COVID 19 GLOBAL

[Horizondave]

Just been on to a friend of mine who advises me that she is being picked up tomorrow by an old boy friend and then going on to another house to meet up with another 3 friends but it is alright as they have 4 sofas in their house.

After telling her that she is being rather irresponsible as she was in a lockdown situation and she is not in a bubble with any of the people she is seeing she said it doesn't happen often. I replied that it only needs to happen once to get the virus. Also considering she is in a post code that has been designated a place where one of the new variants is I think she is mad.

As long as this attitude prevails there will be ongoing cases of transmission and the pandemic won't end any time soon.

I am shocked as I thought she was smart.

Of course she is not the only one who thinks she is being careful and plenty of people take a chance but this is why sometimes the draconian rules should apply as people just can't be trusted to do the right thing.

[dcfc2007]

1 minute ago, Horizondave said:

Just been on to a friend of mine who advises me that she is being picked up tomorrow by an old boy friend and then going on to another house to meet up with another 3 friends but it is alright as they have 4 sofas in their house.

After telling her that she is being rather irresponsible as she was in a lockdown situation and she is not in a bubble with any of the people she is seeing she said it doesn't happen often. I replied that it only needs to happen once to get the virus. Also considering she is in a post code that has been designated a place where one of the new variants is I think she is mad.

As long as this attitude prevails there will be ongoing cases of transmission and the pandemic won't end any time soon.

I am shocked as I thought she was smart.

Of course she is not the only one who thinks she is being careful and plenty of people take a chance but this is why sometimes the draconian rules should apply as people just can't be trusted to do the right thing.

Why?

People are allowed to make choices over their own health and well-being, well they used to be.

These virus mutations have been blown way out of proportion. There is no evidence to suggest they are more dangerous than the original variant.

With the amazing news from Astra-Zeneca tonight it's high time we steam-rolled on with unlocking our society so that we can rebuild our economy, and more importantly, allowed the health service to get back to treating other more deadly diseases such as cancer etc.

 

[fygjam]

2 hours ago, lazarus said:

Excellent! Moderna is the best one for old farts guys.

Actually, under the hood, Moderna and Pfizer are the same.

They and several other vaccines use the same "engineered" spike protein developed at the NIH Vaccine Research Center and other labs. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine does not use the "engineered" spike.

If you like the sciency stuff, a couple of Youtube vids on how the spike was developed. PS, it didn't happen overnight.

https://youtu.be/P9S28_5AqUA?t=185

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpqfdr9FPWM

 

[lazarus]

33 minutes ago, fygjam said:

Actually, under the hood, Moderna and Pfizer are the same.

They and several other vaccines use the same "engineered" spike protein developed at the NIH Vaccine Research Center and other labs. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine does not use the "engineered" spike.

If you like the sciency stuff, a couple of Youtube vids on how the spike was developed. PS, it didn't happen overnight.

https://youtu.be/P9S28_5AqUA?t=185

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpqfdr9FPWM

 

I read that the Moderna vaccine makes old farts guys look five years younger.

 

 

[fygjam]

2 minutes ago, lazarus said:

I read that the Moderna vaccine makes old farts guys look five years younger.

 

 

But Pfizer makes your dick grow.

It's a difficult decision.

 

[fygjam]

1 hour ago, Horizondave said:

Just been on to a friend of mine who advises me that she is being picked up tomorrow by an old boy friend and then going on to another house to meet up with another 3 friends but it is alright as they have 4 sofas in their house.

After telling her that she is being rather irresponsible as she was in a lockdown situation and she is not in a bubble with any of the people she is seeing she said it doesn't happen often. I replied that it only needs to happen once to get the virus. Also considering she is in a post code that has been designated a place where one of the new variants is I think she is mad.

As long as this attitude prevails there will be ongoing cases of transmission and the pandemic won't end any time soon.

I am shocked as I thought she was smart.

Of course she is not the only one who thinks she is being careful and plenty of people take a chance but this is why sometimes the draconian rules should apply as people just can't be trusted to do the right thing.

Some people still don't get it.

Some people never will!

 

[galenkia]

Things looking more positive. 

 

[Zeb]

Let hope we don't come to this -

I'm an NHS consultant anaesthetist. I see the terror in my Covid patients' eyes

As a hospital consultant working in intensive care, the reality of coronavirus and patients’ fear is brought home to me every day

I’m not ready,” the patient implores me through her CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] hood. She’s breathing at more than triple her normal rate and I’ve been asked to intubate her as she’s deteriorating, despite three days in intensive care. She is 42 years old.

