Coronavirus Thread

[st albans fox]

3 minutes ago, danny. said:

Yea, I think so. But it was in Feb 2020 so no testing.

if it was the back end of feb 2020, then its certainly possible.  did you have a reaction to jab 1??

[danny.]

Just now, st albans fox said:

if it was the back end of feb 2020, then its certainly possible.  did you have a reaction to jab 1??

Well I had a cough for about 3 months with it too, and felt really rough for a week. Jab 1 I had headaches/flu symptoms for about 3 days.

[st albans fox]

4 minutes ago, danny. said:

Well I had a cough for about 3 months with it too, and felt really rough for a week. Jab 1 I had headaches/flu symptoms for about 3 days.

i'm no medical expert but it would seem that your immune system doesn't like covid, nor does it like thinking it is fighting covid. 

 

suspect that once this virus becomes endemic, you wont be an asymptomatic sufferer ! 

[danny.]

Just now, st albans fox said:

i'm no medical expert but it would seem that your immune system doesn't like covid, nor does it like thinking it is fighting covid. 

 

suspect that once this virus becomes endemic, you wont be an asymptomatic sufferer ! 

Yea maybe. I was OK in Feb, the cough was annoying but didn't hurt etc. just annoying. I felt rough then but was ok after a week of resting up.

[Bryn]

1 hour ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Some of the graphs coming out of this recently are so strange.

 

Out of interest as well, if someone is in hospital with Omicron (no other injuries, caught it out and about and was taken in because of purely Omicron) and they don't need a ventilator, what treatment do they receive? Is it just rest and comfort plus the standard medication? 

Covid is actually quite easy to treat from a physicians point of view, there’s pretty clear guidelines from the almost two years of experience we have now.

 

A&E generally get you home, or just admit direct to a cohorted bed if you’re positive and need admission but just need quite simple treatment, so I would only get called to see people who are unwell. Broadly speaking I’d be looking at the following.

 

Level of consciousness, and airway issues? Early ITU input if any issues here.

 

How much oxygen do you need? Anything more than 40% oxygen (room air has 21%, 40% is about 8L of supplemental oxygen via a facemask, it’s too much for the little nose tubes some of you may have seen) and experience tells us you are going to need ventilator support. Even if oxygen levels aren’t too bad I look at how hard you’re working and check the levels of oxygen and waste carbon dioxide in your arteries, if you’re looking exhausted and I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep yourself going again you will need ventilatory support. Very broadly you can split ventilatory support into two types; invasive intubation, which is what you get when you have an operation, you’re put to sleep, have a breathing tube placed down your throat and are hooked up to a machine; and non-invasive ventilation for which you must be awake and wear a tight fitting face mask which puts the supplied oxygen under pressure to force it into your lungs as you breathe. The former can only be done in intensive care, the latter can be done on a ward with enhanced care and nurses trained in managing the machine. We know from experience that invasive ventilation isn’t a very good treatment for Covid. It’s actually not a very good treatment for anything, you only do it as a supporting measure whilst waiting for something else to be done. If you’re bad enough that you’re too bad for non-invasive ventilation and need invasive your prognosis is extremely poor. Intensive care are very selective about who they take for that reason, for the majority it doesn’t work or makes things worse. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

 

Anyone needing oxygen gets dexamethasone, a steroid. There was a time we gave everyone remdesivir, an antiviral, at the same time but that seems to have gone out of fashion. There’s various more advanced treatments patients who need ventilatory support get including antivirals and tailored antibodies which I don’t actually have much involvement in giving, they’re the reserve of the intensive care doctors and respiratory physicians.

 

We know Covid causes complications. You can get pneumonia and sepsis, you can clot off pretty much every organ in your body. I use a mix of clinical judgement, imaging and blood tests to decide if you have developed any such complications and treat them accordingly, fluids, blood thinners or antibiotics or whatever is needed. Almost every patient admitted gets at least a preventative dose of blood thinners to stop clots forming.

 

One of my most important roles is early decision making regarding how far you escalate a patient. Some patients, those who are very frail and vulnerable, come in and are clearly actively dying and recognising that fact and preventing discomfort and unnecessary indignity as they pass is important. Some clearly look like they’d benefit from oxygen and steroids but don’t look fit enough for aggressive ventilation and again recognising this and discussing it with them and their family is important. Others with severe disease but minimal underlying vulnerabilities you want to decide early that this is a patient who would have a good chance of benefitting from even the most aggressive, invasive and risky treatments and again recognition and involving the right teams early is critical.

 

Finally, severe Covid is debilitating and most will need intensive rehabilitation after surviving. This is actually a big contributor to current bed issues as we’re far better at getting people through the acute phase now which means higher numbers of people remaining in hospital rehabilitating.

