Not seen Pie around for a while.....
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Off Topic Coronavirus
- Thread starter Sooperhoop
- Start date
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I suppose that, in a way, people getting what they need as opposed to what they want is a good thing.
Overall though, I think we're both on the same page with this, in that there are going to be huge repercussions due to missed diagnoses etc.
Got mine done yesterday
Apparently the syringeing was potentially harmful as there was no way to see what they were doing
Took half an hour to do mine as the wax was so packed in
She almost gave up but filled the ears with oil and had another go
$50 or about 25 quid
Put some oil in for a few days first
Yep, they always recommend softening the wax with oil for a few days first.
I hated the old water jet method.
The suction is much better.
Over 7000 school pupils in isolation just in Leeds alone, along with nearly 800 teachers. Schools are perfectly safe though.
Interesting article on Long-Covid....
Covid-19 Hits the Old Hardest, But the Healthy Longest
While we’re fighting to suppress a second wave, the number of people with so-called long Covid is mounting.
By
Therese Raphael
October 15, 2020, 2:20 AM EDT
Lingering symptoms?
Photographer: Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images Europe
Before he had Covid-19, Brendan Delaney, the 57-year-old chair of medical informatics and decision making at Imperial College, could cycle 150 miles in a day. Covid changed that, but not because he had a severe case of the disease.
Delaney never got seriously ill from the virus. Like many healthy people, he figured his symptoms, a mild fever and a cough, would pass soon enough. Instead, he experienced debilitating aftereffects, such as fatigue and breathlessness, which many are now calling long Covid. Seven months later, he is still not back to normal. He can’t imagine getting back on a bike and says that if he pushes himself too hard, he ends up in bed with a fever for a couple of days. He considers himself lucky that he’s able to work. Many other long Covid sufferers cannot.
As a second wave of infections grows, so it follows that the number of long Covid cases is bound to increase. Although this clearly has implications for public health and the economy, it has been almost nowhere in the broader policy debate.
That narrative has focused largely on minimizing deaths and hospitalizations. But most long Covid patients weren’t hospitalized and didn’t have pre-existing conditions. This should throw some cold water on the idea of dispensing with restrictions and allowing immunity to build up among the young while shielding the vulnerable — an approach that won more adherents as lockdown fatigue set in. Going in this direction would be far more costly than many perhaps realize.
“We need to control this virus not because of the risk that Granny may catch it and die, or your uncle may end up in ICU, but because fit, healthy people without any comorbid conditions who are young can end up having their lives wrecked,” Delaney said during a conversation over Zoom.
We know from experience with other viruses — from the 2003 SARS outbreak to Ebola, MERS and glandular fever (caused by the Epstein-Barr virus) — that effects can be long-lasting. It’s similar with today’s coronavirus. Studies, including a new major report from the National Institute for Health Research, suggest a significant number of Covid-19 patients will have symptoms that linger and can affect different organs and systems, even rising in one area and then another.
Conventional medicine, however, doesn’t have a good record on responding to conditions where the cause can’t easily be isolated, which is the case with long Covid. For years, sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, endometriosis and other conditions often fought lonely battles for recognition and medical care. The most reported symptoms of long Covid sound like they could be any number of illnesses: extreme fatigue, breathlessness, heart palpitations, gastrointestinal problems, joint pain and problems with memory and focus. A cross-party U.K. parliamentary group identified 16 common symptoms, but the full list is much longer. In many cases, sufferers never had a Covid test (they weren’t widely available) and blood tests and scans don’t reveal any major abnormalities.
The good news is that there are too many cases like Delaney’s to ignore, and so recognition and media attention is coming faster than it has in other cases. The U.K. is ahead in some ways. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, a slim 42-year-old who had Covid-19 back in March and recovered quickly, has spoken publicly about the long-term effects. The National Health Service created a support website and put aside 10 million pounds ($13 million) to set up a network of long Covid clinics in England. An official definition, expected this month from Britain’s standards-setting National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, will give a better indication on how seriously the condition is being taken.
Even so, existing U.K. measures will be small beer if the virus continues to spread and long Covid cases mount. Nailing down exact numbers isn’t easy, but 1 in 10 users of the Covid Symptom Study app, used by more than 4.3 million U.K. participants, reported symptoms persisting for more than three weeks after infection. Some 60,000 reported symptoms that lasted more than three months. Delaney says this may be an underestimation since symptom trackers are used largely during the acute stage of the virus.
