So, coronavirus...
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mat the expat
- Posts: 1458
- Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:12 pm
$50 that those who claim it was an over-reaction, would be the ones baying for blood if it was MORE virulent after a while
Folk tend to forget that in Jan-Feb-Mar 2020 we had no idea what we were facing when covid was rampant in China and then in Italy. It was a novel virus which had a very high transmissibility and potentially a high fatality rate and it was already killing 1,000s of people. From China we saw some poor sods who were just collapsing and dying in the streets. I remember watching scenes from hospitals in Northern Italy where they were completely overrun and the bodies were literally piling up in the morgues and they were running out of staff, oxygen, medicines, beds, etc. I sat in meetings where senior medics were attending and they were very, very worried. They didnt know what they were dealing with nor how to treat it effectively. Plans were being developed and put in place for 100,000s of deaths, body bags were being stockpiled and worries were for possible civil unrest in the streets. Army and others were being mobilised, lab equipment was being taken out of University and hospital labs with no notice by the army for mass testing hubs, food supplies were under threat and plans were in place for rationing, etc etc. It was pretty scary behind the scenes and the public didn't know the half of it.
Public health response was to follow the tried and tested route and first step is to try and stop the spread of the unknown virus, buy time and try and find out more about what we were dealing with, how to stop it spreading and how to manage it clinically. The only real way to do this is to minimise community transmission and given we didn't really know then how covid spread this meant going into lock down and avoid person to person contact as much as possible plus introduce other simple tried and tested measures such as PPE, masks, hand washing, distancing, fresh air and ventilation, etc where people had to mix. This had worked for the Spanish flu pandemic and it is standard PH response when faced with any outbreak of an infectious disease ie embola. It worked, it bought us time and thankfully scientists were able to quickly develop the covid mRNA vaccines which have been incredibly successful in controlling the impact of covid and find out how best to clinically treat covid. However they were learning by doing - remember the rush for ventilators which subsequently were found for many patients to do as much damage as good and were quietly dropped and replaced by CPAP machines. No one knew which medications worked and the medics were speaking to colleagues around the world in real time to try and find evidence of something that worked. Many died in the early days who would now have been saved.
Were lock downs necessary - absolutely. Did anyone want to have a lock down - no! Do lock downs have a cost - absolutely! However at the time and based on what was known and unknown it was the only real option available to minimise risks and protect lives. Could it have been better managed - yes but the Gov decided to ignore the findings of the 2016 Cygnet exercise! We also know that they had et our emergency stocks of PPE etc to dwindle and degrade - we were unprepared. We now know a lot more about covid and we have effective vaccines and treatments that have saved millions of lives, unfortunately recent estimates suggest that despite these developments some c6.8million have died from covid worldwide. Covid was a very near miss, it could have been much, much worse. The next highly infectious and deadly virus could be just round the corner and when it comes will we lock down in some form again - yes! Hopefully this time we might be better prepared.
Public health response was to follow the tried and tested route and first step is to try and stop the spread of the unknown virus, buy time and try and find out more about what we were dealing with, how to stop it spreading and how to manage it clinically. The only real way to do this is to minimise community transmission and given we didn't really know then how covid spread this meant going into lock down and avoid person to person contact as much as possible plus introduce other simple tried and tested measures such as PPE, masks, hand washing, distancing, fresh air and ventilation, etc where people had to mix. This had worked for the Spanish flu pandemic and it is standard PH response when faced with any outbreak of an infectious disease ie embola. It worked, it bought us time and thankfully scientists were able to quickly develop the covid mRNA vaccines which have been incredibly successful in controlling the impact of covid and find out how best to clinically treat covid. However they were learning by doing - remember the rush for ventilators which subsequently were found for many patients to do as much damage as good and were quietly dropped and replaced by CPAP machines. No one knew which medications worked and the medics were speaking to colleagues around the world in real time to try and find evidence of something that worked. Many died in the early days who would now have been saved.
Were lock downs necessary - absolutely. Did anyone want to have a lock down - no! Do lock downs have a cost - absolutely! However at the time and based on what was known and unknown it was the only real option available to minimise risks and protect lives. Could it have been better managed - yes but the Gov decided to ignore the findings of the 2016 Cygnet exercise! We also know that they had et our emergency stocks of PPE etc to dwindle and degrade - we were unprepared. We now know a lot more about covid and we have effective vaccines and treatments that have saved millions of lives, unfortunately recent estimates suggest that despite these developments some c6.8million have died from covid worldwide. Covid was a very near miss, it could have been much, much worse. The next highly infectious and deadly virus could be just round the corner and when it comes will we lock down in some form again - yes! Hopefully this time we might be better prepared.
