NHS COVID-19 LFT kits

[Ash Armstrong]

As NHS COVID-19 Lateral Flow Test kits will cease to be free in April, most pharmacies are giving out existing stock on request. I was collecting a prescription anyway, and was given these.

Very much against my expectations, I was offered a face-to-face consultation with a GP this afternoon about an ear infection. I've been prescribed a spray to take care of it. The LFT kits are a bonus!
❤️NHS

[Gilly Goodness]

RATs were never free down here. Ludicrous prices actually. My GP sister had some we used last Xmas.
Scored a false negative. Then had a sore throat. Went back to Sydney straightaway and had a PCR. Positive.

Rules have changed now. RATs aren't necessary anymore for vaccinated people. You just isolate for 7 days if sick. Has become more like flu. Up to the individual what to do.

Covid deaths about 20 per day. Not much talk anymore on news where Ukraine dominates.

I'm triple-vaxxed and will still wear a mask in shops, GP waiting rooms, supermarket.

_________________________________

Hope your pirates feel better soon.
"Pirates?"
Your Buccaneers!

[downbyariver]

Americans can order free at-home tests here:

https://www.covidtests.gov/

I think this is the sort of thing that you order in advance just in case you experience symptoms at a future date, or to self-test prior to and/or a few days after small social gatherings and the like. It probably would not come promptly enough to be a diagnostic aid if you ordered after reaching the point of having symptoms or a potential exposure you're worried about (In that case, I guess you'd call your doctor and ask where and how to get tested without risking exposing others.).

They do send them, though. I ordered four (the household limit at the time, which has been raised to two sets of 4 [for a total of eight] since) and received them. No strings attached. No income restrictions. No ID, credit card, or insurance requirements. You give them your name and address, they send you some tests. I didn't see a good reason not to order some, personally.

Based on the product box, they appear to be nicer (More upscale looking brand and packaging) than a test I ordered from Amazon and actually used prior to my only pandemic social event (Which was very small and mandated that everyone self-test before coming), but similar in terms of how one would administer them.

Really, this is the sort of thing that should have been done with masks in early 2020. The postal service actually offered to drop four masks in everyone's mail box and the Trump administration inexplicably told them not to. That kind of speaks for itself, I think.

But these tests are free for everyone (Ah, what a difference a new President makes). You do have to request them to get them, though.

[downbyariver]

I'm triple-vaxxed and will still wear a mask in shops, GP waiting rooms, supermarket.

Ditto. I have some sort of mask on everytime I walk out the front door (Other than that one small family event aside). Walking my dog, whatever. I'd rather be overcautious than undercautious given my long list of pre-existing conditions. No Covid so far, so I guess all that caution and the vaccines are working.

I'll be happy to get a fourth shot whenever they come up with one or authorize one Why not? Flu shots are good, too.

One things that's nice is that it is actually possible to do things like order groceries online and have someone dump them in the trunk of your car without any windows being rolled down, or to call select liquor stores with an order for beer and a credit card number and then show up, call to indicate you've arrived, and then pop the trunk for them without ever leaving the driver's seat. . One may have to drive a bit further than normal to find places that will accommodate, but they are out there.

I actually managed to get my dog from diagnosis to surgery in late 2020 without ever walking into the vet's office or coming within six feet of anyone outdoors. . I did have to get out of my car for those appointments, though. . I basically sent him in the direction of office staff who took him inside, and then sat in my car talking to the vet on the phone as necessary.

If we'd faced a pandemic like this decades ago before widespread Internet and cell phones, it'd be a lot harder to pull stuff like that off.

Ironically, the hardest exposures to avoid are health related things like human doctor's appointments, pharmacies (Though drive-thrus aren't that bad), non-covid related medical tests, and so on.

[Gilly Goodness]

Yeah. Spanish flu forced people to mask up, isolate and quarantine for weeks. Quarantine is Latin for 40 days I think.

No vaccine or even understanding of the science.


No progrock chat forums to pass the day. People were tougher back then. Read books. Did knitting. Ate simple foods. Lived and died around the same town.

We are so soft. Nowadays. 70 or so years of peace within the major powers has softened us. Can you imagine your neighbours reacting to a threat like the Ukrainians. I can't. We'd be fightin' over toilet rolls in the local supermarket.

We hold an election soon so will be interesting how much our fires then the covid then our floods and the war in Ukraine will influence the voting.

