Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
It seems overly gloomy. I mean the UK government almost pissed the bed over Omicron and acted totally irrationally and its one of the most hawkish on libertarianism/freedom from restrictions. Given that, i find it unlikely LC is such a threat given that no government in the world is sending up the 'panic!' Bat symbol over it and a great number have been extremely squirrely over Covid throughout. Theres enough data. Theres no panic. Ergo.
But there really is cause for deep concern, we are already seeing failures in the labour market, due to Long Covid
"Now, an analysis from a Bank of England monetary committee member is one of the first to draw links between long covid and the tightening of the labor market. The chronic condition has been one of the main drivers of the shrinking labor pool in the UK, according to a May 9 speech from Michael Saunders, an external member of the bank’s nine-member committee"
Point out where that stats guy, linked downthread is wrong. Please. I'd love to see where he is obvs wrong. But I can't
My honest guess is that this potential problem is so huge governments are looking away. Because there is no solution. We can't shut down again. Zero Covid is impossible. So very widespread Long Covid - significantly affecting millions in the UK alone, and damaging economies worldwide - is baked in the future-pie
My feeling is theres a problem, its more intense from pre vaccine infections but its well short of apocalyptic. Tgey reckon 50 million of us have had it now? If there were a catastrophic LC problem we would be seeing 'the street where everyone is too sick to work' style reports. A lot of LC, yes, but a lot of 'light' LC amongst it In other words, not nothing but not everything. Between the extremes. A bit of a problem. Etc
It is a fallacy to say if it were serious it would also be obvious. Look at the cigarette/lung cancer link: stacks of data over 50+ years, but the link not obvious, to the extent that Doll was derided by a minority for even having it as a variable to look at.
Fair point, however 'smoking' wasn't the sole focus of health departments and governments for 2 years solid like Covid.
You say no governments are taking this threat seriously, ergo it is not a threat
But China is still pursuing Zero Covid
"Shanghai fears second lockdown as China battles BA.5 covid variant - The Washington Post"
Hitherto, we have all presumed this Zero Covid policy is just a terrible error, or a byproduct of Xi's need to save face in 2022 etc etc
But what it, at least in part, they have looked at Long Covid and decided any societal pain is better than losing 20% (and growing) of the workforce to chronic illness? It sounds far-fetched but the phrase "far-fetched" has lost its impact in recent years
And let me underline I am NOT proposing Zero Covid or even new lockdowns. Fuck all that. If Long Covid becomes a major problem (arguably it is already) we will have to find different ways of dealing with it, not masks and lockdowns. Never again
An alternative and arguably more likely reason for China's lockdowns is that they still have a huge issue with vaccine takeup, as has been reported before.
And that letting Omicron run riot through a far-less vaccinated population would be catastrophic, so they've decided to continue them until they get vaccine uptake high enough (or huge stockpiles of useful antivirals).
The comparison between poorly-vaccinated Hong Kong and highly vaccinated New Zealand after Omicron ran through them is illuminating:
Mr. Divvie, the Black Death came back multiple times, especially in the 14th century. One such recurrence was especially bad as it killed off a generation of children born shortly after the first wave.
There wasn't, I think, Long Black Death, but given it killed 30-50% of the population that's a somewhat limited silver lining. It was the Thanos snap of diseases.
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
Two things I expect are both true.
i) Long covid is very real ii) Some people will absolubtely take the piss claiming it when they have no such condition.
It's worth remembering that ME is now thought to be the after effects of a viral attack that people may not have even noticed in the first place. So it's highly likely that long covid is something similar but caused by something we haven't yet got herd immunity from. See Shingles for another similar disease.
It needs a total efficiency overhaul, but the problem is it has become a religion that must not be criticised
I have no idea when it will happen but ultimately a new funding model will become unavoidable
Ah yes, the “efficiency” unicorn
It's the 'build on brownfield' of NHS solutions - it might be true that's an option, but it wont solve the whole problem on its own.
My impression is that the NHS *is* quite efficient by comparison with other European countries, and that based on the Commonwealth Institute Survey (?) the perceived results are well above average.
More interesting is that UK public health expenditure (taking 2019 numbers to avoid Covid) is only behind DE, FR, NL, DK, NO, SW as a % of GDP. So I'm not sure how much more mileage there is in generalised "more money for the NHS" campaigns.
The dark blue is public health expenditure. OECD numbers.
Norman Lamont not impressed at all. Points out that many of the candidates haven't actually experienced inflation. So it is entirely theoretical to them.
Mr. Divvie, the Black Death came back multiple times, especially in the 14th century. One such recurrence was especially bad as it killed off a generation of children born shortly after the first wave.
There wasn't, I think, Long Black Death, but given it killed 30-50% of the population that's a somewhat limited silver lining. It was the Thanos snap of diseases.
If you weren't serious aristocracy, if you got Long Anything you died of Short Starvation before it had time to develop.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
It seems overly gloomy. I mean the UK government almost pissed the bed over Omicron and acted totally irrationally and its one of the most hawkish on libertarianism/freedom from restrictions. Given that, i find it unlikely LC is such a threat given that no government in the world is sending up the 'panic!' Bat symbol over it and a great number have been extremely squirrely over Covid throughout. Theres enough data. Theres no panic. Ergo.
But there really is cause for deep concern, we are already seeing failures in the labour market, due to Long Covid
"Now, an analysis from a Bank of England monetary committee member is one of the first to draw links between long covid and the tightening of the labor market. The chronic condition has been one of the main drivers of the shrinking labor pool in the UK, according to a May 9 speech from Michael Saunders, an external member of the bank’s nine-member committee"
Point out where that stats guy, linked downthread is wrong. Please. I'd love to see where he is obvs wrong. But I can't
My honest guess is that this potential problem is so huge governments are looking away. Because there is no solution. We can't shut down again. Zero Covid is impossible. So very widespread Long Covid - significantly affecting millions in the UK alone, and damaging economies worldwide - is baked in the future-pie
My feeling is theres a problem, its more intense from pre vaccine infections but its well short of apocalyptic. Tgey reckon 50 million of us have had it now? If there were a catastrophic LC problem we would be seeing 'the street where everyone is too sick to work' style reports. A lot of LC, yes, but a lot of 'light' LC amongst it In other words, not nothing but not everything. Between the extremes. A bit of a problem. Etc
It is a fallacy to say if it were serious it would also be obvious. Look at the cigarette/lung cancer link: stacks of data over 50+ years, but the link not obvious, to the extent that Doll was derided by a minority for even having it as a variable to look at.
Fair point, however 'smoking' wasn't the sole focus of health departments and governments for 2 years solid like Covid.
You say no governments are taking this threat seriously, ergo it is not a threat
But China is still pursuing Zero Covid
"Shanghai fears second lockdown as China battles BA.5 covid variant - The Washington Post"
Hitherto, we have all presumed this Zero Covid policy is just a terrible error, or a byproduct of Xi's need to save face in 2022 etc etc
But what it, at least in part, they have looked at Long Covid and decided any societal pain is better than losing 20% (and growing) of the workforce to chronic illness? It sounds far-fetched but the phrase "far-fetched" has lost its impact in recent years
And let me underline I am NOT proposing Zero Covid or even new lockdowns. Fuck all that. If Long Covid becomes a major problem (arguably it is already) we will have to find different ways of dealing with it, not masks and lockdowns. Never again
An alternative and arguably more likely reason for China's lockdowns is that they still have a huge issue with vaccine takeup, as has been reported before.
And that letting Omicron run riot through a far-less vaccinated population would be catastrophic, so they've decided to continue them until they get vaccine uptake high enough (or huge stockpiles of useful antivirals).
The comparison between poorly-vaccinated Hong Kong and highly vaccinated New Zealand after Omicron ran through them is illuminating:
Both can be true, of course
It wouldn't surprise me if some Covid Hawks in China are driving Zero Covid, by stealth, partly because they fear Long Covid. China has close to a falling population. It is paranoid about the size of its workforce: one thing which might prevent it rising to global hegemony is a shrinking China
I've seen some pretty bad ideas on PB, but regenerating our beautiful towns and cities by building loads of multi-storey car parks in the middle of them, with new roads to get there, just about takes the biscuit. Cultural vandalism on a huge scale.
Hey it's @BartholomewRoberts - his world is an idolised version of suburban america where the car is king an people without cars don't exist.
He’s really not saying that, just pointing out that the active measures to discourage car use that have been seen in recent years, are indeed discouraging car use. People with cars wont get the bus, they’ll go somewhere else.
Bingo, you tell people with cars that they're not welcome, then that's your prerogative, but don't complain when people with cars choose to go elsewhere instead.
It seems some people's idolised world is one where we all go back to a 19th century solution of walking or at most cycling everywhere, with trains for transport if required, and pretend that the car does not exist. It isn't going to happen.
If you tell car drivers they aren't welcome, then the competition that does welcome them can and will take the customers instead.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
It needs a total efficiency overhaul, but the problem is it has become a religion that must not be criticised
I have no idea when it will happen but ultimately a new funding model will become unavoidable
One thing that would help would be linked data between services, rather than the endless shuffling around of letters and emails between primary and secondary care (plus phone calls from patients to chase the letters and emails that have not arrived).
