Covid - New surge

[Ferris]

Shitty behaviour to be turning up to work 'with a cold', surely this has taught people to stop doing that.

Yeah but if you're in a job where you're expected in the office, what else can you do?

"Hiya boss mate I've got a cold. Test? Yeah I tested negative this morning but thought I'd stay home anyway."

Going in, wearing a mask, and testing the following day is about all you can expect of people unless "gonna work today from home" is an option which it isn't for everyone.

[Alberon]

My uni tends to be fairly good, we still wear masks inside the buildings. There's only so much you can do, though. We're in a job where we can't really work from home. We've been back in the office for all but four or so months of the last two years. There are other admin departments who are still solidly working from home and have been for two years now.

Neither me or my other colleague has contracted it so that's good news.

[jamiefairlie]

Yeah but if you're in a job where you're expected in the office, what else can you do?

"Hiya boss mate I've got a cold. Test? Yeah I tested negative this morning but thought I'd stay home anyway."

Going in, wearing a mask, and testing the following day is about all you can expect of people unless "gonna work today from home" is an option which it isn't for everyone.

How about 'I'm sick and don't want I make other people sick so I'm staying home until I'm better'. Surely that's baked in employment law by now?

[shoulders]

Yeah but if you're in a job where you're expected in the office, what else can you do?

"Hiya boss mate I've got a cold. Test? Yeah I tested negative this morning but thought I'd stay home anyway."

Going in, wearing a mask, and testing the following day is about all you can expect of people unless "gonna work today from home" is an option which it isn't for everyone.

Be off sick?

[Ferris]

How about 'I'm sick and don't want I make other people sick so I'm staying home until I'm better'. Surely that's baked in employment law by now?

Well... it isn't, so.

Be off sick?

Every time anyone has a cold, then tests negative?

I'm all in favour of people being cautious but when your job expects you in, then you test negative like... I don't understand how you could tell your job different, as much as I think you should be able to.

[jamiefairlie]

I'm not sure I'm following. If I have a cold I don't go to work, I tell them I'm sick and stay away. Nothing to do with Covid or testing. It was that way before Covid.

[shoulders]

I'm not sure I'm following. If I have a cold I don't go to work, I tell them I'm sick and stay away. Nothing to do with Covid or testing. It was that way before Covid.

Aye, I'm not sure why this point isn't landing.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Aye, I'm not sure why this point isn't landing.

Because most employers are utter cunts and will treat you like shit for taking time off with a cold. I'm not sure why that point isn't landing.

[Fambo Number Mive]

A lot of employers have the "three sickness absences and you have to have a meeting with HR" policy as well. Even some employers in the healthcare sector do this (do NHS?) which seems particularly stupid.

[Pink Gregory]

My line manager had a bit if a go at me for having 'more sick days in a year than I've had in ten'

and I'm like - good for you.  I was ill a lot this year.

[shoulders]

Because most employers are utter cunts and will treat you like shit for taking time off with a cold. I'm not sure why that point isn't landing.

They'll treat people even worse if everyone took this capitulating attitude. The only reasons employees have anything at all is because of people responding to utter cuntery by standing up for themselves and alongside others. People who come into work sick spread illness that results in more sick days in total for the business because it is transmitted to the people who will stay at home when they are sick.
Employers have started to realise that, likewise, although not applicable for all, that home working presents an opportunity for them too as they can get work out of people too unwell to travel and work in the office but well enough to muddle through on a laptop at home.

Doesn't really matter what the reason for being off sick is anyway...for example, if you are too afraid to use a cold as an reason then say you occasionally suffer from migraines with audio/visual effects and the only thing that helps is ibuprofen and lying down in a dark room until it subsides. You won't need to produce a doctor's note if it's very infrequent and there's absolutely fuck all they can do about it. If anyone at work makes snide comments then you probably just work in a shit place anyway that's shit for far more reasons than attitudes to sickness.

[Ferris]

So if you have a cold then get a negative covid test, your answer is that everyone should tell their boss they have infrequent migraines and must stay home? Re: "muddling through with a laptop" not if you're a teacher or work at topshop.

I think you should be able to do that, but I recognize it's not realistic for everyone which is why I accept frequent testing, wearing a mask when you feel sick, then staying home as soon as you test positive is realistically the most that can be expected of people.

Because most employers are utter cunts and will treat you like shit for taking time off with a cold.

Yeah, I think I was "allowed" 2 sick days a year when I worked in the UK.

[Pranet]

Also because for a lot of people eg me you don't get paid for first three days off sick.

[Alberon]

Well I didn't catch COVID from my work colleague but it looks like I might of from Mrs Alberon.

She's had what we thought was a bad cold since Friday, tested negative three times. Then because she was feeling particularly rough today decided to run one more test and it came up positive.

