are thought to have been affected.
Some, including 12 in the UK, have needed a lifesaving liver transplant.
The two teams of researchers, from London and Glasgow, say infants exposed later than normal - because of Covid restrictions - missed out on some early immunity to:
- adenovirus, which normally causes colds and stomach upsets
- adeno-associated virus two, which normally causes no illness and requires a coinfecting "helper" virus - such as adenovirus - to replicate
That could explain why some developed the unusual and worrying liver complications.
Noah
Image caption,
Noah is one of 10 children in recent months to have needed a liver transplant for the condition
Noah, three, who lives in Chelmsford, Essex, needed an urgent liver transplant after becoming dangerously ill with hepatitis.
His mother, Rebecca Cameron-McIntosh, says the experience has been devastating.
"He'd previously had nothing wrong with him," she says. "And for it to suddenly go so quickly. I think that's what kind of took us by surprise.
"We've just assumed it was one little problem that will get easily sorted out - but actually it just kept on snowballing."
Initially, Rebecca was lined up to donate part of her liver - but, after a serious reaction to drugs used, she ended up in intensive care.
Noah was put on the transplant list and, soon after, received a new organ.
His recovery has been good - but he will need to take immunosuppressant drugs for life, to stop his body rejecting the new liver.
Noah's mum
Image caption,
Rebecca says Noah will stay on medication for life
Rebecca says: "There is something really heartbreaking about that because you go along following the rules, do what you are supposed to do to protect people that are vulnerable and then, in some horrible roundabout way, your own child has become more vulnerable because you did what you were supposed to do."
Cases such as this are rare. Most children who catch these types of viruses quickly recover.
- It is unclear why some then develop liver inflammation - but genetics might play a part.
- Scientists have ruled out any connection with coronavirus or Covid vaccines.
One of the investigators, Prof Judith Breuer, an expert in virology, at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: "During the lockdown period when children were not mixing, they were not transmitting viruses to each other.
"They were not building up immunity to the common infections they would normally encounter.
"When the restrictions were lifted, children began to mix, viruses began to circulate freely - and they suddenly were exposed with this lack of prior immunity to a whole battery of new infections."
Experts are hopeful that cases are now becoming fewer but are still on alert for new ones.
Prof Emma Thomson, who led the University of Glasgow research, said there were still many unanswered questions. "Larger studies are urgently needed to investigate the role of AAV2 in paediatric hepatitis cases.
“We also need to understand more about seasonal circulation of AAV2, a virus that is not routinely monitored - it may be that a peak of adenovirus infection has coincided with a peak in AAV2 exposure, leading to an unusual manifestation of hepatitis in susceptible young children."
EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 6:37 am
The more worrying thing for me is that genuine idiots like me predicted you would have a rash of wacky illnesses as any mass separation of people, and particualrly children, like that would have consequences. We sacrificed their emotional, scholastic and physical health and I am not sure it was worth it. In a less altruistic sense I am still not right after the dose I got 6 weeks ago. What about me!!!!!
This is just a hypothesis, but if you are still not right after six weeks if might have been due to a large viral load, if you'd become infected before vaccination you might well be potted heid, dead.
This would have been more likely without lockdown.
I tested negative about six weeks ago, but it was an old testing kit, half the fluid had gone from the vial for some reason. Anyway, I had a terrible fever, no sleep for two nights, I was absolutely freezing and could not get warm despite several layers of clothing under a duvet.
I had a raging sore throat and was hacking up spoonfuls of mucus every morning, the cough was terrible.
I still feel shite from time to time and the cough returns every day or two.
Calculon wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 8:51 pm
It's possible the mystery behind the hepatitis outbreak has been solved. Combination of delayed immunity due to lockdown against Adeno-associated virus and adenovirus, and increased genetic susceptibility
Excellent work to unpick that. Last winter/spring was a near constant barrage of illness for parents of very young children.
Is it the case that the longer China takes to drop zero covid the worse it will be when it does decide to open up?
Even amongst some Chinese there is a sense that they are simply delaying, at an enormous financial and social cost, the inevitable. Doesn’t help that the elderly are the least vaccinated amongst them.
