All this covid stuff.

[4v6]

Probably going to start a fight about it, but whats the general consensus of opinion regarding it?

My unashamed position is that its basically been hyped to such a degree that no one sems to know where the truth stops and the panic starts.
I had the original first round variant in 2019 that made me bad for about a week, felt like flu but not as harsh, rest of the family barely felt it, the gits, none of us had hospital treatment and got over it fine.

Since then ive had a couple of sniffles/colds but seems Ive now got the "deadly" Omicron ( Moronic) variant thats so deadly all I have is a bit of a runny nose and very slightly sore throat. Thats it!
I cant understand why theyd want to shut down the country for this, its a pathetic excuse for a disease if this is what the majority of people experience.
Oh, and just to furtherr position myself as forum pariah, Ive never had any of the jabs, according to whitty and vallance I should be dead several times over, only one in my family has had all three jabs and theyre sick as a dog with the 'cron.

So whats the point? I keep asking myself.
You get all these jabs and yet you can still catch it and spread it which is unlike any vaccine ive ever seen in my life.
I mean, you dont need multiple Tetanus/measles/diptheria/polio etc, the only conclusion I can make on the so called vaccine is that the damn thing dont bloody work!

Now I also realise that some people have suffered with it and died, but so have many others, from cancer, car accidents, strokes and heart attacks ( see vaers data for heart attacks after jabs btw-makes sobering reading) so those people have my sympathy, 650,000 people a year die from flu but there was never any panic cos the media didnt tell you to and no one ever gave a fig for those poor sods.

Im of the opinion that the sooner we all just drop all this nonsense and ignore the so called experts who keep faking their data ( telegraph today) the sooner we can consign this period of pandemic mental illness to the bin of history where it belongs.

[mackenzie50]

I originally took it all very seriously and obeyed all rules/restrictions, indeed was first in my area to don a mask (got looks as if I were a loony in the supermarket!)
I am of that age where 1st time round men got hammered by it- if they took it bad.
Worked throughout the pandemic apart from a few weeks early on when our work was shut down.
Then the Dominic Cummings fiasco , and anger , resentment and disbelief set in....
I am however a believer in vaccines, and thankful we have a line of defence .
The Scottish Government has in my opinion had a consistently better reaction/plan of action than Boris' lot.
However, with this latest 'event' I am now heartily sick of the media panic- incitement, Government (all of the nation states)nanny-state overreaction, and bewildering squandering of taxpayers hard-earned cash.
Omigodicron (as I call it )was reported weeks ago to be very mild in South Africa but oh no we need to run and hide and quiver again...and waste yet more money.
The hospitality industry is being crucified yet again, and needlessly. Restrictions on pubs, restaurants and hotels only sends folk to house paries/get-togethers and destroys a hardworking industry.
Yes, I know the poor NHS staff are constantly pressured beyond any previous norm ...if only the system had had the money invested decades ago,by successive Govts., there wouldn't be the concern of overwhelming the NHS....
And that's my only concern now . I admit I don't have a clever answer to that one to help right now..
But I have come to disbelieve in any of the UK Scientists/Experts' data-twisting and blatantly wrong, advice.
Time to 'man up' and just get on with normal life again, instead of the endless nannying and fannying.

Just my (perhaps naive) tuppenceworth from an occasional forum visitor! Have a Good New Year everyone.

[Isimmo]

There’s a common term we use at work about ‘data’

- ‘crap data in = crap data out’.

There’s been a lot of crap data in and out lately.

[SwallownAmazon]

Originally Posted by 4v6

650,000 people a year die from flu but there was never any panic cos the media didnt tell you to and no one ever gave a fig for those poor sods.

Don't know where you got that figure from - the actual figure varies between 28,330 in 2014/15 (when there was a particuarly nasty strain doing the rounds) and 11,875 in 2014/15 (low because the folk that would have caught it that year and possibly died, had already done so the previous year). The average is around 22,000 pa in England.

SARS-Cov-2 is a particularly nasty little virus that mutates at the drop of the proverbial hat and affects people in different ways for differing lengths of time, depending on overall health and many other factors. I could relate many anecdotes on how little it affects people as has 6v6 above but equally, I know of people with extraordiarily healthy lifestyles being killed off after less than a week.

What does make me angry is the "DO AS I SAY NOT DO AS I DO" attitude of Government ministers and officials.

As for Johnson, he is the most hypocritical piece of S**t I have ever come across in politics; he has single-handedly destroyed the reputation of the Conservative Party as can be seen in recent elections both for parliament and local government. I am by inclination a Capitalist Liberal who voted for an excellent man as our MP in Tonbridge but how anyone can vote for a Party led by a proven liar (he was sacked from The Daily Telegraph for inventing "news" stories years ago) with the morals of an alley-cat, the integrity of a plate of pink blancmange and the appearance of a second-hand bog brush, beats me.

