Coronavirus

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that's the thing, i'm not sure about it. like most people, i've had lots of Vaccines in the past but i've had them without giving it much thought. the one thing putting me off is that it's a brand new vaccine. i'm in my 30s without any health problems.. do i even need it?

having said that several of my family members have had the covid vaccine without any problems.
I caught covid just before my 35th birthday last April and although I was physically healthy and recovered after a week it has permanently damaged my sense of smell leaving me with a condition called Parosmia where smells are distorted or missing altogether, basically it damaged the olfactory receptors in my nose. It's grown into a huge issue amongst covid survivors now it's become more widespread. You don't want this no matter your age or fitness level .
 
I had my first vaccination on Wednesday afternoon (Pfizer) and have had some mild body aches and slight itchiness at the injection site.
Nothing other than that (so far anyway).
I'd rather have the side effects of this vaccine than a bout of Covid, for sure!
 
Given that there are nearly a million people worldwide who never recovered from the virus, I would have thought that the answer to that was fairly obvious.
I think you've read my question wrong.

Obviously not including people who have died or have permanent symptoms. As a vaccine is (well, was in this case) largely an inactive version of a pathogen, is it more, less or just as effective as getting the virus and recovering.
 
As a vaccine is (well, was in this case) largely an inactive version of a pathogen, is it more, less or just as effective as getting the virus and recovering.
In this case it's not though. The vaccine for Covid isn't inoculating you with the virus but using a new mRNA technology to essentially "train" your immune system to recognize corona viruses. This means it should be effective against all variants of the virus not just specific strains. You should be able to get the vaccine once and be immune to all strains of Covid unlike a flu vaccine which you need to get every year as the virus mutates.

This would make getting the vaccine way more effective (and safe) then getting Covid and recovering.
 
My father had his first jab yesterday, so fingers crossed he will be OK! He said that he had to wait around for 10/15 minutes to make sure he was OK and then he was free to go.

As a precaution I had my first flu jab just before Christmas (a combination of work paying for it and realising that it was open to everybody, not just the elderly!) and I barely noticed a thing. I thought it was going to be a pain in the butt like when I donate blood, but I barely noticed a thing. I'm hoping the COVID vaccine will be the same.
 
In this case it's not though. The vaccine for Covid isn't inoculating you with the virus but using a new mRNA technology to essentially "train" your immune system to recognize corona viruses. This means it should be effective against all variants of the virus not just specific strains. You should be able to get the vaccine once and be immune to all strains of Covid unlike a flu vaccine which you need to get every year as the virus mutates.

This would make getting the vaccine way more effective (and safe) then getting Covid and recovering.

Bingo.

@Nathanial Essex, think of it this way:

Flu Shot: bits and pieces of the virus are torn up and your body learns to fight them by curb-stomping them. Any symptoms you have are due to your system fighting off the remaining bits of virus.

COVID Shot: your white blood cells are given a blueprint or, "battle-plan," of sorts (think of Kevin's houses of, "goodies," from both Home Alone films), to fight off the virus. Any symptoms you have are due to your system expending resources to, "learn how to kill it," (hence weakness, tiredness, etc.; your body is working on overdrive)

It's why it is completely and utterly safe, provided you aren't allergic to any of the components or you aren't using contaminated equipment.
 
How is it going for everyone? In the UK, we have lift most restrictions but the pandemic still dominates the news and I get a sense of uneasiness because our government keep changing their stance on things like Covid-passports, vaccinations and more. Basically, it feels like any second we can be back into a lockdown.

What I do find interesting is the mask situation. As soon as they removed the mandatory to wear masks indoors, I would say the first few days most people in the supermarket were wearing mask. By the next week, most people were NOT wearing mask and now it seems the vast majority of people have done away with it.

I am going to the office on Monday for the first time. This would be the first time in 18 months I've travelled into central London or even got on a train.
 
How is it going for everyone? In the UK, we have lift most restrictions but the pandemic still dominates the news and I get a sense of uneasiness because our government keep changing their stance on things like Covid-passports, vaccinations and more. Basically, it feels like any second we can be back into a lockdown.

What I do find interesting is the mask situation. As soon as they removed the mandatory to wear masks indoors, I would say the first few days most people in the supermarket were wearing mask. By the next week, most people were NOT wearing mask and now it seems the vast majority of people have done away with it.

I am going to the office on Monday for the first time. This would be the first time in 18 months I've travelled into central London or even got on a train.
For me a mask has just become a habit for anything like shopping, buses etc. Unless the recommendations change around mask use I can't see me changing that habit for a while.

I do sense people are using them less and less though.
 
I wear a snood (because I have a gigantic beard) and although I hate it, I still wear it in shops. If i'm in the cinema and it's quiet, i'll take it off.

Interestingly i'm going to my first concert in 18 months next weekend and i'll be very interested to see how that goes.

As far as work goes, I reckon we'll go down the hybrid route which i'm cool with (especially as I still have 1400 hours of music to get through!).
 