Already a conservative government in South Australia has been defeated. Mainly to do with public health response.

[alex peters]

Yeah. Spanish flu forced people to mask up, isolate and quarantine for weeks. Quarantine is Latin for 40 days I think.

No vaccine or even understanding of the science.


No progrock chat forums to pass the day. People were tougher back then. Read books. Did knitting. Ate simple foods. Lived and died around the same town.

We are so soft. Nowadays. 70 or so years of peace within the major powers has softened us. Can you imagine your neighbours reacting to a threat like the Ukrainians. I can't. We'd be fightin' over toilet rolls in the local supermarket.

We hold an election soon so will be interesting how much our fires then the covid then our floods and the war in Ukraine will influence the voting.

Already a conservative government in South Australia has been defeated. Mainly to do with public health response.

The Spanish flu was deadly but it did not last long. We are almost 2 1/2 years into this with no end in sight. Here people no longer wear masks.

The vaccines do not work. The world has been subjected to a clinical trial of the vaccine and it has failed.

The idiot Fauci got covid and is disappearing as he has no credibility anymore


The pharmaceutical businesses own the politicians and now they want to jab your children and babies..

There is nothing the administrative statist government says anymore that has any credibility with over 50% of the United States population

[downbyariver]

The vaccines do not work. The world has been subjected to a clinical trial of the vaccine and it has failed.

Unvaccinated people are 5x more likely than vaccinated people with one booster shot are to contract the disease. If the illness is contracted, vaccinated people are significantly less likely to require hospitalization or die than unvaccinated people.

At one point, many hospital ICUs (Intensive Care Units) were made up entirely or almost entirely of people not vaccinated for the disease, because vaccinations made people less likely to get it in the first place and less likely to require hospitalization if they did, coming close to zeroing out their percentage of Covid-19 ICU cases in some hospitals, at least for a time. Doctors and nurses were informally calling severe Covid-19 mostly a disease of the unvaccinated.

These differences between outcomes for vaccinated and unvaccinated people are starting to become less prominent as we move further from the vaccination and booster dates for most people (Dropping effectiveness over time) and as the most prevalent strains and sub-strains are moving further away (Evolving isn't quite the right term, but it's a similar process) from the version of coronavirus that vaccines were initially tested against and designed to defend against (Fortunately, some of these strains are naturally milder than the early ones). Still, the vaccines do help some even with time, distance, and changes to the virus itself having come into play, and Moderna expects to have a special booster that is a mix of it's original formula and a new formula specifically designed for the versions of the virus we see most often today hit the market by late summer (Eventually, people will probably have the option of getting annual coronavirus boosters like they get annual flu shots, and, like the flu shot, coronavirus boosters will probably be targeted at whatever strain or strains of the virus are expected to be most prevalent that year.).

I don't see why anyone who doesn't have a specific medical condition that makes them unsuitable for vaccinations would decline to get them. They're free (At least in the US), they're safe, and they work (At least in the case of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines).

Some critics of the vaccines seem to be putting forth two close to contradictory ideas, that, number one, "Science is bunk", and, number two "We expect any vaccine to completely prevent anyone from catching coronavirus or any variant of coronavirus or it's fake". It's weird to have people who don't seem to believe in medical science then turn around and expect products of medical science to be perfect. A lot of lives have been saved by these vaccines and various courses of treatment for countless diseases that don't have 100% prevention and cure rates. You do the best you can.

I look at this way. Any home can be broken into if someone puts enough time and effort into it. However, does that stop you from closing your front door? From locking it? From, in the case of upscale homes with residents who can afford it, enabling a security system? Everything you do to make your home harder to break into lessens the chance that someone will attempt it and succeed in doing it without being caught before, during, or afterwards.

Protection doesn't have to be perfect to be worth doing. Heck, everyone reading this on a computer probably has some sort of anti-virus or anti-malware program or operating system feature engaged (If nothing else, Windows Defenders is built into Windows 10 and 11). None can say they actually prevent all viruses or malware all of the time, but they prevent enough and catch enough early to be worth using.

[alex peters]

Unvaccinated people are 5x more likely than vaccinated people with one booster shot are to contract the disease. If the illness is contracted, vaccinated people are significantly less likely to require hospitalization or die than unvaccinated people.