Problem with that is that you need a massive IT project with Care.Data levels of risk. Likely career ending for the minister who proposes it. So it won't happen.
The main problem though is lots of old people living longer* and lots of effective (and cost effective**) but expensive drugs/treatments to achieve that
*good thing, for avoidance of doubt, imho **only solved by drugs getting cheaper or lowering the value assigned to a QALY which would either lead to lower drug prices or to fewer being prescribed as fewer judged cost effective, with consequent reductions in lifespan
That's the whole point of the proposed enhancements to the NHS mobile apps. But this is a big project because there is no easy way to formalise the data collected and needed....
Yep. As an example (and you may well know this) even combining data from the 3 or 4 major primary care database providers is non-trivial to the extent that it's not really done. If doing research, you have to pick your provider.
There is currently a project to collect social care information for labour reporting requirements.
On one level it's a really simple piece of work until you discover that every local authority does things in different ways (with different data collected) for "reasons" so the easiest fix isn't to identify common data and collect it it was to create a centralised system and get everyone to fill in yet another set of forms.
Over time that may be simplified as software providers sending the data automatically but that may or may not be the reality.
Total cost for the project btw is £1.2m for this stage of the work so we are probably looking at £3m spent in total so far.
The opportunity for central government here, is to impose data standards on everyone within the industry. A patchwork quilt of datasets helps no-one.
I don't know enough about the data but I suspect whats being collected here isn't actually what the councils care about and / or is something that councils would prefer to hide from central Government.
Remember that many local authorities are now Adult Social Care departments with other services attached (because Adult social care is both their biggest unavoidable cost and the most rapidly increasing cost as demand spirals).
Is it just me or do none of these candidates really feel like they are winners?
I feel like we're just at the end of this particular part of Tory Government.
Out of steam and potential policies include austerity to fund tax cuts (which will be disastrous in the Red Wall), trying to re-fight the Brexit wars, and wage a culture war. Starmer is a lucky general.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
The government rather let the cat out of the bag when it admitted that mask mandates were much more abiut showing you were doing sonmething than about actually doing something. Not that this came as a surprise to anyone who was paying attention.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
The ludicrous pledges being made by all the contenders show the folly of having this decision made by, what, 200,000 elderly Tories.
The person who wins will become PM. They should make at least a show of showing why they would be good at that. None of them see to have a clue, though some are marginally less bad than others.
Except that: everyone knows how the new Tory leader is chosen (would a new Labour leader be magically better remembering how it got on last time but one?); everyone is free to join the party and have a vote; nearly everyone, including almost all Tory voters have chosen not to.
It's a free world, but our free decisions are not free of consequences.
How, Cyclefree, would you elect Boris's successor?
Is it just me or do none of these candidates really feel like they are winners?
I feel like we're just at the end of this particular part of Tory Government.
There's a strong "just after an election defeat" vibe here, isn't there?
Half the candidates going "steady as she goes with policy, we just neeed a better leader", the other half going "to our own selves be true", even if it repels MOTR voters.
Maybe the Conservatives have written off 2023/4/5, and are just going to have some fun for a bit.
In the saga the Conservatives are currently treating us with this from Jeremy Hunt stood out for me:
"She's someone who's won tough seats against Labour in the north, in the same way I've won tough seats against the Lib Dems in the south."
Given that Esther McVey is MP for Tatton does Hunt have any idea about what a 'tough seat in the north' actually is ?
He might mean Wirral West? Oh. I see what you mean...
I didn’t till you made me think where safe seat Tatton is 🤦♀️ I need to log out, my brain is melting
Wirral West was Lab form 1997 to 2010.
A better claim would have been "subjected to hate campaigns" and not caved in, which would be true given Mr McDonnell's statements about "lynching", and his continued defence of them, and so on.
I'm not keen on the private school policy from Labour. Make state schools better so private schools become irrelevant.
The only exception is Eton which can get fucked
The Labour policy hits hundreds of small private schools and does nothing about Eton.
If Eton got shut down, it would reappear in Singapore or Dubai overnight, with the same management attracting the same international elite.
It doesn't seem to solve the problem which is that private schools are parasites. As I said, we need to make state schools better. This does nothing.
The thing with state schools is that they're not remotely uniform. You get good and bad schools in towns and cities across the country, and the best schools will see their catchment areas elevated in their house prices. So wealthy people can buy a good education for their children by buying a home in the area, then make a profit by selling it on a few years later.
The people most failed by the state school system are those who have no choice which school to go to. That doesn't apply to the wealthy and never will, if they aren't paying fees they're buying homes instead.
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
Re. Long Covid does anyone know if there was such a thing as Long Spanish Flu? It’s extreme symptoms didn’t seem far off Bubonic Plague, seems unlikely one would survive unscathed. What about Long Bubonic for that matter?
I often suffer from Long Gin & Tonic but I'm not sure that's been pathologised.
Norman Lamont not impressed at all. Points out that many of the candidates haven't actually experienced inflation. So it is entirely theoretical to them.
Re. Long Covid does anyone know if there was such a thing as Long Spanish Flu? It’s extreme symptoms didn’t seem far off Bubonic Plague, seems unlikely one would survive unscathed. What about Long Bubonic for that matter?
I did read somewhere that there were people incapacitated by the Spanish Flu for some time after infection. There’s some reference to the concept in this Time article: https://time.com/5915616/long-flu-1918-pandemic/
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
But you're not addressing the issue. This is all second order stuff
The guy I first linked (an epidemiologist in Sweden) presented a simple graph explaining how Covid reinfections mean that more and more people will get Long Covid, as with each reinfection you face a new risk of the chronic form. It will therefore accumulate in society
As he says, intuitively this seems obviously true. He made the graph simple (as he also says) to get his point across
No one has been able to refute it, yet. All we have is plain denial that Long Covid exists, or a hope that he is wrong about reinfections. Interestingly, the German Health Minister is now banging on about this:
"Germany: Long COVID a problem for labor market, health minister says"
'Health minister Karl Lauterbach said long COVID will leave many in Germany unable to return to their previous level of work performance'
Re. Long Covid does anyone know if there was such a thing as Long Spanish Flu? It’s extreme symptoms didn’t seem far off Bubonic Plague, seems unlikely one would survive unscathed. What about Long Bubonic for that matter?
In terms of “Long Spanish Flu”, do you remember the film “Awakenings”? That was about sufferers from the early 20th century wave of encephalitis lethargica, which many think was a long-term effect of Spanish flu (although this is not confirmed and others suggest other explanations).
The ludicrous pledges being made by all the contenders show the folly of having this decision made by, what, 200,000 elderly Tories.
The person who wins will become PM. They should make at least a show of showing why they would be good at that. None of them see to have a clue, though some are marginally less bad than others.
Except that: everyone knows how the new Tory leader is chosen (would a new Labour leader be magically better remembering how it got on last time but one?); everyone is free to join the party and have a vote; nearly everyone, including almost all Tory voters have chosen not to.
It's a free world, but our free decisions are not free of consequences.
How, Cyclefree, would you elect Boris's successor?
My viewpoint - leave it to the MPs we elect to select their leader. That was how our Parliamentary system was designed.
A particular cause of annoyance is cyclists who ride on the road when there's an adjacent cycle path. Usually because it's on the opposite side and they can't be bothered to cross over.
No, it's usually because the cycle path is pants and, often, significantly less safe than the road.
The Government has put out some remarkably good design guidance for cycle tracks (LTN 1/20). I would estimate that probably 3% of cycleways nationally conform to it.
A lot of cyclists eschew the southbound cycle lane on Westminster Bridge because it is always full of clueless tourists walking down it. I use it because I enjoy shouting at them.
Ha, yes, that's a great example.
One wonders what would happen if there was a permanently parked ice-cream van on the hard shoulder of the M6, and a queue of customers extending all the way across the main carriageway. I suspect Highways England would move it on rather more quickly than the one on Westminster Bridge.
I know right! I hate ice cream vans anyway, but this one in particular should be taken out by a drone strike.
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
It needs a total efficiency overhaul, but the problem is it has become a religion that must not be criticised
I have no idea when it will happen but ultimately a new funding model will become unavoidable
One thing that would help would be linked data between services, rather than the endless shuffling around of letters and emails between primary and secondary care (plus phone calls from patients to chase the letters and emails that have not arrived).
Problem with that is that you need a massive IT project with Care.Data levels of risk. Likely career ending for the minister who proposes it. So it won't happen.
The main problem though is lots of old people living longer* and lots of effective (and cost effective**) but expensive drugs/treatments to achieve that
*good thing, for avoidance of doubt, imho **only solved by drugs getting cheaper or lowering the value assigned to a QALY which would either lead to lower drug prices or to fewer being prescribed as fewer judged cost effective, with consequent reductions in lifespan
That's the whole point of the proposed enhancements to the NHS mobile apps. But this is a big project because there is no easy way to formalise the data collected and needed....
