The health and fitness thread about random things

[Cudzoziemiec]

GOV.UK suggests it can take p to 4 days after symptoms start for LFTs to show Covid positivity.

It doesn't seem to specify that the latest variants are less detectable, so I may have been wrong there, but like Helly says, Medic Twitter seems to be saying pretty much.

Regardless, it would be nice if people stayed the feck at home with their Whatever It Is Lurgy and took steps not to spread it if at all possible... My boss has come into work twice now with "just a cold" that turned out to be Covid n days later which is one reason I'm staying the feck away.

Yesterday I had to sit through compulsory training videos.

One of which was about health and safety at work.

Pleasingly, it told people to stay away from the office if ill, and to wash hands.

On the recent Not the Coronation camping weekend, we went to the local pub, which was Quite Posh and not cheap. The toilets were Quite Posh too – no marble or gold taps, but an acre of floor between urinals and wash basins, which were approximately equal in number. In there, I saw a man do something which seemed so remarkable, it was worth telling; he washed his hands. And he hadn't even had a shit.

[barakta]

Class has always been an issue with being able "to be sick" with risk of no pay or worse being struck off. Even in "middle class jobs" T&Cs are dropping this last 15 years of Tory rule and I've narrowly avoided losing jobs over unavoidable disability-worsened sickness more than once.

I know too many other disabled people left with permanent worsening of their conditions after Covid to take the risk. I would be happier if we invested in ventilation systems and public health, and research into Long Covid but we haven't, so I continue to mask indoors around other humans. A choice I still get to make at present cos I can't fight anyone's battles or manage anyone's health but my own.

[mrcharly-YHT]

My shoulder hasn't been right since a tree branch hit it (I was taking down a small tree/very large bush). Hit me hard enough to knock me to the ground.

Gave it 6 weeks before seeing the doc, who referred me for an ultrasound.

Verdict a bit vague. They had trouble finding one tendon - it was surrounded by fluid and inflammation. Verbal report "Evidence of a torn tendon, muscle and historic calcification in the shoulder joint".

Seeing a physio on the 22nd.
It is a bugger, getting older. Things take a very long time to heal. Time was, I'd have bounced back from something like this in a week. Not over 2 months.

[T42]

It does sound like a right bugger.  My 2002 shoulder/tendon injuries still give me hell on occasion.  This weekend I felt as if I had toothache under the trapezius.

[ian]

Yes, the issue with LFTs was always that they were good at telling you you do have COVID, and bad at telling you that you don't.  Which was fine until we started misusing them as a diagnostic test, rather than a practical way to do mass screening.

But ultimately, in terms of spreading infection at least, it doesn't matter that much whether it's COVID or some other lurgy.  You should keep it to yourself, and your employers/school won't allow you to.  'twas ever thus.

It's the opposite now, the lower the actual prevalence, the less likely a positive result will be accurate. On the other hand, a negative test is very likely to be accurate.

And we should have learned, assiduously avoiding infection maybe isn't a great idea. Sometimes you've got to sniffle.

[chrisbainbridge]

I think most people have accepted now that Covid is in the same class as the common cold, flu and all the other viruses we are exposed to.

I know of almost nobody who wears a mask unless seriously immune deficient even in the hospital.

[barakta]

Being friends with many disabled people, I'd say over 50% are still taking precautions, masking indoors around strangers at least some of the time and or using CO2 monitors to identify ventilation. Some of us have a lot to lose or impairments that are likely to go haywire if we get it (or have already experienced that). Quite a few have long covid symptoms either from non-disabled to now severely impaired, or their impairments are much worse than pre 2020.

Don't get me started on hospital transmitted Covid which has happened to a few elderly vulnerable people I know recently (and one died shortly after)...

Maybe we're paranoid, but being able to assume you won't be affected is a huge privilege. Some of us are balancing on a knife edge as it is and with the NHS state it's in (I'm 2 years into waiting for new clinic  migraine care after 4 years of fucking about with a useless clinic as I still don't have an explanation/solution to my severe flicker/light sensitivity issues). Many of us cannot trust that we'll be able to access timely NHS advice/care and cannot afford/access private. If my health worsens by even a bit, I'll struggle to hold down employment and I am deathly scared of being dependent on the DWP to live again, it was shit pre 2007 and is 10x worse now.

[Kim]

Yes, the issue with LFTs was always that they were good at telling you you do have COVID, and bad at telling you that you don't.  Which was fine until we started misusing them as a diagnostic test, rather than a practical way to do mass screening.