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S/Lt_Phillips
- Posts: 516
- Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:31 pm
ER is , see above. But then he might just be doing it for the bantz, or Irish humour or something. Hard to tell.
Left hand down a bit
Revisionist bullshit.EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:30 pm Actually early on it was clear the spike in deaths in Italy wasn't that bad. It was also clear there was some major political shenanigans going on between the left and right local and central government in the country. Each accusing each other of under investment in the health services and letting the cameras in to illustrate their point. The plastic shrouded wards along with the welding teams out in Wuhan did for us all. It was mostly bollox and the early interventions killed more than it saved e.g. ventilation machines. The Chinese manufacturers of them must still be chuckling. Ireland is a great example there in terms of the world losing its mind. Covid blows up and the health advisory body says we need to get something like 300 ventilators. Within weeks some fucking lunatics had us on the hook for 3000 of the yokes. All either unusable or going to be unused. Unpicking the number of stupid decisions made would make for an encyclopedia moronicus. The worry will be if we ever have a proper breakout illness
And I'm not getting into a discussion about it, those two words will be all you'll get.
And are there two g’s in Bugger Off?
Forget the classifications, the colours
This is just the pure number of deaths.
It suddenly doubled.
That's the UK's Office of National Statistics just counting deaths. The number of people dying each week in the UK suddenly doubled in April 2000. Not dying of anything particularly, just counting dead bodies. That's just a fact.
Wha daur meddle wi' me?
The dotted line on that graphic is interesting, it's "Expected deaths had the pandemic not occurred"
I know it's projections and not actually real, but the first two winters of the pandemic, 20 and 21, were awful, but by January 2022 there were fewer deaths than the expected norm.
I know it's projections and not actually real, but the first two winters of the pandemic, 20 and 21, were awful, but by January 2022 there were fewer deaths than the expected norm.
Revisionist bullshit.EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 4:23 pm There is no question it was serious for a period and knocked out a load of old vulnerable people. Did it warrant the response we got and was sustained? Nah
And are there two g’s in Bugger Off?
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fishfoodie
- Posts: 8223
- Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2020 8:25 pm
Over omicron too?fishfoodie wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 6:51 pmYep, earlier & harder.
We were under no illusions how fucked our health services were going to be.
Ireland (wiki)
The state's first lockdown in 2020 was the longest in Europe, especially for hospitality and retail.[22] It caused a severe recession[23] and an unprecedented rise in unemployment.[24] Infections and deaths dropped to low levels by June and restrictions were gradually lifted, while schools remained closed for summer break. Pubs that served food were allowed to reopen in late June. However, "wet" pubs, or pubs that don't serve food, could not reopen until September. Ireland had the longest closure of pubs compared to other countries in Europe.[25]
In October 2020, another statewide lockdown was imposed following a surge in cases, excluding schools.[26][27]
In early December 2020, Ireland's infection rate was the lowest in the EU,[28] and restrictions were eased.[29] There was another surge in late December,[30] and on Christmas Eve, another statewide lockdown was imposed.[31] This was soon tightened to include schools, and was one of the strictest in the world.[32] The vaccination programme began on 29 December,[33][34] and has been praised as one of the most successful rollouts in the world.
In February 2021, the government imposed testing and quarantine rules on incoming travellers for the first time.
[35] Infections fell sharply, and schools re-opened in March. The lockdown was gradually lifted from May, but unlike most of Europe, indoor hospitality remained shut.
[36] Infections rose again in July due to the Delta variant but there were fewer deaths. Indoor hospitality reopened under strict rules, while vaccinations sped up.
[37] Despite Ireland's high vaccination rate, there was another surge in late 2021 due to the Omicron variant, with record-breaking cases being reported. Proof of vaccination or non-infection became mandatory to enter most indoor venues, but the government imposed another curfew on indoor hospitality from 20 December. Cases fell sharply, and the majority of restrictions, including mandatory mask wearing and social distancing, were eased in January and February 2022.[38][39]
As well as the major strain on Ireland's healthcare service, the pandemic measures severely damaged Ireland's economy, disrupted education and had far-reaching impacts on society, including politics, religion, crime, the arts and sports.