Yep. As an example (and you may well know this) even combining data from the 3 or 4 major primary care database providers is non-trivial to the extent that it's not really done. If doing research, you have to pick your provider.
There is currently a project to collect social care information for labour reporting requirements.
On one level it's a really simple piece of work until you discover that every local authority does things in different ways (with different data collected) for "reasons" so the easiest fix isn't to identify common data and collect it it was to create a centralised system and get everyone to fill in yet another set of forms.
Over time that may be simplified as software providers sending the data automatically but that may or may not be the reality.
Total cost for the project btw is £1.2m for this stage of the work so we are probably looking at £3m spent in total so far.
The opportunity for central government here, is to impose data standards on everyone within the industry. A patchwork quilt of datasets helps no-one.
I don't know enough about the data but I suspect whats being collected here isn't actually what the councils care about and / or is something that councils would prefer to hide from central Government.
Remember that many local authorities are now Adult Social Care departments with other services attached (because Adult social care is both their biggest unavoidable cost and the most rapidly increasing cost as demand spirals).
Interesting. I’m in favour of data standards, but also understand the numerous small businesses that have to deal with them.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
It seems overly gloomy. I mean the UK government almost pissed the bed over Omicron and acted totally irrationally and its one of the most hawkish on libertarianism/freedom from restrictions. Given that, i find it unlikely LC is such a threat given that no government in the world is sending up the 'panic!' Bat symbol over it and a great number have been extremely squirrely over Covid throughout. Theres enough data. Theres no panic. Ergo.
But there really is cause for deep concern, we are already seeing failures in the labour market, due to Long Covid
"Now, an analysis from a Bank of England monetary committee member is one of the first to draw links between long covid and the tightening of the labor market. The chronic condition has been one of the main drivers of the shrinking labor pool in the UK, according to a May 9 speech from Michael Saunders, an external member of the bank’s nine-member committee"
Point out where that stats guy, linked downthread is wrong. Please. I'd love to see where he is obvs wrong. But I can't
My honest guess is that this potential problem is so huge governments are looking away. Because there is no solution. We can't shut down again. Zero Covid is impossible. So very widespread Long Covid - significantly affecting millions in the UK alone, and damaging economies worldwide - is baked in the future-pie
My feeling is theres a problem, its more intense from pre vaccine infections but its well short of apocalyptic. Tgey reckon 50 million of us have had it now? If there were a catastrophic LC problem we would be seeing 'the street where everyone is too sick to work' style reports. A lot of LC, yes, but a lot of 'light' LC amongst it In other words, not nothing but not everything. Between the extremes. A bit of a problem. Etc
It is a fallacy to say if it were serious it would also be obvious. Look at the cigarette/lung cancer link: stacks of data over 50+ years, but the link not obvious, to the extent that Doll was derided by a minority for even having it as a variable to look at.
Fair point, however 'smoking' wasn't the sole focus of health departments and governments for 2 years solid like Covid.
You say no governments are taking this threat seriously, ergo it is not a threat
But China is still pursuing Zero Covid
"Shanghai fears second lockdown as China battles BA.5 covid variant - The Washington Post"
Hitherto, we have all presumed this Zero Covid policy is just a terrible error, or a byproduct of Xi's need to save face in 2022 etc etc
But what it, at least in part, they have looked at Long Covid and decided any societal pain is better than losing 20% (and growing) of the workforce to chronic illness? It sounds far-fetched but the phrase "far-fetched" has lost its impact in recent years
And let me underline I am NOT proposing Zero Covid or even new lockdowns. Fuck all that. If Long Covid becomes a major problem (arguably it is already) we will have to find different ways of dealing with it, not masks and lockdowns. Never again
An alternative and arguably more likely reason for China's lockdowns is that they still have a huge issue with vaccine takeup, as has been reported before.
And that letting Omicron run riot through a far-less vaccinated population would be catastrophic, so they've decided to continue them until they get vaccine uptake high enough (or huge stockpiles of useful antivirals).
The comparison between poorly-vaccinated Hong Kong and highly vaccinated New Zealand after Omicron ran through them is illuminating:
Both can be true, of course
It wouldn't surprise me if some Covid Hawks in China are driving Zero Covid, by stealth, partly because they fear Long Covid. China has close to a falling population. It is paranoid about the size of its workforce: one thing which might prevent it rising to global hegemony is a shrinking China
China may well want to have a Zero Covid society but without getting too tinfoil hatted about it there really are lessons to learn about what excuses a ruthlessly oppressive government will employ to subdue the masses.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
But you're not addressing the issue. This is all second order stuff
The guy I first linked (an epidemiologist in Sweden) presented a simple graph explaining how Covid reinfections mean that more and more people will get Long Covid, as with each reinfection you face a new risk of the chronic form. It will therefore accumulate in society
As he says, intuitively this seems obviously true. He made the graph simple (as he also says) to get his point across
No one has been able to refute it, yet. All we have is plain denial that Long Covid exists, or a hope that he is wrong about reinfections. Interestingly, the German Health Minister is now banging on about this:
"Germany: Long COVID a problem for labor market, health minister says"
'Health minister Karl Lauterbach said long COVID will leave many in Germany unable to return to their previous level of work performance'
This was in relation to a separate thread of discussion, not the particular issue of LC (which i agree is a thing but not a thing of major concern now we have vaccines which seem to be reducing the LC incidence)
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
Interesting and not a million miles away from the age of the Menopause.
(IANAE in being a woman, that said, it may amaze you to hear.)
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
Oh, and I certainly wasn't using my anecdata to query the veracity of your actual data. I'm just puzzled that my anecdata doesn't fit the actual data. I was wondering whether it might be some subgroup I don't tend to know a lot of - 60-70 year olds, people from East Anglia, Chinese heritage people, something like that... But 30-50 year old caucasian women are probably slightly overrrepresented among my acquaintances. Odd.
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
Interesting and not a million miles away from the age of the Menopause.
(IANAE in being a woman, that said, it may amaze you to hear.)
On a stormy afternoon, in a low light, with a hint of mist, that comment could be seen as misogynistic
But I know you would never stoop to such prejudice
Faith Angwet, 37, a single mother of two from Southwark, south London, who used to work in fashion and retail, said her weekly shopping bill has risen from £200 during the pandemic to £400. She has cut back on spending on toothpaste, soap and washing powder and uses minimum lighting at night.
“If you open my fridge it’s like a single person is living there rather than a family,” she said. “It’s worse now than the pandemic. When I think about it, it’s enough to make my head explode. It is definitely grimmer than before.”
Faith Angwet, 37, a single mother of two from Southwark, south London, who used to work in fashion and retail, said her weekly shopping bill has risen from £200 during the pandemic to £400.
Surely even the Guardian knows this is bizarre. This is lazy journalism of a tabloid variety. Nothing on: How do you spend £400 a week shopping for three people? What is her income? Please tell us all about the father of the children and how much he is supporting or not? Is she working? Why is inflation 100% for her when it isn't for the rest of us?
This is elementary stuff. So many unasked questions. A proper story with proper analysis is what once the Guardian would have give us. Not clapped out Mirror/Mail stuff. Dismal.
1. The Conservative and Unionist Party DO put up candidates in Northern Ireland. https://www.niconservatives.com/ 2. Neither Labour nor the LD do, I'm not sure why. I have some suspicion that Labour have said they never would. Having said that the SDLP take the Labour whip in Parliament. The Alliance I'm less sure about but I'm told their MP sits with the LDs. 3. UKIP HAVE run candidates in Northern Ireland, and I suspect the Greens have a local party too. ---------- Re 2: Labour has reliable allies in the SDLP and members tends to be equivocal on the division of Ireland, so why get involved and split the vote? The LDs have reliable allies in the Allliance, so again, why split the vote? It just feels like a lot of effort and expense with an actually negative outcome. Why the Tories bother is a mystery to me.
Maybe it would be best if the SDLP and Alliance and Labour and the LDs formalised the arrangement more. Made it clear in the debates something like, "Vote Liberal Democrat in Great Britain, and Alliance in Northern Ireland."
But I say this as a stanch Unionist. As long as NI is part of the UK, I think parties need to be serious and run UK wide.... or if not, make it clear who they are allied with.
I don't like the idea of ignoring NI MPs, because it is exactly that. Ignoring Northern Ireland. Either NI is in the Union, or it is not. And if it is, it should not be ignored in Westminster.
The ludicrous pledges being made by all the contenders show the folly of having this decision made by, what, 200,000 elderly Tories.
The person who wins will become PM. They should make at least a show of showing why they would be good at that. None of them see to have a clue, though some are marginally less bad than others.
Except that: everyone knows how the new Tory leader is chosen (would a new Labour leader be magically better remembering how it got on last time but one?); everyone is free to join the party and have a vote; nearly everyone, including almost all Tory voters have chosen not to.
It's a free world, but our free decisions are not free of consequences.
How, Cyclefree, would you elect Boris's successor?
My viewpoint - leave it to the MPs we elect to select their leader. That was how our Parliamentary system was designed.