Why does Whitty persist in saying that infectons are doubling every 2 or 3 days? That is a blatant lie as anyone with a basic understanding of arithmetic can see; just try it with your calculator. The man is a doctor, not a statistician and he should stick to what he knows about. Is it co-incidence that Vallance no longer appears in these propaganda shows from No 10? His judgement was pretty crap in the early days as well......

We will have to learn to live with SARS-Cov-2 and it will eventually die out as did the similar strain of "Spanish Flu" in 1918/19/20

[4v6]

Originally Posted by SwallownAmazon

Don't know where you got that figure from - the actual figure varies between 28,330 in 2014/15 (when there was a particuarly nasty strain doing the rounds) and 11,875 in 2014/15 (low because the folk that would have caught it that year and possibly died, had already done so the previous year). The average is around 22,000 pa in England.

SARS-Cov-2 is a particularly nasty little virus that mutates at the drop of the proverbial hat and affects people in different ways for differing lengths of time, depending on overall health and many other factors. I could relate many anecdotes on how little it affects people as has 6v6 above but equally, I know of people with extraordiarily healthy lifestyles being killed off after less than a week.

What does make me angry is the "DO AS I SAY NOT DO AS I DO" attitude of Government ministers and officials.

As for Johnson, he is the most hypocritical piece of S**t I have ever come across in politics; he has single-handedly destroyed the reputation of the Conservative Party as can be seen in recent elections both for parliament and local government. I am by inclination a Capitalist Liberal who voted for an excellent man as our MP in Tonbridge but how anyone can vote for a Party led by a proven liar (he was sacked from The Daily Telegraph for inventing "news" stories years ago) with the morals of an alley-cat, the integrity of a plate of pink blancmange and the appearance of a second-hand bog brush, beats me.

Why does Whitty persist in saying that infectons are doubling every 2 or 3 days? That is a blatant lie as anyone with a basic understanding of arithmetic can see; just try it with your calculator. The man is a doctor, not a statistician and he should stick to what he knows about. Is it co-incidence that Vallance no longer appears in these propaganda shows from No 10? His judgement was pretty crap in the early days as well......

We will have to learn to live with SARS-Cov-2 and it will eventually die out as did the similar strain of "Spanish Flu" in 1918/19/20

OOps sorry, was a worldwide figure I meant to post.
More details here (global mortality influenza):https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/

Agree entirely with everything you posted and other posters too.

[SorenR]

Omicron is not deadly... It's closer to the common flu than to the original Covid-19.

Just got my 3'rd jab so now whole family is covered..

Wife is franticly trying to cover shifts at the E.R. (Copenhagen) as staff "fall over". It's only "a few hundred" staff but still a frightening puzzle. Staff also include test and vaccine.

Actually, most of the staff who had the 3'rd jab see weird test results ... They go positive for 2-3 days and then negative.

The general consensus is that if you have had NO symptoms for 48 hours after a positive test then you are clear and ready for work.

Follow up PCR tests on day 4 and 6 to be safe.

Covid-19 is not nearly as scary as SARS was - We lived in Singapore during SARS ...

They were a lot better at containing SARS at that time - probably since very few asians go skiing and getting pissed at afterski ;-)

[BackintheFold]

EDITED
Just to be clear, I am not having a go at anyone specifically, my use of "you" is to designate you, the lucky reader...This is obviously my opinion, and you are entitled to yours. I just don't think it's too much to ask for someone to wear a mask during an undeniable pandemic/public health situation.



Partner is an AE nurse.
People die from Covid. People die from car accidents.
I look both ways before crossing the road, and my chances of car death are thus mitigated. I also wear my seat belt, and am glad i have airbags.
Someone else invented airbags, and i do not disable them just because not many people die in car accidents (per mile, or per journey, or in my age group, or whichever other stat I want to quote...)


I do the same with Covid. I have been vaccinated and boosted. Would I willingly breath in an intensive care patient's Covid cough?
No.
Would you?
If you think it is all fake, then I expect you'd happily do it to prove your point, in the same way you'd happily walk along an unlit stretch of the M25 wearing black clothing.

Statistics-Haven't seen Whitty's comments so no comment.
But you can play with them can't you?

For example, one possible reason why Omicron is infecting more people who are not dying, is because the older people are vaccinated. And younger people do not suffer as badly as the older generation.

There's a bunch of people who hang out in the local high street with banners saying how they don't trust the government and its all made up-"come and talk to us about it"

No, no thank you. Why would I get nearer to the people taking no precautions who are thus more likely to be carriers? That would be silly.

The problem with leaving it all to be just a matter of freedom of choice, is that anyone who says "i don't believe the hype, I'm not getting vaxed, I'll rely on developing my own immunity and taking Vitamin D" who then gets a bad attack of it WILL SHOW UP AT HOSPITAL when they are gasping for breath. They will spread it to their neighbours, friends, family, coworkers before then. The more who get it, the more likely it is to kill someone with a weaker immune response, and the more likely it is to mutate to something that spreads readily, and is more serious than Omicron.

[SorenR]

Regarding the anti-vaxers ... We've been warned of these f**kers long before Covid ... Parents not vaccinating their children since there was no point - nobody get polio, smallpox or whatever anymore.

