Covid19 Booster

[Wussername]

My condolences. A difficult year and time for you and your family.

[YnysMon]

Our condolences Monica. I don’t have any siblings, but I can imagine how distraught you must be. 

[kpnut]

Very sorry to hear your sad news, pancreatic cancer is vicious. 
 

I drove past Hoveton walk in vaccine centre earlier this afternoon. It was truly packed, well done the locals of Hoveton and surroundings. 

[Lulu]

So sorry to hear your sad news Monica. My condolences to you and your family 

[tim]

My sincere condolences for your loss

[tim]

On the subject of the anti vacation people, Mandy is an ANP in a doctors surgery near Bromley in Kent, she has a patient that has been waiting for a kidney transplant for 3 years, due to her vulnerability she hasn’t left home for 2 years apart from hospital visits

just before Christmas a kidney match was found, surgeon booked Theatre booked ITU bed booked for her recovery 

the operation was then cancelled hours before due to a lack of beds in ITU 

they were full of covid patients many unvaccinated!

She is 35 and one of those selfish b@stards have probably signed her death warrant as matching kidneys don’t grow on trees 

I can’t express my anger and I don’t know the girl personally 

[Hylander]

19 minutes ago, tim said:

On the subject of the anti vacation people, Mandy is an ANP in a doctors surgery near Bromley in Kent, she has a patient that has been waiting for a kidney transplant for 3 years, due to her vulnerability she hasn’t left home for 2 years apart from hospital visits

just before Christmas a kidney match was found, surgeon booked Theatre booked ITU bed booked for her recovery 

the operation was then cancelled hours before due to a lack of beds in ITU 

they were full of covid patients many unvaccinated!

She is 35 and one of those selfish b@stards have probably signed her death warrant as matching kidneys don’t grow on trees 

I can’t express my anger and I don’t know the girl personally 

I can relate to your anger I really can.        I wish we could start being less 'understanding'  to these snowflakes who are costing our folk their lives.    

[webntweb]

So sorry to hear your sad news Monica, my thoughts are with you.

[Hylander]

I found this while looking through my files on the laptop.

 

What do you see, nurses, what do you see?

Are you thinking when you are looking at me –

A crabbed old woman, not very wise,

Who dribbles her food and makes no reply

When you say in a loud voice ‘ I do wish you’d try’

As I rise at your bidding, as I eat at your will,

I’m a small child of ten with a father and mother,

A bride soon at twenty, my heart gives a leap

Remembering the vows that I promised to keep

At twenty five now I have young of my own

Who need me to build a secure happy home

At fifty once more babies play round my knee

Again we know children my loved one and me

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead

I look to the future I shudder with dread

My young are all busy rearing young of their own

And I think of the years and the love that I’ve known

I’m an old woman now and Nature is cruel

‘Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool’

The body it crumbles, grace and vigour depart

Now there is a stone where I once had a heart

But inside this old carcase, a young girl still dwells

I remember the joys, I remember the pain

And I m loving and living all over again

And I think of the years all too few – gone too fast

And accept the stark fact that nothing will last

So open your eyes, nurses, open and see

Not a crabbed old woman look closer see me.

 

This poem was found in the handbag of an old lady who died in a geriatric ward and was published in a Sunday newspaper in November 1973.

 

[Ray]

Our hearts and thoughts are young whatever age our bodies are 👍

[ExSurveyor]

Pauline was given a copy of that when she was training back in 1979 and always put a copy up whenever she worked on a geriatric ward as a reminder to all staff.

She also had it on the wall of her 96 year old mums room and read it at her funeral this year.

[addicted]

This made me cry, a bit to close to home.

 

Carole

[ExSurveyor]

To offer hope and balance,

When I took a 97 year old friend's funeral this was the ideal reading as she was a 'character' and it reflected her outlook to perfection.

 

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me,
And I shall spend my pension
on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals,
and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired,
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
And run my stick along the public railings,
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens,
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go,
Or only bread and pickle for a week,
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats
and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,
And pay our rent and not swear in the street,
And set a good example for the children.
We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me
are not too shocked and surprised,
When suddenly I am old
and start to wear purple!
 

[addicted]

I don't know what this says about me but I wear purple a lot and always have done

 

 

Carole

[grendel]

I fully intend to grow old disgracefully.

