The Lemon Fool

Ignore the Johnson and Sunak circus: these are the real lessons from the Covid inquiry

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/12/political-blame-game-covid-inquiry-pandemic

If we are to be prepared for the next pandemic, we need competent leaders, functional testing and trust in the science
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

The 'Sweden' el al link might make 'interesting' reading...

From today’s FT:

More than a billion dollars worth of Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral drugs procured in Europe have been wasted, according to health data, as tight controls over who can receive the medication left millions of doses unused before their expiry date.

Paxlovid — designed to be given to patients shortly after they test positive for the virus — has been far easier to obtain in the US than in Europe, where access has often been restricted to the elderly or people at high risk of developing severe Covid.

and later it is mentioned that the U.K. accounts for $700,000 …

I’m not saying one could do better but I hope the Coronavirus Enquiry looks at things like supply management and wastage in an effort to learn lessons.

Best wishes,

Steve

Coronavirus (JN.1) variant wave is spiking (no pun intended)
This is still very threatening, yet we’re all living as though it’s gone away.

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/sotp-s ... e-pandemic

GrahamPlatt wrote:Coronavirus (JN.1) variant wave is spiking (no pun intended)
This is still very threatening, yet we’re all living as though it’s gone away.

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/sotp-s ... e-pandemic

What do you suggest we should be doing?

redsturgeon wrote:

GrahamPlatt wrote:Coronavirus (JN.1) variant wave is spiking (no pun intended)
This is still very threatening, yet we’re all living as though it’s gone away.

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/sotp-s ... e-pandemic

What do you suggest we should be doing?

Wearing masks in public spaces.

GrahamPlatt wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:What do you suggest we should be doing?

Wearing masks in public spaces.

In well-ventilated spaces such as the average supermarket I think one is and always was OK, but in confined spaces where one does not control the ventilation in the way that one can in one's own home, I think you have a point.

V8

There is nothing to stop anyone who wishes from wearing a mask if they feel vulnerable.

While I believe that early in the pandemic there was a case to be made for mask mandates I now believe that is no longer necessary. At some stage it was always going to be necessary to "live with covid" and treat the disease in much the same way as influenza and other respiratory viruses. I believe we have now reached that point.

redsturgeon wrote:There is nothing to stop anyone who wishes from wearing a mask if they feel vulnerable.

While I believe that early in the pandemic there was a case to be made for mask mandates I now believe that is no longer necessary. At some stage it was always going to be necessary to "live with covid" and treat the disease in much the same way as influenza and other respiratory viruses. I believe we have now reached that point.

...for big values of now

Wearing surgical type masks in confined spaces is commonplace in many Asian countries and is mainly a politeness to other people if you have a (slight) cold or sniffle. I think it’s generally accepted that these surgical masks do little to protect the wearer.

Best wishes,

Steve

Mrs RS just had covid, her son and his girlfriend and our daughter and her husband who stayed with us over Xmas also had covid. Her best friend and their mother and father had covid just pre Xmas. I avoided it fortunately, I had mixed with all of these people and obviously shared a bed with Mrs RS.

Mrs RS works in a client facing role and had been wearing a mask when appropriate. Her best friend's mother and father had just been vaccinated, they are in their 80s. Some suffered quite badley and were bed ridden for a few days, others had the equivalent of a bad cold. None were hospitalised.

No lasting symptoms for anyone.

A real hotch potch of information there and I'm not sure what one can make of it all.

As I said I think we just have to take whatever precautions we feel appropriate for our own circumstances but the time for government mandates is over.

I'm just back (last weekend) from a week cross country skiing in France (doing about 20km a day). Airport on the return was very busy/crowded. I came down with a respiratory infection as soon as I returned to my cold and damp house (which took a while to warm up). Was feeling a bit better on Monday, but still had a cough and blocked nose on Monday so masked up at work with an N95 mask just in case, plus I wasn't in frequent close proximity to other people as I have my own office. Yet one colleague has just come down with a respiratory infection. Caught from me despite the mask, or caught from elsewhere? Today almost no symptoms left so no mask today.

Anyone else see this pandemic based drama last night on ITV? Continues at 9pm this today and Wednesday evening.

