Off Topic Coronavirus

[lfcpower]

Booster the other day, left me with nice swollen glands under my armpit.

PLAGUE!!

 

[Milk..]

Youngest diagnosed with COVID yesterday. Dr. Didn't test specifically for Omicron,.but she's had pretty high fever despite being vaccinated and feels bad, poor kid. Dr says for someone her age to get it like that almost certainly Omicron, apparently hitting kids harder than previous variants but not hitting adults as badly.

Not a great way to spend Xmas. Were going to grandparents so we're left a little unprepared, food/decorations etc a little sparse at home and living room full of boxes for the move. Only space for family to gather is the kitchen table so we'll be probably do it there... Or backyard, weather finally warmed up again and will be in the 70's here when sun comes up. Might be nice to have a back yard Xmas... Especially since we're all having to wear masks in common space in house.

Wife and I both have mild sore throats for a couple of days... Not sure if COVID or coincidence. Probably COVID. We've both had boosters though so hopefully relatively well protected.

 

[Milk..]

Fourth? Wait until it's the twenty-seventh!

I suspect it will eventually become an annual jab like the flu shot. Most viruses mutate to become less lethal over time (the less severe your symptoms, the more likely you'll spread it) but COVID seems to hop species easy and could recombine with animal coronaviruses and come back. (Like one theory on where omicron came from).... Because of this, we're probably always going to be getting new variants and vaccines.

Lethality is probably going to be low from here on our though because we'll always have some base immunity from all previous variants.

We'll probably all get COVID a dozen or so times in our life. It's part of life now, like the cold.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

Its... not... a...cold.

Merry Christmas though.

If people actually ever had the flu they would know not to call covid a cold.

 

[Milk..]

Its... not... a...cold.

Merry Christmas though.

If people actually ever had the flu they would know not to call covid a cold.

Didn't say it was a cold just that it will become a fact of life like a cold. (And in fact similar coronaviruses can cause the cold and probably started out like COVID with devastating effect)

Went and got my COVID test today, may not hear back until Wednesday if I have it. Daughter slowly getting better, my wife and I better, occasionally slightly sore throat.

Honestly if this does turn out to be COVID it will have been milder than any cold I've had... But that's what the three Jabs were for and what I can be thankful for. Unfortunately though, for my daughter it's been more like a pretty rough flu.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

Didn't say it was a cold just that it will become a fact of life like a cold. (And in fact similar coronaviruses can cause the cold and probably started out like COVID with devastating effect)

Went and got my COVID test today, may not hear back until Wednesday if I have it. Daughter slowly getting better, my wife and I better, occasionally slightly sore throat.

Honestly if this does turn out to be COVID it will have been milder than any cold I've had... But that's what the three Jabs were for and what I can be thankful for. Unfortunately though, for my daughter it's been more like a pretty rough flu.

H1n1 is a fact of life, it can kill with other flus about 10k people each year here. Add corina in top now and we are looking at doubling it. That's the new normal most likely.

The issue for me is corona can infect before the person shows symptoms so is a sneaky little bugger.

The world valued brave soldiers who came to work coughing and puking over others. I have yet to see a law here or in Europe making it illegal a d fines for companies so I assume within a couple years we will be back to that.

I really ought to be able to complain to HR if someone is sick and at work. It should now be e forced in law

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

Didn't say it was a cold just that it will become a fact of life like a cold. (And in fact similar coronaviruses can cause the cold and probably started out like COVID with devastating effect)

Went and got my COVID test today, may not hear back until Wednesday if I have it. Daughter slowly getting better, my wife and I better, occasionally slightly sore throat.

Honestly if this does turn out to be COVID it will have been milder than any cold I've had... But that's what the three Jabs were for and what I can be thankful for. Unfortunately though, for my daughter it's been more like a pretty rough flu.

Hope you had a decent time yesterday mate. Sucks arse but you can at least make a pact that this time next year you'll have a much better time

 

[lfcpower]

H1n1 is a fact of life, it can kill with other flus about 10k people each year here. Add corina in top now and we are looking at doubling it. That's the new normal most likely.

