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Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

If you are relying on home AG tests, think again. Most of them are rubbish.

https://www.zeit.de/gesundheit/2022-03/corona-schnelltest-omikron-antigen-erkennung-liste

The ones I’ve been using show a 30% success rate with Omikron, the other (thankfully I only had one pack of it) 4 (FOUR) % at medium viral load.

If you use any of those to determine whether to fly somewhere or not, better check carefully what you trust.

Both my wife and me had a mild form of Covid at the beginning of the month. The test (SD biotech) only showed positive when we were 2 days into frank symptoms. Ttotal garbage. By this time heaven only knows how many people we infected.

Like a post natal pregnancy test.

Last Edited by Mooney_Driver at 29 Mar 17:08
LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Both my wife and me had a mild form of Covid at the beginning of the month.

I don’t know if there’s anything deliberate in your form of wording of whether it’s of no significance, but I don’t believe there is such thing as a ‘mild form of Covid’.

You both had Covid and like the vast majority of people the symptoms were mild. That is different to a ‘mild form’, and I think your words somehow imply (whether deliberately or not) that you didn’t get the real thing…

EGLM & EGTN

Mooney_Driver wrote:

If you are relying on home AG tests, think again. Most of them are rubbish.

Well… According to Die Zeit, that’s not really true, is it. The sensitivity of these kinds of tests obviously depend on the viral load, so you can’t use them for “early warning”. For that you will need PCR-tests. (Which. btw, are so sensitive that some people incorrectly claimed they were worthless because of too many false positives.)

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

I don’t like locked threads so this one is now unlocked. The topic is finished anyway but one day there may be interesting research data out.

Conspiracy stuff will be deleted.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I’d like to return to this topic but in the specific context of whether, around Europe, there are investigations and enquiries into how it was handled.

Here in the UK there is a “public enquiry” (a specific well-established procedure) running on the handling of it. Predictably, the politicians of the time come out looking pretty terrible. My wider view is that it was a time of absolute total panic and everybody was trying to do what they thought was best but actually nobody knew what to do. Most of the PPE stuff was made in China (etc) and the gangsters there made the best of it. And a bunch of well-connected opportunists positioned themselves on the PPE supply stream back here and made fortunes.

What I am certain will not get examined, but lies central to the problems, is the idea of “approved supplier lists”. This is a corporate disease which started about 30 years ago and which has made it practically impossible for a small (which in the context could be 100 employees) company to sell to a large company or organisation (typically, the national health equipment purchasing agency. In the UK the NHS has a virtual monopoly there. This process breeds empire-building and thus moral and financial corruption because, somehow, you have to get onto that approved list. In the “good old days” you gave the buyer a backhander (£££ bribe) but nowadays it is usually more subtle, with a seat at Ascot (horse racing) being the entry level. If you want to sell to the NHS you need to revolve in the right top-level political circles…

I wonder if others here can contribute the extent to which the process is being examined in their own country.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There were calls for an enquiry here (Ireland) and the government agreed to hold one.

The publicity surrounding the UK one has renewed calls for it to start and the government has said that it has agreed the terms of reference and it’s starting is imminent. But it hasn’t started yet, and is intended to be tighter focused and not as wide ranging as the UK one.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

There has been an enquiry in the Netherlands. As I understand it, the Gov’t was criticized for using the occupancy of IC beds as the dominant or even only factor, creating lots of damage to society as a whole.

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

There has been an enquiry in Sweden. It resulted in an extensive report of 758 pages. The main conclusions were summarised as (translated from the Swedish)

  • The focus on advice and recommendations that people were expected to follow voluntarily was fundamentally correct. It meant that citizens retained more of their personal freedom than in many other countries.
  • However, this approach should not have prevented Sweden from choosing more robust and intrusive measures in February/March 2020. In the absence of a plan to protect the elderly and other risk groups, earlier and greater efforts should have been made to try to slow down the general spread of infection. Such initial measures would also have allowed more time for oversight and analysis.
  • Advice and recommendations should have been communicated as clear rules of behaviour.
  • The government should have immediately taken the lead in the crisis. In a democracy, citizens can hold the government accountable, but not an agency. The obstacles to a clear national leadership on the part of the Government – the to some extent independent agencies, the autonomous regions and municipalities and the Government Office’s normal procedures – should have been possible to overcome. The Government should also have assumed clearer leadership in terms of overall communication to the public.
  • The Government has been too one-sidedly dependent on the Public Health Agency’s assessments. Responsibility for the agency’s assessments ultimately rests with a single person, the head of the agency. This is not a good enough system for decision-making during a serious social crisis.
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

One interesting thing is how different countries are dealing with the PPE shortages and surrounding “business deals”. In the UK these deals are being closely examined.

I don’t think anybody had large stocks because most PPE contains elastic bands which perish so there is an expiry date which is unfortunately relatively real.

I am sure some/most countries will be watching the UK “examination process” with some trepidation and will probably set things up so that nobody looks too closely…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

I’d like to return to this topic but in the specific context of whether, around Europe, there are investigations and enquiries into how it was handled.

This certainly makes a lot of sense. This pandemic put the executive of each country before never seen before challenges and consequently lessons learnt is a vital effort to improve handling of the next pandemic.

It is the question however if those inquiries are not going to turn into a witch hunt lead by those who with perfect 20/20 hindsight or out of ideological spite seek revenge rather than improvement. It is questionable therefore if those writing the reports will not be intimidated by the danger of being socially and professionally destroyed by the violent fraction who to this day maintain that Covid was naught but a power grab by governments.

Peter wrote:

One interesting thing is how different countries are dealing with the PPE shortages and surrounding “business deals”. In the UK these deals are being closely examined.

I don’t think anybody had large stocks because most PPE contains elastic bands which perish so there is an expiry date which is unfortunately relatively real.

In Switzerland, this was a huge issue originally. According to the law, there had to be a certain stock available at all times in the federal pharmacy, but when they tried to pull that stock in February/March 2020, they found that either it did not exist or was expired. Initially, hospitals and everyone else very quickly ran out. Hasty searches in various depots unearthed a couple of million “expired” masks which were then put to use without any problems whatsoever regarding rubber bands.

At the same time, with the fleet grounded, the national airline started flying passenger jets to China to pick up shipments of masks. If I remember right, the mask shortage was done with in early summer.

Personally I ordered some stocks via online in February and received some in March, the rest arrived over time until August, we used it during the 2nd and 3rd waves and still have some left.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
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