How is everyone in the current situation? General Chat

Great to hear that Charles had no nasty side effects, Carole. I can't wait for our turn to come.

Just a thought, but wouldn't they let you have the vaccination at the same time to stop you having to travel twice?

No. Someone turned up with his wife, (in a wheelchair), at Charles' session. She was refused admission - they are strictly sticking to the categories as they have been announced. I think I should be in the next group, whenever that may be.

I am so pleased that one of us - even though Charles is not ours, but we are all Breedia family after all - has had the vaccination. Hopefully everyone else will have theirs when it is due. Ours have started but as I am on the "you cannot have the vaccination" list I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen.

3,500 new cases on Sunday and over 4,300 yesterday [it has gone 2.30am so it is Wednesday now here] and that figure will probably increase once all the numbers are in.

People in this country are total idiots. No other word for them.

I went to the doctor today with a small laundry list of things, including getting a flu shot. Well they forgot (and so did I) my flu shot.... they said just come in anytime tomorrow and they’ll give me the shot.

Little bump in armpit isn’t a cancerous thing (yea). Reviewed my recent blood tests and all is good. I was wondering about my cholesterol, only because of the amount of butter I eat (yum) and I largely cook with coconut oil, but levels are excellent.

I’ve been having insomnia for 9 weeks now and no amount of tinctures, herbs, chinese medicinal herbs seem to help so I now have a prescription that will hopefully help. Not something I’ve ever taken before, which is why I tried so long with more natural things

So pleased that there are no health problems to worry about Marc. I hope Bandit's hot spot has calmed down now too. Hope you can have a peaceful and worry free Christmas break.

That is a kind of "Phew" result Marc - lumps and bumbs that appear where they should not be are always a worry. It is a pity you could not find a natural product to help with your insomnia - I finally found that a combination of various herbal and homeopathic stuff worked fine for me but it was more a case of getting my joints to unlock in order to physically relax and stay relaxed during sleep than being unable to get to sleep.

Like Carole said, I also hope that Bandit's hot spot is OK now.

Keep safe.

One thing I notice here in Australia is the language used by the chief medical officers and state and federal politicians at this time.

when the pandemic was being spoken of in the beginning there was a real asking of the people to come together to fight the pandemic type rallying call.

this was the light at the end of the tunnel type speeches , and we will all be better for it together kind of thing.

Now it seems to have gone to the “all stick and no carrot approach”

where they are trying to dictate the new rules ‘or else’ approach with a real arrogance of authority.

it’s not that I did not accept or understand the reasoning before ,
And was glad we were working together.

now they have a barcode they are making mandatory for entry to restaurants and such venues.
And they are introducing fines for venues that don’t do what they say ,
As the new system must be the government's own technology ,

so much for them throwing out the lists after a month .

now they are forcing the control , while some people’s fear keeps them compliant and even attacking anyone who questions the approach , as though alternatives don’t exist.

the politicians speaking like mommy talking to the children , what time they must stay home , who’s allowed to visit etc .

they have tracking ankle bracelets for extreme cases ,

it’s only one example of what’s going on , and I’m sure some of these privacy breaches can’t be later trusted to be relinquished by the government once it’s said and done.

it’s gone on so long now it is beginning to definitely seem fascistic .

I live far enough away from people to stay away from most of it , however I definitely hope this is not the ‘new normal’.

Sorry in advance but I do think that vaccination passports (or equivalent) are an excellent idea.

They would give some assurance to those who are extremely vulnerable to have more confidence once they can get out and about again

Now I have not thought this through maybe , so apology in advance also ,

however if the vulnerable have been vaccinated then why should it matter if others don’t have the vaccination ?

I think that would be the start of a very slippery road.
I am not an anti vaxxer but don’t want an end to my freedom of choice.

That would not help people who are unable to be vaccinated due to a history of severe allergic reactions.

As my comment to Chris above. I will not be able to be vaccinated whether I want to be or not.

I have heard this spoken of where they advised people (after the report of some having allergic reactions ) to get their shots where they could be monitored .eg the hospital .

don’t know if that could apply to you or not however it seems sensible if that’s an option.

Well for what it’s worth also ,
We don’t have huge numbers of infections here in this country so they are not rushing the vaccine and are going to test it for the full duration of the trials as they would be .

we were told on the media here , the vaccine overseas has not passed its stage 3 trials the way they would normally have .
And instead are rushed due to the urgency as they really don’t have a choice .
Sorry if that’s a bit vague , there is so much going on it is hard to keep up , and then processing everything that is going on is a real mental challenge too.

I would like to have personal sovereignty and choice also .

Unfortunately for the moment at least, there is no way that I will be able to have the vaccination, having had too many emergency hospital admissions due to severe anaphylaxis reactions in the past. I have two Epipen epinephrine auto-injectors with me at all times during the day and at night one is under my pillow and the second one on the bedside table.

Maybe the situation will change, or a different vaccine will come up - the Pfizer vaccine for one, did not include people with known food or medicine allergies during their trials.