The issue for me is corona can infect before the person shows symptoms so is a sneaky little bugger.

The world valued brave soldiers who came to work coughing and puking over others. I have yet to see a law here or in Europe making it illegal a d fines for companies so I assume within a couple years we will be back to that.

I really ought to be able to complain to HR if someone is sick and at work. It should now be e forced in law

Always felt this about working when ill, it's selfish and as we're now finding out totally stupid, but also the UK work culture unfortunately encourages it. A few weeks ago a colleague was in work with a cold, covid, flu, whatever it was, doubt she'd bothered testing herself from the attitude, so we're in the room, she announces she's ill like it's some kind of trophy and she's just floating around doing supervisory stuff and coughing in the middle of the place, mask not being worn properly, chewing gum in work. I just went as far away as possible but then of course she asks if she can talk to me about some issue one to one so I have to go and sit right next to her at a desk to discuss it. I felt like saying you know what, no I won't, but i just put the mask on and disinfected after. I don't think it's right to be so blasé about sickness, or to put people in that position, especially now obviously.

This leads me on to another point about people's general hygiene standards. Even after all this I see blokes in the work toilet, public toilets either not bothering to wash their hands or thinking that sprinkling water from the tap on them for a few seconds then wiping them on their pants, or not, qualifies as actual hand washing. People licking their fingers in the office after eating lunch then straight away using a computer. It's ridiculous and I doubt the message will ever get through to these idiots.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

Always felt this about working when ill, it's selfish and as we're now finding out totally stupid, but also the UK work culture unfortunately encourages it. A few weeks ago a colleague was in work with a cold, covid, flu, whatever it was, doubt she'd bothered testing herself from the attitude, so we're in the room, she announces she's ill like it's some kind of trophy and she's just floating around doing supervisory stuff and coughing in the middle of the place, mask not being worn properly, chewing gum in work. I just went as far away as possible but then of course she asks if she can talk to me about some issue one to one so I have to go and sit right next to her at a desk to discuss it. I felt like saying you know what, no I won't, but i just put the mask on and disinfected after. I don't think it's right to be so blasé about sickness, or to put people in that position, especially now obviously.

This leads me on to another point about people's general hygiene standards. Even after all this I see blokes in the work toilet, public toilets either not bothering to wash their hands or thinking that sprinkling water from the tap on them for a few seconds then wiping them on their pants, or not, qualifies as actual hand washing. People licking their fingers in the office after eating lunch then straight away using a computer. It's ridiculous and I doubt the message will ever get through to these idiots.

Yeah that's why imo the only way to drive it is via top down.

Theres nothing more managery and being instructed down the chain form on high on how to police staff. Some.manahers absolutely love being given a new tool to.micromanahe people. Lap it up imo.

So if HR mandates that by law all "sick" people must be sent home then who ever you had to suffer would have never ever gone to office on the ground that being sent home herself would be a serious black mark on here jobsworth managerial record.

 

[Milk..]

There was one woman in our office walking down the hall coughing and sounding like death three or four months ago.

I reported that someone was in the office with what sounded like a severe respiratory illness but didn't give the name of who it was. I Didn't want to grass on the lady directly, but wanted the message to be sent to everyone in the office to stay home if sick. Especially since we can work from home... (Obviously the nurses and doctors can't work from home, but us in the offices can)

No message was sent to the entire office, but she didn't come back for a week or so after that, so presumably someone else complained, or they looked into who it was, or her boss sent her home.

I'm certainly not going to go into the office for a few weeks even though I am barely symptomatic. Have another coworker text me a few hours ago his whole family of six is sick (sounds like they got it worse than we did too)... He's not going in either for a while. (There again, he almost never shows up in the office anyway... )

 

[InBiscanWeTrust]

This is the thing. Before covid if you had a cold was almost expected you’d come into work because it’s only a cold.

However I think nowadays with what’s going on a lot of people have taken stance of I’ll stay home and just work from home which is a benefit to everyone. Means no sick day so works too gets done plus less chance of spreading things around. obviously being able to work from home has also meant a lot less stigma attached to that.