It’s far more sophisticated than 2020 when you’d either stick on a ventilator, give oxygen and cross your fingers or commence end-of-life care and that’s all you could do.

[shade]

47 minutes ago, Bryn said:

Covid is actually quite easy to treat from a physicians point of view, there’s pretty clear guidelines from the almost two years of experience we have now.

 

A&E generally get you home, or just admit direct to a cohorted bed if you’re positive and need admission but just need quite simple treatment, so I would only get called to see people who are unwell. Broadly speaking I’d be looking at the following.

 

Level of consciousness, and airway issues? Early ITU input if any issues here.

 

How much oxygen do you need? Anything more than 40% oxygen (room air has 21%, 40% is about 8L of supplemental oxygen via a facemask, it’s too much for the little nose tubes some of you may have seen) and experience tells us you are going to need ventilator support. Even if oxygen levels aren’t too bad I look at how hard you’re working and check the levels of oxygen and waste carbon dioxide in your arteries, if you’re looking exhausted and I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep yourself going again you will need ventilatory support. Very broadly you can split ventilatory support into two types; invasive intubation, which is what you get when you have an operation, you’re put to sleep, have a breathing tube placed down your throat and are hooked up to a machine; and non-invasive ventilation for which you must be awake and wear a tight fitting face mask which puts the supplied oxygen under pressure to force it into your lungs as you breathe. The former can only be done in intensive care, the latter can be done on a ward with enhanced care and nurses trained in managing the machine. We know from experience that invasive ventilation isn’t a very good treatment for Covid. It’s actually not a very good treatment for anything, you only do it as a supporting measure whilst waiting for something else to be done. If you’re bad enough that you’re too bad for non-invasive ventilation and need invasive your prognosis is extremely poor. Intensive care are very selective about who they take for that reason, for the majority it doesn’t work or makes things worse. I’ll come back to that in a minute.

 

Anyone needing oxygen gets dexamethasone, a steroid. There was a time we gave everyone remdesivir, an antiviral, at the same time but that seems to have gone out of fashion. There’s various more advanced treatments patients who need ventilatory support get including antivirals and tailored antibodies which I don’t actually have much involvement in giving, they’re the reserve of the intensive care doctors and respiratory physicians.

 

We know Covid causes complications. You can get pneumonia and sepsis, you can clot off pretty much every organ in your body. I use a mix of clinical judgement, imaging and blood tests to decide if you have developed any such complications and treat them accordingly, fluids, blood thinners or antibiotics or whatever is needed. Almost every patient admitted gets at least a preventative dose of blood thinners to stop clots forming.

 

One of my most important roles is early decision making regarding how far you escalate a patient. Some patients, those who are very frail and vulnerable, come in and are clearly actively dying and recognising that fact and preventing discomfort and unnecessary indignity as they pass is important. Some clearly look like they’d benefit from oxygen and steroids but don’t look fit enough for aggressive ventilation and again recognising this and discussing it with them and their family is important. Others with severe disease but minimal underlying vulnerabilities you want to decide early that this is a patient who would have a good chance of benefitting from even the most aggressive, invasive and risky treatments and again recognition and involving the right teams early is critical.

 

Finally, severe Covid is debilitating and most will need intensive rehabilitation after surviving. This is actually a big contributor to current bed issues as we’re far better at getting people through the acute phase now which means higher numbers of people remaining in hospital rehabilitating.

It’s far more sophisticated than 2020 when you’d either stick on a ventilator, give oxygen and cross your fingers or commence end-of-life care and that’s all you could do.

That's a really interesting first hand look in to treatment, thanks for that 👍🏼

[Stivo]

6 hours ago, shade said:

Impressive post mate. It's a risk calculation for everybody whether to get it, and I do agree that for most people the risk of not getting the vaccine is greater. The known risks of the vaccine are much less than the virus for me. My thought process was, I've done a lot to mitigate the risks of the virus to me and whilst I'll almost definitely be proven wrong, I'm not convinced the vaccine won't have longer term issues (even if for a minority of people).

 

When I saw that the vaccine COULD physically cause heart inflammation (however rare) and missed periods, I thought if it CAN physically do that, what else MIGHT it do long term. The evidence might be that the spike protein might not be toxic or have adverse effects, but it has the mechanism to do those things when it moves through the body, what else MAY happen. This isn't me misinforming, it's just explaining my thought process in the decision.

 

As I've said before, I caught delta a few weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised by how mild it was for me, it could be luck or I would argue more likely I've done lots to mitigate the impact that I've mentioned before so won't go in to. One thing I haven't mentioned before is as soon as I got the positive, I started to gargle with salt water and used a saline solution with a nasal irrigator.

 

Reading your thought process is interesting shade.  
 

