For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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#1885368
eltonioni wrote:Tip for travellers, Randox will do a PCR at the arrival airport and get the result to you the following day for £55.

If only it weren't Randox, but in this mad world I can't decide if that's money for old rope for them, or a bargain get-out-jail-card for me.

I have ordered Randox kits to be delivered to my home. They should be there when I arrive and there is Randox collection box sited only about a mile from there. They promise the results will be emailed the next day and reports suggest they are. I suspect the new requirements will lead to lengthy queues at the airport facility, and frankly I can’t be bothered if it only costs me one day extra in isolation.

PW
eltonioni liked this
#1885413
@Propwash I used them last month for an LFT home test and it was delivered a couple of hours before we walked in and the results were back in hours. Obviously that was via a photograph of the test sent in for verification, rather than an actual couriered PCR lab result, but the service was as good as could be expected. Hopefully we'll both find them to be A OK this time.


In other news:
"This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic," Mr Biden said. "If people are vaccinated and wear their mask, there's no need for lockdowns."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/1 ... use-panic/

and
"Jim Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute and professor of structural biology at the University of Oxford, said mask mandates had done little to prevent the spread of the delta variant in Scotland and were unlikely to stop omicron."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/1 ... scientist/
Propwash liked this
#1885416
My 8 yr old daughter was at a birthday party yesterday- typical 8 ye old little girl stuff.

She came home with a cute little Instax (modern Polaroid) photo of her and her friend having a cuddle.

Said friend’s family sent message round to everyone this morning saying…you guessed it.

My 8 yr old daughter, you guessed it, based on a cheapo pharmacy test.

It was pretty inevitable- and given that I had Covid more than a year ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t the 2nd or 3rd time one of the sprogs has had it.

It was the reaction of my girl that got to me.

She cried her eyes out for more than an hour inconsolably, and she’s a little girl with 2 big brothers that she will square up to and knock lumps out of; definitely not a fragile little petal.

So many of our younger kids lives have been dominated by this bliddy lurgy, and the attempts of the politicians to keep on top of things. It’s easy as an old-ish phart to compartmentalise things - but watching a kid whose whole world has been turned upside down then dominated by a pandemic, finally get diagnosed with that lurgy….then try to explain to the kid that “things will be fine”…

I know, worse things happen at sea etc….
flybymike, Spooky, eltonioni and 2 others liked this
#1885483
Whoever is organising the covid booster rollout should be sacked forthwith and replaced with whoever was doing the first two cycles. I called the surgery yesterday, to see why DH and I had not been invited for our booster. Receptionist looked at our records and said we were well overdue (actually, not, because we both had covid last month), then asked if we could get to the local facility this morning. All done now. We did have to wait almost half an hour in a huge queue - like I have never seen during the first two cycles.
Far easier to walk 10 minutes than drive half an hour, or more, to the "nearest" offering from NHS England.
#1885493
Mrs PtP and I also received our boosters this morning. Moderna after 2 x Az. The nurse said is was important to keep well hydrated afterwards, so I picked up some red wine on the way home.

The nurse also said if we had headaches from the vaccine we could take some paracetamol.

How will I be able to tell if the headache is from from the vaccine? :wink:
flybymike, Flyingfemme, johnm and 5 others liked this
#1885502
@eltonioni, while it's terrible that OCB's little girl was upset, why is it that you feel that the grown-ups are to blame rather than a virus which the grown-ups cannot control?

Not picking a fight, just trying to understand how those who view things in a different way to me form their opinions. Cheers.
#1885521
JAFO wrote:@eltonioni, while it's terrible that OCB's little girl was upset, why is it that you feel that the grown-ups are to blame rather than a virus which the grown-ups cannot control?

Not picking a fight, just trying to understand how those who view things in a different way to me form their opinions. Cheers.

It's not the virus that's scary to people - it is the Carp being put out by those in charge (and others) that makes some (especially the young) think the bogeyman is on their heels and we are all doomed. Have you ever seen/heard children being afraid of flu (or any other bug of note)? Us wizened, jaded old hacks can see through the rhetoric and Chicken Little impersonations but many cannot and are terrified.
flybymike, Spooky liked this
#1885533
I don't follow that at all @Flyingfemme.

It is the virus that is a cause for concern.

Someone advising me to get vaccinated or wear a mask is not scary.

I have never been aware of the flu or any other bug which was such a cause for concern, so, no, I've never been aware of anyone being scared of anything like this because I've never known anything like this.
johnm liked this
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1885543
The vaccine is cause for concern mostly because of its potential impact on healthcare systems if folk get seriously ill. That's been a consistent position for 2 years.

The mitigation strategy is either to keep people apart or get them vaccinated and wearing face coverings of some kind when indoors in close proximity and ensure good hygiene. That has also been a consistent position for 2 years.

All viruses mutate and that's why vaccines like flu get tweaked all the time and why sometimes they are less effective than others because the tweaks and virus get out of step for a while.

Why do folk keep trying to make it complicated???
MikeB liked this
#1885551
@eltonioni etc - giving things some historical perspective..which given the average age on here means "within living memory"; I'm not complaining that much.

My grandparents - WWI vintage adults - and aunts and uncles of their age had to put up with the physical/emotional and economic/political aftermath of WWI, plus the Spanish Flu to top it all off - which topped off a much younger and healthier subset of the population compared to Covid.

I grew up knowing that a number of institutions in the area had been (and in some cases still were) housing those who had succumbed to some nasty infectious/incurable diseases. Memories might be short, but let's not forget that things have been (and still can be) much worse, solely in terms of epidemiology.

The politics and economics are a different matter.

*I somehow completely forgot to mention that a least a few of the better built sanatoriums became Council run old-folks homes. One of my aunts, born 1891, went into one - and she was mortified that she'd ended up in one of the local sick-houses. She came round eventually, once the amazing local staff basically gave her the Butlins treatment. She spent her final days there, quite happy - but still bitchin like you wouldn't believe (just to keep up appearances). The only reason I mention it is that I remember the morgue for that site was huge, basically a warehouse twice the size of the residence. That wasn't by accident....
Last edited by OCB on Tue Nov 30, 2021 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
eltonioni, kanga liked this
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