COVID-19

[David L]

Went down with cold symptoms on Saturday. By yesterday, I felt poorly enough to come home from work. Streaming eyes, sneezing, runny nose and a bit achy. I did a covid test - negative. Symptoms not really improving yet so could be a mild flu thing. Looks like it will take at least a week to get back to normal.........sniff!

[Slim]

Hope you feel better soon. Better now than over the Christmas hols!

[The Picnic Wasp]

Yes, if you've got to catch something at all it's very good timing. Feet up, plenty of fluids and paracetamol should do the trick.

[David L]

Went down with cold symptoms on Saturday. By yesterday, I felt poorly enough to come home from work. Streaming eyes, sneezing, runny nose and a bit achy. I did a covid test - negative. Symptoms not really improving yet so could be a mild flu thing. Looks like it will take at least a week to get back to normal.........sniff!

It's Covid!
I had a slightly sore throat when I got up Saturday and felt a little bit like I was getting a cold. Perhaps, ill-advisedly in hindsight, I decided to meet up with two mates to go to the much-anticipated Rushed gig at The Northcourt, Abingdon.
Well, tonight, Bob contacted me to let me know he'd been off work since Tuesday and  had tested positive for Covid. Uh-oh! So a second test tonight (after Tuesday's negative) and, yes, the faintest of lines means I've got the lurgy.
It explains why, after five days it hasn't improved much. Still, probably better than if I'd caught a dose of old fashioned flu, that may have knocked me up good and proper. And it means I should have decent covid immunity over Xmas, hopefully lasting until after our snowboard holiday in March (which happens to be the first since March 2020....where we caught a nice dose of the first version of the Wuhan bio-weapon)
The one symptom that I've not seen advertised has been an extremely windy bottom. I could drive a turbine with my farts at the moment!

[The Picnic Wasp]

Well, that's made my mind up about not buying a ticket for Geddy. I avoided a poor old guy in Aldi last night as he coughed and spluttered his way around the store. Numbers are probably on the rise so I think I'll restrict my visits to busy places.

[David L]

Of course, I should have said I first caught Covid in March 2920 not 2019. If that had been the case, I'd have had to have been working in the lab! Corrected

[Slim]

Since you've implied that the virus originated in a lab a couple of times recently, some balance from a piece in the BMJ, published in July this year.


https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj.p1556

[David L]

Since you've implied that the virus originated in a lab a couple of times recently, some balance from a piece in the BMJ, published in July this year.


https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj.p1556

As they used to say on the TV programme:

"Bluff"

[The Picnic Wasp]

I'm not sure about this. From my rudimentary knowledge of illnesses, they seem to follow a fairly regular pattern when an individual becomes infected. The seemingly random nature of COVID seems to point towards some kind of crack-handed, genetic tinkering. Almost as if the virus had to evolve from an unstable man-made structure into something which could survive in the natural world. The consequences of proving liability are probably too grave an issue and best swept under the rug.

[David L]

I'm not sure about this. From my rudimentary knowledge of illnesses, they seem to follow a fairly regular pattern when an individual becomes infected. The seemingly random nature of COVID seems to point towards some kind of crack-handed, genetic tinkering. Almost as if the virus had to evolve from an unstable man-made structure into something which could survive in the natural world. The consequences of proving liability are probably too grave an issue and best swept under the rug.

Unless it's important that this doesn't happen again. Unfortunately, it isn't

[Slim]

I'm not sure about this. From my rudimentary knowledge of illnesses, they seem to follow a fairly regular pattern when an individual becomes infected. The seemingly random nature of COVID seems to point towards some kind of crack-handed, genetic tinkering. Almost as if the virus had to evolve from an unstable man-made structure into something which could survive in the natural world.

It's reasonable to have an opinion when it is, after all, a matter of conjecture. But I have to assume that the various infectious disease experts and academic virologists had thought about that as well, and it's notable that they tend to reject the "man-made" hypothesis.

In any case I don't see the "random" nature of the virus as very surprising; for many years (millenia?) the flu virus (for example) has evolved and changed unpredictably from year to year.

[David L]

I'm not sure about this. From my rudimentary knowledge of illnesses, they seem to follow a fairly regular pattern when an individual becomes infected. The seemingly random nature of COVID seems to point towards some kind of crack-handed, genetic tinkering. Almost as if the virus had to evolve from an unstable man-made structure into something which could survive in the natural world.

It's reasonable to have an opinion when it is, after all, a matter of conjecture. But I have to assume that the various infectious disease experts and academic virologists had thought about that as well, and it's notable that they tend to reject the "man-made" hypothesis.

Worth remembering the various infectious disease experts and academic virologists are not all the infectious disease experts and academic virologists.
Also worth remembering that the opinions of many experts in this field were censored (thus limiting conjecture) by governments around the world, seemingly in collusion

[Slim]

Well firstly I don't agree that there seems to be a "collusion" between various governments to suppress information, that's pure conspiracy theory territory. Tin foil hat stuff.

I'd be interested to see some (credible) evidence of the various experts being censored in the Western democratic countries. In other countries that goes on all the time, I agree.

I'm not sure there's a consensus, among non-censored experts, that the lab leak hypothesis is unlikely. Even in that community though it's a minority opinion so stating it as a fact, as you have, is something like religious "thinking", ie choosing to believe what you find most appealling.

[David L]

Well firstly I don't agree that there seems to be a "collusion" between various governments to suppress information, that's pure conspiracy theory territory. Tin foil hat stuff.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/27/covid-monitoring-disinformation-unit-us-government-online/

If JHB was subjected to this, I'm certain others, including experts in their field, that critiqued the government narrative were

[David L]

I'd be interested to see some (credible) evidence of the various experts being censored in the Western democratic countries. In other countries that goes on all the time, I agree.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/commentisfree/2022/mar/29/how-do-you-stop-fake-news-about-covid-not-by-silencing-scientists-who-ask-difficult-questions

https://truthtalk.uk/2022/mass-censorship-twitter-bans-renowned-diagnostic-pathologist-dr-clare-craig/

https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/115286/documents/HHRG-118-GO00-20230208-SD011.pdf

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/12/why-has-google-censored-the-great-barrington-declaration/