Covid

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 16/02/2022 11:31:37:

Bad News – my son has COVID, confirmed this morning. Got away with working through the Pandemic and has caught it now despite two jabs and a booster. He's probably got the Omicron variant, which is highly infectious but relatively mild. He's not quite unwell enough to take to his bed. Not too worried because the vaccine reduces the probability of severe side-effects by about 80%.

Despite Omicron being weedy COVID the number of deaths is still high. Yesterday 234 people died in the UK within 28 days of testing COVID positive. The number of deaths is small compared with the very large numbers of people with COVID (about 46,000 new cases per day testing positive). In the pipeline there are three Variants of Interest, one active in the UK, which don't seem to be causing much trouble, and a further 7 variants being monitored in case they turn nasty. 27 other variants are no longer detectable.

Good news, the rate of new infections in the UK is falling sharply.

Dave

Hope your son does OK. Pretty sure he will. I know about a dozen people so far who have had Omicron and all experienced it as a bit of a flu and not too bad. Most of those we read about as hospitalized/dying with it now are the very elderly and those with underlying serious health problems such as diabetes etc. There's the odd aberration of course but for most, chances of getting hit by a car are greater.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Thankfully, the FOI request from the ONS shows only around 17,500 deaths directly atributal to only the virus.

[MikeKParticipant @mikek40713]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 16/02/2022 11:31:37:

Bad News – my son has COVID, confirmed this morning. Got away with working through the Pandemic and has caught it now despite two jabs and a booster. He's probably got the Omicron variant, which is highly infectious but relatively mild. He's not quite unwell enough to take to his bed. Not too worried because the vaccine reduces the probability of severe side-effects by about 80%.

Yeah, hopefully he'll be okay. I got Covid about a month ago, despite being fully vaccinated. I was in terrible shape for two days only and then I felt fine. I still have a lingering mild cough, though, this many weeks later. My older sister got Covid – also fully vaccinated – a couple weeks ago and had virtually no symptoms at all except for a very weak cough.

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

I was shocked by the easy and speed Omicron spread my 3yr old Great Grand Daughter caught it at nursery but before it was known her Mum and Dad her Gran and Granddad had all been infected, so 1 3yr old infected four double jabbed adults !

H

PS An I the only one who is having problems with the spell checker ?

[MikeKParticipant @mikek40713]

Posted by Harry Wilkes on 16/02/2022 15:36:29:

I was shocked by the easy and speed Omicron spread my 3yr old Great Grand Daughter caught it at nursery but before it was known her Mum and Dad her Gran and Granddad had all been infected, so 1 3yr old infected four double jabbed adults !

H

This is how viruses usually play out. Because we're trying to eradicate it, there is selective pressure for infectivity over deadliness.

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

Statistics – treat this as a rhetorical question but if you have a condition such as diabetes which you manage with insulin for decades, living an otherwise normal life and then catch covid and succumb, how would you like your cause of death to be attributed?

For those not interested in being sucked in by conspiracy theorists, both fullfact.org and BBC More or Less are worth consulting to help understand numbers such as the one quoted above.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Can anyone explain the mechanism by which one variant 'takes over' from another and what stops them simply coexisting? So in short, how does variant 1 know to die out when variant 2 comes along?

Martin.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by blowlamp on 16/02/2022 17:24:42:

Can anyone explain the mechanism by which one variant 'takes over' from another and what stops them simply coexisting? So in short, how does variant 1 know to die out when variant 2 comes along

It doesn't 'know'. It's simple probability. A high mortality disease kills its host. It can only spread well if it is infectious for a decent period before killing the host. A highly infectious lower mortality disease spreads well and the surviving hosts have more opportunity to spread it, and develop some immunity against it, and associated variants, so the high mortality variant has less opportunity = fades out.

pgk

[MikeKParticipant @mikek40713]

Posted by blowlamp on 16/02/2022 17:24:42:

Can anyone explain the mechanism by which one variant 'takes over' from another and what stops them simply coexisting? So in short, how does variant 1 know to die out when variant 2 comes along?

Martin.

Every cell in your body contains DNA. And every cell also contains helper molecules that read/decode DNA so that your cells can function…replicate, produce proteins and enzymes to perform various functions, etc.

Viruses take advantage of this reading/copying functionality. When the virus gets into your body it invades your cells and tricks your cells to produce copies of the virus instead of your own DNA. Viruses can't actually reproduce on their own…which is why some say they're not actually alive or are on the border between life and non-life. Anyway, this how the virus spreads through your body. And inevitably, there are mistakes in the copying. These are called mutations.

Most mutations result in things that don't work. Your DNA actually has error checking. Sometimes, the mutations do work and result in things that work "better" or "different".

Scientists aren't sure if Omicron is a mutation from the original SARS-Cov-2 virus, or if a mutation from a single person that managed to spread.