There’s terror in her eyes. A tear runs down her cheek. She’s looking at the patient opposite who is in an induced coma, intubated and ventilated, and isn’t doing well.

The noise of 30-litres-a-minute of oxygen in her CPAP hood makes communication almost impossible. She repeats, “I’m not ready”, and raises trembling hands.

But her oxygen saturation is only at 84%, when it should be close to 100%, and she’s becoming exhausted and agitated. She tries to rip off her hood. “I need to phone my family,” she gasps. I nod and say OK, almost shouting to be heard over the noise of the alarms.

I’m wearing clawingly claustrophobic PPE for this aerosol-generating procedure: an FFP3 respirator face mask, face visor, gown and double gloves. I’m starting to sweat, and realise that, due to her obesity, it is likely to be a difficult intubation.

The patient tries to talk to her family on FaceTime. She is extremely breathless and looks like she is dry drowning in thin air. Tears pour down her face. I hear someone on the phone crying and saying “I love you”.

I take off the mask and pre-oxygenate her with 100% oxygen by tightly applying a Waters breathing circuit to her face. I gently put my hand on her shoulder. “We’re all here to help you. Everything is going to be OK. We’re now giving you some medicine to help you relax. Let us look after you.”

The anaesthetic trainee injects 100mg of ketamine, 100mcg of fentanyl and 100mg of rocuronium intravenously in rapid succession “Everything will be OK,” I repeat. Almost immediately her oxygen saturations start falling. The tone of the oximeter becomes sickeningly low.

We need to allow 60 seconds for full paralysis. “Sats are 60%,” says the operating department practitioner [ODP]. Forty-five seconds, and I can’t wait any longer. I take a big breath. I thrust the video laryngoscope blade into her mouth and over the back of her tongue and immediately see a swollen and haemorrhagic oropharynx. I go deeper, until I can finally see the larynx and the vocal cords. There is Covid pus bubbling through the larynx.

I immediately insert the endotracheal tube [ETT]) with a metal stylet. The ODP removes the stylet and I insert the tube through the vocal cords and further down the trachea. I clamp the ETT tube, and we connect it to the ventilator and confirm we see an end-tidal carbon dioxide trace on the monitor. The oxygen saturations are unrecordable, the patient’s lips are dark blue.

The pulse oximeter tone finally rises and the oxygen saturation ever so slowly rises from the abyss. I look up at the team and meet their wide dilated eyes through our visors. I breathe a deep sigh of relief. All the monitoring alarms are screaming but I don’t hear them. I look across the bay and see another terrified patient, on CPAP, staring straight back at me.

I stop talking because I think I might cry. I worry she is dying. I hold her hand. She squeezes it and I squeeze hers back

Three hours later, we are asked to intubate this patient. She bursts into tears, saying: “I’ve got children at home. I can’t go on a ventilator. I’m not ready. I can’t die.” She is 35 years old. I kneel down and hold her hand. I explain again that we are here to help her with her breathing.

As she FaceTimes her children, we urgently get our equipment and drugs ready. Her young children are crying. I must look really scary to them. I can see them but can’t communicate with them at all, even as their mum is becoming increasingly hypoxic and agitated. “I love you, I love you, I love you… ” she says, until she finally presses “end” on the screen with her shaking fingers.

She is struggling and will become more acidotic and distressed if we don’t take over her ventilation soon.

While we are pre-oxygenating her, I take off her CPAP hood and lean closer. “We’re here to look after you. Everything will be OK.” I stop talking because I think I might cry. I worry she is dying. I hold her hand. She squeezes it and I squeeze hers back.

I look across the bay at the patient from earlier. I think about her family at home. I think about this patient’s family at home. I think about my family at home. “Sats are 75%… ” Thirty seconds. “Sats are 60%… ” Forty seconds. My attention snaps back to the airway, which I need to rapidly secure first time. No time to think. No second chances. We are ready.

After many subsequent emergency intensive care Covid intubations, I think back to my first two patients almost daily. I can still see the terror in their eyes.

Almost 50% of Covid patients intubated after failed CPAP have not survived, despite the most intensive of care. I decided not to find out what happened to my first two patients. I can still feel a hand holding mine tightly with desperate hope. Was I the last person ever to speak to them? The thought is too painful.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/31/im-an-nhs-consultant-anaesthetist-i-see-the-terror-in-my-covid-patients-eyes

 

[Horizondave]

8 hours ago, dcfc2007 said:

Why?

People are allowed to make choices over their own health and well-being, well they used to be.