On the 200,000 figure I understand it’s only about 100K membership vote. I still don’t think the Conservative Party have a central database, so don’t know figure of how many members there are.
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I know some-one diagnosed with Long Covid, who has never had a positive Covid test.
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
Interesting and not a million miles away from the age of the Menopause.
(IANAE in being a woman, that said, it may amaze you to hear.)
On a stormy afternoon, in a low light, with a hint of mist, that comment could be seen as misogynistic
But I know you would never stoop to such prejudice
Interesting take on it. It is an observation that the menopause affects women around that age and hence it may be that Covid has implications for women's health that might hitherto have been unremarked.
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
Interesting and not a million miles away from the age of the Menopause.
(IANAE in being a woman, that said, it may amaze you to hear.)
On a stormy afternoon, in a low light, with a hint of mist, that comment could be seen as misogynistic
But I know you would never stoop to such prejudice
Looks like I am not the only person to wonder about it.
The ludicrous pledges being made by all the contenders show the folly of having this decision made by, what, 200,000 elderly Tories.
The person who wins will become PM. They should make at least a show of showing why they would be good at that. None of them see to have a clue, though some are marginally less bad than others.
Except that: everyone knows how the new Tory leader is chosen (would a new Labour leader be magically better remembering how it got on last time but one?); everyone is free to join the party and have a vote; nearly everyone, including almost all Tory voters have chosen not to.
It's a free world, but our free decisions are not free of consequences.
How, Cyclefree, would you elect Boris's successor?
My viewpoint - leave it to the MPs we elect to select their leader. That was how our Parliamentary system was designed.
......and so it goes round. Putting it to the membership was the solution to the objections to doing exactly that......
"The danger of #LongCovid is grossly underestimated. We don't even begin to have the therapy places for it. People should not lightly expose themselves to an infection that can change their life. Vaccinations significantly reduce the risk of infection."
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
Interesting and not a million miles away from the age of the Menopause.
(IANAE in being a woman, that said, it may amaze you to hear.)
On a stormy afternoon, in a low light, with a hint of mist, that comment could be seen as misogynistic
But I know you would never stoop to such prejudice
Interesting take on it. It is an observation that the menopause affects women around that age and hence it may be that Covid has implications for women's health that might hitherto have been unremarked.
"The danger of #LongCovid is grossly underestimated. We don't even begin to have the therapy places for it. People should not lightly expose themselves to an infection that can change their life. Vaccinations significantly reduce the risk of infection."
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
The change in advice on masks was definitely not overnight. It was agonised over and argued over.
Lots of papers are published. Some have widely divergent conclusions, but generally the science coalesces around a consensus. That can take time, and everything had to be done very quickly in the pandemic. Which papers do we trust? Well, we examine the methods and come to conclusions based on our understanding of what is good science. If you want details, do an OU science degree or try some of the good educational resources on YouTube like Crash Course.
Why did we not listen to the South African medical community in Nov/Dec? Well, we did. There were very early reports, there was uncertainty about what could be concluded from those reports, those reports were saying different things. Government actions generally err on the side of caution, so it’s not just about your best estimate of what will happen, but having to take into account the uncertainty in predictions. However, broadly, the UK response to Omicron was pretty limited in terms of restrictions. We didn’t have another lockdown. We went from advising people to wear masks on public transport to telling people to wear masks on public transport (with minimal enforcement).
It’s not reasonable to expect lay people to read every paper and draw conclusions. But nor is it reasonable for lay people to then make up stories about how much science was published or what the evidence-to-policy process was, as you are doing.
I think the Government could have done more to explain the science. At times, they certainly failed to do that well (e.g. over the pingdemic, as I am writing a paper on).
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I know some-one diagnosed with Long Covid, who has never had a positive Covid test.
Surely Long Covid is a series of symptoms rather than a diagnosable thing (I don't doubt it is a symptomatic thing).
A particular cause of annoyance is cyclists who ride on the road when there's an adjacent cycle path. Usually because it's on the opposite side and they can't be bothered to cross over.
No, it's usually because the cycle path is pants and, often, significantly less safe than the road.
The Government has put out some remarkably good design guidance for cycle tracks (LTN 1/20). I would estimate that probably 3% of cycleways nationally conform to it.
A lot of cyclists eschew the southbound cycle lane on Westminster Bridge because it is always full of clueless tourists walking down it. I use it because I enjoy shouting at them.
Ha, yes, that's a great example.
One wonders what would happen if there was a permanently parked ice-cream van on the hard shoulder of the M6, and a queue of customers extending all the way across the main carriageway. I suspect Highways England would move it on rather more quickly than the one on Westminster Bridge.
I know right! I hate ice cream vans anyway, but this one in particular should be taken out by a drone strike.
Here's one of our local shared pavements.
A car parked on the pavement outside a driveway with space for 3 or 4 cars. This one often has vans and small lorries on it.
Another bugbear here is advertising signs, as well as street furniture. This is a Toolstation A-board which is normally bang in the middle of the shared pavement, a roadworks sign, and a loopily positioned traffic sign.
Both of these require protest and enforcement, and rational design guides to be *followed*.
"The danger of #LongCovid is grossly underestimated. We don't even begin to have the therapy places for it. People should not lightly expose themselves to an infection that can change their life. Vaccinations significantly reduce the risk of infection."
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
It seems overly gloomy. I mean the UK government almost pissed the bed over Omicron and acted totally irrationally and its one of the most hawkish on libertarianism/freedom from restrictions. Given that, i find it unlikely LC is such a threat given that no government in the world is sending up the 'panic!' Bat symbol over it and a great number have been extremely squirrely over Covid throughout. Theres enough data. Theres no panic. Ergo.
But there really is cause for deep concern, we are already seeing failures in the labour market, due to Long Covid
"Now, an analysis from a Bank of England monetary committee member is one of the first to draw links between long covid and the tightening of the labor market. The chronic condition has been one of the main drivers of the shrinking labor pool in the UK, according to a May 9 speech from Michael Saunders, an external member of the bank’s nine-member committee"
Point out where that stats guy, linked downthread is wrong. Please. I'd love to see where he is obvs wrong. But I can't
My honest guess is that this potential problem is so huge governments are looking away. Because there is no solution. We can't shut down again. Zero Covid is impossible. So very widespread Long Covid - significantly affecting millions in the UK alone, and damaging economies worldwide - is baked in the future-pie
My feeling is theres a problem, its more intense from pre vaccine infections but its well short of apocalyptic. Tgey reckon 50 million of us have had it now? If there were a catastrophic LC problem we would be seeing 'the street where everyone is too sick to work' style reports. A lot of LC, yes, but a lot of 'light' LC amongst it In other words, not nothing but not everything. Between the extremes. A bit of a problem. Etc
It is a fallacy to say if it were serious it would also be obvious. Look at the cigarette/lung cancer link: stacks of data over 50+ years, but the link not obvious, to the extent that Doll was derided by a minority for even having it as a variable to look at.
Fair point, however 'smoking' wasn't the sole focus of health departments and governments for 2 years solid like Covid.
You say no governments are taking this threat seriously, ergo it is not a threat
But China is still pursuing Zero Covid
"Shanghai fears second lockdown as China battles BA.5 covid variant - The Washington Post"
Hitherto, we have all presumed this Zero Covid policy is just a terrible error, or a byproduct of Xi's need to save face in 2022 etc etc
But what it, at least in part, they have looked at Long Covid and decided any societal pain is better than losing 20% (and growing) of the workforce to chronic illness? It sounds far-fetched but the phrase "far-fetched" has lost its impact in recent years
And let me underline I am NOT proposing Zero Covid or even new lockdowns. Fuck all that. If Long Covid becomes a major problem (arguably it is already) we will have to find different ways of dealing with it, not masks and lockdowns. Never again
I've been thinking about the economic/societal effects of long covid and also constant re-infections for a while now and casting around to find some decent research on it beyond my back-of-a-fag-packet guesswork. But there seems to be almost nothing out there. I'd have imagined governments/wonks would be giving it a huge amount of thought (even if our own is rather distracted of late) both from a health expenditure and a tax-receipts point of view. But... apparently not.
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
Interesting and not a million miles away from the age of the Menopause.
(IANAE in being a woman, that said, it may amaze you to hear.)
On a stormy afternoon, in a low light, with a hint of mist, that comment could be seen as misogynistic
But I know you would never stoop to such prejudice
Interesting take on it. It is an observation that the menopause affects women around that age and hence it may be that Covid has implications for women's health that might hitherto have been unremarked.
If the Mail's article is correct.
But battle on O SJW if you think you need to.
I was joking
Oh dammit that is super irritating. I put it down to it being Monday on my part.
"The danger of #LongCovid is grossly underestimated. We don't even begin to have the therapy places for it. People should not lightly expose themselves to an infection that can change their life. Vaccinations significantly reduce the risk of infection."
Re. Long Covid does anyone know if there was such a thing as Long Spanish Flu? It’s extreme symptoms didn’t seem far off Bubonic Plague, seems unlikely one would survive unscathed. What about Long Bubonic for that matter?