You might perhaps find this article from the Boston Review interesting as it actually goes into some of the points that you raise, such as how long the spike proteins exist in the body. It explains the sort of risk analysis that is applied and the difference between the risk profile of a vaccine versus a medicine.

 

https://bostonreview.net/articles/the-long-term-safety-argument-over-covid-19-vaccines/

[Sol thewall Bamba]

Small drop in patients in hospital in London today. Fingers crossed.

[Farrington fox]

 

[dsr-burnley]

19 minutes ago, Farrington fox said:

 

I can't work out whether some people choose to believe that after 10 weeks and 1 day the vaccine becomes uselss, or whether they choose to believe that a vaccine that saves your life but doesn't prevent a cough is no good.  Either way they're idiots.  P{lease don't bother quoting them.

[Leicester_Loyal]

54 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

I can't work out whether some people choose to believe that after 10 weeks and 1 day the vaccine becomes uselss, or whether they choose to believe that a vaccine that saves your life but doesn't prevent a cough is no good.  Either way they're idiots.  P{lease don't bother quoting them.

I don't know about the original tweet, but if you're mid to late 20s, already had COVID (omicron) and relatively healthy, then what's the point in the booster? Efficiency takes 2 weeks to build up, a further 8 weeks later and it's down to 50% effectiveness or so (Figures I've read they may be slightly out by a few percentage). Surely taking the vaccine is putting my health and life at risk (obviously very slim chance) for little benefit to myself, especially when we've been told natural immunity is better than the vaccine anyway (This may be total bollocks )

 

I really do think all of these threats and coercion is putting more and more people off getting the booster rather than encouraging them. None of my friends in my age range have taken the booster yet, we were all 50/50 but since all this information started to come out it's moved to about 70/30 in favour of not getting it.

 

Come Feb (Denmark away) or April (holiday) I'll either be forced into having the booster or not travelling abroad I believe, but hopefully it doesn't come to that. Alternatively they'll make the unboosted isolate for 10 days or something when coming back into the country.

 

EDIT: Just realised it said large venues as well, so not allowed to go football because I won't be boosted, even though I've already got previous natural immunity from COVID, makes no sense, much like most of this stuff.

Edited 6 January 2022 by Leicester_Loyal

[HighPeakFox]

15 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

we've been told natural immunity is better than the vaccine anyway.

Genuinely, I'd missed being told that - who has told us this, please?

[kyleolly]

Got 3 close family members that have had the booster and are fairly ill with covid, the more worrying thing for me is that my 20 year old next door neighbour had her 1st vaccine last week and 2 days later collapsed at work fit and healthy and I've seen cctv footage and she went down like a sack of shit.

[Leicester_Loyal]

23 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

Genuinely, I'd missed being toIt found that an unvaccinated person with a previous COVID-19 infection has around 65 per cent protection against catching it again. But that two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine gave 71 per cent protection against infection, and two doses of the Pfizer vaccine gave 87 per cent protection. ld that - who has told us this, please?

Just searched the net and can hardly find any trace of it except for like random studies that could be bollocks. Only thing I can think of is that its been repeated on social media and that's where I've picked it up.

 

From a quick google ZOE studies reckons:

 

'It found that an unvaccinated person with a previous COVID-19 infection has around 65 per cent protection against catching it again. But that two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine gave 71 per cent protection against infection, and two doses of the Pfizer vaccine gave 87 per cent protection. '

 

Assuming this means Delta though, not Omicron so God knows? Another issue may well be that it won't matter about catching it again if it's just Omicron, as it is much more mild than previous strains.

 

Apoligies for potential misinformation, I will edit my original post.

[Leicester_Loyal]

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-previous-infection-and-vaccination-combine-for-best-protection-against-variants-12489031

 

'People who have overcome a coronavirus infection and also received a vaccine have higher-quality antibodies against variants, researchers have found.'

 

Guess it depends on the percentages, I'll let someone much more intelligent than me go through the data, step forward Line X or Leicsmac

Edited 7 January 2022 by Leicester_Loyal

[shade]

7 hours ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-previous-infection-and-vaccination-combine-for-best-protection-against-variants-12489031

 

'People who have overcome a coronavirus infection and also received a vaccine have higher-quality antibodies against variants, researchers have found.'

 

Guess it depends on the percentages, I'll let someone much more intelligent than me go through the data, step forward Line X or Leicsmac

You're also more likely to have a bad reaction to the vaccine if you've had a previous infection so I sadly, have to bow out.

[Dunge]

8 hours ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-previous-infection-and-vaccination-combine-for-best-protection-against-variants-12489031

 

'People who have overcome a coronavirus infection and also received a vaccine have higher-quality antibodies against variants, researchers have found.'

