I notice it without stats but I have performance and quality profiles/metrics for most people at work and there is a clear difference between before and after 2020. People generally just don't give a **** compared to before. I don't know how much is directly or indirectly COVID.
COVID-19 (Coronavirus) discussion
- Thread starter ThundyCat
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I notice it without stats but I have performance and quality profiles/metrics for most people at work and there is a clear difference between before and after 2020. People generally just don't give a **** compared to before. I don't know how much is directly or indirectly COVID.
IIRC there were reports from the air transport industry that there were a lot more of the "informal" notifications* about pilots and ATC's seeming to take longer to get back up to scratch than was expected given previous instances where pilots/ATC had been off for either illness or long periods of strike action. It's one of those links you wish you'd saved months after the fact, but basically the suggestion was basically they were struggling to reach normal performance, and I think I've heard similar in regards to medical professionals after they've had covid, basically reports that they're more likely to struggle with memory/notice things quite as fast as they were before.
Which all ties in with if someone is ill under normal conditions, especially something that hits the system hard, but is unusual in how long the people are reporting it as persisting for. However if say people are still effectively recovering from Covid for a while it does make sense, as whilst you might feel "better" you can still be at lower than your peak performance for a while even with normal illnesses.
*I can't remember the name of the system in the US but it's basically a way the pilots can report "minor" issues without getting anyone (including themselves) in trouble, the idea being that patterns can be watched for and steps taken if needed if say there are repeated minor but normally not officially reportable problems (so that things like potential training or procedural weaknesses, or even issues with airport/cockpit layouts can be looked at before it becomes a major problem).
Soldato
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Remember just a cold guys
That's strange, SARI stopped reporting covid admissions in March 2023.
1 in 250 people ended up in hospital last year with covid? Really? Looks like he's just extrapolated Jan 2023 figures for the entire year to come up with this. The winter 2023/24 figures were showing that flu was putting 5+x as many people in hospital for flu than covid, so it's likely wildly over egged covid hospitilisations.
And looking at Tern's twitter page is a yikes
1 in 250 people ended up in hospital last year with covid? Really? Looks like he's just extrapolated Jan 2023 figures for the entire year to come up with this. The winter 2023/24 figures were showing that flu was putting 5+x as many people in hospital for flu than covid, so it's likely wildly over egged covid hospitilisations.
And looking at Tern's twitter page is a yikes
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Whats the point they are trying to make here? Flu has much, much, much better vaccinations and existing immunity so of course the numbers will be lower.
People trying to minimise flu are just idiots to be fair - I'd much rather have covid than flu based on my own personal experience.
On a bigger scale chances of dying due to COVID is much higher, and I believe the chances of getting COVID is much higher also. The chances of longer term effect is also much higher with COVID than flu, even "proper" flu.
I'm not sure which I'd rather have personally, proper flu the vast majority of people are back to normal within a week or so once they start turning the corner, my first bout of COVID took months to properly shake off and I seem to be on the second dose of it now
fortunately not bed bound this time - was just a scratchy throat, sneezing and light fatigue from Tuesday until yesterday evening when I started to get a snotty nose and getting hit harder with fatigue now, actually quite bad fatigue today and I've got to go into work later On a bigger scale chances of dying due to COVID is much higher, and I believe the chances of getting COVID is much higher also. The chances of longer term effect is also much higher with COVID than flu, even "proper" flu.
I'm not sure which I'd rather have personally, proper flu the vast majority of people are back to normal within a week or so once they start turning the corner, my first bout of COVID took months to properly shake off and I seem to be on the second dose of it now
Is there any evidence that the chances of long term effects are worse with covid or is that just an assumption as more people have covid at the same time making it seem worse - what's the %'s..
I had a bad sore throat for 2 days with covid where as proper flu was bed ridden for a week..
Bunch of studies like https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(23)00684-9/fulltext suggest so - I've not really kept up with the nitty gritty of it lately. Interestingly quite a few studies lately have suggested proper flu is worse for the pulmonary system, though I think that is partly due to the shift away from lower respiratory system infection which was more common with Delta.
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As treatments improve and someone hopefully invents a proper vaccination for covid I expect all these respiratory infections will all be much of a muchness..
Maybe, generally with these kind of diseases over time the population naturally tends to be increasingly made up of people with higher levels of resistance one way or another. But COVID's ability, compared to typical for these diseases, to infect a wider range of the body and higher chance of wider impact on the body even when it doesn't infect areas, may have some implications.
I wish you'd stop trying to be so confidently wrong all the time.