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Guy Smiley
- Posts: 6018
- Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:52 pm
https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p435
New evidence suggests little deterioration in mental health linked to the pandemic
Whether or not the covid-19 pandemic was responsible for a secondary pandemic of poor mental health is a question posed repeatedly by scientists, the media, and the public. The answer has been elusive, despite a high volume of research—sometimes of inconsistent quality that encourages the cherry picking of findings to match preconceived hypotheses.
The linked systematic review by Sun and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj-2022-074224) will help address these issues.1 The authors included only studies that assessed participants’ mental health both before and after the start of the pandemic. This means that the studies were not prone to selection biases related to the pandemic, at least at baseline assessments. The authors included results from an impressive 134 cohorts, mostly from high or upper middle income countries, looking at changes in general mental health, depression, and anxiety.
So, what did we learn? The authors found no evidence in the general (not high risk) population of changes in general mental health, except for a slight deterioration in symptoms of depression. The word “slight” is important here. Sun and colleagues used a metric called the standardised mean difference, or SMD, and found a deterioration in depression symptoms of 0.12 SMD after the onset of the pandemic. Formally, this means a deterioration of 0.12 standard deviations. Cohen, who invented the metric, developed it for randomised trials and estimated that SMD values less than 0.2 indicated a minimal effect, 0.2-0.5 a small effect, 0.5-0.8 a moderate effect, and 0.8 or more a large effect.2 This may be too simplistic, however, and values between 0.24 and 0.5 have generally been suggested to correspond to a minimal clinically relevant difference for trials in people with depression.3 Whether these cut-offs can be directly applied to general population studies, such as those in Sun and colleagues’ systematic review, is not yet clear.
Interestingly, studies with several follow-up measures during 2020 (during the pandemic) suggested a sort of shock effect on mental health at the beginning of the pandemic, which in most studies stabilised to pre-pandemic levels later in 2020 or 2021.45 Thus, the timing of assessments during the pandemic might have an influence on findings.
Accounting for period trends is also important: the reported minimal worsening in depression symptoms might have occurred even without the pandemic. Sun and colleagues’ study is unable to rule out this possibility as it did not include a control period (for example, repeated measurements at times unrelated to the pandemic). A few individual studies reported increases in depression, anxiety, and psychiatric hospital admissions that began before the pandemic.6789
Some individuals or subgroups might experience larger deteriorations than the population mean. The authors identify women as a vulnerable subgroup for depression, anxiety, and general mental health, although deteriorations were still minimal or small on average. Media attention has often focused on the pandemic’s particular impact on young people, but this is not born out by the present study: parameters of anxiety, depression, and general mental health did not deteriorate significantly in young adults, adolescents, or children. Future updates of this systematic review, which the authors will post online as more evidence accrues (https://www.depressd.ca/covid-19-mental-health), could usefully examine other subgroups, such as socially marginalised individuals.
What does Sun and colleagues’ review not tell us? First of all, it does not tell us why any deteriorations occurred. Was it the uncertainty of living through a poorly understood infectious disease, or linked to pandemic restrictions such as school and workplace closures, or caused by relatives becoming ill with covid-19, or the risk or experience of losing one’s job? Or might these deteriorations have occurred even if the pandemic had not occurred, signifying an underlying, but not covid-19 related, pan-societal problem? Further research is required to help answer these important questions.
Finally, while the present study clearly shows that we need not be overly concerned about the general population’s mental health in relation to the covid-19 pandemic, reported prevalence rates of mental health symptoms, especially among adolescents, are still concerningly high.101112 Pandemic or not, there is a strong need to provide preventive mental health interventions for those most at risk of poor mental health outcomes.
Holy shit. I realise people joke about going to NZ is like going back in time but …
They are still isolating for Covid!!!
They are still isolating for Covid!!!
Covid-19 rules, isolation period to remain for two months
Bridie Witton
New Zealanders will still have to isolate for seven days after catching Covid-19 and wear masks in health care settings, for at least another two months.
However, the Government is seeking advice on whether people with a negative test can get out of isolation sooner.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the last of the Covid-19 settings will stay in place, but be reviewed again in June, in a Beehive briefing on Tuesday.
“At the moment the isolation period serves not just to relieve pressure on the health system and result in fewer people being infected, but actually there is a labour market incentive for this as well.
READ MORE:
* Will New Zealand follow international trends on Covid isolation?
“People with Covid-19 going into work potentially infects more people and more people end up being off sick,” he said.
Ministers had sought further advice on the issue of testing to return to work, which would be considered in the next round of potential change in two months, he added.