 

Guess it depends on the percentages, I'll let someone much more intelligent than me go through the data, step forward Line X or Leicsmac

There could be something in this; perhaps facing viruses with slight genetic differences could train the body better than facing two of the same. I think I’ve also read differently to you above, that vaccines are actually better than infection. It makes some sense to me that the optimum may be two vaccines based on different variants, but I don’t think this has been tried yet and of course it’s just postulation.

 

 

25 minutes ago, shade said:

You're also more likely to have a bad reaction to the vaccine if you've had a previous infection so I sadly, have to bow out.

Speaking of postulation, I’d have thought the opposite would be true. Particularly if you didn’t have a bad reaction to the original infection.

[FoxesDeb]

38 minutes ago, shade said:

You're also more likely to have a bad reaction to the vaccine if you've had a previous infection so I sadly, have to bow out.

Can you show the source for this please? 

[z-layrex]

54 minutes ago, shade said:

You're also more likely to have a bad reaction to the vaccine if you've had a previous infection so I sadly, have to bow out.

This is totally untrue. You really must stop being so totally and utterly ridiculous, I know I'm wasting my time but this is such a shame. Please think of your children if nothing else.

 

In other news, my gigantic London trust is officially sacking anyone not vaccinated (1st dose) by Feb 3rd:

 

·         All medics; nursing and midwifery colleagues; allied health professionals; healthcare scientists; those providing additional clinical support; and non-clinical staff based within or in the immediate vicinity of clinical areas.

·         All clinical service support staff (such as colleagues in administrative roles based in outpatient departments and clinics).

·         All in-house estates and facilities colleagues, and on-site contracted staff.

·         All corporate services colleagues, except those who are exclusively based in off-site buildings and are never likely to go into clinical areas.

·         Bank and agency workers, volunteers, students, people on honorary contracts, volunteers, locums, and people employed by our contractors.

[Farrington fox]

10 hours ago, kyleolly said:

Got 3 close family members that have had the booster and are fairly ill with covid, the more worrying thing for me is that my 20 year old next door neighbour had her 1st vaccine last week and 2 days later collapsed at work fit and healthy and I've seen cctv footage and she went down like a sack of shit.

Loads of this kind of thing happening. But you’re not allowed to talk about it!

[FoxesDeb]

4 minutes ago, Farrington fox said:

Loads of this kind of thing happening. But you’re not allowed to talk about it!

Who has said you're not allowed to talk about it? Serious reactions to the vaccine, including deaths, have been widely discussed in this thread already 

[shade]

45 minutes ago, z-layrex said:

This is totally untrue. You really must stop being so totally and utterly ridiculous, I know I'm wasting my time but this is such a shame. Please think of your children if nothing else.

 

In other news, my gigantic London trust is officially sacking anyone not vaccinated (1st dose) by Feb 3rd:

 

·         All medics; nursing and midwifery colleagues; allied health professionals; healthcare scientists; those providing additional clinical support; and non-clinical staff based within or in the immediate vicinity of clinical areas.

·         All clinical service support staff (such as colleagues in administrative roles based in outpatient departments and clinics).

·         All in-house estates and facilities colleagues, and on-site contracted staff.

·         All corporate services colleagues, except those who are exclusively based in off-site buildings and are never likely to go into clinical areas.

·         Bank and agency workers, volunteers, students, people on honorary contracts, volunteers, locums, and people employed by our contractors.

 

1 hour ago, FoxesDeb said:

Can you show the source for this please? 

 

I can't find it at the moment, but I saw a good one that showed not just mild side effects, but serious side effects were more likely as well.

 

Vaccine side-effects and SARS-CoV-2 infection after vaccination in users of the COVID Symptom Study app in the UK: a prospective observational study - The Lancet Infectious Diseases

 

Previous COVID-19 infection but not Long-COVID is associated with increased adverse events following BNT162b2/Pfizer vaccination | medRxiv

 

Life | Free Full-Text | Self-Reported Real-World Safety and Reactogenicity of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Vaccine Recipient Survey | HTML (mdpi.com)

Edited 7 January 2022 by shade

[st albans fox]

Ref reactions to vaccine 

 

if you had a tough experience with a covid infection then it would be no surprise if you have a reaction to the jab which elicits similar symptoms. Though on a lesser scale and for a much shorter time.

 

But it’s not going to be true of everyone and it doesn’t mean that if you haven’t had covid then you won’t have any reaction to the jabs. 
 

the most notable thing about covid is its unpredictability on how it affects you, irrespective of your fitness etc etc 

[Soup]

2 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

Tested positive with no symptoms. More time isolating.
 

Love it, it’s so good for your head being stuck in despite not being ill 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼

Chin up mate, think of all the lives you'll save not going out.

[Otis]

2 hours ago, pmcla26 said:

Tested positive with no symptoms. More time isolating.
 

Love it, it’s so good for your head being stuck in despite not being ill 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼

Why did you get a test? Travel?