Before it used to be if your well enough to work from home then your well enough to drive into the office.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

This is the thing. Before covid if you had a cold was almost expected you’d come into work because it’s only a cold.

However I think nowadays with what’s going on a lot of people have taken stance of I’ll stay home and just work from home which is a benefit to everyone. Means no sick day so works too gets done plus less chance of spreading things around. obviously being able to work from home has also meant a lot less stigma attached to that.

Before it used to be if your well enough to work from home then your well enough to drive into the office.

Yeah in the knowledge industry the excuse of a sniffles seems to enable a total down tools for people in some parts, especially yankland but in others its soldier on

This is why I think it needs to be enforced by law and then HR takes it out of the managers hands.

I know someone who has covid positive test on lateral flow (yeah I know).but its cos a **** of a chef where he works had it, told obody and went to work and infected the whole kitchen (and god knows how many guests) the restaurant owner had to close the place before christmas and every had to isolate for christmas

Imo that's 30days in lock up territory as it's worse imo than just punching one person.

 

[Milk..]

This is the thing. Before covid if you had a cold was almost expected you’d come into work because it’s only a cold.

However I think nowadays with what’s going on a lot of people have taken stance of I’ll stay home and just work from home which is a benefit to everyone. Means no sick day so works too gets done plus less chance of spreading things around. obviously being able to work from home has also meant a lot less stigma attached to that.

Before it used to be if your well enough to work from home then your well enough to drive into the office.

It's worse in America because we have such few days PTO. If I take a sick day, it means one less day of vacation I get... And when you consider some people only get 2 weeks vacation a year (thankfully, I've stayed with my current company so long I'm closer to 4 weeks now, and my boss deliberately reports me as being in the office when I take PTO to give me unofficial extra on top of that.
. . I have the best boss)
...

Taking a sick day is quite a commitment for some folk though. If you get 10 days off a year, one sick day is 10% of your time off for the whole year. Who is going to waste that for the sniffles?

Of course now, they let us work from home for just about any excuse so I'm never going into work sick again.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

It's worse in America because we have such few days PTO. If I take a sick day, it means one less day of vacation I get... And when you consider some people only get 2 weeks vacation a year (thankfully, I've stayed with my current company so long I'm closer to 4 weeks now, and my boss deliberately reports me as being in the office when I take PTO to give me unofficial extra on top of that.
. . I have the best boss)
...

Taking a sick day is quite a commitment for some folk though. If you get 10 days off a year, one sick day is 10% of your time off for the whole year. Who is going to waste that for the sniffles?

Of course now, they let us work from home for just about any excuse so I'm never going into work sick again.

Radical thought but us commies would say the state should pick up the tab for protecting public health

 

[Milk..]

Radical thought but us commies would say the state should pick up the tab for protecting public health

I don't at all disagree that that might be best for all... The worry of course might be people cheating the system.


Anyhow back on the "cold" links... Could explain why Omicron seems to be harder on kids than adults. As adults we've been exposed to the cold so many times. Kids have had less exposure. If Omicron stole some RNA from a coronavirus that causes colds... Many of us adults have probably already been infected by that cold. Would also explain why some places suffer worse with Omicron than others. Perhaps those locations had been spared the cold that Omicron stole genetic data from so they're less protected.

Why omicron variant symptoms are so similar to common cold symptoms
A new study suggests the omicron variant has some of the common cold inside of it

• By Herb Scribner
• on December 26, 2021 8:30 pm

You must log in or register to see images

An illustration of the omicron variant, which has been known to causes COVID-19 symptoms similar to the common cold.
Illustration by Zoe Peterson, Deseret News
The omicron variant of the coronavirus might have symptoms similar to the common cold because the new variant literally has a genetic code from the common cold inside of it.

Per Reuters, the omicron variant likely acquired a mutation — one of its more than 30 mutations, mind you — from a snippet of genetic material from the common cold. Meaning, yes, the omicron variant mutated to include parts of the common cold’s genetic makeup.

RELATED

6 tips to avoid omicron variant symptoms over the holidays
Will COVID-19 end after omicron? Expert predicts omicron variant’s future
Researchers — who published a study in early December on OSF Preprints about this idea — found this after seeing genetic material in the common cold and the omicron variant.