Though not law like in NZ, the recommendations in the UK aren't too dissimilar. 5 days isolation rather than 7 days... From the NHS website...Ymx wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 6:26 am Holy shit. I realise people joke about going to NZ is like going back in time but …
They are still isolating for Covid!!!
Covid-19 rules, isolation period to remain for two months
Bridie Witton
New Zealanders will still have to isolate for seven days after catching Covid-19 and wear masks in health care settings, for at least another two months.
However, the Government is seeking advice on whether people with a negative test can get out of isolation sooner.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the last of the Covid-19 settings will stay in place, but be reviewed again in June, in a Beehive briefing on Tuesday.
“At the moment the isolation period serves not just to relieve pressure on the health system and result in fewer people being infected, but actually there is a labour market incentive for this as well.
READ MORE:
* Will New Zealand follow international trends on Covid isolation?
“People with Covid-19 going into work potentially infects more people and more people end up being off sick,” he said.
Ministers had sought further advice on the issue of testing to return to work, which would be considered in the next round of potential change in two months, he added.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/covid-19/ ... hat-to-do/What to do if you have tested positive
You are no longer required to do a COVID-19 rapid lateral flow test if you have symptoms.
But if you or your child have tested positive for COVID-19:
-try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for a further 3 days after your positive test if you are under 18 years
-try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for a further 5 days after your positive test if you are 18 or over
-avoid meeting people who are more likely to get seriously ill from viruses, such as people with a weakened immune system, for a further 10 days after your positive test
A hygiene health recommendation is a lot different from law!
On the same site
On the same site
How to avoid spreading the flu
Flu is very infectious and easily spread to other people. You're more likely to give it to others in the first 5 days.
Flu is spread by germs from coughs and sneezes, which can live on hands and surfaces for 24 hours.
To reduce the risk of spreading flu:
wash your hands often with warm water and soap
cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze
bin used tissues as quickly as possible
Try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people if you have a high temperature or you do not feel well enough to do your normal activities.
But with the English it may as well be law.. very compliant here... I received some dirty looks at the dentist last week as the only unmasked patient in the waiting room... I say dirty looks... dirty eyes.. as that's all I could see..Ymx wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 7:49 am A hygiene health recommendation is a lot different from law!
On the same site
How to avoid spreading the flu
Flu is very infectious and easily spread to other people. You're more likely to give it to others in the first 5 days.
Flu is spread by germs from coughs and sneezes, which can live on hands and surfaces for 24 hours.
To reduce the risk of spreading flu:
wash your hands often with warm water and soap
cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze
bin used tissues as quickly as possible
Try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people if you have a high temperature or you do not feel well enough to do your normal activities.
Appreciate that as a known windowlicker you're not at all bothered by hygeine concerns but the mere act of wearing a small cloth covering over your mouth and nose to help prevent catching something grotty / infecting someone doesn't make anyone a freak or mentally unstable.EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 11:31 amI think at this stage a lot of the people left with them on in Ireland are struggling with life as a whole. A lad wears one in our local supermarket and he stands out because it is a white cotton one gone a sort of stained beige with bits of jam and shit on it. It's remarkable but sure leave him at it
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Margin__Walker
- Posts: 2744
- Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2020 5:47 am
I think most people are happy to still wear one if it seems to be expected of you.
Seems to be completely random sometimes where it's expected though. At my dentist and GP surgeries I'm asked to wear one ( perfectly happy to) where as in the hospital I'm currently spending my time absolutely no one apart from the woman working in a shop downstairs with her nose out wears one.
Seems to be completely random sometimes where it's expected though. At my dentist and GP surgeries I'm asked to wear one ( perfectly happy to) where as in the hospital I'm currently spending my time absolutely no one apart from the woman working in a shop downstairs with her nose out wears one.
I'm in the UK too don't forget. Must be a northern thing... still some wearing in hospitals, GP surgeries and as I discovered.. dentists (all the staff were masked including reception behind their big plastic screen) ..
Ditto here in Embra - masks worn in Doctors surgery, hospitals, etc.
Actually wearing masks and washing hands etc is pretty standard practice to prevent a range of infectious diseases from spreading and pretty sensible when you think about it. If we did this as standard during flu and cold season etc then we might see fewer folk off ill and/or infecting others. There is nothing worse than being at work and some 'brave soul' coming in clearly ill and suffering with the flu, moaning about how ill they are and then proceeding to cough and sneeze over everyone and everything - everyone else ends up catching the bugs and going off work ill. Staying off work/work from home and wearing a mask when in contact with others etc would be very sensible! I wouldn't have a problem if the UK adopted the NZ law.