Ever since her test I've had a sore throat, but on the other hand I am a massive hypochondriac. I'll do my own test tomorrow morning.

[Pink Gregory]

It's no worse than a flu, but I haven't been generally ill for this many days since I got the actual swine flu 15 years ago

[Ferris]

Anyone had a 4th jab yet? My parents are supposed to get one in the near future but they can't schedule it or some such.

[Alberon]

Not there was much doubt over the rotten night I've just had, but I've finally joined the COVID gang.

[Ferris]

Not there was much doubt over the rotten night I've just had, but I've finally joined the COVID gang.

Hopefully that's the worst of your symptoms though, couple of shit days then job (largely) done.

All the best for anyone who's joined the club or currently going through their initiation.

[Blinder Data]

I tested positive TWO YEARS to the day of the UK lockdown. Fashionably late.

All three of us had positive LFTs, didn't bother with PCRs. If I was able to sleep it off I might have got better more quickly, but we were stuck indoors with a teething and coughing baby/toddler/boddler so not much rest was had.

Our main symptoms were coldy, phlegmy cough and shivers for the first couple of days and waves of tiredness for a few more. Then it became difficult to discern COVID fatigue from stuck-in-the-house-with-a-15-month-old fatigue. Ten days later and I feel more or less as I was.

It seems rampant round our village. A friend said more rural areas are getting it bad right now because they never got the peak at the same time as the cities. No idea if it's true. Anyway, thank God for vaccines - I would hate to experience the real thing sans protection.

[Alberon]

It is, it's absolutely everywhere. My department of Facility Management at my university is just seven strong over two campuses. Half of us are now out with COVID so we've had to cut back the service we can offer.

I managed to order one last free LFT box today.

[olliebean]

How much is the government's official number of cases likely to drop next week? It doesn't include LFTs, so people having stocked up with the free ones won't affect it. Hardly any bugger's going to want to pay for a PCR test. So AFAICS it's just going to be people who're ill enough to be in hospital.

[shoulders]

Cases were already increasingly unhelpful as a guide since January so have switched to monitoring hospitalisations and deaths.

Less insane countries are still doing it properly so their infections data remains more useful.

[olliebean]

I've been going on the Zoe estimates of prevalence - the official government case data is essentially useless these days, even before they took away the free testing. The Zoe daily estimates have been pretty much in line with the weekly ONS reports based on random testing. I presume, though, that Zoe are going to find it more difficult now that they can't ask people with symptoms to take free PCR tests (in addition to having lost their government funding recently).

[MojoJojo]

How much is the government's official number of cases likely to drop next week? It doesn't include LFTs, so people having stocked up with the free ones won't affect it. Hardly any bugger's going to want to pay for a PCR test. So AFAICS it's just going to be people who're ill enough to be in hospital.

It does include LFTs. The daily figures have always been susceptible to people choosing to test, the weekly ONS survey is more reliable.

[olliebean]

It does include LFTs.

Does it? They must have changed that, then; my search turned up a document saying they didn't, but I guess it could have been an old one.

The daily figures have always been susceptible to people choosing to test, the weekly ONS survey is more reliable.

Today's weekly ONS survey has prevalence in England at 1 in 13 people. I'm finding it really worrying that for weeks now, experts have been saying they think it's nearly peaked, but it just keeps rising. Reinfections and vaccine breakthroughs must be really high. Anecdotally, my housemate knows several people who've caught it 2 or 3 times with only a couple of months in between. What concerns me is if it's doing any long-term damage, could that be cumulative every time someone gets reinfected?

Indie Sage are now saying they don't know if it's even going to drop after the peak, or just keep fluctuating around a really high level. So much for being endemic.

[jamiefairlie]

Just take it on the chin man! People need to go the pub FFS!

[olliebean]

Oh god, now there's a new variant that's even more transmissible. "Omicron XE," they're calling it, because apparently they're naming them like new car models now.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Oh god, now there's a new variant that's even more transmissible. "Omicron XE," they're calling it, because apparently they're naming them like new car models now.

I read about that here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/new-omicron-variant-xe-contagious-symptoms-latest-b2049858.html - but it doesn't say anything about it being even more transmissible, where did you read that out of interest?

[Fabian Thomsett]

A new COVID hybrid first detected in the UK could be 10% more transmissible than the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

"Early-day estimates indicate a community growth rate advantage of 10 per cent as compared to BA.2, however, this finding requires further confirmation."

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/omicron-xe-coronavirus-variant-infections-world-health-organization-113059487.html

[olliebean]

Here's the graph showing estimated 9.8% higher growth rate than BA.2:



(from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1063424/Tech-Briefing-39-25March2022_FINAL.pdf)