No sympathy for striking doctors? Watch ITV’s Breathtaking and ask: have we paid our debt to them?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/20/striking-doctors-itv-breathtaking-nhs-covid

The Covid drama should do for NHS staff what Mr Bates did for Post Office victims. We made promises – I can’t say we kept them

Oxfordshire doctor's book about Covid becomes TV drama

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-68359128

A doctor whose book about working during the pandemic has become a TV drama said she hopes it will "stop the public in their tracks".

"Dr Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor from Didcot in Oxfordshire, worked at the Horton and John Radcliffe Hospitals.

She wrote about what she went through in her book Breathtaking - now a three-part ITV series.

Dr Clarke said she wanted viewers to really empathise with staff."

Rage, relief and recognition: the TV version of my book Breathtaking has opened a floodgate
Rachel Clarke

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/22/tv-breathtaking-covid-pandemic-nhs-staff

During the Covid pandemic, NHS staff were treated as expendable. The emotional response to our series suggests they still feel this way

"This week, in response to the series, NHS England linked staff to a range of support services in a tweet that read: “During the Covid-19 pandemic NHS staff faced an extraordinary difficult challenge. If you work in the NHS and found tonight’s episode of #Breathtaking particularly tough or triggering, there is support available.” The only problem? The dedicated NHS staff mental health and wellbeing hubs to which the tweet directed staff had their funding cut in early 2023. Almost half have since closed. I suppose they were judged too costly to maintain for NHS staff who were so evidently, from the outset, expendable."

I read the Guardian article and am not surprised by the findings. And yet, so many people seem to think that things are back to normal. Well, it depends on what you think normal is. The world does not seem to be the same as it was pre-pandemic. People like me who were extremely careful during the last few years were laughed at, even on this website, and told to “hide behind couches” etc. If more people had been careful earlier on, then we might be in a better position now. Too many people making cynical remarks. I am still being careful but starting to do more things, such as going into shops and so on, sometimes without a mask. I alway clean my hands afterwards, just to be on the safe side. Being careful is how you avoid all illnesses.

Arizona11 wrote:I read the Guardian article and am not surprised by the findings. And yet, so many people seem to think that things are back to normal. Well, it depends on what you think normal is. The world does not seem to be the same as it was pre-pandemic. People like me who were extremely careful during the last few years were laughed at, even on this website, and told to “hide behind couches” etc. If more people had been careful earlier on, then we might be in a better position now. Too many people making cynical remarks. I am still being careful but starting to do more things, such as going into shops and so on, sometimes without a mask. I alway clean my hands afterwards, just to be on the safe side. Being careful is how you avoid all illnesses.

I agree, I found it insulting and infuriating in equal measure to be laughed at for taking measures to protect myself.

Your post put me in mind of this meme circulating on the internet a while back:




Source unknown.

Arizona11 wrote: I am still being careful but starting to do more things, such as going into shops and so on, sometimes without a mask. I alway clean my hands afterwards, just to be on the safe side. Being careful is how you avoid all illnesses.

You are "just starting" to go into shops again?

Seriously?

The only place I see people wearing masks now is on crowded tube trains, and even then most do not.

Lootman wrote:

Arizona11 wrote: I am still being careful but starting to do more things, such as going into shops and so on, sometimes without a mask. I alway clean my hands afterwards, just to be on the safe side. Being careful is how you avoid all illnesses.

You are "just starting" to go into shops again?

Seriously?

The only place I see people wearing masks now is on crowded tube trains, and even then most do not.

I always imagine the occasional person wearing a mask has some ghastly disease and is wearing the mask as a courtesy to people nearby. So I steer well clear of them.

Lootman wrote:

Arizona11 wrote: I am still being careful but starting to do more things, such as going into shops and so on, sometimes without a mask. I alway clean my hands afterwards, just to be on the safe side. Being careful is how you avoid all illnesses.

You are "just starting" to go into shops again?

Seriously?

The only place I see people wearing masks now is on crowded tube trains, and even then most do not.

This is simple an example of the mental damage caused by the way we overreacted. The people having spent the last 4 years in this state of anxiety will have done a lot of damage to their mental and physical health, and after this time are now never likely to undo this damage. They have lost 4 valuable years of their lives and will have very likely deteriorated health wise above what would have been normal for a 4 year period.

On masks, they are now mainly the 'fashion' accessory for the people up to no good as an easy way to cover their faces from detection.