But ultimately, in terms of spreading infection at least, it doesn't matter that much whether it's COVID or some other lurgy.  You should keep it to yourself, and your employers/school won't allow you to.  'twas ever thus.

It's the opposite now, the lower the actual prevalence, the less likely a positive result will be accurate. On the other hand, a negative test is very likely to be accurate.

Well yes, but that's just whatever microbiologists call the noise floor.  I suppose it's unintuitive if you're not used to measuring things.

And we should have learned, assiduously avoiding infection maybe isn't a great idea. Sometimes you've got to sniffle.

And sometimes you can greatly reduce the amount of transmission with simple engineering.  We treat drinking water to reduce the amount of infectious agents people are exposed to, which has generally been considered to be a Good Thing for publich health, and there's no reason we couldn't do the same for the air in many public spaces (other than that nobody important stands to make a shitload of money from doing it).  If COVID has taught us anything, it's that many diseases are more airborne than we like to imagine.

And it's not like we don't need a bit push to retrofit HVAC anyway to reduce carbon emissions, so why not set some standards to mandate a much higher number of air changes, or a sensible amount of filtration while we're at it?  If nothing else, reducing the spread of diseases through hospitals, care homes, and the like would free up some healthcare resources.

[sojournermike]

With thanks to Barakta and Kim, I think there’s a lot more nuance required Chris.

We are now at the point that for most healthy people most of the time Covid is non-serious. I don’t think lack of mask wearing demonstrates that though - that’s an artefact of human nature and the information people have received.

We’re at this point as a consequence of a mass rollout of vaccinations and multiple infections. There are still a lot of vulnerable people around and, as with other potential life threatening infections, it behaves us to behave appropriately to protect them too.

Before we got to today’s position, we lost a friend to Covid - he was in his early 50s maybe, I have a (vaccine resistant) colleague who hasn’t worked for 2 years and know another peer who, after 9 months in bed had to downsize her job and income to be able to cope. At the start and the height of it, my wife saw old people discharged from hospital into care settings who were either rushed back to ICU a few days later or who went home, apparently well, and died of strokes etc a few days or weeks later. Anecdotal, but aligned with the evidence and stats we’ve done since.

There is also emerging, but still uncertain, evidence about the impact of repeated infections on some people. That just needs watching of course.

However, whilst for most of us Covid is no longer considered threatening, it remains so for some and I am cautious that we don’t adopt a revisionist approach to history now we, by and large, once again feel safe.

FWIW, part of my day job is to make assessments of how long we expect people to live in the future. At present, Covid itself isn’t weighing in very heavily but the state of the economy and of the NHS means that we have been taking a relatively pessimistic view for the last couple of years and we’re not feeling any better about it this year.

[mrcharly-YHT]

mike, if by 'non-serious', you mean that the fatality rates are low, then I agree with you.

However, there can be other effects. Since I last had covid (very mild bout), I've been persistently exhausted. One day's moderately strenuous exercise wipes me out. I sometimes get good weeks - but if I'm exposed to any virus, it is straight back to square one. Hesitate to call it CFS, because I've lived with someone with CFS, and I'm nowhere near as bad as they were.
Is it serious? Well, it is affecting my life on a daily basis. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands affected in this way (I read one estimate of 2 million in the UK alone). I know of one person who has been unable to work since Nov 2022. They are a highly motivated and organised person who is utterly unable to work.
The effect on the uk economy will be huge.  The effect on individuals will vary from 'annoying' (which, tbh, is where I am), to catastrophic.

[ian]

None of those things are untrue of any other illness, though. We like lives of risk, so we have to balance how we mitigate that. Some people believe riding a bike is beyond of the pale of safety, I'd hazard most people here would disagree. The vast majority of people have made their risk decisions re covid (and vast majority of people have also had covid, which means combined with the vaccine, that's very low risk of any kind of poor outcome). Masking has also failed to pass any reasonable test of effectiveness at a population level.

While some people have been significantly affected, given we've just been through a pandemic that's unsurprising, the massive predicted impacts of long covid have simply (and fortunately) not been realised. Yes, I know, everyone has an anecdote, but normal life has resumed.

[sojournermike]

mike, if by 'non-serious', you mean that the fatality rates are low, then I agree with you.

However, there can be other effects. Since I last had covid (very mild bout), I've been persistently exhausted. One day's moderately strenuous exercise wipes me out. I sometimes get good weeks - but if I'm exposed to any virus, it is straight back to square one. Hesitate to call it CFS, because I've lived with someone with CFS, and I'm nowhere near as bad as they were.
Is it serious? Well, it is affecting my life on a daily basis. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands affected in this way (I read one estimate of 2 million in the UK alone). I know of one person who has been unable to work since Nov 2022. They are a highly motivated and organised person who is utterly unable to work.
The effect on the uk economy will be huge.  The effect on individuals will vary from 'annoying' (which, tbh, is where I am), to catastrophic.