• Venky Soundararajan, who works at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data analytics firm Nference and led the study, said this is why omicron has made itself look “more human.”

The small bit of the common cold inside of omicron “could mean the virus transmits more easily, while only causing mild or asymptomatic disease,” according to Reuters.

Professor Tim Spector, who helps run the ZOE COVID symptoms app that monitors COVID-19 cases and symptoms, recently said that the omicron variant can be hard to find because it does not lead to symptoms different than those you see in the common cold, according to The Independent, a U.K. news outlet.

• “Omicron is probably more, much more similar to the mild variants we’re seeing in people who have been vaccinated with Delta than anything else,” he said.
• “And so it is going to be producing cold-like symptoms that people won’t recognize as Covid if they just believe the official government advice.”

Researchers are still trying to figure out if the omicron variant creates more severe symptoms compared to other variants. Most indications suggest the variant does not lead to more severe illness. But there’s some early lab work that suggests the omicron variant can evade vaccines, boosters and natural immunity, raising questions about what we should expect next from the omicron variant.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

I don't at all disagree that that might be best for all... The worry of course might be people cheating the system.


Anyhow back on the "cold" links... Could explain why Omicron seems to be harder on kids than adults. As adults we've been exposed to the cold so many times. Kids have had less exposure. If Omicron stole some RNA from a coronavirus that causes colds... Many of us adults have probably already been infected by that cold. Would also explain why some places suffer worse with Omicron than others. Perhaps those locations had been spared the cold that Omicron stole genetic data from so they're less protected.

Theres nobody better than the government to probe your illness days and demand certifications

The reports are that this omnicron version is locating itself.in the upper respiratory system not down in the lungs to replicate as much and as such you dont develop pneumonia like flooded lungs.

What you are suggesting is not impossible but highly improbable but given the amount of people infected globally the improbable becomes that.much more.possible I guess.

If a person is infected with two different viruses at once and both viruses infect a cell where the rna combines within then explodes out as omnicron is something that has scientific publications supporting.

It is far more likely to be covid mutating on it's own though.

 

[Milk..]

Theres nobody better than the government to probe your illness days and demand certifications

The reports are that this omnicron version is locating itself.in the upper respiratory system not down in the lungs to replicate as much and as such you dont develop pneumonia like flooded lungs.

What you are suggesting is not impossible but highly improbable but given the amount of people infected globally the improbable becomes that.much more.possible I guess.

If a person is infected with two different viruses at once and both viruses infect a cell where the rna combines within then explodes out as omnicron is something that has scientific publications supporting.

It is far more likely to be covid mutating on it's own though.

Happens with the Flu all the time. Flu strains are frequently swapping RNA and recombining to form new strains.

Worst case scenario: covid acquires the cold's ability to mutate so easily and rapidly, but remains potentially deadly. There would be no way to keep up with all the new variants and strains popping up. Vaccines would be useless if that happened.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

Happens with the Flu all the time. Flu strains are frequently swapping RNA and recombining to form new strains.

Worst case scenario: covid acquires the cold's ability to mutate so easily and rapidly, but remains potentially deadly. There would be no way to keep up with all the new variants and strains popping up. Vaccines would be useless if that happened.

In the end the aspects to covid that makes it deadly are targetable so itd need to mutate to the point of no longer being the same virus to evade them.

The main thing is that like h1n1 it will eventually become one of many as people can recognise it in a robust way. H1n1 started in the is, travelled to europe with troops, got called spanish flu and killed 25mil due to the abject conditions of the time.

It never went away. The biggest impediment to Corona is peoples bloody impatience and belief their right to have a good time trumps all.

 

[Zanjinho]

Was scanning things the other day but not sure if i dreamt this... did I see something about an investigation into blood types? Something about certain blood types are a lot more effected than others?

 

[Milk..]

Was scanning things the other day but not sure if i dreamt this... did I see something about an investigation into blood types? Something about certain blood types are a lot more effected than others?

Yes, they discovered that quite early on in the pandemic. I don't remember which blood types were more susceptible though.