[unclemike]

growing old is mandatory,growing up is optional

[FairTmiddlin]

4 minutes ago, unclemike said:

growing old is mandatory,growing up is optional

Been my motto for years Mike

[Malanka]

The VTF decided or rather was told by government, you know the ones with PPE degrees and photos of pigs heads in their yearbooks. That boosters in uk would ONLY  be mRNA vaccines. This was due to clinical advice from medics ( few of whom have detailed immunological vaccine response knowledge) on the type of response provided to the vaccine antigens. 
The government cancelled the contract for an inactivated vaccine which has a far preferable immunology both short and long term. The policy wonks took that option away. 
Hopefully the OMICRON variant ( notice if you will the fact that the WHO left out a couple of Greek letters in the correct sequence so as not to embarrass the Chinese) Will prove to be the natural vaccine we need at this point, if not it should hopefully be only a matter of time. 

[ExSurveyor]

This variant is running wild, yesterday 5 unconnected friends all tested positive, my 10 year old grandson had it early December, my grandaughter on the 15th, their Dad on the 27th and their mum on the 31st. They are two separate households and isolated and masked up as soon as they showed symptoms. The young ones didn't see dad during isolation and he doesn't mix with any people.

All, apart from the 10 year old are vaccinated and boostered as recommended.

Everyone had / are experiencing only flu like symtoms but with really bad headaches that last a couple of days.

 So far Matron and I have avoided it whilst providing support to them.

If Delta had this level of transmission last year we would have been up a creek without a paddle.

Thank goodness for the vaccines and those that developed and delivered them.

I guess the next few weeks are going to be difficult due to staffing levels in all areas.

[Mouldy]

This comment may be thought by some to be controversial, even flippant, but to me it makes perfect sense.  Whether we like it or not, Covid isn’t going away and it will continue to mutate into new variants which may be more or less transmissible and more or less sever.  We are fortunate that Omicron appears to be less than previous ones.

But let’s think back a few years, pre Covid, to when we had flu every winter.  It caused 15 -20,000 deaths in a four month period, depending on its severity and the NHS was always under pressure.  It received very little media coverage and we got used to it, had a vaccination and got on with life.  Sadly, now, the word Covid strikes fear into folk and to be fair, with good reason in a lot of cases.  But how long can we close down businesses, put people out if work, shut down hospitality, theatres, cinemas, nightclubs etc?

Personally, Omicron doesn’t worry me.  I’m more concerned about losing my freedoms again.  I’m 65 - I don’t know how long I have left on this planet and it may be a selfish comment, but I don’t want to waste that time locked indoors.  That may happen naturally if my mobility is affected.  In my view, catching and surviving the virus will have a similar effect to having a vaccination.  It will help develop a natural resistance to it over time.

It is true that the NHS will be put under pressure whilst this current explosion of infections is underway, but let’s not forget the other key industries, logistics, shop workers, refuse collectors, the other emergency services, workers in the factories that produce the food and other commodities that we rely on every day.  They too will suffer staff shortages, which will impact them and their ability to operate over the coming weeks.

Will another lockdown solve anything?  It didn’t solve it last year and it won’t this.  In my opinion unless we are prepared to close the country down on an annual basis every January for three months, we need to tough it out, get on with life and learn to live with the virus.  We’ve overcome other illnesses and diseases in the past and in time, will learn to deal with this.

 

[Smoggy]

Why can't nhs staff that are positive but not ill still work on a covid ward? They all have it already.

[YnysMon]

1 hour ago, Smoggy said:

Why can't nhs staff that are positive but not ill still work on a covid ward? They all have it already.

Back in the summer I read a rather alarmist news article about a nursing care home in Holyhead being so desperately short of staff that they had asked staff who had tested positive with Covid to return to work. Well the headline (as usual) was alarmist, but when you looked at the detail they were doing just what Smoggy has suggested. The staff were nursing patients who had Covid.

[Smoggy]

In the last few days I've come across quite a few folk I know that have just emerged from isolation and they all said the same, more of a head cold with a bit of tiredness than a flu, one carried on working as she was working from home anyway, another said in normal times he would have took a couple of paracetamol and gone to work as normal.

It does seem to be a far less serious version.

All the folk at my work have agreed we'll all do LFT before we turn up on tuesday just in case.

I got back from the boat thursday to find a PCR test kit through the door with my name on and the leaflet said my medical records indicated I was elligable for new treatments should I get covid but only use the test if I get symptoms otherwise test through the normal channels, one of the guys that had been positive had similar (same condition) and said they called him to discuss treatment options but he said he wasn't bad enough to justify it, so just goes to show how things are going on behind the scenes to look after us in case which I find quite comforting.

[Bikertov]

I personally know more people in the last week or so with Covid than in the whole of the last 18 months.

[Smoggy]

1 hour ago, Bikertov said:

I personally know more people in the last week or so with Covid than in the whole of the last 18 months.

Ditto to that, but luckily the hospital numbers have not gone up to the same degree, I've been watching them since waiting for a hernia op to get an idea if it was going to happen or not, job done a month ago now but still watch the numbers just to see whats happening, let's hope it stays that way.