Well, by non-serious I was thinking more broadly than just fatality rates and also considering other debilitating impacts. The proportion of infections leaving people debilitated in the medium or long term is now low, but not zero. That’s not saying I don’t have sympathy or care - I was trying to bring a bit more nuance to Chris’ fairly bald statement - and the effects on individuals can be catastrophic of course.

If I look at my own workplace, where we have a wide range of ages and everyone is back to going out (if not to the office!) we lose far far more time/productivity to mental health challenges than to Covid. This is a real concern now - it’s becoming increasingly difficult to plan how to deliver client work from week. I’m not blaming the staff and we try to adjust and accommodate of course, but I do wonder what we’ve done to our children and society to create the epidemic  of mental health problems we so clearly are facing.

[Kim]

None of those things are untrue of any other illness, though.

That's my point.  Vaccines and immunity do nothing to mitigate the next one, or all the other infectious diseases that never went away.  Engineering solutions can.

[Kim]

I do wonder what we’ve done to our children and society to create the epidemic of mental health problems we so clearly are facing.

Surely that's obvious...  *gestures around in exasperation*

[sojournermike]

I do wonder what we’ve done to our children and society to create the epidemic of mental health problems we so clearly are facing.

Surely that's obvious...  *gestures around in exasperation*

I think some of it is and we all take a, probably similar, view but I remain cautious about ‘obvious’ as it can be too simplistic. Appreciating that you’re thinking isn’t simplistic.

[chrisbainbridge]

What is long covid?  We have been through the most stressful population level event most of us will ever see. We would expect to see after the event a whole range of events ranging from severe medical side effects to minor stress related problems of a psychosomatic nature.

Note I am not saying these are not real but rather the impact of the psyche on the soma.  TATT (tired all the time) is probably the commonest single entry I have seen in GP records over the last 20 years of reviewing GP records.

Therefore tiredness has just been given a new name. 

as Ian has said the circulating level of Covid is now low.  There were certainly killer viruses circulating before Covid so what did people do prior to covid.

As to increasing ventilation, etc.  Why? People spend half their time asking us to reduce heating, seal our houses, etc for energy efficiency and then open them up and use large amounts of electricity to ventilate them.  Exposure to viruses is GOOD for us.  there is now unequivocal evidence that you should feed your baby peanuts as you wean.  You should buy a dog simply to have dog hair, mites, faeces around your house to increase exposure and you should let children eat mud as it is good for them.  Reducing exposure to viruses is the last thing we should do for population health

[Kim]

I do wonder what we’ve done to our children and society to create the epidemic of mental health problems we so clearly are facing.

Surely that's obvious...  *gestures around in exasperation*

I think some of it is and we all take a, probably similar, view but I remain cautious about ‘obvious’ as it can be too simplistic. Appreciating that you’re thinking isn’t simplistic.

Indeed.  The usual simplistic view is that it's the smartphones^[1] damaging young people's mental health.  Rather than, say, lack of housing and financial security.  Or the overwhelming pressure to secure the right qualifications.  Or the prospect of growing up in an increasingly authoritarian society.  Or lack of social mobility.  Or being targeted by exploitative marketing practices.  Or lack of access to healthcare.  Or that UN report on LGBT discrimination referenced in another thread.  Or rivers full of sewage.  Or having their EU citizenship revoked.  Or just being acutely aware of how little our society actually values young people.  To say nothing of an overwhelming consensus on climate change which those in positions of power (everyone from their parents to Joe Biden) are determined to gaslight them into pretending isn't a thing out of business-as-usual self-interest.

Mental health services, such as they are, are mostly a way to prevent us having to fix all that.


_{[1] Which are obviously against the natural order of things, unlike television, rock music, books or [insert previous moral panic here].}

[sojournermike]

I do wonder what we’ve done to our children and society to create the epidemic of mental health problems we so clearly are facing.

Surely that's obvious...  *gestures around in exasperation*

I think some of it is and we all take a, probably similar, view but I remain cautious about ‘obvious’ as it can be too simplistic. Appreciating that you’re thinking isn’t simplistic.