Flu vaccinations on a *good* year are only around 50-60% efficacy at best. Most years are lower. Covid vaccinations were superior to that to begin with and roughly sit around the same level now with the later Omicron variants. Flu mutates far too rapidly despite its much lower prevalence to make a vaccine anywhere as good as the covid ones were with current technologies. mRNA flu jabs might improve this as we'd be able to start manufacturing them much closer to Flu season and rely less on guessing that year's strain half a year out.
And as mentioned before, even if we assume 'long hauler' rates with Flu and Covid were the same (around 3% of infections), that still means a lot more covid long haulers due to the sheer spread of covid compared to the Flu. Ergo, it's the more serious disease for the population by numbers alone. Most people do not get flu yearly, maybe only a handful of times a decade, if that.
And since you seem to love extrapolating from your own personal anecdotes to decide the seriousness of something, here's mine: last time I remember having a big bout of Flu was around 2009/early 2010. Probably Swine Flu. It knocked me on my ass for a week and I felt absolutely terrible for the duration. My one bout with covid was pretty mild and mostly just gave me a really bad sore throat with some minor smell and taste loss. Covid however left me with lingering rumbly tinnitus in my left ear even months later that seems to have finally only started to go away because I've been taking prednisolone.
I'd take the flu over covid based on that alone.
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Purely anecdotal but I've not been overly impressed with either, albeit there are some factors like the COVID vaccines being developed against older variants and the pandemic having an impact on which variants of flu were going around vs anticipated. We've been dealing with several elderly relatives over the last 3-4 years, sadly now all passed away, and the vaccines have not prevented several full outbreaks (flu and COVID) in their care settings, albeit also impossible to know the number of times they might have prevented an infection.
And as mentioned when I first had COVID everyone in my immediate circle got it despite several being in the ideal spot booster wise, etc. the only factor which seemed to be noticeable was people with existing vulnerabilities who'd normally fair badly with a disease like this had it about the same as everyone else - some of them based on their medical history would have ended up in hospital normally and didn't.
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The covid vaccinations became less effective as Omicron continued to exploit weaknesses in antibodies in order to evade immunity, that is true. The jabs weren't able to keep up with that. From what I've been hearing though, the latest XBB 1.5 jabs still provide decent immunity to the latest JN.1 subvariants, especially so if you've been infected last year as well. It seems with JN.1 that covid is truly starting to run out of antibody evasion mutations, as all the offshoots of that variant are all exploiting the same mutation.
So, vaccines might finally start to catch up if covid begins to run out of options on its current trajectory. Or this may be the sign of covid undergoing a rapid change in behaviour in order to continue to spread in another way - who knows.
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It’s disingenuous not to compare apples with apples as you are doing but regardless I’d take a flu jab but wouldn’t bother with a Covid jab - like most people in the non vulnerable group it seems.
Time to stop using the term " long covid "?
www.theguardian.com
Time to stop using term ‘long Covid’ as symptoms no worse than those after flu, Queensland’s chief health officer says
Researchers compared the symptoms and impairment of Covid and influenza patients a year after they tested positive
www.theguardian.com
Thats what I'm seeing on a daily business, even in traditionally "self disciplined" jobs types (Emergency services, military etc) never mind those in customer services etc.
Covid brain.
I doubt flu as this many people suffering post viral fatigue at the same time.
Flu also doesn't spread as fast, or as far.
When I first got covid at the back end of 2020 everyone in the house got it at the same time. Be honest, how many times as everyone in a house had flu at the same time?
I doubt flu as this many people suffering post viral fatigue at the same time.
Flu also doesn't spread as fast, or as far.
When I first got covid at the back end of 2020 everyone in the house got it at the same time. Be honest, how many times as everyone in a house had flu at the same time?
Some definitely don't have the pro-activity and motivation, etc. they had before a dose of COVID but I think for others furlough, working from home and/or dropping down to 3-4 day working weeks during the lockdowns has altered their world view and they just aren't engaged in working full time 5 days a week - we've had a fair few request more flexible working or to drop a day since things have got more back towards normal (though even where we have accommodated that there are a lot of people who just aren't engaged with their job like they were pre-pandemic).
I am somewhat generalising here as it applies more to some people than others.
I am somewhat generalising here as it applies more to some people than others.
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Soldato
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The Spanish flu says hello. Granted, hygiene and medical norms were incomparable, and there was more poverty, but it definitely went far and fast. They find an adaptation that makes them virulent and off they go.
I hope we can agree Spanish flu was an exception.
If someone gets flu in your house all the house gets infected at around the same time ie multiple people all suffering from flu symptoms?
I've never had that happen to me and I've never heard of that situation in other people's houses.