Skyscraper
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Well there technically is one right now, with the flipping rail strikes!
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ā¹ļø Heads up...
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Coronavirus
- Thread starter Jb85
- Start date
jon81uk
TS Member
Well there technically is one right now, with the flipping rail strikes!
Not being able to travel by train is nothing like a lockdown.
Skyscraper
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What I meant is that shopping areas are deserted because people can't get there.
Benjsh
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I'm not quite sure that's right. I mean the fact it's airborne is correct but it can still spread by people not washing their hands regularly to kill the virus. After all doctors and scientists did spend a full year telling the nation to wash their hands. I didn't dream that, did I?
Covid isn't going anywhere. Time to get on with life now.
jon81uk
TS Member
It was only about the first six months that hand washing was talked about or so before masks became more important. But of course by that point the focus was already in the wrong place.
Part of getting on with life is about trying to minimise spread of all illnesses though. Many industries are struggling with staff absence right now, if people are ill with anything and stayed at home more then overall fewer people would get ill and life could go on better.
Dave
TS Founding Member
Hand washing was an early intervention when the virus was new and not much known, primarily because Flu actually spreads via contact as much as it spreads airborne. Itās still good advice in general but not specifically for covid.
Jb85
TS Member
Iām with you on this.
Itās clear this new variant is highly transmissible. For the first time in ages Iāve known 5 people with covid. All mild symptoms- 2-3 days of illness.
BUT weāre still dodging a super variant, which will come. And with vaccine immunity starting to waiver, I see carnage happening
Matt N
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Just as a friendly warning; if you have any vaguely cold-y or flu-y symptoms, I strongly advise you to do a COVID test.
As some of you know, I went to Alton Towers with my Nan on Sunday & Monday. One detail I left out of my trip reports was that she was feeling a bit under the weather all weekend. She said that sheād been feeling a bit achy and had had a bit of a cough and cold since Saturday, but refused to take a COVID test in case it meant she couldnāt come. She was adamant it wasnāt COVID, anyway, so didnāt think taking a test was necessary.
While we were away, she coughed quite a lot (my mum said that she was kept awake by nan coughing and spluttering all night in the hotel room), and she coughed and sneezed her way home in the car with us. My mum repeatedly prompted her to take a COVID test when she got home. My nan just said āOh shut up. Thereās no way itāll be COVID; I havenāt been to any mass gatherings to catch it from!ā.
Regardless, she did take a COVID test when arriving homeā¦ and it was positive. Nan said she was very glad that she didnāt take a test before coming away with us, and me and my mum both took tests as a result. My LFT was negative, as was my mumās, but my mum had to go and get a PCR due to her working in the NHSā¦ and it was positive.
Both me and my mum are now exhibiting COVID symptoms. Iām mostly all right other than a pretty blocked nose, a lot of sneezing, the odd cough here and there and the odd bit of aching, but my mum said she feels āquite roughā.
Iām not sure how long Iām supposed to stay in for, but I already cancelled my driving lesson on Wednesday, as even though I never technically tested positive for COVID, I have definite symptoms and came into close contact with 2 people now who have both tested positive for COVID, so I didnāt want to put my driving instructor at risk. Iām working off of the assumption that I have COVID.
But my basic message here is; donāt underestimate cold or flu type symptoms. I know itās a very easy thing to do (you donāt automatically assume you have COVID, and I know it probably never even crossed my nanās mind), but you could well have COVID, no matter how mild your symptoms are.
As some of you know, I went to Alton Towers with my Nan on Sunday & Monday. One detail I left out of my trip reports was that she was feeling a bit under the weather all weekend. She said that sheād been feeling a bit achy and had had a bit of a cough and cold since Saturday, but refused to take a COVID test in case it meant she couldnāt come. She was adamant it wasnāt COVID, anyway, so didnāt think taking a test was necessary.
While we were away, she coughed quite a lot (my mum said that she was kept awake by nan coughing and spluttering all night in the hotel room), and she coughed and sneezed her way home in the car with us. My mum repeatedly prompted her to take a COVID test when she got home. My nan just said āOh shut up. Thereās no way itāll be COVID; I havenāt been to any mass gatherings to catch it from!ā.
Regardless, she did take a COVID test when arriving homeā¦ and it was positive. Nan said she was very glad that she didnāt take a test before coming away with us, and me and my mum both took tests as a result. My LFT was negative, as was my mumās, but my mum had to go and get a PCR due to her working in the NHSā¦ and it was positive.
Both me and my mum are now exhibiting COVID symptoms. Iām mostly all right other than a pretty blocked nose, a lot of sneezing, the odd cough here and there and the odd bit of aching, but my mum said she feels āquite roughā.