At one point, many hospital ICUs (Intensive Care Units) were made up entirely or almost entirely of people not vaccinated for the disease, because vaccinations made people less likely to get it in the first place and less likely to require hospitalization if they did effectively came close to zeroing out their percentage of Covid-19 ICU cases in some hospitals, at least for a time. Doctors and nurses were informally calling severe Covid-19 mostly a disease of the unvaccinated.

These differences between outcomes for vaccinated and unvaccinated people are starting to become less prominent as we move further from the vaccination and booster dates for most people (Dropping effectiveness over time) and as the most prevalent strains and sub-strains are moving further away (Evolving isn't quite the right term, but it's a similar process) from the version of coronavirus that vaccines were initially tested against and designed to defend against (Fortunately, some of these strains are naturally milder than the early ones). Still, the vaccines do help some even with time, distance, and changes to the virus itself having come into play, and Moderna expects to have a special booster that is a mix of it's original formula and a new formula specifically designed for the versions of the virus we see most often today hit the market by late summer (Eventually, people will probably have the option of getting annual cornavirus boosters like they get annual flu shots, and, like the flu shot, coronavirus boosters will probably be targeted at whatever strain or strains of the virus are expected to be most prevalent that year.).

I don't see why anyone who doesn't have a specific medical condition that makes them unsuitable for vaccinations would decline to get them. They're free (At least in the US), they're safe, and they work (At least in the case of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines).

Some critics of the vaccines seem to be putting forth two close to contradictory ideas, that, number one, "Science is bunk", and, number two "We expect any vaccine to completely prevent anyone from catching coronavirus or any variant of coronavirus or it's fake". It's weird to have people who don't seem to believe in medical science than turn around and expect products of medical science to be perfect. A lot of lives have been saved by these vaccines and various courses of treatment for countless diseases that don't have 100% prevention and cure rates. You do the best you can.

I look at this way. Any home can be broken into if someone puts enough time and effort into it. However, does that stop you from closing your front door? From locking it? From, in the case of upscale homes with residents who can afford it, enabling a security system? Everything you do to make your home harder to break into lessens the chance that someone will attempt it and succeed in doing it without being caught before, during, or afterwards.

Protection doesn't have to be perfect to be worth doing. Heck, everyone reading this on a computer probably has some sort of anti-virus or anti-malware program or operating system feature engaged (If nothing else, Windows Defenders is built into Windows 10 and 11). None can say they actually prevent all viruses or malware all of the time, but they prevent enough and catch enough early to be worth using.

Sorry. Totally disagree. As well as many doctors.. If you want to keep putting this stuff in your body feel free to do it.

If this crap was so effective why are there approximately 25% of health care workers unvaccinated

And many got vaccinated just once to keep their jobs.

This is the greatest scam perpetrated on the world in the history of the world and has ruined our economy and has ruined the young generation

[downbyariver]

Sorry. Totally disagree. As well as many doctors..

The American Medical Association did a survey in June 2021 that said that 96% of practicing physicians were already vaccinated, and 42% of those who were unvaccinated planned to get vaccinated.

So, it's a pretty small number who are vaccine hesitant. I mean, you can always find somebody in any given profession who says just about anything, but the medical consensus is pretty clearly in favor of vaccinations.

If you want to keep putting this stuff in your body feel free to do it.

I plan to.

If this crap was so effective why are there approximately 25% of health care workers unvaccinated

Health care workers are kind of a broad group. A lot of the people who are called nurses in general practioners' offices are just medical technicians, people who took a 6 month class on how to take blood pressure, draw blood, write down vitals, and update medication lists. If you really stretch it, you might even be able to count people like receptionists, who have no real health care training. It wouldn't surprise me if conspiracy theories that have gained traction in the general public have spread to some of them. 25% seems pretty high, I'm not quite sure where that figure is coming from, but even if true, it wouldn't give me pause about the vaccines because the science behind them is sound and both the nation's and world's top medical and disease control organizations have endorsed vaccines as a sound decision to help people survive this.

and has ruined the young generation

How in the world can vaccines be said to have "ruined the young generation"?

[alex peters]

The American Medical Association did a survey in June 2021 that said that 96% of practicing physicians were already vaccinated, and 42% of those who were unvaccinated planned to get vaccinated.

So, it's a pretty small number who are vaccine hesitant. I mean, you can always find somebody in any given profession who says just about anything, but the medical consensus is pretty clearly in favor of vaccinations.