Indeed.  The usual simplistic view is that it's the smartphones^[1] damaging young people's mental health.  Rather than, say, lack of housing and financial security.  Or the overwhelming pressure to secure the right qualifications.  Or the prospect of growing up in an increasingly authoritarian society.  Or lack of social mobility.  Or being targeted by exploitative marketing practices.  Or lack of access to healthcare.  Or that UN report on LGBT discrimination referenced in another thread.  Or rivers full of sewage.  Or having their EU citizenship revoked.  Or just being acutely aware of how little our society actually values young people.  To say nothing of an overwhelming consensus on climate change which those in positions of power (everyone from their parents to Joe Biden) are determined to gaslight them into pretending isn't a thing out of business-as-usual self-interest.

Mental health services, such as they are, are mostly a way to prevent us having to fix all that.


_{[1] Which are obviously against the natural order of things, unlike television, rock music, books or [insert previous moral panic here].}

Yep - but all that really isn’t obvious to most people around us.

FWIW - I’m a parent and I don’t pretend the climate crisis isn’t a thing and I know it frightens my children, much as it frightens me.

[Kim]

FWIW - I’m a parent and I don’t pretend the climate crisis isn’t a thing and I know it frightens my children, much as it frightens me.

Yeah, but you're posting on a cycling forum, that pretty much makes you the exception by default.

[sam]

Took Chompsky to the vet yesterday for his quarterly manicure. Vet took one look at me in my N95 and immediately offered to put on a mask (I usually have to hold him - Chompsky, not the vet – so we get quite close), which was momentarily awkward as I know how much people hate wearing them, and one can only take gappy crappy masks so seriously anyway. But it's so nice to have someone acknowledge that yes, covid is still a thing, an airbourne thing that can mess with your body in ways scientists are still uncovering, and damned if I'm going to just invite it in when we have enough health issues as it is.

We're extreme outliers when shopping etc., but who cares. My wife is used to stares anyway, from being a tall girl growing up in Sri Lanka where men don't always take kindly to that sort of thing, to years spent getting on a commuter train in our very white neck of the woods.

[L CC]

Did you take this much care for flu, pre-pandemic? What are you afraid of? I'm not judging, just curious where/ how people's risk assessments have changed.

[sam]

Covid ain't the flu. I haven't read much of the thread, but this must have come up. I also have a less than robust immune system, as the NHS keeps reminding me with invitations for yet another shot.

[T42]

Our club prez has a genius for calling a committee meeting and then, when everyone is seated round the table, apologizing because he has "la crève", which can be anything from a cold to gastroenteritis. He usually gives 3 weeks' notice of meetings so he doesn't do it on purpose, but in the last 20 years I've come away a couple of times with a bad cold and one chum got pneumonia. But the show must go on...

[sam]

I've been getting increasingly worse & frequent episodes of vertigo.

Commiserations. I get this too from time to time: usually strikes in the middle of the night when I get out of bed and keep going, almost into the window. Locomotion then becomes reduced to crawling. Can last a day or two. My Eustachian tubes (always makes me think of Euston Station) could also be better run.

[ian]

I do wonder what we’ve done to our children and society to create the epidemic of mental health problems we so clearly are facing.

Surely that's obvious...  *gestures around in exasperation*

I think some of it is and we all take a, probably similar, view but I remain cautious about ‘obvious’ as it can be too simplistic. Appreciating that you’re thinking isn’t simplistic.

Indeed.  The usual simplistic view is that it's the smartphones^[1] damaging young people's mental health.  Rather than, say, lack of housing and financial security.  Or the overwhelming pressure to secure the right qualifications.  Or the prospect of growing up in an increasingly authoritarian society.  Or lack of social mobility.  Or being targeted by exploitative marketing practices.  Or lack of access to healthcare.  Or that UN report on LGBT discrimination referenced in another thread.  Or rivers full of sewage.  Or having their EU citizenship revoked.  Or just being acutely aware of how little our society actually values young people.  To say nothing of an overwhelming consensus on climate change which those in positions of power (everyone from their parents to Joe Biden) are determined to gaslight them into pretending isn't a thing out of business-as-usual self-interest.

Mental health services, such as they are, are mostly a way to prevent us having to fix all that.


_{[1] Which are obviously against the natural order of things, unlike television, rock music, books or [insert previous moral panic here].}

At the same time, we're the most privileged people in human history. That we're willing to piss this away through an avoidable series of catastrophes isn't an irony that is lost on me, though it seems to be lost on many people. Many of the problems we have are problems of affluence.

There's no test for long covid, it's a patient-defined illness, and on the mental side one we've built an expectation for (as Chris says, that doesn't mean it's not real, just that the cause is more complicated). In the most part, any lingering symptoms play out in weeks or months. That's not a prescription to go out of your way to catch covid, but equally, as I said, life is a series of risks.