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Marylandolorian
- Posts: 1247
- Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2020 2:47 pm
- Location: Amerikanuak
Same in the Nord East and Mid Atlantic, it still mandatory in hospitals and Doctors offices. Mainly older people are wearing masks in the stores (1/3 of them)
My state of 6M people has ”only” 150 hospitalized with Covid , mainly unvax, immunosuppressed and 80+ yo.
In some (bad) areas the masked ones are black teens
,,,,, 
Link? Because the evidence we've seen everywhere for 3 years is it's droplets in breath that spreads it more than anything else.EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:49 pm
Ireland about to give up on the masks in hospitals as research from the UK and elsewhere says it spreads more on surfaces etc.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/h ... 24304.htmlSandstorm wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 3:24 pmLink? Because the evidence we've seen everywhere for 3 years is it's droplets in breath that spreads it more than anything else.EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:49 pm
Ireland about to give up on the masks in hospitals as research from the UK and elsewhere says it spreads more on surfaces etc.
Covid spreads significantly through contaminated hands and surfaces in households, a new study suggests, as researchers warned too much focus has been given to airborne transmission.
It comes as researchers at St George’s Hospital, in London, also found that mask wearing did not help prevent patients catching Omicron in hospital, raising questions about policies during the pandemic.
In the first study of its kind, experts at Imperial College, the UK Health and Security Agency, and the University of Oxford monitored 414 people living with an infected person between August 2020 and March 2021. In research published in The Lancet Microbe, they found healthy householders were 70pc more likely to pick up the virus when it was present on surfaces or hands.
Nine in 10 people who had Covid on their hands ended up picking up an infection compared with just three in 10 of those whose hands were clean.
Householders?? I thought we were talking about dentist offices?Grandpa wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 5:36 pmhttps://www.independent.ie/irish-news/h ... 24304.htmlSandstorm wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 3:24 pmLink? Because the evidence we've seen everywhere for 3 years is it's droplets in breath that spreads it more than anything else.EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 11, 2023 2:49 pm
Ireland about to give up on the masks in hospitals as research from the UK and elsewhere says it spreads more on surfaces etc.
Covid spreads significantly through contaminated hands and surfaces in households, a new study suggests, as researchers warned too much focus has been given to airborne transmission.
It comes as researchers at St George’s Hospital, in London, also found that mask wearing did not help prevent patients catching Omicron in hospital, raising questions about policies during the pandemic.
In the first study of its kind, experts at Imperial College, the UK Health and Security Agency, and the University of Oxford monitored 414 people living with an infected person between August 2020 and March 2021. In research published in The Lancet Microbe, they found healthy householders were 70pc more likely to pick up the virus when it was present on surfaces or hands.
Nine in 10 people who had Covid on their hands ended up picking up an infection compared with just three in 10 of those whose hands were clean.
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mat the expat
- Posts: 1458
- Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:12 pm
There is another wave here in Oz.
Also, catching Covid with an Auto-immune disorder/wishing to shield sick relatives doesn't make you a freak
You really are a bit of a piece of shit aren't you?
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Guy Smiley
- Posts: 6018
- Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:52 pm
YMX is a keystroke away from buying right into the whole rabbit hole of conspiracy theory that leads to MAGA hats and tractor led protest convoys.mat the expat wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:51 amThere is another wave here in Oz.
Also, catching Covid with an Auto-immune disorder/wishing to shield sick relatives doesn't make you a freak
You really are a bit of a piece of shit aren't you?
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mat the expat
- Posts: 1458
- Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:12 pm
Imagine being Bimbo-lite?Guy Smiley wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 1:31 amYMX is a keystroke away from buying right into the whole rabbit hole of conspiracy theory that leads to MAGA hats and tractor led protest convoys.mat the expat wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:51 amThere is another wave here in Oz.
Also, catching Covid with an Auto-immune disorder/wishing to shield sick relatives doesn't make you a freak
You really are a bit of a piece of shit aren't you?
Seeing someone with a mask in the UK is such an oddity my first impression is that the poor bugger sadly has a very good reason to be wearing it.mat the expat wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:51 amThere is another wave here in Oz.
Also, catching Covid with an Auto-immune disorder/wishing to shield sick relatives doesn't make you a freak
You really are a bit of a piece of shit aren't you?