COVID-19 (Coronavirus) discussion

Something I would say in this respect, the S and L variants present in the early days seem to have got lost in the noise - one went on to become alpha, the other was less infectious but more deadly - accounting for more than 2/3rds of deaths caused by COVID in 2020 despite being responsible for less than 25% of cases. That variant was virtually extinct by December 2020.

On another note as I've mentioned before if it wasn't for the firebreak lockdown my areas district hospital would have suffered catastrophic collapse.
 
jeffk said:
Lockdowns worked. They reduced the R-value of COVID at times when it was in danger of overwhelming the NHS. We had some very close calls to completely running out of capacity and if capacity had been breached then many more relatively healthy people would have died. You can debate the timing and length of the lockdowns but lockdowns worked.

There’s plenty of people whose argument against lockdowns seems to boil down to the fact that the death toll wasn’t as high as predicted. What they don’t seem to be able to grasp is that it was measures like lockdowns and the development of a vaccine that stopped these higher predictions. It’s akin to the people who claim that the Millennium Bug was a hoax because there weren’t any major issues when the clock stuck midnight - completely ignorant of all of the time, money and effort that went into mitigating a disaster.
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That is something that some people completely forget.
The lockdowns didn't just slow the spread of the virus, they effectively put a stop to an awful lot of serious injuries that people tend to suffer during normal times, massive reduction in road traffic meant far fewer RTA's, shutting down of most team events and "high risk" leisure activities etc meant that you basically had no injuries from sports, whilst closing the pubs and clubs meant you didn't have the same level of intoxicated idiot induced injuries.

At one point they were turning operating theatres and the staff for them over to caring for covid patients, which would have meant anyone involved in a serious RTA needing surgery could have been even more unlucky depending on area as there wouldn't have been capacity to deal with them.

As it was my brother in law was very "lucky" in some ways, he had a really nasty accident at work but it was a couple of months before covid, so he got the initial operation within 24 hours (he was driven by a co-worker the 5 minutes to the hospital and basically the first nurse that saw him enter bypassed reception/triage and took him straight through to initial treatment), unfortunately covid meant the second/third operation that had to wait to see how the first one went and if the injury healed well enough to not need it was delayed by about 6 months, so what should have been a 6 month downtime turned into over 12.
 
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After all these years it finally caught up with me, first time testing positive this morning, line went red within a couple of minutes. Had fever, headache and joint pain last 24-48 hrs and mostly bed bound yesterday. Hardly slept at all last night as hot and cold, even with plenty of paracetamol :( Slight cough but not blocked up.
 
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Duke said:
After all these years
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It is quite weird that it is possible to say "after all these years" - I struggle a bit to get my head around it being 4 years since the first mentions of COVID started to appear.

We've got 3 people off at work currently with a "mysterious" illness, shakes/fever and diarrhoea, sounds a bit like Norovirus but they all went down with it about the same time with no one appearing to bring it into work first, I wonder if it is something they all ate at work around the same time as they were all on shift together around mid-week.
 
Probably worth pointing out that the selection of folk for that study were almost all from hospitilised people in early 2020 for the covid group, so they were already likely to be suffering from significant inflammatory conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes which they make no attempt to compensate for.
 
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Jokester said:
It's not peer reviewed.
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Are you sure? According to the metadata, it appeared in Science volume 383, issue 6680 - and that means it would have been peer reviewed.

Searches on other research databases also flag it as peer reviewed:

IMG-2989.jpg
 
jeffk said:
Are you sure? According to the metadata, it appeared in Science volume 383, issue 6680 - and that means it would have been peer reviewed.

Searches on other research databases also flag it as peer reviewed:

IMG-2989.jpg
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I stand corrected - just at the bottom of the paper it says:

eLetters is a forum for ongoing peer review. eLetters are not edited, proofread, or indexed, but they are screened. eLetters should provide substantive and scholarly commentary on the article. Embedded figures cannot be submitted, and we discourage the use of figures within eLetters in general. If a figure is essential, please include a link to the figure within the text of the eLetter. Please read our Terms of Service before submitting an eLetter.
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With none submitted yet.

Edit: It's odd, got a older link of where this was peer reviewed? This only appears in the last couple of weeks that I can see.
 
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It was only published by Science on 19th January and it would have been peer reviewed by the journal prior to publication.
 
jeffk said:
It was only published by Science on 19th January and it would have been peer reviewed by the journal prior to publication.
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Yeah, it would be interesting to see what comments and edits were made.