Iām not sure how long Iām supposed to stay in for, but I already cancelled my driving lesson on Wednesday, as even though I never technically tested positive for COVID, I have definite symptoms and came into close contact with 2 people now who have both tested positive for COVID, so I didnāt want to put my driving instructor at risk. Iām working off of the assumption that I have COVID.
But my basic message here is; donāt underestimate cold or flu type symptoms. I know itās a very easy thing to do (you donāt automatically assume you have COVID, and I know it probably never even crossed my nanās mind), but you could well have COVID, no matter how mild your symptoms are.
Alsty
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I'll never understand this attitude. It's almost as if a disease can't possibly exist until I've got the diagnosis, so I just won't get the diagnosis.
jon81uk
TS Member
Matt, no offence to your Nan, but this is what I was trying to get at when talking about living with Covid a few posts ago. Living with it doesn't mean ignoring it, it means taking sensible precautions to avoid getting others ill. Unfortunately as your Nan wanted to spend time with her favourite (I assume!) grandson, you are now ill and it sounds like your Mum is quite ill.
As testing isn't really a big thing, its harder to quanitify how long to stay at home, but its best to avoid seeing others for a week or so. Or if you have to go somewhere, consider wearing a mask.
See also https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coron...reatment/when-to-self-isolate-and-what-to-do/
QTXAdsy
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I have been having a bit of hay fever and I did take precaution of having a Covid test (I had tested positive about a couple of months ago) which came back negative. I must also say that I'm actually pretty bad regarding hay fever even without Covid so I'm certain that this is just typical with me. Still, I'll likely keep testing a few times just to be absolutely sure. Also my sister had only recently caught Covid for the first time having managed to avoid a lot of it when me and the rest of the family caught it so I can see that this new wave is certainly a thing.
Matt N
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Oh, I know that struggle. I suffer quite badly from hay fever in the summer months, so itās at times hard to distinguish between hay fever and COVID symptoms. I had definite hay fever only a week ago when the pollen levels were very high!
One distinguishing difference between hay fever and COVID, though, is that I find hay fever can be cleared right up by simply showering and changing clothes (to get the pollen off you). These symptoms I have currently are not disappearing when I shower and change clothes, which would suggest that I have COVID rather than hay fever.
On a separate note, I think the issue with living with COVID partly boils down to our culture in Britain. We are very much a culture that frowns upon staying off from work or school for minor illnesses; before COVID, I remember my mumās policy was āunless you present me with vomit or a severe temperature, youāre going to schoolā, and I know plenty of other people who took the same policy. I certainly remember many occasions where I went to school with a definite cold, or when I wasnāt feeling so hot; if it wasnāt for pandemic advice encouraging you to self-isolate, I probably would have gone about my daily life with COVID, because my previous attitude was to go out and try my best unless I was literally unable to function. For many, COVID is a minor illness, so I think itās an easy thing to brush over having.
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jon81uk
TS Member
This is exactly the point I was trying to make a few days ago.
Thinking about all the issues at airports and similar, a lot of that is recruitment issues, but there is also absence issues. If people with milder symptoms also took the time off it might stop things spreading causing more people to be off for longer amounts of time.
Its difficult now for Joe Public to get a covid test though unless you pay for them, so most wont bother. Me and my partner had a horrendous cold the past 3 weeks, as has my brother, coughing, runny nose, sore throat, temp, feeling very tired all the time, but constantly testing negative for Covid, so there may also be another virus going around.
This isn't just a British culture thing. Seems pretty much world wide, probably worst country for it is Japan where being off work is pretty much seen as sinful. Don't think America is far behind that, to the point where even the idea of taking up the meagre holiday entitlement they get is seen as making a pact with Satan himself, let alone have the audacity to have a sick day. The Mum policy seems standard, I had it too, no doubt many others too, and I guess passed on down generations so when you enter the working life it kind of sticks; Mum says No, you look fine you can go to work.
Until there is some law that forces companies to pay a reasonable amount sick pay in relation to somebodies earning then people taking time off when ill just isn't going to happen. Where I work we have a generous sick pay scheme, which isn't abused as much as the detractors would have you believe; (Basically full pay, but being off sick 3*in a year could lead to disciplinary action, which could be 3*1 days for 3*1 months, doesn't discriminate), but many people have no such schemes available to them and it is usually the poorest of society that then get left to carry the can as they haven't got much choice of work or no money. Not going to change any time soon though with the current shower in Government, but the whole work until you drop thing is a debate for a different topic.