This is already posing problems for health professionals. Shortages of personal protective equipment and inadequate guidance early in the pandemic put medical staff at greater risk of contracting the virus. When the British Medical Association asked 5,650 doctors about their experience, almost 30% of those who’d had Covid were left with physical fatigue and shortness of breath; 18% described some kind of cognitive impairment. About a fifth had taken sick leave to deal with the symptoms. Delaney says he knows of two doctors with long Covid symptoms who lost their jobs because they were unable to return to full-time work. (In France, a recent decree limits disability claims by health-care workers to those who required oxygen to treat the virus.)
Increasing infection rates have ushered in fierce debates over the relative costs, benefits and ethical considerations of various lockdown measures. Long Covid may alter that calculus further, depending on the impact on household income and productivity. A 2004 U.S. study using cost-of-illness analysis to estimate the impact of chronic fatigue syndrome (which has similar symptoms to long Covid) concluded that it probably led to a 37% decline in annual household productivity and a 54% reduction in labor force productivity among sufferers, with a total annual lost value of $9.1 billion a year.
How the long Covid costs stack up will depend on various things including prevalence, duration of symptoms and the degree of incapacity. It does seem that symptoms slowly get better over time, though it’s too early for a tally of long-term effects such as fibrosis of the lungs or compromised immune systems. Although more research is needed, the existing picture warns against a view that divides the population into neat high- and low-risk categories. “Whether or not you think you are at risk of ICU admissions, anyone can be at risk of long Covid,” Delaney says.
That’s a sobering thought, but it may at least encourage a little more solidarity as we figure out how best to control a second pandemic wave.
Covid-19 Hits the Old Hardest, But the Healthy Longest
While we’re fighting to suppress a second wave, the number of people with so-called long Covid is mounting.
By
Therese Raphael
October 15, 2020, 2:20 AM EDT
You must log in or register to see images
Lingering symptoms?
Photographer: Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images Europe
Before he had Covid-19, Brendan Delaney, the 57-year-old chair of medical informatics and decision making at Imperial College, could cycle 150 miles in a day. Covid changed that, but not because he had a severe case of the disease.
Delaney never got seriously ill from the virus. Like many healthy people, he figured his symptoms, a mild fever and a cough, would pass soon enough. Instead, he experienced debilitating aftereffects, such as fatigue and breathlessness, which many are now calling long Covid. Seven months later, he is still not back to normal. He can’t imagine getting back on a bike and says that if he pushes himself too hard, he ends up in bed with a fever for a couple of days. He considers himself lucky that he’s able to work. Many other long Covid sufferers cannot.
As a second wave of infections grows, so it follows that the number of long Covid cases is bound to increase. Although this clearly has implications for public health and the economy, it has been almost nowhere in the broader policy debate.
That narrative has focused largely on minimizing deaths and hospitalizations. But most long Covid patients weren’t hospitalized and didn’t have pre-existing conditions. This should throw some cold water on the idea of dispensing with restrictions and allowing immunity to build up among the young while shielding the vulnerable — an approach that won more adherents as lockdown fatigue set in. Going in this direction would be far more costly than many perhaps realize.
“We need to control this virus not because of the risk that Granny may catch it and die, or your uncle may end up in ICU, but because fit, healthy people without any comorbid conditions who are young can end up having their lives wrecked,” Delaney said during a conversation over Zoom.
We know from experience with other viruses — from the 2003 SARS outbreak to Ebola, MERS and glandular fever (caused by the Epstein-Barr virus) — that effects can be long-lasting. It’s similar with today’s coronavirus. Studies, including a new major report from the National Institute for Health Research, suggest a significant number of Covid-19 patients will have symptoms that linger and can affect different organs and systems, even rising in one area and then another.
Conventional medicine, however, doesn’t have a good record on responding to conditions where the cause can’t easily be isolated, which is the case with long Covid. For years, sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, endometriosis and other conditions often fought lonely battles for recognition and medical care. The most reported symptoms of long Covid sound like they could be any number of illnesses: extreme fatigue, breathlessness, heart palpitations, gastrointestinal problems, joint pain and problems with memory and focus. A cross-party U.K. parliamentary group identified 16 common symptoms, but the full list is much longer. In many cases, sufferers never had a Covid test (they weren’t widely available) and blood tests and scans don’t reveal any major abnormalities.
The good news is that there are too many cases like Delaney’s to ignore, and so recognition and media attention is coming faster than it has in other cases. The U.K. is ahead in some ways. Health Secretary Matt Hancock, a slim 42-year-old who had Covid-19 back in March and recovered quickly, has spoken publicly about the long-term effects. The National Health Service created a support website and put aside 10 million pounds ($13 million) to set up a network of long Covid clinics in England. An official definition, expected this month from Britain’s standards-setting National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, will give a better indication on how seriously the condition is being taken.