I often suffer from Long Gin & Tonic but I'm not sure that's been pathologised.
I don't know about Long Covid, but I've been suffering from Long Boris.
Faith Angwet, 37, a single mother of two from Southwark, south London, who used to work in fashion and retail, said her weekly shopping bill has risen from £200 during the pandemic to £400. She has cut back on spending on toothpaste, soap and washing powder and uses minimum lighting at night.
“If you open my fridge it’s like a single person is living there rather than a family,” she said. “It’s worse now than the pandemic. When I think about it, it’s enough to make my head explode. It is definitely grimmer than before.”
Faith Angwet, 37, a single mother of two from Southwark, south London, who used to work in fashion and retail, said her weekly shopping bill has risen from £200 during the pandemic to £400.
Surely even the Guardian knows this is bizarre. This is lazy journalism of a tabloid variety. Nothing on: How do you spend £400 a week shopping for three people? What is her income? Please tell us all about the father of the children and how much he is supporting or not? Is she working? Why is inflation 100% for her when it isn't for the rest of us?
This is elementary stuff. So many unasked questions. A proper story with proper analysis is what once the Guardian would have give us. Not clapped out Mirror/Mail stuff. Dismal.
The most obvious explanation is that somewhere along the line someone has said or written weekly when they meant monthly.
1. The Conservative and Unionist Party DO put up candidates in Northern Ireland. https://www.niconservatives.com/ 2. Neither Labour nor the LD do, I'm not sure why. I have some suspicion that Labour have said they never would. Having said that the SDLP take the Labour whip in Parliament. The Alliance I'm less sure about but I'm told their MP sits with the LDs. 3. UKIP HAVE run candidates in Northern Ireland, and I suspect the Greens have a local party too. ---------- Re 2: Labour has reliable allies in the SDLP and members tends to be equivocal on the division of Ireland, so why get involved and split the vote? The LDs have reliable allies in the Allliance, so again, why split the vote? It just feels like a lot of effort and expense with an actually negative outcome. Why the Tories bother is a mystery to me.
Maybe it would be best if the SDLP and Alliance and Labour and the LDs formalised the arrangement more. Made it clear in the debates something like, "Vote Liberal Democrat in Great Britain, and Alliance in Northern Ireland."
But I say this as a stanch Unionist. As long as NI is part of the UK, I think parties need to be serious and run UK wide.... or if not, make it clear who they are allied with.
I don't like the idea of ignoring NI MPs, because it is exactly that. Ignoring Northern Ireland. Either NI is in the Union, or it is not. And if it is, it should not be ignored in Westminster.
Alliance and the LibDems do say vote LibDem in GB and Alliance in NI.
"The danger of #LongCovid is grossly underestimated. We don't even begin to have the therapy places for it. People should not lightly expose themselves to an infection that can change their life. Vaccinations significantly reduce the risk of infection."
Re. Long Covid does anyone know if there was such a thing as Long Spanish Flu? It’s extreme symptoms didn’t seem far off Bubonic Plague, seems unlikely one would survive unscathed. What about Long Bubonic for that matter?
I often suffer from Long Gin & Tonic but I'm not sure that's been pathologised.
Probably offtopic (ish) anecode from last night. Chatting with another Dad at school. Asking him about the politics.
He's a bit "Brenda from Bristol". He expressed no support for the Conservatives, but then said, "And once they've been elected by their party, we're going to have to have a General Election.... *sigh*".
I set him right, reminded him about Brown (he's certainly not that young) but he did look a bit quizzacle. Believed the new PM would have to go to the country quite soon however, to win their own mandate.
WE all know how the Parliamentary system works, but I wonder how many in the country really do. I wonder if (like Brown) the new PM might be punished if they don't go within a reasonable timeframe?
1. The Conservative and Unionist Party DO put up candidates in Northern Ireland. https://www.niconservatives.com/ 2. Neither Labour nor the LD do, I'm not sure why. I have some suspicion that Labour have said they never would. Having said that the SDLP take the Labour whip in Parliament. The Alliance I'm less sure about but I'm told their MP sits with the LDs. 3. UKIP HAVE run candidates in Northern Ireland, and I suspect the Greens have a local party too. ---------- Re 2: Labour has reliable allies in the SDLP and members tends to be equivocal on the division of Ireland, so why get involved and split the vote? The LDs have reliable allies in the Allliance, so again, why split the vote? It just feels like a lot of effort and expense with an actually negative outcome. Why the Tories bother is a mystery to me.
Maybe it would be best if the SDLP and Alliance and Labour and the LDs formalised the arrangement more. Made it clear in the debates something like, "Vote Liberal Democrat in Great Britain, and Alliance in Northern Ireland."
But I say this as a stanch Unionist. As long as NI is part of the UK, I think parties need to be serious and run UK wide.... or if not, make it clear who they are allied with.
I don't like the idea of ignoring NI MPs, because it is exactly that. Ignoring Northern Ireland. Either NI is in the Union, or it is not. And if it is, it should not be ignored in Westminster.
Alliance and the LibDems do say vote LibDem in GB and Alliance in NI.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
It seems overly gloomy. I mean the UK government almost pissed the bed over Omicron and acted totally irrationally and its one of the most hawkish on libertarianism/freedom from restrictions. Given that, i find it unlikely LC is such a threat given that no government in the world is sending up the 'panic!' Bat symbol over it and a great number have been extremely squirrely over Covid throughout. Theres enough data. Theres no panic. Ergo.
But there really is cause for deep concern, we are already seeing failures in the labour market, due to Long Covid
"Now, an analysis from a Bank of England monetary committee member is one of the first to draw links between long covid and the tightening of the labor market. The chronic condition has been one of the main drivers of the shrinking labor pool in the UK, according to a May 9 speech from Michael Saunders, an external member of the bank’s nine-member committee"
Point out where that stats guy, linked downthread is wrong. Please. I'd love to see where he is obvs wrong. But I can't
My honest guess is that this potential problem is so huge governments are looking away. Because there is no solution. We can't shut down again. Zero Covid is impossible. So very widespread Long Covid - significantly affecting millions in the UK alone, and damaging economies worldwide - is baked in the future-pie
My feeling is theres a problem, its more intense from pre vaccine infections but its well short of apocalyptic. Tgey reckon 50 million of us have had it now? If there were a catastrophic LC problem we would be seeing 'the street where everyone is too sick to work' style reports. A lot of LC, yes, but a lot of 'light' LC amongst it In other words, not nothing but not everything. Between the extremes. A bit of a problem. Etc
It is a fallacy to say if it were serious it would also be obvious. Look at the cigarette/lung cancer link: stacks of data over 50+ years, but the link not obvious, to the extent that Doll was derided by a minority for even having it as a variable to look at.
Fair point, however 'smoking' wasn't the sole focus of health departments and governments for 2 years solid like Covid.
You say no governments are taking this threat seriously, ergo it is not a threat
But China is still pursuing Zero Covid
"Shanghai fears second lockdown as China battles BA.5 covid variant - The Washington Post"
Hitherto, we have all presumed this Zero Covid policy is just a terrible error, or a byproduct of Xi's need to save face in 2022 etc etc
But what it, at least in part, they have looked at Long Covid and decided any societal pain is better than losing 20% (and growing) of the workforce to chronic illness? It sounds far-fetched but the phrase "far-fetched" has lost its impact in recent years
And let me underline I am NOT proposing Zero Covid or even new lockdowns. Fuck all that. If Long Covid becomes a major problem (arguably it is already) we will have to find different ways of dealing with it, not masks and lockdowns. Never again
I've been thinking about the economic/societal effects of long covid and also constant re-infections for a while now and casting around to find some decent research on it beyond my back-of-a-fag-packet guesswork. But there seems to be almost nothing out there. I'd have imagined governments/wonks would be giving it a huge amount of thought (even if our own is rather distracted of late) both from a health expenditure and a tax-receipts point of view. But... apparently not.
Quite baffling to me.
My theory: Long covid seems to be one of those statistical problems in search of an actual issue. Like @Cookie I don't know anyone with issues beyond normal post viral fatigue. And almost everyone I know has had Covid.
I'd also say that I've suffered from crippling anxiety during periods of my life. Some of the symptoms seem very similar to that.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
It seems overly gloomy. I mean the UK government almost pissed the bed over Omicron and acted totally irrationally and its one of the most hawkish on libertarianism/freedom from restrictions. Given that, i find it unlikely LC is such a threat given that no government in the world is sending up the 'panic!' Bat symbol over it and a great number have been extremely squirrely over Covid throughout. Theres enough data. Theres no panic. Ergo.