Calculon wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 8:51 pm
It's possible the mystery behind the hepatitis outbreak has been solved. Combination of delayed immunity due to lockdown against Adeno-associated virus and adenovirus, and increased genetic susceptibility
Excellent work to unpick that. Last winter/spring was a near constant barrage of illness for parents of very young children.
Is it the case that the longer China takes to drop zero covid the worse it will be when it does decide to open up?
Even amongst some Chinese there is a sense that they are simply delaying, at an enormous financial and social cost, the inevitable. Doesn’t help that the elderly are the least vaccinated amongst them.
The drop in immunity to other bugs due to suppressing everything for so long must get worse the longer they wait and also as viruses mutate constantly won't the difference due to mutation increase the longer they suppress everything. Also very bad for young children to be in such a sterile environment.
There has been a bit of a rebound in terms of influenza outbreaks in mostly southern China, and I do think that somewhat ironically that the longer China tries to isolate itself from the rest of the world, the more vulnerable it becomes to introduced variants. One of the issues that I think has especially affected children has been reduced patient visits to hospitals and clinics because of covid related restrictions.
petej wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 3:48 pm
The drop in immunity to other bugs due to suppressing everything for so long must get worse the longer they wait and also as viruses mutate constantly won't the difference due to mutation increase the longer they suppress everything. Also very bad for young children to be in such a sterile environment.
Exactly.
Some of us have been arguing this for yonks on here.
Locking oneself away from others damages your immune system: going sterile devastates it.
Steady on, no one is being locked down in a sterile environment which in this context means free of microorgansism. Exposure to them is important to develop a healthy immune system and some diseases are safer when they develop in childhood, but there are also many other reasons to be wary of lock downs apart from immunological.
There seems a lot of rewriting of history going on here! In early 2020 we were faced with a new and deadly virus that we knew very little about apart from folk were dying in China, then Italy and then here at a horrendous rate. Folk in China were literally dropping down in the street with the virus, hospitals in northern Italy were completely overrun, ICU beds here were hopelessly short in numbers and we ventilators became the medical equivalent of golf ingots. We started rationing care. We had little idea of how this virus spread, why folk died from it, who was most at risk and how we should treat them. We were in danger of seeing the NHS in complete meltdown, some would argue it was already in melt down, and a collapse of essential services and access to supplies like food. The only thing a Gov could do was to lock down in order to slow down spread and to protect the NHS and essential services and buy time to find out more about the virus, spread and treatment. Arguably the UK did it badly and too late? However we got lucky and thanks due some fantastic scientists in Oxford, AZ and elsewhere we managed to get a vaccine that offered a high protection, reduced more severe infections, reduced hospitalisations and deaths to levels the NHS could manage. Without the vaccine then deaths in the UK could have been well over double the number of deaths we have already experienced, possibly in excess of half a million.
Yes schools were closed for a period (they remained open to essential workers and key groups throughout) from mid March 2021 to end of summer term and then from Jan to March/April 2021. Children were never in a 'sterile environment' this is just hysterical nonsense. In between the above school closures other germs and bugs as well as covid would have circulated as normal but mask wearing etc will have reduce these somewhat. However we all know how kids interact and there was ample close contact and spread of bugs as per normal during these periods and outwith education settings. Of course everyone knew that these closures would have an impact upon children and families but at the time this was judged to be less harmful than a wider spread of a potentially deadly virus. These decisions were always about finding the best way to minimise harm to the whole population, they could never eradicate harm, it was all about finding the best option not the ideal option.
So were school closures at the time the right thing to do? Difficult to say and no doubt research will begin to produce some analysis about the pros and cons of these temporary school closures. Vaccination of u16s will also begin to reduce covid harm to kids. However we are now beginning to understand the wider impact of covid on children and young people. For example research shows that c13,000 children in the UK have lost a parent to covid, many more have lost a grandparent who supported their care. This will have an adverse impact upon their whole life. CDC research in the states shows that kids who have had covid are approx twice as likely to have a PE, myocarditis or venous thromboembolic event as those who haven't had covid. These will have to be balanced against the negative impacts of closures ie loss of education, increase in harm at home, etc. However lets not forget the covid scenario we faced in early 2020, the lack of info we had on covid, the lack of a vaccine, that decision making was easy re lock downs nor should we forget the Public Health and medical/scientific advice, based on many years of experience in managing outbreaks of deadly diseases that lockdowns including school closures were required.