These virus mutations have been blown way out of proportion. There is no evidence to suggest they are more dangerous than the original variant.

With the amazing news from Astra-Zeneca tonight it's high time we steam-rolled on with unlocking our society so that we can rebuild our economy, and more importantly, allowed the health service to get back to treating other more deadly diseases such as cancer etc.

 

I have my views, I won't say anymore.

[KhunDon]

The test result I was expecting. 
Didn’t realise I’d get it so quickly. 

[Golfingboy]

Looks like my buddy is coming home tomorrow. He was finally making sense when we spoke today, and I learned more on the timeframe. He came home from his oil patch job on the 12th, and needed an ambulance a day or 2 later. He found out 4 others from his camp had also contracted it. 
He was in ICU, on the ventilator, for at least 9 days. His weight has dropped from 178 to 145- this guy is a very fit 50 year old who still wears size 30 jeans, sounds like he’s skin & bones now. 
 

He’s in a normal unit now, and I phoned them back to confirm it, which they did- I wanted to make sure my mate wasn’t delusional. 5 days ago poor guy was making some sense, but other stuff that came out of his mouth was complete nonsense- he kept insisting he was in Vancouver, a ten hour drive away. Sounds like my Dad when he almost died from the fluid in his chest due to cancer, when he got sedated he saw snakes on the walls and people coming for him- not pleasant. 
 

The nurse I spoke to said he can’t transmit the virus, but I will be wearing my mask around him anyway. Just really glad my mate has survived this and anxious to see him eat some real food again. For all those who keep saying COVID is not serious, well......that’s not the case 

[john luke]

[Washedup]

13 minutes ago, john luke said:

Flown once with them..never again 

[john1000]

10 hours ago, Horizondave said:

Just been on to a friend of mine who advises me that she is being picked up tomorrow by an old boy friend and then going on to another house to meet up with another 3 friends but it is alright as they have 4 sofas in their house.

After telling her that she is being rather irresponsible as she was in a lockdown situation and she is not in a bubble with any of the people she is seeing she said it doesn't happen often. I replied that it only needs to happen once to get the virus. Also considering she is in a post code that has been designated a place where one of the new variants is I think she is mad.

As long as this attitude prevails there will be ongoing cases of transmission and the pandemic won't end any time soon.

I am shocked as I thought she was smart.

Of course she is not the only one who thinks she is being careful and plenty of people take a chance but this is why sometimes the draconian rules should apply as people just can't be trusted to do the right thing.

I am sure this happens in the UK too. If many who think this way were to look in a couple of hospitals,  may well change their thinking.

[fforest]

[Smiler]

2 hours ago, Washedup said:

Flown once with them..never again 

Yep, same with me - never again.

[coxyhog]

13 hours ago, dcfc2007 said:

People are allowed to make choices over their own health and well-being, well they used to be.

& What about the choices of the people they then infect?

[dcfc2007]

19 minutes ago, coxyhog said:

& What about the choices of the people they then infect?

Unless they are over 80, or clinically vulnerable with a co-morbidity, they have nothing to worry about.

[Sangsom]

13 hours ago, dcfc2007 said:

Why?

People are allowed to make choices over their own health and well-being, well they used to be.

These virus mutations have been blown way out of proportion. There is no evidence to suggest they are more dangerous than the original variant.

With the amazing news from Astra-Zeneca tonight it's high time we steam-rolled on with unlocking our society so that we can rebuild our economy, and more importantly, allowed the health service to get back to treating other more deadly diseases such as cancer etc.

 

Why? Because it’s currently against the law......

[dcfc2007]

37 minutes ago, Sangsom said:

Why? Because it’s currently against the law......

Ah right, that makes it ok then.

'trust us we're the government'. 🤣

[Sangsom]

7 minutes ago, dcfc2007 said:

Ah right, that makes it ok then.

'trust us we're the government'. 🤣

I trust the government more than Karen from the internet....

[coxyhog]

Just now, Sangsom said:

I trust the government more than Karen from the internet....

Or dcfc from a Thai forum....

[Sangsom]

1 minute ago, coxyhog said:

Or dcfc from a Thai forum....

Could be one and the same 🤭

[dcfc2007]

15 minutes ago, Sangsom said:

I trust the government more than Karen from the internet....

Quite a sad little life if you let the govt decide when and where you can meet your friends and family. Pathetic really.

 

[Sangsom]

4 minutes ago, dcfc2007 said:

Quite a sad little life if you let the govt decide when and where you can meet your friends and family. Pathetic really.

 

I guess the vast majority of the country are pathetic then......