In any event, Omicron has some feature (ability to infect), maybe others as well, that is better than Delta…or whatever else its competing against.

Variant 1 doesn't "know" that Variant 2 is taking over…It's just that Variant 2 is better at spreading, so it leaves more "offspring" than Variant 1…and tends to take over.

They could, in theory, coexist…if they're not affecting each other's ability to reproduce. But we were actively treating, trying to kill, Variant 1 and didn't know about Variant 2. So Variant 2 got an advantage.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

So if it's possible to catch the virus multiple times, would that mean you could accquire variant 2 first and then get variant 1, or even have them simultaneously because of their differing characteristics?

Martin.

[MikeKParticipant @mikek40713]

Posted by blowlamp on 17/02/2022 01:24:29:

So if it's possible to catch the virus multiple times, would that mean you could accquire variant 2 first and then get variant 1, or even have them simultaneously because of their differing characteristics?

Martin.

Whatever one gets into your body first is, by definition, first. Yes, you could get more than one simultaneously, if you get exposed to both. One might likely be better at overwhelming your immune system than the other, though.

(A Simpsons joke here: Monty Burns was diagnosed in one episode as having every possible disease, but they perfectly cancelled each other out. hehe)

And getting one variant may give your immune system help fighting another variant later. I think the vaccine was 90-something percent effective against the original virus, but 80-something percent effective against omicron (or maybe it was delta?)…But it wasn't zero percent.

Despite what many people might think, the danger is the viral load. Having just one, individual, virus in your body isn't the harm…and wouldn't even be detectable. It's the ability to wreak havoc and reproduce "like a banshee". There's lots of nasties all over and inside your body all the time.

By the way, your own cells that reproduce "like a banshee" is called cancer. Reproducing like banshees is best left to banshees. Or ban-hees?

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Adrian R2 on 16/02/2022 16:56:01:

Statistics – treat this as a rhetorical question but if you have a condition such as diabetes which you manage with insulin for decades, living an otherwise normal life and then catch covid and succumb, how would you like your cause of death to be attributed?

For those not interested in being sucked in by conspiracy theorists, both fullfact.org and BBC More or Less are worth consulting to help understand numbers such as the one quoted above.

I'm currently reading a book by the host of More or Less, Tim Harford, titled "How to Make the World Add Up". He's good. Smart guy and de-nerds numbers very well. He debunks many statistical myths in an entertaining yet highly instructive manner.

As far as above rhetorical question goes: Cause of death will be determined by the doctors, not by patient's preference of course. And as with most good questions, the answer is "It depends". If you died gasping for breath with fatally low blood oxygen levels on a ventilator, it would seem that Covid killed you. If you died of massive diabetes-related internal organ failure due to being in a weakened state from Covid, then Covid still killed you. If you had not caught Covid, you would still be happily at home injecting insulin and posting on the ME forum after taking the dog for a walk. You may not have died "of Covid" but Covid sure as billy-o caused you to die of diabetes problems in your weakened state. Ergo, cause of death: Covid.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I case anyone is waiting for me to answer emails etc. … I've finally caught the covid bullet on tuesday. Played a gig, my brother came along and tested positive the day after and passed it on to a couple of other people. Of course none of us will appear in any stats now 😁

Now I've got it, I'm convinced I had it in March 2020, symptoms very similar. Not severe, although I feel like I've been gargling razor blades.

Main concern is keeping well away from my dad who has COPD.

Neil

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

At present I have the Covid, double pnuemonia, the seasonal flu, and bronchitis. All tested and verified at the hospital. No shots, been 4 weeks, retired. Just tired and should be over it next week.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Hopper on 16/02/2022 12:06:25:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 16/02/2022 11:31:37:

Bad News – my son has COVID, confirmed this morning. …

Dave

Hope your son does OK. Pretty sure he will. I know about a dozen people so far who have had Omicron and all experienced it as a bit of a flu and not too bad. …

He did thanks. Described it as 'like flu' recovered quickly, and was fine in under a week.

Since then my daughter and her colleagues all got it. Her experience was much the same – moderately nasty flu symptoms for 2 days with Neil's sharp sore throat, followed by quick recovery.

Second time she's had COVID : the first (Alpha) was much worse than Omicron. She was breathless with a sore chest for nearly 3 months after getting over the initial infection. One of my nephews has had COVID four times with no long term effects. His mum (my sister) was off work for 2 months due to Delta.

Even in mild form COVID is still causing considerable trouble in the workforce because whole teams are catching Omicron and going sick for 3 or 4 days. It's very infectious.

Get well soon everybody.

Dave

[GoCreateParticipant @gocreate]

I found this video very interesting regarding early treatments.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

An interesting spot on Radio 4 today on the damage being done to the brain by covid, more so at age 70+. Noel

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