It didn't pass the basic sniff test though when about 1/3 of the selected subjects went on to develop long covid, so a quick skim of where they were selected from showed a significant selection bias, that would impact the outcome of the study.
 
I think the objective of the report was to try and establish how covid operates.

The next step is to establish a blood test to be able to give a long covid diagnosis.

Then the final step is to create a treatment that can stop the source of the on-going inflation.

I hope we see parts of those objectives start to manifest this year, as I'm seeing more people voluntary dying. I've seen 2 over the past week on twitter write their final messages.

I can understand where they are coming from. I've gotten worse over the past couple of months. Sitting up makes me weak and dizzy now.

The frustrating thing with my main symptom is the oxygen isn't being taken into the muscles. So when I'm resting I feel semi normal. But if I change position or have to use my muscles in any way my oxygen drops into the 70s.

Getting to hospital appointments is the worst. I have to use an ambulance. I have to wear my bipap (like a cpap but bipap/apap blows both ways) and use 1.5 litre of oxygen.

I know my breathing situation is worse than many long covid people because of a breathing preexisting condition. But I know of people who have shortness of breath, and some have developed sleep apnea.

Whatever your opinion of covid or long covid is, why take the risk? Just try and avoid it.

I think this was my third time getting getting covid.

The first time I got it was November 2020, I suspect from my uncle. That lasted about 5 days. No problems.

The second time I think was in July 2022. I suspect I got it from house visitors. That lasted about 4 months. My breathing was in the upper 70s. But the damage must have been recovering immediately as I just needed to rest and go on my breathing machine more.

The third and current infection happened on December 8th 2022. Oxygen back into the 70s. Wearing my machine recovered my resting levels. But when I move they drop significantly.

Still trying to recover the oxygen approaching 14 months.
 
You poor thing - hope you get some sort of quality of life / something sorted, it seems you're one of the unlucky guys that followed the narrative/rules but got worse as a result. I don't mean this in anything other that genuine empathy and care - I genuinely hope your quality of life improves soon.
 
Freefaller said:
You poor thing - hope you get some sort of quality of life / something sorted, it seems you're one of the unlucky guys that followed the narrative/rules but got worse as a result. I don't mean this in anything other that genuine empathy and care - I genuinely hope your quality of life improves soon.
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Thanks mate.

I'm trying to keep positive and hopefully there is either recovery or treatment in the future.

It would be good to have a crystal ball to know the date. The not knowing is mentally difficult. My quality of life wasn't that good before. All I want is to return to that level.
 
I've exchanged tweets with this person. Sadly this is the level of despair people feel in dealing with long covid. When you feel invincible against "a cold" only to find you start gaining symptoms as time goes along.

The article mentions ME because LC can trigger or make worse symptoms. There is symptoms overlap with the 2 conditions.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Woman, 28, shares devastating last post before being euthanised

Lauren Hoeve, from the Netherlands , was diagnosed with ME, which is also referred to as chronic fatigue syndrome, in 2019.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

Keep in the fight though. I have faith that either recovery to some degree will happen, or we'll get a treatment in the coming couple of years.
 
Duke said:
After all these years it finally caught up with me, first time testing positive this morning, line went red within a couple of minutes. Had fever, headache and joint pain last 24-48 hrs and mostly bed bound yesterday. Hardly slept at all last night as hot and cold, even with plenty of paracetamol :( Slight cough but not blocked up.
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Quick follow up, weekend was the worst, similar to when I had flu years ago. Last few days have started to feel a little more normal and now have what is mostly a cough/cold with little energy and appetite. I did a test this morning and it went red immediately as the test fluid was going along past the T marker :eek:
 
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The devastating impact of covid is like a tidal wave approaching society, yet most people don't know anything about long covid. I didn't before getting covid.

www.dorsetecho.co.uk

Teenager tells of her agonising battle with Long Covid

Living with long Covid is hard enough as an adult, but a young woman from Weymouth has been coming to terms with how the condition has changed her…
www.dorsetecho.co.uk www.dorsetecho.co.uk

New variants on the way!
 
BowdonUK said:
The devastating impact of covid is like a tidal wave approaching society, yet most people don't know anything about long covid. I didn't before getting covid.

www.dorsetecho.co.uk

Teenager tells of her agonising battle with Long Covid

Living with long Covid is hard enough as an adult, but a young woman from Weymouth has been coming to terms with how the condition has changed her…
www.dorsetecho.co.uk www.dorsetecho.co.uk

New variants on the way!
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But, But, But.... It's just a bad cold, right? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :cry: :cry:
 
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