You do have to sit for 15 minutes in a holding area, (under supervision), after being given the vaccine. I believe this is to make sure that there are no adverse reactions.

There seems to be some vague talk about revising the published order of priority of groups receiving the vaccine. If it happens, this could move some key worker groups into higher positions - probably correctly. I wish I could remember who it was, but on TV last night one government spokesman said they were hoping to complete the vaccinations by the end of 2021! Surely not another entire year of this?

I live in GA but work for an insurance company that governs the SOCAL area - currently the hardest hit area in the country. I HAVE had some people who had reactions to the vaccine call me. One lady had an anaphylactic reaction and needed hospitalization and follow ups and everything.

There's just not enough data out there for me to want the vaccine or say it's even a good idea. It's too hard to trust the makers or anything. The horrible spread of COVID itself was our leadership failing to care about our safety. What would make me think they suddenly care now?

@mjfromga Did you get a new job? Because I was under the impression that you were working in a wearhouse, I thought over night. I figured it was for the company everyone orders stuff from online. The guy that’s benefited the most from everyone shopping more online now than ever. Or maybe you work two jobs.

I hear you on the vaccine. They’ve really pushed it thru fast. Without going through all the phases of trials they usually would. That’s why they call it “emergency use authorization”. I’m certainly not going first. And I also don’t qualify to go first. And I’m no longer at the job where I was considered a “frontline worker”. I have no conditions that would move me up the list. I’m fine with this, I want to see how others react to it. I really hope it works well and is safe. They just didn’t take the time to test it on enough different groups of people with different types of conditions. I understand why they pushed it thru fast too.

I totally agree about the failure of our leadership. It stated with our so called president, who only saw it as a threat to his re-election and so he basically pretended it wasn’t a big deal in public even though it came out that he knew damn well how dangerous it was. And he played a race card calling it the China flu, and blaming it on them. It did start there but we’ve so mishandled it and it’s more out of control here than any where else in the world. We have now hit the point where it has killed 1 in 1000 US citizens. And yet he keeps golfing on his own private golf courses charging the tax payers for the secret service for the use of golf carts to follow him around. I could go on but I’m working me self up and it’s not good for me to do that when I should be going to sleep..

I have to go get a covid test tomorrow because I had a little post nasal drip and coughed up some phlegm for an hour or so early yesterday evening. The heater in my truck stopped working and I had the dogs with me and had windows rolled down for them because they enjoy that. I think I just got a chill. But I mentioned it to my acupuncturist and asked if maybe I shouldn’t come in, out of an abundance of caution, yesterday, and he said I needed a test before I go see him again. It took me a long time to find a place to get tested tomorrow. The best I had found before that was a test on January 5th. I have to drive about 50 minutes to get it, and I feel fine, but I felt I had to disclose that, and not be selfish. We are 10 months into this and still don’t have an adequate amount of tests and it can take from 3-7 days for results to come back. If I hadn’t found the place for tomorrow it would have been 10-15 days from today before I had a result. So I’ve cut a week off that hopefully. People can’t afford to miss that much work, especially if they don’t think they have it and aren’t really showing symptoms, and this is one of the reasons it’s spreading so rampantly. I have a friend who lives with her mother, brother, sister in law and her nephew. All of them but her are positive, and her sister in-law is in the hospital on a ventilator since last Tuesday or Wednesday. The doctors say she’s doing better and will be coming off it soon. This is real and it’s scary and if the president had modeled good behavior things could be so much better. I’m done, I gotta go to bed and I’m all worked up now. Stay safe mj

I have a neighbour who when asked back at the first wave of Covid her concerns regarding the virus. She replied in a dismissing and slightly aggressive manner saying it was all a load of bunkum and over hyped nonsense. She is a clever lady and I was kind of shocked at her dismissal of the whole affair. Her attitude was one of, you people are all overreacting....
The long and the short of it was that she popped by over Christmas with her daughter who informed me she had caught covid . Her symptoms, all be it relatively mild, were total loss of taste and smell. She says she still has mild loss of smell and taste....Not very pleasant and to me quite concerning..
I asked her mother the same question I asked at the beginning and of course she had to back track saying things like, 'well I have to work with it in my line of work and just get on with it'.... She came round without a mask btw......
Grrrrr.. some people have a real gun hoe attitude to what is really a world crisis...

I do wonder whether vaccinating the over 80's first was less to do with their vulnerability than using them as a test population. OH was happy to have his jab whatever the reason, saying that someone had to go first. We see it as great news this morning that the Oxford vaccine is due to hit the streets on the 4th. Jan.
As it doesn't need sub zero storage, this means it can be given in more informal locations - and nice too that it will be made available at low cost to other countries. We hear so little of how Third World countries are coping with this pandemic, and the Pfizer vaccine would pose a great challenge to handle in tropical or underdeveloped areas.

Yay, the Oxford vaccine has passed and will start to be rolled out next Monday. Cheaper, easier to store and transport and, most of all, more accessible in the UK.

Hopefully this will vastly speed up the roll out and we can all get back to something like our previous normal