Well, they are wrong. It's all coming back. Deceases that were regarded extinct in Europe are already back. Snowflakes and Millenials are generally totally oblivious since according to their rulez previous generations are the cause of all things bad in their world.

Previous generations ... My mom was a trained nurse during WW2 assisting with hiding and transporting Danish jews to Sweden. After the war she worked for WHO and Red Cross vaccinating children all over Europe.

The younger generations need to learn to respect the elders. Without them they would not exist nor get an education! (Note: education in Denmark is FREE. Financed by income taxes ... so no problem getting your masters or becomming a brain surgeon )

[BackintheFold]

Originally Posted by 4v6

I had the original first round variant in 2019 that made me bad for about a week, felt like flu but not as harsh, rest of the family barely felt it, the gits, none of us had hospital treatment and got over it fine.

Worth checking those dates. I had a nasty flu like thing on Christmas day 2019-so I am sure of the date-but am sure (despite a work colleague repeatedly suggesting I had Covid) that it was just a strain of flu.
See https://bfpg.co.uk/2020/04/covid-19-timeline/

January 29th 2020

The UK’s first two patients test positive for Coronavirus after two Chinese nationals from the same family staying at a hotel in York fall ill.
A plane evacuating Britons from Wuhan arrives at RAF Brize Norton. Passengers go into a 14 day quarantine at a specialist hospital on Merseyside.

[maxustaxus]

@4v6

Originally Posted by 4v6

Im of the opinion that the sooner we all just drop all this nonsense and ignore the so called experts who keep faking their data ( telegraph today) the sooner we can consign this period of pandemic mental illness to the bin of history where it belongs.

I pretty much agree with you totally.

My profession was as an academic, (Principle Lecturer in Social and Forensic Psychology), a very heavily statistics based discipline. I spent a career assessing data related to human behaviour.

And I am aghast at what has happened. Human beings are not very good at estimating relative risks, and tend to neglect boring base rate data. They are swayed by emotive cases, shocking headlines, visual drama (e.g., soaring graphs...blues and twos etc). Add to this the fact that the main media outlets have not allowed a full and balanced debate about costs/benefits/alternative views ect on this matter, and you have a recipe for moral panic on a grand scale.

Each age brings these things. At one time it was reds under the beds, another witches, another apocalyptic second comings. All have the same traits. Existential fear, seeking out the unbelievers, the heretics, the scape goats without which the doom would be averted. Oh, and let’s not forget the centralising of power over the population by those with special knowledge...you know, the witchfinders insight, the priest’s word, the "we" must tolerate this or that. The mantra "follow the science" as if science is ever just one certain settled view that implies just one cost free course of action!

Don't get me wrong. Covid is a thing. We have had in this parish at least one sad loss, and I know of others like most people. But this is not a catastrophe in the scale of human mortality. Bodies are not lining the streets as many imagined back in the days of “three weeks to flatten the curve” (ah remember that).

When people are near end of life, they will die of something. An average of 1600 people die every day of all sorts of things...only about 1 in 10 of these are "with" covid (a stable figure for the last 7 months). And the 5 years excess death figures (the important mortality figure) are not raised for 2021 (indeed the fell from the middle of the year). What can be a catastrophe is the man-made disproportionate responses we have seen. Delays in cancer treatment, and hundreds of other illnesses now rising as a direct result of pandemic measures.

I think one day the pandemic response will be seen for the mess it was. But there need be no grand conspiracy behind it all, human nature is explanation enough...indeed good intentions and collective fear are enough!

I wish the Barrington declaration of alternative expert opinion had been allowed air time back in 2020. It was obvious that almost all social measures made little difference. Of course the vax/s work...but mainly to reduce symptoms. This less alarmist report was not written by cranks and tin foil hatter…but eminent academics. It merely questioned the dominant fear narrative, and called for some perspective and cost benefit analysis of lock down measures. But this work was effectively banned…as have been many alternative points of view. No wonder the panic marched on.

And I respect people’s right to decided what they put into the bodies and what treatments they take. I have not seen the full Basian data on relative risk (vax/non-vax) for hospital admission. But this would not alter the principle for me...any more than I would penalise or shame people for having hospital treatment because of reckless accidents, or liver damage from drinking, or cancer from smoking etc. The "worthy patient" is not the deal in a free society. There is a line we cross at our peril...and it is the right to truly informed and free consent before accepting treatments...a vaccine jab is a treatment BTW.

Finally, the evidence supporting the efficiency of ordinary mask use in the sorts of situations it is mandated is very weak (actually the only two RCT studies found no effect...google Belgian RCT mask study if interested). But more importantly, masks seem to me to be an ugly outward symbol of compliance...if people wish to wear them fine. I have no ambitions to order-mandate-require-insist-remind-encourage-criminalise anyone’s choice of apparel…I would ask they extend the same courtesy to me, or if two affeered of my mask-less visage they lock themselves down.

Yes I am a sceptic. Not of covid or vaccines…but of people’s good judgement in the face of hyped existential threats!