Deaths with covid, but meaningful symptoms (i.e. contributing factor) is as I understand it the same rule applied in both years. Most deaths involve a co-morbidity of some sort, because most of the deaths are in people with some sort of prior health condition.
Are your emergency rooms overwhelmed? Ours aren’t for the time being. It’s more or less back to normal, almost pre-corona status. That’s the main reason why the government has completely unleashed the shackles in regards to transmission of the virus.
I agree though that getting a cold in the midst of the summer is a bizarre experience.
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Our health care system was a mess beforehand, so the current problem is part high volume due to covid, part burnt-out staff (and/or absent due to covid). The intensive care units that were the real worry in prior waves are in much better shape, but the frontline emergency rooms are really struggling.
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I’m back to wearing masks at work since that’s the closest regular contact outside the home and where i caught covid last month.The industry im in has always needed a high level of hygiene so the hand washing etc has always been there .
Furthermore, endemicity is not the same thing as it being no big deal. It’s just been one of those terms thrown around by people who want do nothing and want it to be justified.
But society has moved on and so a degree you have to go with the flow otherwise you are Canute trying to hold back the tide. I think there has been a critical misunderstanding of the concept of public health that has undermined our response to this - The aggregate effect of collective actions dictate your personal risk. So despite never really adopting a PH attitude to this thing, we have clearly moved away from whatever PH attitude we had. It is now purely about personal risk mitigation, and there are sensible things you can do as Aussie pointed out especially when community transmission is as high as it is now. I travelled this week for work and while a lot of the official protocols are gone, I masked up all the way from the Uber from my house, through the airport and plane journey all the way until I got to my office in NY. I wasnt a nazi about it and had it off during period, but the way I see it is now about keeping your risk Area Under the Curve as low as you reasonably can.
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Regarding endemicity, hence my modifier benign. There are some fairly nasty diseases that are endemic to their environment, not all viruses become the common cold. Covid-19 may become an endemic killer, although the fundamental mathematics remain epidemic in structure through all the variants so far.
I simply wouldn’t travel right now the way I was as recently as May. Between the tire fire that airport services are seemingly everywhere (but Toronto is awful) and the near 1:1 mapping of June air travel and covid cases I am aware of, just not interested.
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Yeah, I still travel for work as needed (work remotely and have to go up to NY to the office as needed), but personal travel is not on the agenda. We were supposed to be going to Rochester next week to see the girlfriend’s family, but we knocked that on the head. It was mostly because people we’re going there to see have Covid, but it was the wake up call to make us realize the risk of the travel wasnt worth it (although I still REALLY need to go and get that Garbage Plate).
I don’t think Rochester would rate very high on my list to risk covid…
Nor mine, but happy wife…
I’m full of good intentions, then I get on the bus and realise I’ve left my mask at home.
Yeah, that’s what we read too. I’ve also read the PCR tests can still test positive long after the virus has gone because it is extremely sensitive to what’s going on in your body.
Pearson is the worst in the world for delays this summer.
I caught COVID either in Regina or Calgary a few weeks back. Had to go spread my father’s ashes on the bay at Lac La Ronge where we had a cabin. He died in 2019. We waited nearly three years to do this because of the pandemic.
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Sorry for your loss. It has been a weird time. Every once in a while I do a mental double-take that we have TWO urns of ashes on our mantle. It was meant to be a short term thing in March 2020, but instead the second urn showed up the following winter. At this rate, it doesn’t look like the family gatherings will happen before next Spring…so there they sit.
La Ronge is incredible country. Makes my place here looks like the suburbs.
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It is sensitive, but in the technical sense that doesnt mean it is “better” it just means when the thing it is designed to detect is present it is very unlikely to miss it. The issue is the clinical relevance of what it is designed to detect.
The antigen tests (rapid flow) detect a part of the virus that is only present i active virus and is eliminated by the immune process. However, that process leaves bits of virus debris that may stay around (doing nothing) for weeks or longer. The thing the PCR test is designed to detect is part of what remains in that debris. so once the immune system has done its thing, when you no longer have active virus in your system and are no longer testing positive on the rapid flow tests, the PCR will still detect that debris. That may go on for weeks or longer. Some people are forced to treat that like a clinically relevant positive test, which is like determining a collapsed building is still standing because you have detected the presence of concrete.
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3 people from the gathering have now reported testing positive, all of whom were part of my dinner and after dinner drinks group on thursday. At this point my only hope is that I had it recently enough with a close enough strain that I avoided it. I am currently running a test and waiting for the results.
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So far a very clear negative. I’ll test again tomorrow to be safe (thursday to monday is probably long enough incubation time for an infection to result in positive tests) and mask up on the unexpected event I have to leave the house today.
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I’m still positive on the old LFTs. First test came up Tuesday last week - so on day 6 - still snotty, but beyond that feel fine.
Missus now positive too - joy.
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I had friends recently who remained positive for about 12 days. It caused real drama as their work was constantly on them to return to the office after 5 days because that was their policy. It made it a lot harder to justify when the symptoms resolved after about 3 days, but they were (correctly) resolute about not going anywhere until they tested negative (for 2 days in a row).
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There’s so much varied info on what to do.
Official UK advice is
If you have COVID-19, you can pass on the virus to other people for up to 10 days from when your infection starts. Many people will no longer be infectious to others after 5 days.
You should:
- try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 5 days
- avoiding meeting people at higher risk from COVID-19 for 10 days, especially if their immune system means they’re at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19, even if they’ve had a COVID-19 vaccine
This starts from the day after you did the test.
My works flexible anyway, so I’ve just been working from home, and will do this week also. But now that the missus has covid too, in terms of any errands that need running out and about, I’ll be the one that does them as I’m less likely to spread now.
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Yeah, that’s a bit more sensible than what we had here where the CDC stuck firm to the 5 days quarantine and then you’re clear position despite widespread criticism of it and clear evidence of returning infected people back to work.
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