But there really is cause for deep concern, we are already seeing failures in the labour market, due to Long Covid
"Now, an analysis from a Bank of England monetary committee member is one of the first to draw links between long covid and the tightening of the labor market. The chronic condition has been one of the main drivers of the shrinking labor pool in the UK, according to a May 9 speech from Michael Saunders, an external member of the bank’s nine-member committee"
Point out where that stats guy, linked downthread is wrong. Please. I'd love to see where he is obvs wrong. But I can't
My honest guess is that this potential problem is so huge governments are looking away. Because there is no solution. We can't shut down again. Zero Covid is impossible. So very widespread Long Covid - significantly affecting millions in the UK alone, and damaging economies worldwide - is baked in the future-pie
My feeling is theres a problem, its more intense from pre vaccine infections but its well short of apocalyptic. Tgey reckon 50 million of us have had it now? If there were a catastrophic LC problem we would be seeing 'the street where everyone is too sick to work' style reports. A lot of LC, yes, but a lot of 'light' LC amongst it In other words, not nothing but not everything. Between the extremes. A bit of a problem. Etc
It is a fallacy to say if it were serious it would also be obvious. Look at the cigarette/lung cancer link: stacks of data over 50+ years, but the link not obvious, to the extent that Doll was derided by a minority for even having it as a variable to look at.
Fair point, however 'smoking' wasn't the sole focus of health departments and governments for 2 years solid like Covid.
You say no governments are taking this threat seriously, ergo it is not a threat
But China is still pursuing Zero Covid
"Shanghai fears second lockdown as China battles BA.5 covid variant - The Washington Post"
Hitherto, we have all presumed this Zero Covid policy is just a terrible error, or a byproduct of Xi's need to save face in 2022 etc etc
But what it, at least in part, they have looked at Long Covid and decided any societal pain is better than losing 20% (and growing) of the workforce to chronic illness? It sounds far-fetched but the phrase "far-fetched" has lost its impact in recent years
And let me underline I am NOT proposing Zero Covid or even new lockdowns. Fuck all that. If Long Covid becomes a major problem (arguably it is already) we will have to find different ways of dealing with it, not masks and lockdowns. Never again
I've been thinking about the economic/societal effects of long covid and also constant re-infections for a while now and casting around to find some decent research on it beyond my back-of-a-fag-packet guesswork. But there seems to be almost nothing out there. I'd have imagined governments/wonks would be giving it a huge amount of thought (even if our own is rather distracted of late) both from a health expenditure and a tax-receipts point of view. But... apparently not.
Quite baffling to me.
I had a think about it earlier, on here. And I wondered if governments don't WANT to address it because it is too depressing and too big a problem? Dunno. Could be many other reasons, of course
That said the Bank of England has begun to tackle it, and they see LC having major impacts on the labour market (and it is probably doing that already, hence the labour pool shrinking, with all the consequences of that)
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
The change in advice on masks was definitely not overnight. It was agonised over and argued over.
Lots of papers are published. Some have widely divergent conclusions, but generally the science coalesces around a consensus. That can take time, and everything had to be done very quickly in the pandemic. Which papers do we trust? Well, we examine the methods and come to conclusions based on our understanding of what is good science. If you want details, do an OU science degree or try some of the good educational resources on YouTube like Crash Course.
Why did we not listen to the South African medical community in Nov/Dec? Well, we did. There were very early reports, there was uncertainty about what could be concluded from those reports, those reports were saying different things. Government actions generally err on the side of caution, so it’s not just about your best estimate of what will happen, but having to take into account the uncertainty in predictions. However, broadly, the UK response to Omicron was pretty limited in terms of restrictions. We didn’t have another lockdown. We went from advising people to wear masks on public transport to telling people to wear masks on public transport (with minimal enforcement).
It’s not reasonable to expect lay people to read every paper and draw conclusions. But nor is it reasonable for lay people to then make up stories about how much science was published or what the evidence-to-policy process was, as you are doing.
I think the Government could have done more to explain the science. At times, they certainly failed to do that well (e.g. over the pingdemic, as I am writing a paper on).
In a free society, enforcing face masks wasn't in my view ever acceptable - especially in private shops.
Hilariously, every single person I know who adores masks has caught covid. Most of my few fellow non-maskers haven't. I'm not implying any causation whatsoever. But it does make one think 'maybe they didn't really do anything at all, in the wild'.
It’s genuinely good to know that, behind the rhetoric, most politicians can actually get along across the aisle.
Your numerous references to Gove in particular, are a great example of that.
Yes, in 13 years in Parliament I only encountered actual hostility twice, and various quite right-wing people were personally very helpful and friendly. My favourite was Oliver Letwin, because he was actually open to persuasion in committee debate - would withdraw an amendment if you were able to show why it wasn't a good idea. John Hayes had a relative in my constituency and passed on tips from her about issues that I might want to look into. And although I had a serious row with Ann Winterton which led to her temporary suspension from the Conservative Party and we avoided speaking for a while, eventually we agreed it was a pity to hold grudges (which tbh she had more cause to than I did) and shook hands amicably.
Essentially MPs of all colours have a lot in common - not just career choice but a rich range of stories of the weird and wonderful things and people that interact with MPs.
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
The change in advice on masks was definitely not overnight. It was agonised over and argued over.
Lots of papers are published. Some have widely divergent conclusions, but generally the science coalesces around a consensus. That can take time, and everything had to be done very quickly in the pandemic. Which papers do we trust? Well, we examine the methods and come to conclusions based on our understanding of what is good science. If you want details, do an OU science degree or try some of the good educational resources on YouTube like Crash Course.
Why did we not listen to the South African medical community in Nov/Dec? Well, we did. There were very early reports, there was uncertainty about what could be concluded from those reports, those reports were saying different things. Government actions generally err on the side of caution, so it’s not just about your best estimate of what will happen, but having to take into account the uncertainty in predictions. However, broadly, the UK response to Omicron was pretty limited in terms of restrictions. We didn’t have another lockdown. We went from advising people to wear masks on public transport to telling people to wear masks on public transport (with minimal enforcement).
It’s not reasonable to expect lay people to read every paper and draw conclusions. But nor is it reasonable for lay people to then make up stories about how much science was published or what the evidence-to-policy process was, as you are doing.
I think the Government could have done more to explain the science. At times, they certainly failed to do that well (e.g. over the pingdemic, as I am writing a paper on).
In a free society, enforcing face masks wasn't in my view ever acceptable - especially in private shops.
Hilariously, every single person I know who adores masks has caught covid. Most of my fellow non-maskers haven't. I'm not implying any causation whatsoever. But it does make one think 'maybe they didn't really do anything at all, in the wild'.
After two and a half fucking years, how can someone write this drivel?
Wearing a mask protects those AROUND you, not you; if they wear a mask, they protect YOU
And while I'm here, on private schools and charitable status. I live adjacent to a large, famous independent school, and know people who work there. They have just spent millions on new buildings and a sports centre. The school contributes absolutely nothing charitable to the local community. Zilch. The school and its students live in a complete bubble. No outsider can use any of their facilities, and to the best of my knowledge they don't help any other local schools. Its students spend money in local shops, which helps, and they generously allow locals to watch their cricket matches in summer. That's it.
Charitable my arse.
Regulator problem?
A requirement to provide public benefit as part of the charitable status test is in law aiui. Remember all that Suzi Leather stuff?
To add to the above - and, in any case, we can hope to get treatments against Long Covid as we learn more and more about it (which does involve, as you say, not going into denial over it, but pinning down what it is).
We can accept that there is a problem. Somewhere between 700,000 and 1.4 million of us have ongoing symptoms very likely due to having had covid that are limiting their daily activities (extended periods of fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulty concentrating).
We can plausibly hope that this figure doesn't rise too much further (if my hopeful and arguably motivated reasoning in my previous post is correct). And we can plausibly hope that we learn to treat it (I've seen hopeful studies pointing to a reservoir of virus in the gut that escapes being cleared being behind some of these, for example - understanding is the first step to treating).
All of these are classic symptoms of anxiety, also. Many people bear the psychological scars of the Michie propaganda campaign, something that dreadful person is now trying to resurrect. With your help, by the looks of it.
I'm not disputing Long Covid, but ... I know a lot of people. And almost all of them have had covid. But I don't know of any cases of long covid. Perhaps it's concentrated in certain sub groups?
I've got one close friend and several acquaintances with Long Covid
One of the acquaintances is this woman, who wrote about it in the Mail
She is absolutely NOT the kind of person to malinger. Dynamic, energetic, sardonic
That article is from Feb 2021, and when I last inquired, a few months ago, she STILL has Long Covid (tho significantly better). It's real
If we're swapping anecdotes I have an acquaintance who is still bedridden from his first Covid jab.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
Absolutely. I was just replying to anecdata with anecdata
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
Interesting and not a million miles away from the age of the Menopause.
(IANAE in being a woman, that said, it may amaze you to hear.)
Any country other than China would've gotten a lot more flak for this (while retaliation against the US would be just as minimal, criticism would be way louder).
The fools meddled with something entirely unnecessarily and didn't even safeguard it, infecting the whole world.
Weaning ourselves away from Chinese economic integration is not only a useful logistical safeguard, it's also a justified response given their stupidity over this.
