This fucking virus?

Apologies if my last post was a bit brief. I hate to think one of us was bricking it and am relieved you are out the other side.

So day 5 still testing positive…Omicron is supposed to pass quicker than previous strain so interesting to know how fellow Banzai infectees get on.

Meeks, how many days before you were clear..maybe u already posted it but I can’t be arsed looking.

Was also boosted in January.

Crikey, hope you get better soon Shiney, and everyone else who has caught it. 

Glad you are ok Noodlemeister, sounds like you had similar issues as my daughter, she tends to be a bit nasal and has sinus issues, she will probably develop full blown asthma when she's older. Cov sent her to casualty with breathing difficulties, oxygen and a muscle relaxant got her sorted & home in a few hours, scared the shit out of me for a while though. Like you, the potential  outcome if she wasnt double vaxxed doesn't bear thinking about. Í'm in Denmark now and no masks anywhere (including public transport) takes a bit getting used to.

We have to treat the Covid virus now for what is is now.

I fully agree that this was far worse than a "flu" and most of the measures taken were necessary, and in some cases were late and insufficient, but that doesn't mean that we now need to retain an excess of measures because of what has already happened, in a kind of compensation action.

If there were to be a study of the risk of serious disease today in our population from Covid (maybe this has already ben done by the way) compared to the typical risk of similar outcomes from flu, maybe it wouldn't be that different now that we are mostly vaxed and the variant is less aggressive.

If that is roughly the case, surely the measures imposed by governments can be limited to what is required to keep it that way. The fight to elimnate Covid in China isn't going well. We haven't even tried to eliminate the flu, people still die of bubonic plague.

I'll be honest in that I went a bit "Mekon" when one of Spain's health experts said at the start of winter that it was good fpr Spain to retain the obligatory mask wearing as it would provide protection to the vulnerable against other illnesses such as the flu. No, that's where they overstepped the mark. If we needed masks for Covid because it was highly contagious and highly lethal, then fine, but keeping them because they help with other illnesses whcih we had already "lived with" I am against.

It might be wrong to suggest that we do nothing and just forget about Covid, but drag out measures on the basis of what it was seems wrong also.

Another thing is if they don't want to forget all measures in case the next variant might be more like the older ones... more dangerous and we need to reintroduce the stricter controls (which I think isn't completely off the table). Then we're fucked.

Thing is, how much information has been gathered by researchers on reinfection rates. A bad flu year is pretty damaging if, say, 10% of the population are infected but flu is annual and bad years are worst case scenario.

It seems just now that Covid is ripping through us all but can everyone expect reinfection in, say, 3-6 months? Is that an acceptable version of living with it? If mask wearing extended this period to 6-12 months would it be an acceptable sacrifice?

It affects everyone differently. Some folk have no symptoms, some folk seem immune, some folk end up in hospital. Surely a bit of cloth over your mouth isn't too much to ask until there is more evidence on infection patterns?