I plan to.



Health care workers are kind of a broad group. A lot of the people who are called nurses in general practioners' offices are just medical technicians, people who took a 6 month class on how to take blood pressure, draw blood, write down vitals, and update medication lists. If you really stretch it, you might even be able to count people like receptionists, who have no real health care training. It wouldn't surprise me if conspiracy theories that have gained traction in the general public have spread to some of them. 25% seems pretty high, I'm not quite sure where that figure is coming from, but even if true, it wouldn't give me pause about the vaccines because the science behind them is sound and both the nation's and world's top medical and disease control organizations have endorsed vaccines as a sound decision to help people survive this.



How in the world can vaccines be said to have "ruined the young generation"?

Sorry, don't believe the American Medical Association. There is so much BS out there today the truth has been left behind. I have seen studies where 75% are vaccinated and half of those just once to keep their jobs.

I don't need polls or other BS crap coming from clowns like Fauci to know the vaccines don't work. This Fauci clown cannot even answer a question from Rand Paul straight when asked if he is getting royalty $ from the pharmaceutical companies.


The govt failed again and have ruined the economy in the meantime.. Only a removal of this statist Administrative State can save America at this point.. Thses idiots have brought this nation closest to a Depression since the 1930s

[pianozach]

The Spanish flu was deadly but it did not last long. We are almost 2 1/2 years into this with no end in sight. Here people no longer wear masks.

The Spanish flu was deadly.

It lasted a 2 years and a couple of months. Most folks complied with mask mandates and calls for social distancing. It's estimated that around 550,000 people or more died in the US alone.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given us over 1,000,000 deaths in the US. Our 21st Century pandemic has killed more people in the US than the 20th Century Spanish Flu pandemic.

It's likely we'd have been better prepared if the President hadn't disbanded the NSC Pandemic Response Team in 2018.

[alex peters]

The Spanish flu was deadly.

It lasted a 2 years and a couple of months. Most folks complied with mask mandates and calls for social distancing. It's estimated that around 550,000 people or more died in the US alone.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given us over 1,000,000 deaths in the US. Our 21st Century pandemic has killed more people in the US than the 20th Century Spanish Flu pandemic.

It's likely we'd have been better prepared if the President hadn't disbanded the NSC Pandemic Response Team in 2018.

We would have been better off if the Fauci's did not fund the Wuhan lab where the virus was released from

[pianozach]

We would have been better off if the Fauci's did not fund the Wuhan lab where the virus was released from

We would have been better off if the President hadn't ignored the situation, and mocked all precautionary measures, such as social distancing and masking up.

[alex peters]

We would have been better off if the President hadn't ignored the situation, and mocked all precautionary measures, such as social distancing and masking up.

Trump was taking Fauci's advise. Fauci said in March 2020 that NO Do not.wear masks. You conveniently forgot that.

But don't let the truth get in the way of your agenda

[pianozach]

Trump was taking Fauci's advise. Fauci said in March 2020 that NO Do not.wear masks. You conveniently forgot that.

But don't let the truth get in the way of your agenda

It's truly astonishing how you can simply cherrypick stuff and present it as 'truth' without context. When you leave things out of a story, the tidbits can certainly be misleading.

While Fauci, along with several other US health leaders, initially advised people not to wear masks, Fauci later said that it was because he was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough protective equipment for health care workers. This was also early in the pandemic before public health experts fully knew how contagious the disease was and how it spread.

Fauci explained that at that time, “we were not aware that 40 to 45% of people were asymptomatic, nor were we aware that a substantial proportion of people who get infected get infected from people who are without symptoms. That makes it overwhelmingly important for everyone to wear a mask.”

“So when people say, ‘Well, why did you change your stance? And why are you emphasizing masks so much now when back then you didn't -- and in fact you even said you shouldn't because there was a shortage of masks?’ Well the data now are very, very clear,” he said.

“We need to put that nonsense behind us about ‘well, they keep changing their minds,’ ” Fauci said.

On April 3, 2020, the CDC updated its previous advice and recommended people wear cloth face coverings “in public settings when around people outside their household, especially when social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.”

Mr. Trump, on the other hand, continued to mock wearing masks and social distancing until he was removed from office. In fact, he continually spread misinformation about the the seriousness of the virus, and that it was either contained, or would just disappear by Summer.