That isn't the substantive part of my comment
Long Covid is the issue. I really want that Twitter guy to be wrong, but I am struggling to see how he IS wrong. With every infection by Covid, you run a risk of Long Covid, perhaps a 20% risk. This means a steady accumulation of Long Covid in society until almost everyone is shuffling from bed to chair and wheezing all the time, incapable of work
And this could happen over a few short years, not in a century
As the Twitter dude says, new vaccines will come along and possibly save us from the worst of this. But what if they don't? Or what if they can only ameliorate? We are staring at an imminent global health disaster which will make everything else on our plates - Ukraine, inflation - seem trivial
And then there is a real risk that with each Covid infection the body is weakened, in and of itself a bad thing, but might also mean the risks of Long Covid go UP
This rather assumes that Long Covid is a real thing, rather than being a catch-all term blamed for everything which affects people who happen to have had covid.
I know this is quite a terrifying prospect. but denying it doesn't help
There has been a long-running problem with the entire covid subject: those who dislike the effects of covid, especially any restrictions, often default to full-on denial. It doesn't matter how often the denialism is discredited, whatever the denialists come up with gets trumpeted.
(There's an analogous issue on the alarmist side as well, unfortunately. Possibly down to the natural human tendency of binary thinking).
It's quite possibly due to the very understandable dislike of the effects of restrictions. Unfortunately, in some minds the logic chain goes: 1 - I hate these 2 - They are therefore wrong 3 - They are supposed to be helping. But if they are wrong, they cannot be helping 4 - They are therefore either unnecessary (and covid doesn't exist, or it is a minor issue, or it has already gone away forever) or do not help (and the reductions in spread just happen to occur at the same time), or are more harmful than letting it rip.
And some seem to seek some form of confirmation of that, no matter how logically implausible or strained the reasoning gets. Ivor Cummins has made a fortune from servicing this need. Toby Young has set up pretty much an industry around it. Sadly, both tend to join with the antivaxxers as well (possibly due to the fact that the logic of restrictions - to defer the spread until vaccines were available - relied on vaccines. Which adds an extra line to the "logic" 5 - As vaccines were needed to make restrictions work out long-term, they must either be useless or harmful, and justified solely by a worldwide conspiracy.
Denial is comforting.
As it happens, I'm not fully convinced that the fate of Long Covid lies in front of all of us, but I may be descending into denialism myself. We already know that self-reported long covid rates dropped enormously against infection rates following vaccination (not, unfortunately, to zero, but a long way down - from one in twelve to one in forty). It is plausible that surviving infection would help just as much. And we also know that immunity from breakthrough infection (vax plus infection immunity) is considerably stronger than either alone.
It is therefore plausible to me (a layperson, I must highlight) that subsequent infections would each by progressively less and less likely to cause Long Covid. Meaning that we wouldn't all inevitably get it, but it would rise to a certain (low) level and no higher.
I dont accept its denialism (although that is a factor), its the fact we were continually asked to accept varying and intrusive restrictions on the basis of 'the science' and 'the science has changed' without being presented with that science (just some pretty graphs made by modellers ans mathmeticians) Masks were ineffective, then they were 'our best line of defence' and needed 'because of asymptomatic blah blah blah' (now shown to be massively overstated) yet there was no bombshell 'the Billy Bluebottle report on masking' that entered the public domain to 'change the science'. Lockdown itself was an entirely new approach and the world were the guinea pigs. It was back of fag packet bollocks that ruined lives. Thats why it will never be allowed again, or flat out ignored.
Hong Kong now saying they will be electronically tagging quaratiners to ensure they dont leave home. Covid hysteria will prevent governments from being able to deal with any pandemic in the future without full on authoritarianisn due to mass non compliance.
How have you not been presented with the science? There are estimated to be over 87,000 published papers on COIVD. After an initial period, SAGE minutes and supporting papers were all being published. The main COVID project I worked on alone has released 45 reports produced for SAGE and Govt, as well as a dozen published papers and another dozen preprints.
All the research was being done in a hurry. We didn’t know anything at the start, and we got a lot of things wrong at first. There wasn’t a bombshell report on masking because that isn’t how medical science generally operates. There was an accumulation of evidence that built up over time.
No there wasnt. There was 'masks are not effective against Covid' then 'mask mandates'. Overnight. Pretty much everywhere. And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown. To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
The change in advice on masks was definitely not overnight. It was agonised over and argued over.
Lots of papers are published. Some have widely divergent conclusions, but generally the science coalesces around a consensus. That can take time, and everything had to be done very quickly in the pandemic. Which papers do we trust? Well, we examine the methods and come to conclusions based on our understanding of what is good science. If you want details, do an OU science degree or try some of the good educational resources on YouTube like Crash Course.
Why did we not listen to the South African medical community in Nov/Dec? Well, we did. There were very early reports, there was uncertainty about what could be concluded from those reports, those reports were saying different things. Government actions generally err on the side of caution, so it’s not just about your best estimate of what will happen, but having to take into account the uncertainty in predictions. However, broadly, the UK response to Omicron was pretty limited in terms of restrictions. We didn’t have another lockdown. We went from advising people to wear masks on public transport to telling people to wear masks on public transport (with minimal enforcement).
It’s not reasonable to expect lay people to read every paper and draw conclusions. But nor is it reasonable for lay people to then make up stories about how much science was published or what the evidence-to-policy process was, as you are doing.
I think the Government could have done more to explain the science. At times, they certainly failed to do that well (e.g. over the pingdemic, as I am writing a paper on).
In a free society, enforcing face masks wasn't in my view ever acceptable - especially in private shops.
Hilariously, every single person I know who adores masks has caught covid. Most of my fellow non-maskers haven't. I'm not implying any causation whatsoever. But it does make one think 'maybe they didn't really do anything at all, in the wild'.
After two and a half fucking years, how can someone write this drivel?
Wearing a mask protects those AROUND you, not you; if they wear a mask, they protect YOU
Err because of all that fools on twitter who wear 16 masks, a plastic bag over their head and an iron lung, and still catch covid?
It was always blindingly obvious that people were not catching Covid in supermarkets.
The state is too large. We need to grow the economy, not the % of GDP that is collected in tax.
I'd prefer:
Truss, Mordaunt or Tom T.
You can't grow the economy by cutting back Government though.
We need to identify how we can improve productivity / efficiency because until we do that we are just going to be a low wage economy.
You absolutely can grow the economy by cutting taxation on business. And by ensuring people keep more of their income every month.
Which will also help to fuel inflation. Those of us who lived through the 1970s and 1980s know haw damaging inflation is. Getting Inflation down should be the number one economic priority, higher than growth.
The obvious move is Javid backs Sunak with Javid as Sunak's CoE.
However, I'm increasingly of the view the bet to do is short Sunak. He hasn't got the momentum I think he thought he would and it's clear there is a fairly large 'stop Sunak' movement out there.
The state is too large. We need to grow the economy, not the % of GDP that is collected in tax.
I'd prefer:
Truss, Mordaunt or Tom T.
You can't grow the economy by cutting back Government though.
We need to identify how we can improve productivity / efficiency because until we do that we are just going to be a low wage economy.
You absolutely can grow the economy by cutting taxation on business. And by ensuring people keep more of their income every month.
Which will also help to fuel inflation. Those of us who lived through the 1970s and 1980s know haw damaging inflation is. Getting Inflation down should be the number one economic priority, higher than growth.
Giving in to wage demands is more likely to fuel inflation.
Best thing we can do to help the economy? Cut taxes and beat Russia....
Gawd, Fizzy Lizzie's leadership pitch video is dull. Are they all this boring?
I think it's very much 'don't scare the horses' phase.
Maybe it's the voice (which is very unfair, of course). Just watched Rishi's and it's not exactly exciting, but I didn't drop off half way through.
I kinda want one of them to do a rap or something, I guess. Rishi's missed a trick by not getting Elton in to do a new version of Are you ready for love, he's got the money for it, afterall. Even May had the Dancing Queen moment
The builders outside are doubly annoying. Noisy (ok, not too bad, to be fair), and I feel I can't slack off work despite the heat because then they'd have a better work ethic than me.
Comments
And that letting Omicron run riot through a far-less vaccinated population would be catastrophic, so they've decided to continue them until they get vaccine uptake high enough (or huge stockpiles of useful antivirals).
The comparison between poorly-vaccinated Hong Kong and highly vaccinated New Zealand after Omicron ran through them is illuminating:
There wasn't, I think, Long Black Death, but given it killed 30-50% of the population that's a somewhat limited silver lining. It was the Thanos snap of diseases.
FYI I have voted Tory.
They say he hid £400m (!) worth of assets from the taxman
https://twitter.com/thejonnyreilly/status/1546469720416833537
More interesting is that UK public health expenditure (taking 2019 numbers to avoid Covid) is only behind DE, FR, NL, DK, NO, SW as a % of GDP. So I'm not sure how much more mileage there is in generalised "more money for the NHS" campaigns.
The dark blue is public health expenditure. OECD numbers.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/860615c9-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/860615c9-en#:~:text=In 2019, it is estimated,line with overall economic growth.
Cash amounts are a somewhat different story, but even that data is no longer clear that UK underspends on Health. Here are the numbers from the OECD 2019 in those terms. Empty diamond is public health spending.
https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm
If Eton got shut down, it would reappear in Singapore or Dubai overnight, with the same management attracting the same international elite.