Even so, existing U.K. measures will be small beer if the virus continues to spread and long Covid cases mount. Nailing down exact numbers isn’t easy, but 1 in 10 users of the Covid Symptom Study app, used by more than 4.3 million U.K. participants, reported symptoms persisting for more than three weeks after infection. Some 60,000 reported symptoms that lasted more than three months. Delaney says this may be an underestimation since symptom trackers are used largely during the acute stage of the virus.
This is already posing problems for health professionals. Shortages of personal protective equipment and inadequate guidance early in the pandemic put medical staff at greater risk of contracting the virus. When the British Medical Association asked 5,650 doctors about their experience, almost 30% of those who’d had Covid were left with physical fatigue and shortness of breath; 18% described some kind of cognitive impairment. About a fifth had taken sick leave to deal with the symptoms. Delaney says he knows of two doctors with long Covid symptoms who lost their jobs because they were unable to return to full-time work. (In France, a recent decree limits disability claims by health-care workers to those who required oxygen to treat the virus.)
Increasing infection rates have ushered in fierce debates over the relative costs, benefits and ethical considerations of various lockdown measures. Long Covid may alter that calculus further, depending on the impact on household income and productivity. A 2004 U.S. study using cost-of-illness analysis to estimate the impact of chronic fatigue syndrome (which has similar symptoms to long Covid) concluded that it probably led to a 37% decline in annual household productivity and a 54% reduction in labor force productivity among sufferers, with a total annual lost value of $9.1 billion a year.
How the long Covid costs stack up will depend on various things including prevalence, duration of symptoms and the degree of incapacity. It does seem that symptoms slowly get better over time, though it’s too early for a tally of long-term effects such as fibrosis of the lungs or compromised immune systems. Although more research is needed, the existing picture warns against a view that divides the population into neat high- and low-risk categories. “Whether or not you think you are at risk of ICU admissions, anyone can be at risk of long Covid,” Delaney says.
That’s a sobering thought, but it may at least encourage a little more solidarity as we figure out how best to control a second pandemic wave.
And another article, this from BBC...
Coronavirus: 'Long Covid could be four different syndromes'
Published
3 days ago
Related Topics
image captionContinuing symptoms can affect everything from the brain to the heart and the skin
"Long Covid" - the long-lasting impact of coronavirus infection - may be affecting people in four different ways, according to a review.
And this could explain why some of those with continuing symptoms are not being believed or treated.
There could be a huge psychological impact on people living with long-term Covid-19, the National Institute for Health Research report says.
They need more support - and healthcare staff require better information.
Life-changing experiences
Most people are told they will recover from mild coronavirus infections within two weeks and from more serious disease within three.
But the report says thousands could be living with "ongoing Covid".
And with coronavirus cases rising across the UK, this number is also likely to increase in the coming months
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54540544
Coronavirus: 'Long Covid could be four different syndromes'
Published
3 days ago
Related Topics
You must log in or register to see images
IMAGE COPYRIGHTSCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARYimage captionContinuing symptoms can affect everything from the brain to the heart and the skin
"Long Covid" - the long-lasting impact of coronavirus infection - may be affecting people in four different ways, according to a review.
And this could explain why some of those with continuing symptoms are not being believed or treated.
There could be a huge psychological impact on people living with long-term Covid-19, the National Institute for Health Research report says.
They need more support - and healthcare staff require better information.
Life-changing experiences
Most people are told they will recover from mild coronavirus infections within two weeks and from more serious disease within three.
But the report says thousands could be living with "ongoing Covid".
And with coronavirus cases rising across the UK, this number is also likely to increase in the coming months
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54540544
is your local only open if you have a meal
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woohoo
weekly tests for everyone
weekly tests for everyone
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At the risk of stealing Kiwi’s thunder, this is quite a long but very good, balanced article.
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So the countries that locked down hard, early, and had the ability to test and willingness to trace and enforce action had both the best health/deaths and economic outcomes.
Too late for us now, no use crying over spilt milk, mustn’t grumble, worse things happen at sea etc etc.
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Dido Harding has the gall to claim t&t isn’t a silver bullet. At what point does corruption and/or incompetence causing thousands of death justify bringing back hanging?
The bloke in charge of anti-corruption happens to be a Tory MP and her husband. North Korea would blush.
Dido Hardings delivery has arrived - we're saved!
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