I'm in a big office all to myself (it has 4 desks in it, but I'm manning one of them), so I rarely need to wear one at work; only if I'm walking into the main part of the branch (which is infrequent, as my role is not member/client-facing).

Still wear it wherever it is mandated as well, but knowing that I'm vaccinated provides a bit of piece of mind.
 
as restrictions are lifted, i find myself taking the virus more seriously and wear a mask in busy public places / in shops and using antibacterial hand gel more.

my whole family has had the jab now. i was mainly being extra careful before regarding this virus because my father has health problems and i didn't want to get him sick but now my health is my responsibility. i 100% believe the virus exists but i'm still not keen on taking the jab.
 
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Double jabbed with Pfizer as of last week, no real symptoms besides a sore arm. The request for informed consent before you have it can be a little scary, but they've gotta ask that stuff as a legal requirement.

Looking like a return to the office is being enforced soon, but I don't really trust my employer to be taking precautions besides the bare minimum, so I'll be masking up in the office and on public transport and hoping colleagues do the same. Hopefully studies into HEPA air filters and UV purifiers later in the year provide good results, because any kind of management of COVID long term (as well as other airborne viruses) will need to solve the issue of people being confined to indoor spaces together over several hours, multiple days per week.

An easy way until these studies come back in early 2022 would be to embrace WFH properly where practical, and some businesses are, but in others a lot of bad managerial culture exists (micromanaging, presenteeism, etc) and the government are just straight up in thrall to commercial landlords. Even with the vaccine, I think it's just silly to get people who have been able to do their job fine remotely to come into the office when cases are still over 30,000 a day here in the UK and continuing to tick up.

Deaths are still worrying even if we're nowhere near the peak seen in January where nearly 1,500 people were dying daily. On a graph it looks like nothing to worry about because of the steep decline and current plateauing, but it's still around 100 people a day for catching a virus which is very much preventable if people are given proper support.
 
On a graph it looks like nothing to worry about because of the steep decline and current plateauing, but it's still around 100 people a day for catching a virus which is very much preventable if people are given proper support.
700 deaths per week is pretty low (comparatively with many other illnesses), but we all know that with a contagious virus, and from what has happened before, that those numbers can grow very quickly, sometimes almost out of no where. Average number of deaths is already up to 133 per day. It will be interesting to see what the impact of schools returning is like this time, particularly now all restrictions are gone and the previous bubble system used in schools is now no longer in use.

I'm hopeful the vaccine is doing its thing and this time we will NOT see a sharp rise in Covid deaths and admissions, but you have to be cautious.

Returning to the office full time is bullshit too. I'm not going back to that again. I'm not saying I won't ever return, but I think for now there is no reason and when I do return I'm going to work from home part of the week. I've realised my life is way too busy and hectic for something that serves no purpose whatsoever. There is practically zero benefit to physical meetings over virtual meetings in most (but not all) cases. My productivity doesn't suffer and I can do anything I could in the office at home. My employer already had flexible working in place and encouraged staff to work from home one-two days per week before the pandemic and I never bothered. I now think that was daft. It's way better for my mental health.
 
I've been fortunate and have always worked from home so that's nothing new to me. My company is enforcing people go in, as it is good to see people, but certain teams go in for 1 or 2 days of the week. This means you usually go into an office which has like 6 people in total and it feels like a waste of time and money. We are definitely less productive and spend too much time joking around.
 
I have asked to go into the office twice a week to break up the monotony of working in my bedroom, but I do believe for my line of work (local government), hybrid working is definitely the way to go. The fact I can do 90% of my work at home has meant i've saved so much time and money on unneccesary travelling (good for the environment too).

Our co-team leader is keen for us all to get back in the office, but thankfully nobody else agrees with her (including our other team leader). I'm so used to working with headphones on (especially after my Asperger's diagnosis) that the thought of working in an open plan office with dozens of people fills me with dread. We have gone back to 50% occupancy this week and I noticed that some people are *so* loud that it's really offputting. I gave the Shenhua death stare to someone earlier this week because of that haha.

I'm going to a packed concert tonight (Nick Cave!) and they're pretty hot on wearing masks and such and I will gladly comply. I still wear a mask when shopping, but I have tried to not wear one in the outdoors. I went to a car boot sale this morning and felt uncomfortable having people encroaching in my personal space, so I might not be ready to go maskless just yet.
 
I want to go to the movies but I live in a rural area where no one wears masks and theyre anti vax.

For the record, I'm fully vaccinated but I still dont want to risk it.

Also my sister , neice and nephew have had to quarantine several times since school has opened up because theres been several cases in their classroom. Instead of closing down, they quarantined only half the class in one case instead of the full room. I dont see how that makes sense... But yea.
 
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Caught an absolutely atrocious cold doing a bit of travelling earlier in the week. Took every personal precaution I could, but unfortunately seems like it wasn't enough when even simple stuff like masks on public transport are now at personal discretion (and from what I can see, a lot aren't wearing them).
 
My general mentality towards it is to always have a mask on you, and wear if it's mandatory, but at the same time, fuck masks! *spends the next hour scratching chin like a cat with fleas*
 
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