Points out that many of the candidates haven't actually experienced inflation. So it is entirely theoretical to them.
It wouldn't surprise me if some Covid Hawks in China are driving Zero Covid, by stealth, partly because they fear Long Covid. China has close to a falling population. It is paranoid about the size of its workforce: one thing which might prevent it rising to global hegemony is a shrinking China
It seems some people's idolised world is one where we all go back to a 19th century solution of walking or at most cycling everywhere, with trains for transport if required, and pretend that the car does not exist. It isn't going to happen.
If you tell car drivers they aren't welcome, then the competition that does welcome them can and will take the customers instead.
And yes of course papers have been written, with widely different conclusions. Which ones are we trusting? Why are we not trusting the others? Why did we not listen to the South Afrucan medical community in November/December? None of this was presented to the public. We were just expected to 'believe' the only way was lockdown.
To clarify 'presented with the science' i mean 'you are being locked in your home because we believe the data in reports x, y and z' which of course never happened. Its clearly not reasinable to expect any lay person to read every paper issued and draw conclusions.
Remember that many local authorities are now Adult Social Care departments with other services attached (because Adult social care is both their biggest unavoidable cost and the most rapidly increasing cost as demand spirals).
Starmer is a lucky general.
It's a free world, but our free decisions are not free of consequences.
How, Cyclefree, would you elect Boris's successor?
Half the candidates going "steady as she goes with policy, we just neeed a better leader", the other half going "to our own selves be true", even if it repels MOTR voters.
Maybe the Conservatives have written off 2023/4/5, and are just going to have some fun for a bit.
A better claim would have been "subjected to hate campaigns" and not caved in, which would be true given Mr McDonnell's statements about "lynching", and his continued defence of them, and so on.
The people most failed by the state school system are those who have no choice which school to go to. That doesn't apply to the wealthy and never will, if they aren't paying fees they're buying homes instead.
Anecdotes are interesting but not too much to go on.
I don't happen to know anyone with Long Covid but I have no doubt it's a thing.
Neither do I set much store on your story or mine in the great scheme of things.
The guy I first linked (an epidemiologist in Sweden) presented a simple graph explaining how Covid reinfections mean that more and more people will get Long Covid, as with each reinfection you face a new risk of the chronic form. It will therefore accumulate in society
As he says, intuitively this seems obviously true. He made the graph simple (as he also says) to get his point across
No one has been able to refute it, yet. All we have is plain denial that Long Covid exists, or a hope that he is wrong about reinfections. Interestingly, the German Health Minister is now banging on about this:
"Germany: Long COVID a problem for labor market, health minister says"
'Health minister Karl Lauterbach said long COVID will leave many in Germany unable to return to their previous level of work performance'
https://twitter.com/Dakota_150/status/1546268188761014272?s=20&t=pFRJMDBajmwmJ01HMibqZA
In terms of “Long Spanish Flu”, do you remember the film “Awakenings”? That was about sufferers from the early 20th century wave of encephalitis lethargica, which many think was a long-term effect of Spanish flu (although this is not confirmed and others suggest other explanations).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Long-term_effects is short, but links to some interesting papers about various long-term effects.
I hate ice cream vans anyway, but this one in particular should be taken out by a drone strike.
BTW @Cookie wondered if there is some propensity for certain groups to get LC. That Mail article suggests it is especially prevalent in caucasian woman aged 30-50. That fits with my anecdata, oddly enough
As if a woman would have such a mighty wiffle stick.
(IANAE in being a woman, that said, it may amaze you to hear.)
I was wondering whether it might be some subgroup I don't tend to know a lot of - 60-70 year olds, people from East Anglia, Chinese heritage people, something like that... But 30-50 year old caucasian women are probably slightly overrrepresented among my acquaintances. Odd.
But I know you would never stoop to such prejudice
At least their is complimentary G&T here in First Class, and the prospect of Delay Repay.
This is elementary stuff. So many unasked questions. A proper story with proper analysis is what once the Guardian would have give us. Not clapped out Mirror/Mail stuff. Dismal.
But I say this as a stanch Unionist. As long as NI is part of the UK, I think parties need to be serious and run UK wide.... or if not, make it clear who they are allied with.
I don't like the idea of ignoring NI MPs, because it is exactly that. Ignoring Northern Ireland.
Either NI is in the Union, or it is not. And if it is, it should not be ignored in Westminster.
If the Mail's article is correct.
But battle on O SJW if you think you need to.
https://www.maturitas.org/article/S0378-5122(21)00174-2/fulltext
Edit: which means I am happy to say that as per my previous post, it was not "unremarked".
"The danger of #LongCovid is grossly underestimated. We don't even begin to have the therapy places for it. People should not lightly expose themselves to an infection that can change their life. Vaccinations significantly reduce the risk of infection."
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/corona-karl-lauterbach-warnt-vor-gefahr-durch-long-covid-a-ff3b4654-276a-4867-94ea-4e3131c737c9?sara_ecid=soci_upd_KsBF0AFjflf0DZCxpPYDCQgO1dEMph
(Also, that's a bit gender critical, is it not?
Lots of papers are published. Some have widely divergent conclusions, but generally the science coalesces around a consensus. That can take time, and everything had to be done very quickly in the pandemic. Which papers do we trust? Well, we examine the methods and come to conclusions based on our understanding of what is good science. If you want details, do an OU science degree or try some of the good educational resources on YouTube like Crash Course.
Why did we not listen to the South African medical community in Nov/Dec? Well, we did. There were very early reports, there was uncertainty about what could be concluded from those reports, those reports were saying different things. Government actions generally err on the side of caution, so it’s not just about your best estimate of what will happen, but having to take into account the uncertainty in predictions. However, broadly, the UK response to Omicron was pretty limited in terms of restrictions. We didn’t have another lockdown. We went from advising people to wear masks on public transport to telling people to wear masks on public transport (with minimal enforcement).
It’s not reasonable to expect lay people to read every paper and draw conclusions. But nor is it reasonable for lay people to then make up stories about how much science was published or what the evidence-to-policy process was, as you are doing.
I think the Government could have done more to explain the science. At times, they certainly failed to do that well (e.g. over the pingdemic, as I am writing a paper on).
A car parked on the pavement outside a driveway with space for 3 or 4 cars. This one often has vans and small lorries on it.
Another bugbear here is advertising signs, as well as street furniture. This is a Toolstation A-board which is normally bang in the middle of the shared pavement, a roadworks sign, and a loopily positioned traffic sign.
Both of these require protest and enforcement, and rational design guides to be *followed*.
Quite baffling to me.
I feel much better this week.
Phew! Thank God that's over
Im on Anyone But Sunak.
The state is too large. We need to grow the economy, not the % of GDP that is collected in tax.
I'd prefer:
Truss, Mordaunt or Tom T.
He's a bit "Brenda from Bristol". He expressed no support for the Conservatives, but then said, "And once they've been elected by their party, we're going to have to have a General Election.... *sigh*".
I set him right, reminded him about Brown (he's certainly not that young) but he did look a bit quizzacle. Believed the new PM would have to go to the country quite soon however, to win their own mandate.
WE all know how the Parliamentary system works, but I wonder how many in the country really do. I wonder if (like Brown) the new PM might be punished if they don't go within a reasonable timeframe?
I'd also say that I've suffered from crippling anxiety during periods of my life. Some of the symptoms seem very similar to that.
That said the Bank of England has begun to tackle it, and they see LC having major impacts on the labour market (and it is probably doing that already, hence the labour pool shrinking, with all the consequences of that)
From the current situation, It would appear Sunak has a good shot at the final two.
Hilariously, every single person I know who adores masks has caught covid. Most of my few fellow non-maskers haven't. I'm not implying any causation whatsoever. But it does make one think 'maybe they didn't really do anything at all, in the wild'.
We need to identify how we can improve productivity / efficiency because until we do that we are just going to be a low wage economy.
Essentially MPs of all colours have a lot in common - not just career choice but a rich range of stories of the weird and wonderful things and people that interact with MPs.
Wearing a mask protects those AROUND you, not you; if they wear a mask, they protect YOU
A requirement to provide public benefit as part of the charitable status test is in law aiui. Remember all that Suzi Leather stuff?
Care to name the school so we can check?
https://twitter.com/PennyMordaunt/status/1546478472800894979
Now the money has been spent the borrowing has to be repaid with interest and taxes raised to pay for it.
It was always blindingly obvious that people were not catching Covid in supermarkets.
The obvious move is Javid backs Sunak with Javid as Sunak's CoE.
However, I'm increasingly of the view the bet to do is short Sunak. He hasn't got the momentum I think he thought he would and it's clear there is a fairly large 'stop Sunak' movement out there.
Best thing we can do to help the economy? Cut taxes and beat Russia....
I kinda want one of them to do a rap or something, I guess. Rishi's missed a trick by not getting Elton in to do a new version of Are you ready for love, he's got the money for it, afterall. Even May had the Dancing Queen moment
The swine.