Are you suffering from a cold lately? More than one in four chances that it was Covid.
Experts believe the flu-like symptoms more commonly associated with the illness — fever, headaches, loss of taste and smell — are being replaced by milder ones such as a runny nose and a sore throat.
One of these was my last week. I was an absolute stinker. But I’m much better now. It was Covid. It could have. Perhaps I should not have panicked. I chose to take paracetemol instead and have soup.
The ‘one-in-four chance of your cold being Covid’ was issued as a warning to us all to remain vigilant. This isn’t a concern. It seems like an important development.
Although I’m willing to concede that in the past discretion has been the better part of valour in tackling Covid, there has to come a point where we make a fundamental shift in the way we approach the virus (stock image)
Isn’t this what we’ve been waiting for? It’s the moment when the virus becomes less infectious and more dangerous and when antivirals, vaccines, boosters, and vaccines offer protection for those most in danger.
It’s a mild illness that doesn’t kill you. When humans and Covid are able to live side by side? Omicron can be the dominant strain with only mild symptoms. Life will return to normal.
But it can. Omicron has yet to make anyone in the UK seriously ill, despite cases rising — yet we are reacting as though this was the first wave of Covid. It was as though the disease had not yet struck.
In South Africa, where the strain was first identified, doctors are reporting that patients are getting much less sick — and yet in Britain we’re back in masks, there’s talk of a return to working from home, Christmas celebrations are being cancelled left, right and centre — and ministers are not ruling out ‘further measures’, aka lockdown.
I don’t really blame them. They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. But although I’m willing to concede that in the past discretion has been the better part of valour in tackling Covid, there has to come a point where we make a fundamental shift in the way we approach the virus.
It’s not just the economic cost we can no longer accept. It’s the rising human cost (stock image)
Theresa May, of all people, put it very well this week when she told the Commons: ‘When is the Government going to accept that learning to live with Covid . . . means we will almost certainly have an annual vaccine, and that we cannot respond to new variants by stopping and starting sectors of our economy, which leads to businesses going under and jobs being lost?’
Quite. But it’s not just the economic cost we can no longer accept. It’s the rising human cost.
It’s the 100,000 ‘ghost’ children like Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, denied a lifeline, trapped by his tormentors because of lockdown, abandoned to his fate.
It’s the once-vibrant teenagers, now paranoid, withdrawn and anxious (just look at the new Ofsted report on the devastating effect on the young and their education).
It’s the women trapped in abusive relationships who might not survive another shutdown.
It’s the elderly and isolated whose health and quality of life has gone irretrievably downhill, and who wish to spend the last few years living rather than merely existing.
Theresa May, of all people, put it very well this week when she told the Commons: ‘When is the Government going to accept that learning to live with Covid . . . means we will almost certainly have an annual vaccine, and that we cannot respond to new variants by stopping and starting sectors of our economy, which leads to businesses going under and jobs being lost?’
It’s all those with undiagnosed cancers, missed screenings and cancelled operations; it’s the relatives of disabled children and those who need round-the-clock care, who are at their wits’ end.
It’s all those trapped in Afghanistan as the Taliban took over, unable to escape because the civil servants responsible for their evacuation in Britain were too busy on their Peloton exercise bikes.
It’s all these hundreds of thousands of people who now outweigh in vast numbers those whose lives are actually at risk from this disease. Zero Covid is not possible. However, you can only live one life. It is up to us to take care of our own.
My washer is broken after I tried to repair it
Last month I posted about my broken washing machine. British Gas HomeCare was unable to repair it, even though I paid a lot to keep my appliances in good condition. Luckily, however, my mention prompted Hisense, the manufacturer, to ‘reach out’.
It sent an engineer the next Tuesday, and he said he would order parts for me. On Thursday, I hadn’t heard from them. I called the company and waited for hours before finally speaking with a woman. She said that she would also get back to my.
Amazingly, it worked: One of the parts had been out of stock. . . The foreseeable.
Desperately, I reached out to Currys (who had originally sold the machine) online and was eventually connected with a gentleman in India. He agreed to fix the machine after much discussion and promised to email me the details.
This was the last week. There is still no joy. And I just don’t have the energy to go back into battle. Is that how it works now — they just wear you down until you give up and simply buy a new one?
That’s some loo roll dolly!
It is a garden-trellis. It could be a lampshade. A loo roll dolly? Or that children’s game Mousetrap? You can choose.
Haley Bennett from America was sure to be noticed last night at Cyrano’s London premiere.
Haley Bennett, an American actress, was able to make her presence known at last night’s London premiere of Cyrano.
Viagra for, er, Alzheimer’s? This should bring some joy to the Christmas season for those in need.
Matt gets the gloss
Interesting that, in his rash of suspiciously well-orchestrated apologies, Matt Hancock uses the pluperfect tense — ‘I had blown up every part of my life’ — as though it were all now safely in the past. Surely the present perfect tense would be more appropriate: ‘I have blown up every part of my life’?
He may feel he’s moved on; I’m not sure the rest of the world has quite caught up yet. It’s not just his ex-wife and children.
I am rather fond of Fergie, but she doesn’t half say some idiotic things. The ‘most persecuted woman in royal history’? Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn or perhaps others might have something to add.
In a rare outbreak of sanity, the Law Commission has rejected calls to make misogyny a ‘hate crime’. Not only would it have been impossible to police, it’s hard to define. It would also have made all women helpless victims and, perhaps, more important. Being female is not a ‘protected characteristic’. It’s just a fact of life.
Is anyone really surprised? Chanel is charging £610 for an Calendar advent calendar Contents include stickers and a Magnet and plastic snow globe? Fashion is all about This is the age of overpriced tat.
Drink’s a Too, the devil
The Government is attempting to curb middle-class drug usage. However, middle-class abuse of alcohol can cause devastating consequences for your health and affect far more people that Class A drugs.
Why do you choose one over the other? Could it be that powerful drinks lobby is more dangerous than drug gangs.
Richard E. Grant is right — how can it cost £228 a night to be fed revolting junk food in a quarantine hotel? It’s a racket — much like the PCR tests that cost a few pence but carry a £59 mark-up.
Prince Harry feels proud of himself for cutting all ties to Mahfouz Marei Mubarak, the Saudi businessman who, through his ex-aide Michael Fawcett was causing Clarence House headaches.
Shame Harry wasn’t quite so on the ball when it came to his wife (unwittingly, she says) wearing so-called ‘blood diamonds’ given to her by the Saudi crown prince accused of approving the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. But then, I imagine it’s a brave man who dares to come between Meghan and her bling.
Shame Harry wasn’t quite so on the ball when it came to his wife (unwittingly, she says) wearing so-called ‘blood diamonds’ given to her by the Saudi crown prince accused of approving the murder of Jamal Khashoggi
Prince Harry advises that you quit work if this is detrimental to your mental well-being. Presumably, he’s basing this advice on his own experience. He might be reminded by someone that not all people get to keep their expense accounts and title when they walk out the door.